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Reg HQ Co
101st ABN

The 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment was activated on 20 July
1942 at Mount Currahee, Camp Toccoa, Georgia, as part of the
newly formed 101st Airborne Division. Led by their Regimental
Commander, Col. Robert F. Sink, the Regiment conducted a
137-mile forced march from Camp Toccoa to Fort Benning to begin
Airborne training. They were the first Parachute Infantry Regiment to
complete Airborne training as a unit.
Their training continued in England until 5 June, 1944 when the
506th suited up for a different kind of parachute jump. At 0100 hours,
6 June 1944, the Regiment jumped into the skies over France as the
lead element of the massive Allied D-Day invasion. Their objective
was to seize the high ground immediately behind the Normandy
beach. By the evening of 6 June, the Regiment had secured its
objectives, and had linked up with other elements of the invasion
force who had established a beachhead at Normandy. For its exploits
at Normandy, the 506th Infantry Regiment received a Presidential
Unit Citation, and 25 of its members received the Distinguished
Service Cross.
After ten weeks of refitting and training the 506th was once again
called upon to parachute into combat, this time into Holland as part of
Operation MARKET GARDEN. The Regiment went on to liberate the
town of Eindhoven on 18 September, and aided in the withdrawal of
the beleaguered British 1st Airborne from Arnhem on 7 October.
On the morning of 18 December the unit was hastily loaded onto
trucks and transported to the vicinity of Bastogne to stem a major
German attack on this critical city. The mission of the 506th was to
hold the town of Neville, four miles to north. The Regiment
successfully resisted the vicious German assaults, and earned its
second Presidential Unit Citation for its actions at Bastogne.
The final significant event of World War II occurred when the
Regiment drove into southeastern Germany and overran Hitler's
famed "Eagle's Nest" and accepted the surrender of the German
82nd Corps from its commander, General Tolsdorff, at Gestein. In
November 1945, the 506th Infantry was inactivated at Auxerre,
France.

HISTORY OF THE 506TH