After less than two years at the Presidio, Lieutenant and Mrs. Gorham moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.  In November 1941, Art graduated from the newly created Airborne School, receiving a “Certificate of Proficiency” signed by then-Major Robert Sink and, more importantly, a set of silver jump wings. A month later, he completed the School’s demolition and sabotage course.  Viewers of “Band of Brothers” may recall Colonel Sink from his exploits leading a regiment of the 101^st Airborne Division during World War II.

After graduating from Airborne School, the young officer began to stand out in his short career.  As one of the early airborne qualified officers, Art gained more rank and responsibility as the United States began to form parachute regiments and later airborne divisions.

In February 1942, Captain Gorham took his B Company, 504th Parachute Infantry, to Alta, Utah,

where the United States tested the concept of dropping paratroopers into the Alps behind the Germans and having them ski down to attack and harass their lines of communication.  The troopers trained hard, but falling on skis was different than falling when landing in a parachute jump.  The media played up the idea of para skiers, and Art Gorham’s picture on skis was on the front page of many newspapers.  Unreported was the fact that many legs and ankles were injured during the training. 

The para skier experiment received widespread news coverage.  History has not reported whether Germans increased their rear area security based upon the possible threat that these para skiers represented, but discretion would justify such a diversion of combat forces.

Captain Gorham leads the paraskiers

Eventually, the project was abandoned, and the troopers were spread out to the newly-forming parachute units.  The Germans, however, were keenly aware of the threat of the para skiers, which caused them to divert combat forces to protect their logistics lines through the Alps.