Beyond Band of Brothers

by Major Dick Winters

  After Normandy, I wondered if I would ever find any elation in war. When we entered Eindhoven, however, our biggest problem was pushing the troops through the crowds of people that greeted our men. Having suffered over four years of occupation by the Nazis, the reception by the Dutch population of the first Allied soldiers they had seen since April 1940 was unrestrained. It must have been similar to the outpouring of emotion that greeted our troops when they liberated Paris in late August. The streets of Eindhoven were literally engulfed with civilians, smiling, waving, and offering the men drinks and food. Many residents brought chairs from their homes and encouraged our soldiers to sit down and rest for a while. This reception contrasted sharply with what we had encountered in Normandy, where we had been suspicious of snipers posing as French civilians. I was still afraid of snipers after just seeing Brewer get hit, so I put my map case under my pants belt. I next pulled my fatigue jacket over the map case and the binoculars, to conceal both. I then turned the collar of my jacket up to conceal my rank. I tried as much as possible to look like just another GI, which was why I always carried an M-1 rifle. It just felt good knowing that I could take care of myself in all situations.

  Easy Company soon pushed through the crowd and secured the

  bridges over the Dommel River. I figured the party could wait until later. Not getting to that first bridge before it was destroyed on September 17 had left us feeling that we had failed to do our part in accomplishing the assigned mission. However, the guilt didn’t last long, since the forward elements of the British armored column did not arrive until the afternoon of September 18. Then they promptly halted in the center of town, set up housekeeping, and proceeded to make tea. This lack of urgency for the need to push on to the 82d at Nijmegen and their comrades at Arnhem left us feeling a bit bewildered. By 1830, the main body of the British Guards Armored Division started passing through Eindhoven from the south. This completed the mission assigned to the 506th at the start of the operation. That night, I set up outposts as Colonel Strayer established his battalion headquarters in the center of Tongelre, a suburb on the east side of Eindhoven.

  While we consolidated our forces, the enemy remained active. The First Allied Airborne Army had dropped into a hornet’s nest. German troops prepared for an immediate counterattack to sever the lone road that ran from Eindhoven to Arnhem. On September 19, two days into the operation, Easy Company, with a platoon of tanks attached for support, was given the mission of advancing toward Helmond, eight miles east of Eindhoven to make contact with the enemy. As we departed Eindhoven, the Dutch were out again, cheering, waving flags, offering food and drink. We crossed the line of departure and passed through Nuenen, a small village whose chief claim to fame was being the birthplace of Vincent van Gogh. No sooner had we departed Nuenen, than we encountered heavy fire from enemy tanks. The Germans destroyed several of our tanks and pinned down the company so quickly and tightly that we found it impossible to advance. Most of the men took cover in ditches adjacent to the road since we only had a few buildings that we could use as cover to set up and return fire. All we could do was to maintain fire until night. Then we broke off the fight and crawled back through the ditches until we could consolidate the company and return to Eindhoven. Nixon arrived late in the afternoon with enough trucks to haul the company back to town. The Germans had administered a tremendous beating to American paratroopers who had started the day fully confident.

  As soon as we returned to Eindhoven, the German air force gave the center of the city a terrific pounding. The image of that aerial and artillery bombardment remains seared in my mind to this day. The Dutch, who just that morning had been so happy to be liberated, and who had cheered us as we marched out toward Helmond, were now inside, closing their shutters, taking down their flags, looking dejected. It was a sad sight. They obviously felt that we were deserting them in the face of a determined enemy advance. Large fires continued burning in the town, and it wasn’t until the morning before Eindhoven’s residents brought the fires under control. To the population of this city, their world seemed to be coming to an end. We, too, felt badly, limping back to town. For the first time, Easy Company had been forced to retreat. Without sufficient armor support, our position was tactically impossible. Besides, we had ascertained the enemy location and determined their intention. I immediately settled the men down for the night and made my way to battalion headquarters to report. As I walked in, everybody seemed to be in a jovial mood and enjoying a scrumptious dinner. Lieutenant Colonel Strayer saw me, turned, and with a big smile asked, “How did it go today, Winters?”

  “Sir, I had fifteen casualties today and took a hell of a licking.”

  I wasn’t smiling either. Needless to say the mood of the party changed abruptly. The only good news concerning our recent engagement was the return of “Bull” Randleman the next morning. Randleman had been reported as missing in action. Wounded and cut off from the rest of Easy Company, he took refuge in a vacant barn and waited until nightfall. Before long, a German soldier entered the barn to scout it out. “Bull” bayoneted him and concealed the body with hay. Then he covered himself and hid until the following morning when he was rescued by soldiers from A and D Companies.

  Randleman was typical of the NCOs in Easy Company, and the fact that he had stood on his own two feet, behind enemy lines, and had not lost his composure said a lot about the company’s ability to function in combat. Private Tony Garcia, one of his squad members, described Randleman as “big and tough: tough not only against the Germans, but also in a milder way with his squad.” “Bull” talked slowly, but he had a commanding presence. If you needed to get the company up in the morning, you did not need a bugle. You just put Randleman in the middle of a field and told him to have everybody fall out. That was all you needed. No matter what kind of job you gave him, he got it done. He was extremely dependable. And the men loved him.

  After two days in defense, Easy Company received orders to mount its men on trucks and move toward Uden on “Hell’s Highway” in anticipation of a German attack. We were part of a two battalion–size force under command of Lieutenant Colonel Chase, the regimental executive officer. Easy Company only had sufficient trucks to carry half of the company, so I commanded the first serial. Captain Nixon and Lieutenant Welsh accompanied me as we approached Vechel. No sooner had we passed through Vechel en route to Uden, a scant four miles away, than the Germans severed the road in two places. Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, commanding the British XXX Corps whose mission it was to secure Hell’s Highway, later referred to the German attack as his “Black Friday.” The German assault also left us isolated. I turned to the men and said, “Men, there’s nothing to get excited about. The situation is normal. We are surrounded!” Together with three British tanks that were caught in town with us, we remained surrounded for the remainder of September 22 and for the next two days. I reported our dispositions to Colonel Chase, who immediately directed me to establish a defense in Uden. Roadblocks were set up on all roads entering Uden. To coordinate the defense, Nixon and I climbed the church tower. We climbed as high as we could go, to where the church bell was suspended. From here we could observe the battle taking place in the vicinity of Vechel.

  It was not long before we noticed a German patrol of platoon strength moving through an orchard on the southeast side of Uden. We ran down the tower and I grabbed a couple of rifle squads and sped off to intercept the patrol. We hit them hard and they withdrew. I returned to the tower to enjoy my catbird seat, watching enemy tanks approach Vechel under tactical air support from the Luftwaffe. I couldn’t believe that with all this action going on, no one was coming toward us at Uden, just a few miles away. The bliss of this front row seat did not last. A German patrol must have spotted Nixon and me, or, at least suspected that somebody was in that tower. They sent a long shot our way and it literally “rang our bell,” which was right over our heads. We came down the stairs of that tower so fast that our feet did not touch the steps more tha
n two or three times. After we hit the ground, we enjoyed a good laugh just thinking about how we must have looked coming down.

  At the road junction on the south end of Uden, I established a company strongpoint in a store adjacent to the road. The plan was simple: In case of attack, we would make a stand. If they brought tanks against us, we would drop composition C charges and Molotov cocktails on the tanks from the second-floor window as they passed the strongpoint. There was no talk of retreat or withdrawal and certainly nobody thought of surrender. That evening, around 2200, I decided to check all my roadblocks one last time before settling down for the night. Lieutenant Welsh was in charge of the roadblock on the northwest side of the town. On the left-hand side of the road junction, there was a large home that sat well back from the road. This would make a good command post (CP) for the roadblock, and that was where I had wanted the CP to be located. On the right-hand side of the road junction, there was a tavern. When I reached the road junction, I found a British Sherman tank in place, as we had agreed. However, I could not find a single Easy Company trooper in position. Damn mad, I went to the house where I had wanted the CP, figuring that everyone was inside. I knocked on the door, and a maid answered. I couldn’t speak Dutch; she couldn’t speak English. Somehow, she got the message that I wanted to see “a soldier.” She escorted me down a hallway and opened the door to a large, lavishly furnished living room. The sight that greeted my eyes left me speechless. Sitting on the floor, in front of a large, blazing fire in a fireplace, was a beautiful Dutch girl, sharing a dinner of eggs with a British lieutenant. She smiled, he turned, and over his shoulder asked me, “Are my tanks still outside?” My reply to that question did not improve Anglo-American relations.

  I returned to the road junction, went across the street, and found Welsh and his men sacked out on top of the bar at the tavern. Lieutenant Welsh and I sometimes had different priorities when it came to combat. Harry and I talked this whole situation over and I left, satisfied that we would have a roadblock set up to my specifications and that I could get a good night’s sleep without worrying about a breakthrough. We remained in defensive positions until the afternoon of September 24, when the rest of the 506th arrived in Uden. That afternoon, however, the Germans cut the road again, this time south of Vechel, just north of the village of Koevering.

  At 0300 the regiment was ordered to return from Uden back to Vechel in order to open the road again. In a heavy rain, the regiment launched an attack five hours later south of Vechel. Our battalion was initially in reserve, but by early afternoon Strayer committed 2d Battalion on a flanking action to the left. We had half a squadron of British tanks in support. Even with Easy Company in the lead, our advance was slow. Captain Nixon accompanied me as we scouted the terrain, planned, and executed each move of the flanking action. The pathway we selected was solid and firm, good traction for the tanks. On our right was a stand of woodland. The woodland cover ran out about 350 yards from the highway. To reach that highway, we had to cover 350 yards of open ground with absolutely no cover or concealment.

  I dispersed the company in the same formation I had used on entering Eindhoven: scouts out, two columns of men spread out, no bunching up. About halfway across the field, we suddenly encountered machine gun fire from German Royal Tiger tanks and troops from the 6th German Parachute Regiment. Everybody immediately hit the ground. I turned to my left rear where Staff Sergeant Guarnere was located and ordered mortar fire on those machine guns. Guarnere already was giving the range and direction to Sergeant Malarkey, who was in the process of setting up his 60mm mortar. Malarkey was the only man on that field at that point who was not flat on his stomach. Next, I ordered the machine guns to establish a base of fire on that roadway and also on the enemy tank that by now, we could all see, was dug in hull-defilade on the side of the road.

  While this action was occurring, I turned to check out Nixon, who was on my left side. He had a big smile on his face as he examined his helmet. A machine gun bullet from that initial burst had gone through the front of his helmet and grazed his forehead leaving only a brown mark on his forehead before exiting through the side of his helmet. The bullet never broke the skin. This stroke of luck meant that Nixon was one of the very few men of 2d Battalion who jumped in Normandy and went through the entire war without receiving at least one Purple Heart.

  From a personal standpoint, I would have been devastated had Nixon been killed. As a leader you do not stop and calculate your losses during combat. You cannot stop a fight and ask yourself how many casualties you have sustained. You calculate losses only when the fight is over. Ever since the second week of the invasion, casualties had been my greatest concern. Victory would eventually be ours, but the casualties that had to be paid were the price that hurt. In that regard Nixon seemed a special case.

  As different in temperament as Nixon and I were, he was the one man to whom I could talk. He provided an outlet that allowed me to unburden myself as a combat leader. “Nix” and I completely understood each other. We possessed a common understanding about leadership, of how troops should be employed, and how battles should be fought. On reflection, Nixon always seemed to be around. We had known each other from our days in Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning and at Toccoa, but our friendship was not cemented until Normandy. After the fight at Brecourt, I had requested additional ammunition for my men. When none arrived, I went to battalion headquarters myself, where I saw Colonel Strayer and his staff studying the map that I had found on one of the guns. I blew my top, which was totally inappropriate considering my rank. Nixon, however, was instrumental in obtaining that ammunition. Later, when we were aboard the LST returning from France, he approached me and asked that I deliver a lecture on leadership to the rest of the officers at battalion. That caught my attention. We remained good friends for the remainder of the war.

  My job now was to maintain that base of fire while we pulled the company back off that field. We did it by extracting the riflemen first. They then set up a base of fire while the machine gunners pulled back. I next went to the edge of the woods and climbed one of our tanks to talk nose to nose with the commander. I told him there was a Tiger tank, dug in hull-defilade, across the highway. I then suggested, “If you pull up behind the bank on the edge of the woods, you can be hull-defilade and you can get a shot at the Tiger.” I got off the tank, and the next thing that happened amazed everybody. The first tank, along with another tank to its left, plowed straight through the stand of trees, making a terrific roar on their way to the edge of the field. As the commander hit the edge of the field, he wheeled his tank to the left to line up for a shot on the Tiger. Wham! The Tiger laid a shot that left a crease in the Sherman’s cannon barrel and glanced off the hull. The British commander threw his tank in full reverse, just as the Tiger sent a second round dead center through the turret. The Sherman tank exploded, throwing out the commander. The Tiger made one more shot, dead center, and knocked out the second British tank. Several paratroopers rushed to the aid of the tankers, pulling wounded British soldiers from their vehicles. One of the tankers was missing his arm; another’s body was on fire. Such was the intensity of the fight.

  I now withdrew the company back into the edge of the woods. We continued to exchange machine-gun fire with the Germans along the road. Nixon brought up the 81mm mortars from battalion headquarters company and we raked the roadway until dark. The two British tanks continued to burn and ammunition continued to explode most of the night. During the night, I could hear the German tanks start their motors and move about. I was hoping they were pulling out. Nixon, somehow, found a bottle of schnapps and drank it all by himself.

  The next morning, September 26, Easy Company moved out. Without any resistance, we covered that same 350 yards to the highway. Either Malarkey’s 60mm or the battalion’s 81mm mortar fire had made a direct hit on one of the machine gun nests. One of the dead German troopers lying in the gun position had on a beautiful, brand-new pair of paratrooper-style boots. I needed
a new pair of boots by now, so I sat down and put the sole of my boot against the sole of his to compare sizes. Too bad—they were not big enough. We then marched back to Uden in the rain, not reaching the city until after dark. By now we were exhausted. The last ten days had been mighty tough. In the span of a week and a half, Easy Company had been in continuous combat and had sustained twenty-two casualties.

  8

  The Island

  Now that Uden was secured, Easy Company and the remainder of the 101st Airborne Division received orders to move to the “Island,” a long narrow area north of Nijmegen between the Lower Rhine and the Waal Rivers. The ground between the dikes of the two rivers was flat farmland, dotted with small villages and towns. The dikes along the rivers were twenty feet high and the fields were crisscrossed with drainage ditches that were covered with heavy vegetation. There were roads on the top of the dikes and narrow roadways through the adjoining farmland. The farming was concentrated and lush with fields of carrots, beets, and cabbages, interspersed with fruit orchards. For the upcoming operation the 101st Airborne Division was attached to the British XII Corps. On October 2, the 506th PIR moved by trucks over the bridge at Nijmegen and was the first unit of the 101st to move to the Island. Intelligence reported that the German 363d Volksgrenadier Division was in the vicinity, and received orders to clear the Island. The 363d Volksgrenadier Division had been cut up in Normandy, but now had been reinforced and was anxious to return to battle.

  The following day our regiment relieved the frontline positions held by the British 43d Wessex Infantry Division, which was covering a line of approximately six miles in length. The 43d Division had suffered heavy casualties in their attempt to seize the crossings of the Lower Rhine and to evacuate the British 1st Airborne Division that had jumped at Arnhem. As we approached the forward positions, the British Tommies were withdrawing in trucks. Taking a good look at them, I had never seen more thoroughly dispirited soldiers. Two weeks of combat had totally drained their morale and had thoroughly demoralized the troops. Colonel Strayer’s 2d Battalion now dispersed its line on the south bank of the Rhine, covering an area of over three miles in length, starting at a point one-half mile east of Heteren and extending two and a half miles west of Randwijk toward Opheusden. The 3d Battalion lay on our right flank with 1st Battalion in reserve. Easy Company held the right of the battalion line, with Dog Company on the left flank, and Fox Company in reserve. Colonel Strayer established battalion headquarters at Hemmen, a village just to the rear of our front lines. Each company had responsibility to cover one and one half miles of front, far in excess of the normal distance for company defensive positions. The line could only be covered by strategically placing outposts at the most likely avenues of enemy approach and where I calculated enemy infiltration would occur. Company headquarters would keep contact with these outposts by means of radio, wire, and contact patrols. I placed the second and third platoons on line and kept my first platoon in reserve. Easy Company’s entire complement of personnel consisted of five officers and 130 enlisted men present for duty.