Band of Brothers
Sixteen hundred men from the first 5,000 who came to Camp Toccoa became the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Nicknamed "Easy Company," their story is told in the award winning HBO series "Band of Brothers" - The story of Easy Company of the US Army 101st Airborne division and their mission in WWII Europe from Operation Overlord through V-J Day.
Band of Brothers is a 10-part, 11-hour television World War II miniseries, originally produced and broadcast in 2001, based on the book of the same title written by historian and biographer Stephen E. Ambrose. The executive producers were Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who had collaborated on the World War II film Saving Private Ryan (1998). The episodes first aired in 2001 on HBO and are still run frequently on various TV networks around the world.
The narrative centers on the experiences of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment assigned to the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. The series covers Easy's basic training at Camp Toccoa, the American airborne landings in Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Siege of Bastogne, and on to the end of the war, including the taking of the Eagle's Nest.
The events portrayed are based on Ambrose's research and recorded interviews with Easy Company veterans. A large amount of literary license was taken with the episodes, with several differences between recorded history and the film version. All of the characters portrayed are based on actual members of Easy Company; some of them can be seen in prerecorded interviews as a prelude to each episode (their identities, however, are not revealed until the close of the finale).
The title for the book and the series comes from a famous St. Crispin's Day Speech delivered by the character of Henry V of England before the Battle of Agincourt in William Shakespeare's Henry V; Act IV, Scene 3. A passage from the speech is quoted on the first page of the book, and is also quoted by Carwood Lipton in the final episode.
Information for this section exercepted from the Camp Toccoa at Currahee Project website. The purpose of the project is to celebrate the lives and contributions of the Airborne paratroopers who trained at Camp Toccoa at Currahee Mountain during World War II. Each of these boys left Currahee as “Toccoa men” and have since carried on the tradition of "Currahee - We Stand Alone". These American Heros deserve to have their legacy of leadership preserved. The Camp Toccoa at Currahee Project started as a dream that “should be” done and has now become a project that “must be” completed for the stories of these true American heroes to be told on the hallowed ground where their lives were changed forever.
