Col. Robert F. Sink Trail

Three Miles Up and Three Miles Down... the trail begins with gently rolling terrain. The further you get up Currahee Mountain the steeper the climb and the more strenuous the hike. The surface ranges from stable to rocky and rough.

Begin at the Colonel Robert F. Sink trail marker Tom Hanks contributed in November 2000 at the HBO Band of Brothers event. The event was attended by many former “Five-O-Sink” men along with Colonel Sink’s two daughters. The course is an “out & back” approximately 5 miles in length.

Camp Toccoa was the training site where Colonel Robert F. Sink led his troops, the 501st, 506th, 511th and 517th Parachute Infantry Regiments, on the grueling training runs up Currahee Mountain as seen in disc one of Band of Brothers as well as Saving Private Ryan and The Dirty Dozen.

Sink set himself apart as a leader who could get his troops to do the improbable while training for battle. Inspired by a piece in Reader's Digest that described a Japanese army battalion's 100-mile, 72-hour march down the Malay Peninsula, Sink went a step further with his men. Colonel Sink decided that his Second Battalion should march from Camp Toccoa to Atlanta  -- a distance of 118 miles.

On the morning of Dec. 1, 1942, the battalion set out and completed the march in 33 hours and 30 minutes. A proud Col. Sink told an Atlanta news reporter that "not a man fell out; but, when they fell, they fell face forward." Colonel Sink, born in North Carolina, graduated from West Point in 1927. In 1942, the Army gave Sink command of the 506th parachute Infantry Regiment. Sink turned down several promotions during the war so that he could stay with his regiment.

From Toccoa, travel west on Hwy 123 toward Cornelia. Go across the 4 lane intersection at Hwy 17/Toccoa Bypass and continue on Dicks Hill Parkway. At 2 miles turn left on the dirt road and park off to the side at the base. You have gone too far if you reach Ayersville Rd. and the Miliken factory/Patterson Pump/Camp Toccoa Military Monument.