Beyond Band of Brothers

by Major Dick Winters

  As we climbed aboard the planes, one noteworthy incident ensued. One of the boys, Private Robert “Jeeter” Leonard, had a terrific load. In fact, like others in the stick, I had to push him up the steps into the plane because he carried such a heavy load. Well, “Jeeter” was in the plane ready to go and so was everybody else. I made a final check of all kit bags that held our equipment, and in Jeeter’s I found one basic load of M-1 ammunition. Poor Jeeter had everything but his ammunition. The sad part about it was that he just didn’t have any place to carry it. So I told him to see me at the assembly area and I would give it to him—which was okay, for there was to be no shooting on the jump field.

  At this time I distributed the second round of motion sickness pills, the first having been given at 2200. We had never taken any pills before on any practice jumps, so I directed the men not to question higher headquarters. “Orders are orders. Take them.” Headquarters said the pills would eliminate airsickness and the butterflies in each soldier’s stomach when he was scared. All was relatively quiet on the departure airfield, just a little bitching about all the equipment we had to carry, but outside of that, there was little conversation. Most of us were just thinking good and hard about the mission at hand and how we would fare in our initial contact with the enemy. My only concern was whether or not I would let my men down once we entered combat. As a fighting company the men were primed and ready to go, and we fully intended that we were either going to win the ensuing battle or be killed.

  PART TWO

  In the Time of Achilles

  The son of Peleus pressed on to win still further glory, and his hands were bedrabbled with gore.

  HOMER, The Iliad

  5

  Day of Days

  Our aircraft took off on schedule at approximately 2313 hours. Second Battalion, 506th PIR, flew in Serial 12, with Easy Company in aircrafts #66–73. Easy Company’s headquarters element, led by Lieutenant Meehan, boarded plane #66 piloted by Lieutenant Harold A. Capelluto. Our three platoon leaders, Lieutenants Harry Welsh, Warren Roush, and Robert Matthews, who had assumed command from Lieutenant Schmitz, jumped with their respective platoons. I boarded plane #67 and served as jumpmaster with the stick from 1st Squad of 1st Platoon. A total of seventeen paratroopers were in my aircraft. Lieutenant Bill Sammons piloted our plane. Colonel Charles Young, the commander of 439th Troop Carrier Command, commanded all the aircraft transporting the 101st Airborne Division. Although Young was an experienced pilot and had trained extensively in low-altitude navigation for two years in a tactical squadron as an attack pilot, most of his pilots had only a few hundred hours of flying and this was their first combat mission.

  As we departed the airfield at Uppottery, the aircraft climbed to the assembly altitude of 1,500 feet and flew in a holding pattern until the entire formation turned on course at 1142 hours to join the stream of planes converging on the coast of France. Descending to an altitude of 1,000 feet, the pilots maintained course until they neared the Normandy course, at which time they descended to 500 feet. The optimum altitude for a drop was 600 feet at a speed of 100 to 120 knots to preclude excessive prop-wash and needless exposure to enemy fire.

  Twenty minutes out, Lieutenant Sammons hollered back and the crew chief removed the door. I immediately stood up and gazed at the long procession of leading planes. With my head out the door, I could see the planes in front and behind us in V of V formations, nine abreast as far as the eye could see. The planes seemed to fill the entire sky. I had seen rows of aircraft on the airfields in England, but now their power filled the night air. Over the coast we encountered a cloud bank that completely obscured the rest of the formation. Since the pilots were not allowed to use their navigation lights, the only visible lights were the dim blue formation lights along the top of the wings. Pilots were now flying on sheer instinct, attempting to maintain the tight formation to avoid collisions with other aircraft. I was somewhat surprised that there was so little antiaircraft fire, but within minutes the entire sky was alive with red, blue, and green tracers. It looked brighter than the Fourth of July. Later Lieutenant Bob Brewer, who commanded the battalion’s 81mm mortar platoon, claimed that he had “never seen as much antiaircraft fire as he had seen that night in France.”

  Off to my right, the plane piloted by Capelluto was struck by antiaircraft fire. Capelluto immediately turned on the green light as tracers went clean through the plane and exited the top of the aircraft, throwing sparks as he fought to stay in formation and to maintain course. Though the clouds obscured my vision, I later learned that the aircraft carrying Lieutenant Thomas Meehan, 1st Sergeant William Evans, and most of the headquarters element, flew steadily onward, and then did a slow wingover to the right. The plane’s landing lights came on as it approached the ground. It appeared they were going to make it, but the aircraft hit a hedgerow and exploded, instantly killing everyone on board. If I survived the jump, I would be the company commander.

  In my aircraft, Sammons accelerated to evade the enemy fire as I stood in the door with my head down, searching the ground below. This was the first time that I had been under fire and my adrenaline was pumping. As we got closer, I could see the pilots were experiencing difficulty maintaining their formation. Initially the Germans were leading us too far and did not realize that we were flying around 125 miles per hour, but soon they began adjusting their fire. Instead of looking pretty, the fire began to crack as it got closer to our aircraft—and it cracked louder and louder until it hit the tail of our plane. Glancing at the light panel, I waited until Sammons turned on the green light. I yelled, “Go!” just as another burst of 20mm fire hit our aircraft. Within seconds I was out the door, screaming, “Bill Lee,” at the top of my lungs. The initial shock of traveling at nearly 150 miles per hour tore my leg bag off, along with virtually every bit of equipment that I was carrying. Jumping immediately behind me was PFC Burt Christenson, carrying one of Easy Company’s machine guns. Following Christenson were Private “Jeeter” Leonard, Private Joe Hogan, Christenson’s assistant gunner PFC Woodrow Robbins, PFC William Howell, Privates Carl Sawsko, Richard Bray, and Robert Von Klinkin. Luck plays a big role in life. Consider that fact that because plane #66 was overloaded, T/4 Robert B. Smith and Private “Red” Hogan were transferred at the last moment from ill-fated plane #66 to jump with me in plane #67. The last man exiting my aircraft was “Bull” Randleman, my “push man.” You always pick a big husky guy as your last man to make sure he is a good “push man.” If anyone wanted to change their mind, Bull’s job was to give him one push out the door whether he wanted to go or not. No one in stick #67 needed any encouragement.

  Our regiment’s after-action report described the chaos that resulted from accelerated flight resulting from the heavy enemy antiaircraft fire. According to the report, out of eighty-one planes scheduled to drop their men into 1st and 2d Battalion’s drop zone, only ten had found their mark. Three of the planes had missed their DZ by twenty miles. The planes carrying Lieutenant Colonel Strayer’s battalion had simply overshot the mark. “The paratroopers knew it when it happened. Many of them saw three large green ‘T’s’ formed of electric lights pass under us and they recognized the zone markers that had been set up by the regiment’s pathfinders. Still, the beacon did not alarm the pilots and they must have flown straight on for several minutes after crossing the drop zone, for when the men at last got their jump signal,” the report continued, “the battalion came to earth with its center about five miles from our drop zone.” Not one of the 506th Regiment’s battalions had a drop pattern that “was as good as the lowest mark that it had established during any training operation. Whether the great spread of the drop pattern contributed materially to the casualty figures was something of a question, but it undoubtedly slowed down assembly and acted as a drag on local operations.” Only later did we discover that our planned drop zone had been strongly covered by the enemy with rifle pits and automatic weapons all around its perimeter. Had the drop taken place as planned, it w
as quite possible “that the greater breadth of the target would have given the waiting Germans a greatly enhanced opportunity for killing.” Planned or not, Easy Company was scattered across a wide dispersal area several miles west of our objective.

  How the remainder of the regiment was faring was the furthest thing from my mind as I descended to earth. I hit the ground with a thump. This was the only jump I ever made that I ended up with black-and-blue bruises on my shoulders and legs for a week afterward. As I lay in a field on the edge of Ste. Mere-Eglise, I could hear the church bell tolling in the night, summoning local citizens to fight a fire that had broken out on the edge of town. Worse yet, I had no weapon because my M-1 and grenades had been ripped off from the shock of the prop-blast as soon as I had exited the plane. In the distance a machine gun was firing into the night sky as other paratroopers descended into the Norman countryside. Fortunately, there was more sound than fury in the reception that greeted me as I landed. My initial thought was to get as far away from that machine gun as possible. Armed only with the knife that I had stuck in my boot, I struck out in the general direction where I thought my leg bag had landed.

  Despite this deplorable situation of landing in enemy territory without a rifle, I still wasn’t scared. Don’t ask me why. Fear paralyzes the mind but I needed to be able to think clearly, especially when men’s lives were at stake. Though I had been apprehensive whether or not I would measure up, the long months of training now kicked in. Before jumping, I’d thought of cutting the top of my chute off and using the silk as a raincoat, both protection against the cold and for camouflage. But now, the only thing on my mind was to get the hell away from those machine guns and that town. Just as I started off, trench knife in hand, another paratrooper landed close by. I helped cut him free from his chute, then grabbed one of his grenades, and said, “let’s go search for my equipment.” He was hesitant of taking the lead even with his tommy gun, so I said, “Follow me!”

  It wasn’t long before we were far enough away from that machine gun that we started to feel a little more secure. To retrieve my equipment would have taken us near the road where another machine gun was shooting down, so I said, “The hell with it, let’s go.” We started to move north away from the town of Ste. Mere-Eglise, which we identified a few minutes later when I cricketed and received an answer from one of my platoon sergeants, Staff Sergeant Carwood Lipton. Lipton had run across a sign post that read STE. MERE-EGLISE. I studied my map and as soon as I realized where Ste. Mere-Eglise was with respect to our drop zone, I ascertained our approximate location. With that in mind, I looked at the direction of the flight of the rest of the planes and determined the fastest route to Utah Beach. We then hooked up with Lipton’s crew, so our group now numbered about twelve men as we started down the road in the direction where our objective lay astride causeway #2. Before too long we merged with a larger group of about fifty men from the 502d Regiment with a colonel in charge, so I attached my group to his. The rest of the night was spent walking down the road while the senior officers tried to find the way to their objective. My intention was to remain with the 502d until we reached the beach, then cut loose and head south to our own objective. To separate now and travel with twelve to fifteen men would be foolish if I could stay with fifty more. The only real excitement during the night was when we ran into four horse-drawn wagons of Germans carrying additional harnesses and saddles. Most likely the saddles belonged to the reported Russian cavalry in the area. We destroyed two wagons and killed several Germans before the others escaped into the darkness. We traveled on until we came across some more dead Germans astride a destroyed wagon. I was still looking for a weapon and soon discovered an M-1 under the wagon seat. Finally armed, I was happy once again. I picked up a few more combat essentials as we moved a little farther along. By the time our body eventually joined the battalion, I had a revolver, belt, canteen, and lots of ammunition, so I was ready to fight, especially after I bummed some food from one of the men.

  About 0600 in the morning, we bumped into Captain Jerre Gross of Dog Company from our battalion. He had approximately forty men, so we joined forces and headed south toward our objective behind Utah Beach. In a few minutes we encountered our battalion staff, so 2dBat- talion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was once again a fighting unit, though it was considerably under regular strength. The fact that Colonel Strayer had been successful in assembling over 200 men was largely the result of the work of his operations officer, Captain Clarence Hester, Easy Company’s first executive officer. Hester had landed with the leading elements of the battalion. He rapidly ascertained that his stick of paratroopers had spread over about 1,000 yards during the descent, so he walked back 500 yards in the direction the planes had come, thinking this would put him at about the center of his small group. There, he put up a string of amber bundle lights in a tree. The signal did its work: officers and men began to find their way into the position. Still unsure of his precise location, Hester dispatched Lewis Nixon to prowl the nearest village. A considerable group had gathered around Hester while Nixon conducted his reconnaissance. In a little over one hour, Hester’s force included a communications platoon, a machine gun platoon, approximately eighty men from 2d Battalion Headquarters Company, ninety men from D Company, six men from Company F and eight men from E Company. By 0330, Strayer arrived and he took command from Hester.

  After we linked up with Strayer’s force, Easy Company now consisted of nine riflemen and two officers (myself and Compton) armed with two light machine guns, one bazooka (no ammunition), and one 60mm mortar but no base plate. Since we still had received no word from our company commander, I immediately assumed command of Easy Company. We ran across a lot of dead Germans as we moved toward our objective, but very little fire. Suddenly some heavy artillery rounds landed near the head of the battalion after they moved into a small town called Le Grand Chemin, several kilometers behind Utah Beach. The column stopped and we sat down, content to rest after traveling cross country for the past several hours. In about ten minutes, Lieutenant George Lavenson, the battalion adjutant, came walking down the line and said, “Winters, they want you and your company up front.”

  So off I went, still not sure of the whereabouts of our commander, Lieutenant Meehan. Up front I discovered most of the battalion staff including Captain Hester, Lieutenant Nixon, and Lieutenant John Kelly from D Company in a small group talking things over. Kelly had deployed his platoon forward to a position where he could observe the suspected German artillery position, but he could do nothing about stopping their fire. As battalion operations officer, Hester pointed to where an enemy machine gun was located and approximately where a four-gun battery of 105s was situated. That was all he knew. Captain Hester turned to me and said, “There’s fire along that hedgerow there. Take care of it.” That was the sum of my orders—no detailed battle plan, no intelligence summary, nothing but a specific task to be accomplished without delay. Easy Company’s mission was to silence the battery.

  Conducting a mental estimate of the situation, I viewed any infantry assault on the battery as a high-risk opportunity since our air forces had failed to destroy the artillery battery in the preliminary bombardment prior to the seaborne invasion. Our key would be initiative, an immediate appraisal of the situation, skillful use of the terrain, and our ability to destroy one gun at a time. The first thing I did was to have everybody drop all equipment except ammunition and grenades, for that was all we would need if things went from good to bad. While the noncommissioned officers prepared the men for the assault, I conducted a hasty reconnaissance of the enemy position. A leader gains an advantage in combat if he is able to appraise the terrain and the situation quickly and correctly. Crawling along a hedgerow, I moved to a position where I could get a better view of the enemy position. The guns appeared to be set in a trench in a hedgerow covered by machine gun fire from across an open pasture. The battery was firing directly down causeway #2 in the direction of Utah Beach, where the initial waves
of the 4th Infantry Division were already landing. Anticipating that it would be too costly to conduct a frontal attack across an open field, I determined our chances of success would be greatly enhanced if we could hit the enemy on the flank and silence one gun at a time.

  Returning to the company, I assigned specific missions to each man. First I placed one of Easy Company’s two machine guns in a position where they could provide us covering fire as we moved carefully into position. Next I divided our detachment into two units, one led by Lieutenant Buck Compton, the other remaining with me. Compton moved down one hedgerow with Sergeants Guarnere and Malarkey to get as close to the first gun in the battery as possible, while I led my unit down a parallel hedgerow. Compton also sent Sergeants Lipton and Ranney to a concealed position to put flanking fire on the enemy while my detachment crawled across the open field to approach the first gun. When my group, consisting of Corporal Joe Toye, PFC Robert “Popeye” Wynn, and Private Gerald Lorraine from regimental headquarters, reached the hedge that led to the enemy position, we stopped. Here I placed a second machine gun to engage the first gun that was firing point-blank at us. I gave the gunner instructions not to fire unless he saw a definite target so he would not give his position away. Then we worked our way up to Compton’s hedgerow. Here, I spotted a German helmet and I squeezed off two rounds. I later found a pool of blood at this position, but no Jerry (German). Next I sent Compton with two men along the hedge to throw hand grenades at the enemy position while the rest of us supported him with covering fire. I fired occasionally to fill in spots when there was a lull in the covering fire due to putting in new clips. Compton took too long getting his detachment into position and we spent more ammunition than we should have, but in return, we received no enemy fire.