American Valor Quarterly Issue 12 - Spring 2015 | Page 12

but they enjoyed themselves in Atlanta
for an extra day. When the Third
Battalion got to Atlanta, we were then
told to gather our weapons because we
were continuing on to Fort Benning.
That walk was a total of 149 miles and
we were going to try and do it in the
time the second battalion walked 119
miles. We started, but we had a lot
more men than the Second Battalion
had, and when we got to 148 and a
half miles, somebody decided we were
going to run the last half mile into the
Fort Benning gate because thousands
of people were waiting to cheer us on.
Shortly after we arrived, they gave us
a lecture and said that only half of us
would qualify for our wings because
that’s the way it was. It was that tough.

506th Infantry Association

Jump training was broken into
three phases. The first phase was
physical training. The second phase
was to familiarize ourselves with the
parachute packing. We would pack
our five jump parachutes that we were
going to qualify in. The third phase
was learning to perform the jump
itself through tower training. The first
phase began right away. Of course we
were in our jump boots and they said,
“Now we’re going to run you into
the ground. Those who fall out are
finished.”
So we ran about an hour and fifteen
minutes and we looked around at these
guys from parachute school who were
sweating very heavily. We wondered
when they were going to stop and sure
enough they stopped about an hour
and twenty minutes into the run, and
yelled out, “Have you had enough?”
But we yelled back at them and said,
“We thought we were just warming up.
Now let’s do some real running.” By
that point, we had endeared ourselves
to them enough that no more physical
training was assigned while we were
at jump school. They still came up
with all kinds of schemes and devices
to try and crack our resolve, but we
weathered the storm until finally it was
time to make the jump. We also got
another lecture telling us at least 25
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percent of us would
wash out during this
final phase. It so
happened that the
only soldiers who
washed were injured
on the tower. It was
maybe two or three in
the whole bunch. As
the matter of fact, I’d
say about 40 percent
of us made five jumps
on the first day. The
BASIC TRAINING AT CAMP TOCCOA.
rest of us made the
last four jumps the
second day. When we
bit up the river from New York City.
finished our jumps, we find out that
We were only there about four days,
they no longer had room for us so we
during which time we were given our
were first sent to Fort Bragg in North
shots, listened to briefings, and were
Carolina, where a sub-installation was
put on a ship. It was a British ship
created and named Camp Mackall.
called the H.M.S Samaria. It was an old
They didn’t want us directly associated transport ship back from WWI. It was
with Fort Bragg, so Camp Mackall
filthy of course and the food was not
was created. It was technically part of
ideal to eat for 10 days, but all-in-all
Fort Bragg, but it was about 18 miles
we had pretty good escort. We were
from the main post. By the time we
right behind the battleship Nevada for
went to Normandy, we had finally
the duration. We landed at Liverpool,
proved we belonged with the division. England and had to stay on board for
Sure enough, after our training was
about half a day. The longshoremen
complete we were put on a train bound down at the docks were yelling back
for New York. Although we didn’t
at us and we were trying to learn their
know exactly what our destination
language, which we soon discovered
was, since we knew we were headed
was much different than our American
for New York, we guessed that we
English. At about 11 p.m. we
were going to England and would be a disembarked and got on a train. We
part of the invasion in Normandy.
had no idea where we were going, but
the next morning we landed at a place
We stayed at Camp Shanka, a little
called Hungerford. Once
there, we got on to trucks
and were dispatched to
several small villages
within a seven-mile
radius of Hungerford. My
Third Battalion went to
Ramsbury, a picturesque
town on the Kennet
River.

RUNNING THE TRAIL AT
CURRAHEE MOUNTAIN, 1942.

The first day we
were told to stay in
our barracks and went
through a series of
orientation activities to help learn
how to talk with the Englishmen we
had to associate with. After about the
AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY