The 'Five-Oh-Sink' and the 33-hour march to Atlanta

Wars & Conflicts · Published 17 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Before they were the legendary 'Easy Company' of pop culture, the 506th Infantry Regiment was forged through a grueling test of endurance. To prove they could outmarch the Japanese Army, their first commander forced them into a marathon trek that pushed 556 men to their absolute physical limits.

The 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment was born at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, in 1942. It earned the nickname 'Currahees' from the nearby Currahee Mountain, where recruits were forced to run up and down the peak shouting, "three miles up, three miles down!" The unit adopted the Cherokee word for "Stand Alone" as its motto. Its first commanding officer, Colonel Robert F. Sink, was so driven by a Japanese marching record that he organized a massive demonstration of stamina.

In a feat of endurance, Sink marched the regiment from Camp Toccoa to Atlanta. The journey covered 137 miles in just 75 hours and 15 minutes, which included 33.5 hours of actual marching. The feat was so impressive that it garnered significant newspaper coverage and drew cheering crowds of civilians as the men neared Five Points. Of the 556 enlisted men in the 2nd Battalion, only 12 failed to complete the march, while all 30 officers finished.

This foundation of grit prepared the unit for some of the most intense combat of World War II. The 506th participated in the D-Day landings, where they suffered a 50% casualty rate during the Normandy campaign—losing 231 men to action and 183 to capture or disappearance out of 2,000 who jumped. They later fought through Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge, where they were famously encircled at Bastogne, eventually spearheading the liberation of towns like Foy and Noville.

The regiment's lineage is complex, involving multiple reactivations and reflaggings. While it remains a cornerstone of the 101st Airborne Division today, its history includes serving in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as unique peacetime roles like assisting in the integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962 and providing peacekeeping in the Sinai Peninsula in 1981.

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