NORCROSS - The U.S. Army's 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment was close to becoming a footnote in history. But surviving members raised money for a monument that will be unveiled Tuesday along a country road in northern France (near Amfreville). <br>
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Organizers of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment Memorial Fund -- based in Norcross -- will unveil a life-size statue of a descending paratrooper. <br>
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For the 52 surviving members expected to be on hand, the recognition is long overdue. <br>
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Carson Smith of Lilburn says the monument will let people know who members of the group were. <br>
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The regiment -- activated at Fort Benning in 1942 -- was a last-minute attachment to the 82nd Airborne Division. Its commander was captured immediately at Normandy but after the Allied liberation of France, the 507th was reassigned to the 17th Airborne Division. Members say the 507th faded into the past when the Army dissolved the 17th Airborne at the end of the war of World War Two. <br>
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The 507th had been a part of four campaigns and eleven battles by the time the war ended. More than half of the regiment's roughly two-thousand troopers never returned home. Nearly 900 were injured.
