Beyond Band of Brothers

by Major Dick Winters

  As for myself, I never considered myself a killer although I had killed several of the enemy. Killing did not make me happy, but in this particular circumstance, it left me momentarily satisfied—satisfied because it led to confidence in getting a difficult job done with minimal casualties. Nor did I ever develop a hatred for the individual German soldier. I merely wanted to eliminate them. There is nothing personal about combat. As the war progressed, I actually developed a healthy respect for the better units we faced on the battlefield. But that was all in the future. For the time being, I was just happy to have survived my baptism by fire. I had always been confident in my own abilities, but the success at Brecourt increased my confidence in my leadership, as well as my ability to pass it on to my soldiers.

  Evening allowed a few minutes of quiet reflection. With our outposts in place, I stretched out to catch a few hours sleep, even though the rattle of German small-arms fire continued throughout the night. The Germans were evidently not as tired as we were because they fired their machine guns all night and hollered like a bunch of drunken kids having a party. Before I dozed off, I did not forget to get on my knees and thank God for helping me to live through this day and to ask His help on D+1. I would live this war one day at a time, and I promised myself that if I survived, I would find a small farm somewhere in the Pennsylvania countryside and spend the remainder of my life in quiet and peace.

  6

  Carentan

  There was no pause after D-Day. Easy Company was put on alert to continue the advance around 0500, but we remained in defense while waiting for the regimental order to move out. The projected route was south from Culoville through Vierville to Ste. Come du Mont, then across the Douve River into Carentan. As we were getting ourselves pulled together for another day, Captain Hester, battalion operations officer, came to see me at dawn with a message. “Winters, I hate to do this to you after what you went through yesterday, but I want Easy Company to lead the column toward Vierville.” Since Hester was speaking for my battalion commander, I immediately complied with the order.

  The sequence of march was E Company, battalion headquarters, followed by D and F Companies. Since we were first in the battalion order of march, we followed 1st Battalion, but before too long they were fired on from the rear between Beaumont and Angoville au Plain. A lively engagement ensued during which our battalion destroyed two companies of enemy paratroopers. Approximately 140 prisoners were taken and 150 Germans were killed. The majority of prisoners belonged to the 6th Parachute Regiment. Their regimental headquarters had deployed them to their present area about two weeks prior to D-Day. Many were extremely young; some were overage. They did not physically appear to be first-class troops, though their ammunition supply was plentiful and their equipment was good. The majority of the prisoners seemed willing to talk. This lack of discipline changed as we began our drive toward Carentan.

  On June 7, General Taylor visited battalion headquarters and complimented the troops on the excellent job they had just finished. Meanwhile, Easy Company attacked and secured Angoville with the help of two light tanks. We were now placed in reserve with our principal responsibility being defense of the 506th Regimental headquarters. Later, I was told of the hard fight around Ste. Come du Mont that Dog Company had that day, and I heard that Captain Jerre Gross, the company commander, had been killed. Gross had been conferring with his battalion commander when an artillery shell struck a nearby tree, killing him instantly. Lieutenant Joe McMillan assumed command of D Company and remained the commanding officer for the rest of the war. In my estimation, he was the best company commander in 2d Battalion. Also killed was Lieutenant Colonel William Turner, 1st Battalion’s commanding officer. When Turner raised his head out of a tank turret, he was suddenly shot dead by a sniper, in plain sight of many of the men on the forward line. Combat in Normandy was proving an extremely dangerous business.

  During this time one of our major problems was the disposition of dead bodies. The countryside was now littered with dead Germans, abandoned vehicles, and smashed equipment. Dead cattle and horses lay everywhere, often with their legs grotesquely pointing toward the sky. Within days, their carcasses began to bloat and smell in the sweltering June heat. Regiment hired French civilians to burn and bury these animals, but the stench was overpowering. Work details also buried German soldiers where they found them, sometimes in mass graves. Grave registration officers collected and identified American dead, who were temporarily interred at unit cemeteries. Later many of these bodies were interred in the American cemetery that sits atop the bluffs overlooking Omaha Beach.

  In addition to the destruction of livestock, the Norman agriculture suffered dramatically during the campaign in Normandy. The Calvados and La Manche departments of Normandy form a richly agricultural region best known for its lush pastureland as well as its apple cider. Ample rainfall ensures that the landscape remains green for most of the year. Dairy products include milk, cream, and various cheeses like Camembert, Livarot, and Pont l’Eveque. The agricultural production declined not only because of direct destruction from shelling and bombing, but also because crops and livestock went days and weeks without proper care and attention. The dairy industry, which once characterized Norman agriculture, virtually ceased to exist in early June 1944. Once the fighting moved toward the interior of France, however, the Norman countryside returned to its pre-invasion state and today it remains one of the country’s most prosperous agricultural regions.

  Another problem that we encountered in Normandy was the French cognac and Calvados, a distilled apple brandy that is usually drunk between courses to clear the palate and then as a finale to a good meal. If not aged ten to fifteen years, Calvados will take the skin off your throat, as many Allied soldiers discovered within days of the invasion. Both cognac and Calvados lay in abundance in every Norman village and farm. Lieutenant Harry Welsh had found a barrel of cognac, and I was convinced that he attempted to drink it all by himself. On one occasion he passed out in the middle of a road and there he was, lying on his reserve parachute, propped up in full view of the enemy. The Germans began zeroing in on Welsh and I had to get out there and grab him and pull him off the road. My God, he was lucky. There were times when I talked to Harry and I realized later that he hadn’t heard a word that I had said—and it was not because his hearing was bad. We got that problem straightened out in a few days.

  Sleep was still tough to get at night for a variety of reasons. Actual fighting or even the anticipation of combat created constant tension among our soldiers. Equally bothersome were the huge mosquitoes that inhabited the swamps in front of Carentan. Prior to the invasion the Germans had flooded the countryside in a futile effort to discourage Allied planners to conduct airborne operations. The flooding caused large, stagnant pools of water, which proved a fertile breeding ground for swarms of mosquitoes that dive-bombed us every evening. In our advance toward Carentan, you could see pillars of mosquitoes extending several hundred feet into the air. There was no escape since our troops were not equipped with mosquito nets.

  Nor was the climate overly hospitable. Days are long in June and July, with the darkness limited to six or seven hours before dawn breaks the eastern horizon. A light drizzle falls over Normandy during most of the spring and summer months, and 1944 was no exception. At night the temperatures fell so much that each trooper wore additional layers of clothing. Climactic conditions changed as rapidly as the tides that swept the Norman beaches. It was not unusual to have one dry day in five. Censorship forbade the mention of any specific town in the vicinity of the operation, but many an American paratrooper began his letters home with the origin listed simply as “Cold and Wet in Normandy.”

  Higher headquarters also hindered our ability to catch a few minutes’ rest. In one case, battalion headquarters alerted the company to prepare for a gas attack that never materialized. Additionally, the German Luftwaffe (Air Force) finally appeared in the skies over Carentan and strafed our forces preparing to attack th
at city. Actually, we had a few precious days to catch our breath, and we needed that rest. We had been under a lot of pressure since word had come down on June 5—“We go tonight.” None of us had had much sleep on the flight to Normandy, then we were engaged all day on D-Day, caught a doze or two that night, then fought all day June 7 and half that night. In Normandy it was not unusual to have less than six hours of sleep during the first four days of combat.

  The respite, albeit welcome, did not last for long. By June 10, soldiers from the 29th Division, who had landed at Omaha Beach, linked up with the 101st Airborne Division northeast of Carentan, a town of approximately 4,000 that lay astride the main road artery running to Cherbourg at the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula. To take the town, our division commander, General Taylor, devised a three-pronged assault: the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment would attack from the north; the 501st PIR would assault from the northeast, while Sink’s 506th PIR conducted a night march, swinging around Carentan to the southwest. H-Hour for the divisional attack was scheduled for dawn on June 12. To reach the line of departure, our battalion conducted a night march over unfamiliar terrain—a task that presents its own share of challenges under the best of circumstances.

  Easy Company had spent months and months training at night. For all his faults, Captain Sobel had seen that the men were highly proficient in conducting nocturnal patrols and movement. The problems associated with forced marches across country, through woods, night compass problems, errors in celestial navigation, had all been overcome in the months preceding D-Day. Prior to the invasion, Easy Company had experienced every conceivable problem of troop movement under conditions of limited visibility. We had so much experience in night attacks that we had actually learned to see better at night. Not so surprisingly then, the troops were completely at ease as we prepared for the attack on Carentan. It was my observation that the leaders who experienced the greatest difficulty in handling night movement were regimental and divisional staff officers and personnel. They had “crapped out” on the training problems and did not get to the field day after day and night after night as frequently as had the troops and junior line officers. These shortcomings were evident on D-Day. These staff officers encountered major problems getting oriented and finding their objectives. The numerous hedgerows we found in Normandy only compounded their problems. The junior officers and enlisted soldiers, on the other hand, found their way around and attacked their objectives with ease. As we moved into our assault positions on the evening of June 11, this same lack of training on the part of staff officers once again led to widespread confusion.

  At dusk on June 11, 2d Battalion set out across the marsh for Carentan. Our route took us over a bridge, where we turned west across the fields to railroad tracks. The going was very rough as we crossed swampy areas and hedgerows. I knew the battalion would have a difficult time finding its way to our objective. Part of the problem was that regimental headquarters assigned routes to individual battalions and companies as they traversed the countryside. During this movement, 2d Battalion continually broke contact with its organic companies. Once physical contact is lost, ill-disciplined units sacrifice noise discipline in an effort to reestablish contact with the unit immediately to their front. The primary reason for the disruptions occurred when the head of the column would negotiate a tough section of territory, and then take off at an accelerated pace, with no consideration for the rear elements traversing the same tough bottleneck. Additionally, regimental headquarters repeatedly altered the boundaries between the 1st and 2d Battalions. All told, it was a rough night. We stopped, dug in, set up machine guns and bazookas, moved out, over and over. We finally crossed the Douve River in front of Carentan around 0200 on the morning of June 12.

  About 0530 on June 12, 2d Battalion was straightened out and deployed for the attack, and Easy Company was finally on its assigned road. Colonel Strayer’s scheme of maneuver called for an assault with two companies abreast. He placed Fox Company on our left flank and set up his battalion headquarters to the rear of Easy Company. Dog Company constituted the battalion reserve. The attack was scheduled for 0600. Our battalion was attacking down a road on the southwest side of Carentan. We realized later this meant we were in a position to cut off or trap the German troops that were being forced from Carentan by the remainder of the division. All in all, General Taylor had devised a well-planned attack by his 101st Airborne Division. If the 2d Battalion could take that road intersection leading south from Carentan, the Germans would be forced to use the swamps and flooded areas in their retreat or face annihilation.

  With respect to Easy Company, I deployed my first platoon on the left, second on the right, and placed my third platoon in the rear. The road down which we were scheduled to attack toward that T-intersection was straight, with a gentle downward slope, and had shallow ditches on both sides. All was quiet as Lieutenant George Lavenson, the battalion S-1 (personnel officer), decided to relieve himself. He left the road and went into the field between E Company and F Company. I remember seeing a profile of his white fanny as I moved up the road toward Carentan. A shot reverberated in the distance and Lavenson was hit in the rear end. He was later evacuated to a hospital in England before being transferred to a medical facility in the United States for further recuperation. En route to the States, his plane went down. George was a smart officer, a good ex-E Company man; we hated losing him.

  I positioned men on both sides of the road and prepared to move out in order to secure the intersection. Lieutenant Welsh led 1st Platoon at the head of the company column. Precisely on schedule, I hollered to Welsh, “Move out!” Just as the attack started, a German machine gun, located in a building at the foot of the hill, started to fire up the road. The German gun crew was in a perfect position, at the perfect time, to wipe out our entire attack. From the left-hand-side of the road, Welsh pushed six men toward the intersection. They went straight at that intersection and the enemy machine gun. The enemy fire, however, was very effective. Our men on both sides of the road kept low profiles in the ditches, heads down, and then they froze in place, leaving Welsh and his six men assaulting the intersection alone. To my rear, Colonel Strayer and his staff, including Captain Hester and Nixon, could see what was happening. They, in turn, were hollering at me: “Get them moving, Winters, get them moving.”

  I struggled out of my harness to rid myself of excess equipment so that I could run, since it was obvious what needed to be done. Standing in the middle of the column on the right-hand-side of the road, I hollered, “Move out, move out!” This did no good; everyone had his head down. This was the one and only time in the war that I really blew my top and physically “kicked ass”. I came out of that ditch with only my M-1 in hand, and hollering, I ran to the head of the column, kicked ass on the left side of the road, then ran to the right side of the road, back and forth, screaming at the top of my voice, “Get going!” I will never forget the surprise and fear on those faces looking up at me. With me running around on the road like a wild man, the German machine gun seemed to zero in on me. I was a wide-open target. The bullets snapped by and glanced off the road all around me. For a short time, I had the feeling of being “blessed.” That feeling didn’t last too long, for I was to find out in a few minutes that I wasn’t so blessed.

  As the men finally renewed the advance, Sergeant Talbert passed me and called out, “Which way when we hit the intersection?”

  “Turn right,” I ordered.

  Finally the rest of the column advanced, and we started to clear the houses on both sides of the intersection. Before long, we had the intersection under control when Welsh and his team tossed some grenades and killed the machine gun crew that had been firing steadily since our attack had begun. The Germans now withdrew from the intersection and headed south. They still had a surprise in store for us. Knowing exactly where we were, they fired prearranged mortar and machine gun fire at the intersection. Our casualties started to mount up fast. I received a slight wound when I picked up a
fragment from a machine gun ricochet, which went through the tongue of my boot and into my leg. After the fire died down, I immediately established a company defense. Expecting a counterattack, I checked our ammunition supply and redistributed ammo. Next I walked to the aid station, which had been set up in a courtyard about twenty meters to the rear, to check on our casualties. There the medic picked around my leg with tweezers, extracted the fragment, cleaned the wound, and put some sulfa powder and a bandage on it. I left the top of my boot unlaced and went back to work.

  In taking the intersection, Easy Company sustained ten casualties. Among our wounded were Sergeant Lipton, Ed Tipper, and “Burr” Smith. Another casualty was Private Albert Blithe, who was in the aid station sitting with his back against the wall when I entered to have my wound cleaned. I did not notice any wounds, so I asked, “How are you doing, Blithe?”

  “I can’t see! I can’t see!” he replied.

  I remember trying to comfort him by saying, “It’s okay, Blithe, relax. They’ll soon have you out of here, and they’ll send you back to England.”