Beyond Band of Brothers

by Major Dick Winters

  In an attempt to escape the tension that combat had caused, I developed a heavier than usual exercise regimen and I attended church on a regular basis. There were only a few days that I didn’t run two to three miles, do eighty push-ups, sixty sit-ups on a foot locker, a couple of splits, and some leg and trunk exercises after the day’s work was over. As a result I kept in pretty good shape—not what I’d call wrestling shape, but good enough for army work. Physical activity kept me mentally alert, built up my endurance, and kept me supple.

  Another thing I noted about being overseas and away from home was that I found myself not giving a damn about trivial things. Maybe I was spoiled. If I received mail, good, but it didn’t bother me one way or another if I didn’t. The only value about receiving mail is that it temporarily took my mind off my work and back to the land I dreamed of all the time. Writing was no longer a high priority. Then, what was there to do when I would get home? What I needed instead was to get out and run, or walk, or sing, or do something to alter my frame of mind. It usually resulted in a run. On Sundays, I prepared for church, buttons shined, boots polished, and ribbons in neat rows on my tunic. I considered it a very special privilege to be able to go to church and I didn’t want to miss the chance. If combat had taught me anything, it taught me what was essential in life and what wasn’t. In my prayers before D-Day, I had always thanked God for what He had done for the world in general and asked that others would be given a break in the future. I had also thanked Him for a lot of things that I now found to be insignificant. The only thing I asked for now was to be alive tomorrow morning and to survive another day. That was all that mattered—that was the only thing as far as wanting anything for myself. All other things had become extra, nonessential, and I could not be bothered or burdened with nonessentials. Not when battle was the payoff.

  7

  Holland

  The next two months passed quickly as Easy Company refitted and absorbed a number of replacements. While many of the wounded veterans convalesced from their wounds suffered in Normandy, I concentrated my efforts on reorganizing our company and platoon headquarters. Lieutenants Harry Welsh and Buck Compton were promoted to first lieutenant, with Welsh now serving as my executive officer and Compton as second platoon leader. New officers assigned to the company included T. A. Peacock, Robert B. Brewer, and John Pisanchin. Lieutenant Charles Hudson, an officer from A Company, received a battlefield commission and joined Easy as an assistant platoon leader. So did Lieutenant Edward Shames, a former operations sergeant, who had built the sand tables we used in planning our airdrop into Normandy. Shames was the first noncommissioned officer to receive a battlefield commission from 3d Battalion.

  Because the regiment was in desperate need of officers, I had the opportunity to recommend one man from E Company for a battlefield commission. I immediately recommended 1st Sergeant James Diel, who had served as my company 1st sergeant during the campaign in Normandy. As his platoon leader, I had worked closely with Diel in the States and during our stint in England prior to the invasion. Diel was by no means the biggest, strongest, toughest guy in the outfit. He was not an athlete, but he possessed a command voice, a command attitude, and he took no backtalk or guff from any soldier. He was what I called a “can-do” man. Give him an order and you could forget about it; he got the job done. He was the kind of soldier who made any outfit look good, and he made a platoon leader’s job easy. Diel was also a self-starter, highly motivated, entirely dependable, and he had a no-nonsense, low-key leadership style that commanded the respect of the men. Diel performed commendably in Normandy and I was confident that he was ready for the next step. While I knew that Easy Company would be losing a first-class leader and that I would be losing a good friend, recommending 1st Sergeant Diel for a battlefield commission was the highest honor I could bestow on him for a job well done. As it was customary that noncommissioned officers who received battlefield commissions were reassigned within the regiment, Diel transferred from Easy Company to Able Company, where he served with distinction until he was killed in action in Holland at the bridge in Zon on September 19.

  Selecting noncommissioned officers for promotion was an easy task. The chief strength of Easy Company had always been its core of NCOs. These enlisted men had been thoroughly tested at Toccoa, had been tested again during jump school at Fort Benning, had been hardened during further training in the States and in England, and then had proven their mettle in actual combat. Consequently we were able to restaff E Company with no discernible loss of leadership or morale, despite the fact that we had lost our entire company headquarters plus many other men in Normandy. To fill the hole left by Diel’s promotion, I selected Staff Sergeant Carwood Lipton as the company’s new first sergeant. Lipton looked like a first sergeant should look. He acted like a senior noncom—he was smart, mature, self-disciplined, and dedicated to Easy Company. Moreover he led by example—exactly what I expected from my first sergeant. In addition, he commanded the respect of the men. After I announced my decision, I received a letter from Ed Tipper, who was still in a hospital back in the States. He told me that in his opinion, “Lipton was the best noncommissioned officer in the whole army.” To fill the hole made by Lipton’s transfer to company headquarters, I assigned Sergeant Talbert as platoon sergeant of 1st Platoon. Again it was an easy choice, particularly after his performance in Normandy.

  Promotions were also in line for several of the other Toccoa men. Leo D. Boyle was advanced from sergeant to staff sergeant and served as my right-hand man in company headquarters, where his principal responsibility was to help train the new replacements we would be receiving. Boyle was a couple years older than the average company noncommissioned officer. He was many years older as far as maturity was concerned. Perhaps his marriage to a local Aldbourne girl a month before D-Day had something to do with his maturity and fatherly instincts. As his platoon leader at the time, I had given Sergeant Boyle permission to marry his girlfriend. First Sergeant Evans served as his best man. Also promoted to staff sergeant were Bill Guarnere, the second platoon sergeant, and Robert T. Smith. I had been Guarnere’s platoon leader in Toccoa. I had recommended him for promotion to corporal and later I had recommended him for promotion to sergeant as a squad leader. Guarnere was a natural leader and one of most respected noncommissioned officers in Easy Company. At Brecourt, he had done a magnificent job and I had recommended him for the Distinguished Service Cross. (The recommendation was subsequently downgraded to a Silver Star by higher headquarters as division seemed reluctant to approve too many recommendations for high awards for enlisted soldiers.) As it worked out, Guarnere and Lieutenant Compton were the only two men from Easy Company to receive Silver Stars dur-

  ing the entire war. Smith had also performed well as squad leader in Normandy. Due to his demonstrated leadership and self-discipline, I assigned him to be company supply sergeant to fill the shoes of Staff Sergeant Murray Roberts, who had been killed in action. Also promoted to sergeant were Kenneth Mercier, Bull Randleman, Arthur Youman, Don Malarkey, Warren Muck, Paul Rogers, and Myron Ranney. Ranney had been a sergeant and had been busted to private first class for his role in the Sobel mutiny. Joining the NCO ranks were Pat Christenson, Walter Gordon, John Plesha, Darrell Powers, and Lavon Reese.

  The next task was to train the replacements who had recently arrived to bring the company back up to its authorized strength. The first thing we did was fire our new weapons to ensure that all rifles were properly zeroed before the next operation. With Staff Sergeant Boyle’s help, we developed a rigorous training schedule that included some field exercises for the benefit of the replacements. The older survivors of Normandy were generally given the easier jobs on these exercises. Many who were still recovering from wounds were given lighter duty. Before our next mission Private First Class “Popeye” Wynn and Private Rod Strohl rejoined the company although both still suffered from wounds incurred in Normandy. After Wynn had been evacuated from Utah Beach following our fight at Brecourt, he r
ecovered in a field hospital in England. When informed that if he stayed away from Easy Company for ninety days, they would send him to another company in the 101st Airborne Division, he became edgy to return. He persuaded a sergeant who released the patients to send him back to Aldbourne with papers authorizing light duty. He returned to Easy Company around September 1 and tossed the papers when the company was alerted for another air drop on the Continent.

  Popeye and the other veterans of D-Day were particularly tough on the replacements, cutting them no slack during the two weeks we trained for our next mission. Noncommissioned officers like Johnny Martin, Bull Randleman, and Bill Guarnere refused to get too close to the replacements, some of whom were no more than mere boys. As for the newly arrived troopers joining the regiment, they were justifiably in awe of the Normandy veterans, who formed a nuclear family of their own. Somehow they stood apart from the newer members of the company. To this day, those who made Easy Company’s initial combat jump into Normandy sit at separate tables during the company reunions.

  On August 10, the 101st Airborne Division conducted a general review for General Eisenhower at Hungerford. Ike expressed his tremendous satisfaction for the 101st Airborne Division and told us that he expected we would soon return to the fight. Meanwhile we took care of more mundane matters. In Normandy we ate K rations, which contained a little packet of lemonade for the lunch ration. The stuff was terrible; everybody threw the packet away. What we did not know was that the packet of lemonade contained all the vitamin C requirements. After going for a month in Normandy without any vitamin C in our diet, just about every trooper suddenly developed cavities. I went to see the regimental dentist, “Shifty” Feiler. He drilled out the cavities and slapped in the fillings. His drill was a foot-pedal-driven apparatus. My teeth were killing me. The next night I was rolling in pain. I couldn’t think straight, nor could I go on sick call with a combat jump coming up anyday and run the risk of not leading the company. I had no intention of being marked L.O.B. (Left Out of Battle) because of dental work. On the other hand, I was wondering how I could function in combat with that pain. Fortunately the scheduled jump near Paris was called off, so it was back to Aldbourne and a real dentist. It so happened that the dentist hailed from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, not far from my home in Lancaster. He drilled out the fillings and announced, “This is bad. Feiler has cut the nerves in both of these molars. They are perfectly good teeth, and if we were back in Harrisburg, I could save them. But under the circumstances, when you might be going into combat any day, the only thing I can do is pull them.” I never went back to “Shifty” Feiler and have sworn never to visit any doctor nicknamed “Shifty” again.

  Over the course of the next thirty days, we continually were on alert for redeployment to the Continent. On August 17, Easy was notified and briefed for a drop near Chartres to cut off the retreat of the Germans who had escaped the Falaise-Argentan pocket, but D-Day (August 19) came and went. On August 31, we returned to the marshalling area, this time to jump into Belgium behind the Maginot Line. That operation was scrubbed on September 4. In the interim between the two missions, I quietly celebrated my third anniversary in the army. As I looked back, it seemed like a lifetime in some respects and as if I had aged way beyond three years. In other respects it hadn’t felt that long and I had been pretty lucky up to that point. There were not many men in Easy Company who had done as much in the same period of time. I figured that if I stuck in the paratroopers for another two or three years, put my money away at about the same rate as I had been, I would have a pretty darn good haul when the war was over. What I most wanted to do was to get back in action. Letting some other guy do the fighting for me just did not feel right.

  On September 10, we were back in the marshalling area, this time for Operation Market-Garden, General Bernard L. Montgomery’s strategy to bridge the lower Rhine River and to establish a lodgment area within Germany itself. The airborne component of the operation was code-named “Market” and was the largest airborne drop of the war, far exceeding D-Day in the number of troops and aircraft. If the operation succeeded, my friend Captain Lewis Nixon, now serving on battalion staff, expected that the war would be over by Christmas. At our briefing we were told that the 101st and the 82d Airborne Divisions would be attached to the British 2d Army, a prospect that did not sit well with the men. The 101st Airborne Division was assigned four bridges to secure in Eindhoven and one over the Wilhelmina Canal at Zon. The mission of 2d Battalion was to assemble on the eastern edge of the drop zone and to proceed directly to Eindhoven to seize three vital bridges with the support of the balance of the regiment. If we could seize our bridges and the 82d could capture their bridges over the Maas River at Grave and the Waal River at Nijmegen, a British armored column from XXX Corps would advance up “Hell’s Highway” to join the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. Hell’s Highway was a two-lane, hard-surfaced road than ran approximately fifty-five miles between Eindhoven and Arnhem.

  Compared to Normandy, the jump on September 17 was relatively easy. Regimental headquarters company, 1st and 2d Battalions closed at Membury Airfield by September 15. Unlike D-Day, Easy Company and the entire 506th jumped in broad daylight several miles north of Eindhoven. Approximately five minutes from the drop zone, the regiment encountered heavy flak from German antiaircraft batteries on the ground. Regimental headquarters’ planes were the heaviest hit. Colonel Sink and his executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Chase, nearly suffered the same fate as Easy Company’s commander on D-Day when both of their aircraft were struck by enemy antiaircraft fire as they approached the drop zone. As Sink saw a part of the wing dangle, he turned to his men and said, “Well, there goes the wing,” but nobody seemed to think much about it. Both Sink and Chase landed safely and promptly organized the regiment to advance on their objectives. The only danger I personally felt was the need to get off the drop zone as quickly as possible in order to prevent getting hit with falling equipment. Since the drop zone was so concentrated—the entire 506th used a single DZ—it was literally raining equipment: helmets, guns, and other bundles. The march off the drop zone was long, hot, and dusty. We took far too long to get to the objective. I couldn’t help but think,

  Next time, drop us on the objective.

  As our battalion moved down the main road toward Zon, we encountered little resistance. The order of march was D Company leading, followed by E Company, battalion headquarters, and F Company. Battalion had a column of men on each side of the road, when suddenly a German 88 artillery piece fired down the road and we heard German machine guns open up. We sustained no casualties as D Company covered the right side of the road, while E Company took the left side. We

  pushed forward and were about twenty-five to thirty yards from our first bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal when it blew. For the second time that afternoon, we were caught in a hail of debris, this time of wood and stone. I remember hitting the ground with Nixon on my left. As the stone and timber came down, I thought, What a hell of a way to die in combat! Had we been dropped closer to the objective, we could have secured the bridge before German engineers had prepared it for demolition.

  In any event, we were up in an instant and Easy Company provided covering fire as 1stBattalion crossed the canal. In the front of that battalion was the commanding officer, Major James La Prade, tiptoeing from rock to rock, trying to make his way across the canal without getting wet. He had his .45-caliber pistol in one hand as he tried to maintain his balance. It struck me as funny. I thought to myself, For God’s sake, man, carry an M-1 rifle if you’re expecting trouble. Give yourself a little firepower. Furthermore, carrying an M-1 makes you look like another soldier, not an officer. Snipers like to look for officers. Three months later La Prade, now a lieutenant colonel, was killed at Bastogne. As for E Company, we crossed the canal by dark, and I slept in a wood shed that night to keep out of the rain. Later, the Royal Engineers of the 14th Field Company laid a 110-foot long Bailey-bridge over the Wilhelmina Can
al for the tanks to cross once Hell’s Highway was secured.

  The following day, the 506th renewed its advance toward Eindhoven, a city of 100,000 residents. As we approached Eindhoven, Colonel Sink ordered 2d Battalion, with F Company leading, to the left flank of the regiment. F Company was stopped cold, and E Company was sent to the left flank of its sister company. During the subsequent attack Lieutenant Bob Brewer, Easy Company’s 3d Platoon leader, was hit. I had sent Brewer to lead E Company in the attack. The field in front of Eindhoven was flat, with absolutely no cover. There was a slight rise in elevation as we approached the town. Brewer had dispersed his platoon in perfect formation: scouts forward, no bunching up. The formation was perfect except for one thing. Brewer was way out front with the scouts. Being a tall man, about six-foot-three, waving his arms and hollering, he looked like an officer. Brewer was a perfect target. I could see it coming; everyone could see it coming. I hollered over the radio, “Get back. Drop back. Drop back!” No radio contact. He just kept going ahead. Suddenly, a single shot rang out and down he went down like a tree that had been felled by an expert lumberjack. The bullet passed through his throat just below the jawline. I was sure he was dead. At that moment, I didn’t have time for pity. Without a pause, I kept driving the company across that field as fast as we could go. I never looked back. We reached Eindhoven without further resistance. As for Brewer, he miraculously recovered and later joined Easy Company at the end of the war.