The U.S. Army took over a site with few buildings or permanent structures: personnel were originally housed in tents. More permanent barracks were built as the first soldiers started to arrive. Initially, Camp Toccoa used the Toccoa municipal airport for jump training, but following a transport accident, it was abandoned for having too short a runway for safe C-39 and C-47 operations. All further jump training occurred at Fort Benning, Georgia. Camp Toccoa also lacked a rifle range, so airborne trainees would march to Clemson Agricultural College, a military school in South Carolina, to practice on the college's shooting range. The most prominent local landmark is Currahee Mountain. Paratroopers in training ran from the camp up the mountain and back, memorialized in the HBO series, Band of Brothers, with the shout "three miles up, three miles down." Members of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment still refer to themselves as "Currahees", derived from the Cherokee word gurahiyi, which may mean "standing alone". The regiment's crest is surmounted by a group of 6 fully deployed parachutes. at Camp Toccoa, 1942 Comedian Bob Hope visited Camp Toccoa and entertained the troops there in 1943. He told the troops, "You guys are so rugged, you look like Wheaties with legs."
After World War II
The camp closed at the end of the war. In the late 1940s, it served as a Georgia State Prison site, housing primarily youth offenders, but several escapes forced the state to close the site, moving the operation to a new facility at Alto, Georgia. The twisting trail up Currahee is now named for Colonel Sink. The only remaining building from the camp is the mess hall. The Patterson Pump Company occupies a portion of the grounds. In 2012 an organization, Camp Toccoa at Currahee, a not-for profit foundation, was formed to celebrate the lives and contributions of the Airborne paratroopers who trained at Camp Toccoa at Currahee Mountain during World War II. A plan was set forth to restore the facilities at the camp site.
457th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion: attached to the 11th Airborne Division
295th Ordnance Heavy Maintenance Company : completed basic training at Camp Toccoa, from July 21, 1943 through November 24, 1943.
296th. Ordnance Heavy Main Company : completed basic training at Camp Toccoa, from July 21, 1943 through November 24, 1943
Name change
The facility was initially named Camp Toombs after ConfederateCivil War GeneralRobert Toombs. In 1942, Colonel Robert Sink, commander of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, one of the first units to train there, thought that it would prompt superstitions to have young men arrive at Toccoa, travel Route 13 past the Toccoa Casket Company to learn to jump at Camp "Tombs", so he persuaded the Department of the Army to change the name to Camp Toccoa.
