Camp Toccoa’s Lost Band of Brothers
On July 21, 1943, the 295th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Company arrived at U.S. Army Camp Toccoa and trained there for nearly four months, until November 24, 1943.
This was significant because the 295th was a non-airborne company training at a basic military training camp made for U.S. Army paratroopers, as depicted in the hit 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers (based on author Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1992 book Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest).
Men of the 295th ran the same Currahee—“three miles up and three miles down”— as the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, yet Google, Wikipedia, nor the Stephens County Historical Society had ever heard of them … not when I first stepped forward in 2008.
From 1943 to 2008, they were but ghosts in the “annals” of military history … until I found them—Camp Toccoa’s lost Band of Brothers—The 295th. This is my story …
Rockett
His friends called him J.T. His wife, Estaleen, called him Jay. I called him Papa. His unit—the 295th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Company called him Rockett. He was from the…
