Oglethorpe University shares a piece of history with the 101st Airborne Division, the unit that liberated a concentration camp and entered Adolph Hitler’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden, Germany at the end of World War II.
At a Veterans Day commemoration, Oglethorpe honored members of Easy Company of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division – a group of soldiers who once took refuge at Silver Lake in Brookhaven when it was part of campus.
An Oglethorpe alumna, Deborah Allen Kitchin (1980), researched Easy Company’s visit to campus in 1942. Kitchin funded the granite marker now on the lawn near the Cousins Center.
Kitchin found that after completing their basic training in December 1942 at Camp Toccoa, Easy Company was preparing to relocate to Fort Benning (now Fort Moore) for parachute training. The regiment was led by a Col. Sink, who was inspired by the story of a Japanese Army breaking the world record for marching 100 miles in a few days.
Sink believed his men, including those of Easy Company, could do better. He ordered the entire 2nd Battalion and its commander, Maj. Robert L. Strayer, to march 115 miles south to Atlanta. They arrived in 75 hours, and a group of soldiers in the battalion stayed on the shores of Silver Lake.
Easy Company went on to parachute behind enemy lines in the early hours of D-Day in support of the landings at Utah Beach, participate in the liberation of the French town of Carentan, and again parachuted into action during Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.
The dramatic story of the unit has led to its inclusion in such works as the “Band of Brothers” books and TV series.
The Nov. 14 dedication ceremony included a lecture by amateur World War II historian Ben Wax, Jr. His father, Capt. Ben Wax, Sr., served in the 101stAirborne Division, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment.
“We are grateful to Deborah (Kitchin) and her family,” said Oglethorpe President Kathryn McClymond. “Her relentless and persistent efforts to fact check the story of Easy Company’s march to Atlanta and overnight stay on our campus led to this event. Her generous contribution allowed us to place a marker to commemorate this special connection Oglethorpe has with World War II.”