Beyond Band of Brothers

by Major Dick Winters

  “Yes, sir, I would.”

  “You’ve got him.”

  And that is how Nixon returned to battalion staff. From a personal perspective, it was nice being reunited with Nix. His reassignment to my staff created a domino effect on regimental staff. Colonel Sink now transferred Captain Salve Matheson to be his operations officer and backfilled Matheson with Captain Sobel. As regimental logistical officer, Sobel was now in close contact with the company that he had prepared for combat. Seeing so many of his old officers serving in positions of increased responsibility must have been bittersweet for Sobel. Former Easy Company officers now commanded two of the regiment’s three battalions (Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Hester now commanded 1st Battalion) and they occupied two key positions at regiment (S-3 and S-4), as well as two positions on my staff (S-2 and S-3). Historian Ambrose is correct in stating that “Sobel must have been doing something right back in the summer of ’42 at Toccoa.”

  As we prepared for our next operation, for example, I could not help but be impressed by the professionalism demonstrated by many of the German prisoners in our midst. After working at the Mourmelon hospital all day, the prisoners marched back to their stockade at dusk. As they passed their American captors, the prisoners sang their marching songs with the pride and vigor only found in units that had bonded in combat. It was absolutely beautiful. I always looked forward to that time of day and made it a point to stop and listen to a defeated foe still united in comradeship. Amid the chaos and butchery of war, I told myself that I would always remember this beautiful moment. By God, these men were soldiers! Though I despised what the Nazi regime represented, I clearly recognized that unit pride transcended nationality and political systems.

  Recently promoted General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the 101st Airborne Division on March 15 and decorated the Screaming Eagles with the Presidential Unit Citation for action in the defense of Bastogne. In congratulating the division, Ike noted that it was a “great personal honor” to acknowledge the bravery and heroism of the American paratrooper. He wished us good luck and asked for God’s blessing as the war drew to a close. Amid much pomp and circumstance, General Taylor proudly received the award in an elaborate ceremony. At Taylor’s side as his senior aide stood none other than Lieutenant Norman Dike, Easy Company’s former commander. His presence hardly detracted from the ceremony since this was the first time in the history of the army that a full division had received this prestigious award. War Department regulations established the criteria that a unit was to receive the Presidential Unit Citation only if it had distinguished itself by conspicuous battle action of a character that would merit the award to an individual of the Distinguished Service Cross, the army’s second-highest award for valor. Ike’s normal policy was to limit unit citations to the smaller formations except in most unusual circumstances. Prior to his departure from the European Theater of Operations at the conclusion of the war, however, Eisenhower reconsidered his position and wrote General George C. Marshall that “the Army esprit de corps centers around a division much more than it does any other echelon. Consequently, the citation of particular battalions within a division does not mean as much to the soldier as a commendation to the division itself.” After the war, Eisenhower also recommended eight other divisions for the Presidential Unit Citation, but the 101st Airborne Division was the only one of four airborne divisions cited in the European Theater.

  A week prior to the Supreme Commander’s visit, General Omar Bradley telephoned Eisenhower that General John Millikin’s III Corps had captured an intact bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen. Eisenhower exploited the opportunity and quickly established a bridgehead over Germany’s last natural barrier. As the remainder of the Allied Expeditionary Force advanced to the Rhine, General George S. Patton, using the leading elements of the U.S. 5thInfantry Division, pushed his 3d U.S. Army across the Rhine near the small town of Oppenheim, midway between Worms and Mainz on the evening of March 22. The next evening, March 23, Field Marshal Montgomery launched Operation Varsity, a massive attack across the Rhine at Wesel with his entire 2d British Army. Though Ridgway’s XVIII Airborne Corps, of which the 101st Airborne Division was an integral part, had originally been slated to participate in the offensive, changes in the troop list resulted in William (Bud) Miley’s 17th Airborne Division being the only American airborne division participating in Montgomery’s highly touted offensive. The 101st was allowed to send observers, so I dispatched Captain Lewis Nixon.

  Fortunately, for Nixon, he was assigned to be jumpmaster of his aircraft. As he approached the drop zone, his plane was struck by heavy antiaircraft fire. Nixon and three other men made it out of the plane, but the rest were lost when the plane crashed. Nix remained with the 17th Airborne Division for one night and was then returned to 2d Battalion at Mourmelon on a special plane. Nix’s brush with death left him visibly shaken, particularly when at this stage in the war, no one intentionally put himself in danger now that victory was at hand. Captain Nixon found his usual retreat in alcohol that evening, but I was glad to see him safe. On a side note, Nixon’s jump with the 17th Airborne Division qualified him as one of two men in the 506th PIR eligible to wear three stars on his jump wings: Normandy, Holland, and Operation Varsity. The other trooper was a pathfinder by the name of Wright who had served in Easy Company at Toccoa.

  Rumors abounded within the United States as to what the now-famous Screaming Eagles were doing. One day after Varsity had bridged the Rhine River, we heard on the radio that the 101st Airborne Division had also jumped east of the Rhine. Mighty interesting! Wish they would have told me, so I could have taken the battalion along for the show.

  As we waited for word on our next combat mission, battalion duties kept me busy. I corresponded with my friend DeEtta Almon in the States and expressed my concerns and my observations of how the war had changed a young man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who had enlisted in the summer of 1941 to rid himself of a military commitment in as rapid a time as possible. In a photograph I had sent home, she noted that my hair was darker and that my forehead was wrinkled by “worry muscles.” I responded somewhat caustically that my hair was darker because I hadn’t had an opportunity to wash it but a couple times a year. As to the worry muscles covering my face, the longer this war continued, the deeper they would grow “for I now had over 600 individual worries plus myself when I got time to think about my future.” Nor did I have much tolerance for garrison soldiers who had not served in combat or soldiers who bragged about their wartime exploits to impress women. When DeEtta informed me that she had met a trooper from a rival regiment, my sarcasm reached new heights of intolerance. I wrote that, “It must have been interesting to hear what the lad had to say about what the paratroopers must go through. Terrible, I imagine. I’ll just bet that they run him to death . . . did he tell you about the time he killed three Germans with his bare hands? Or about the time he received a letter from his girl and he was so inspired that he went out and killed ten more of those dirty old krauts?” I guarantee I had heard all the stories.

  I certainly didn’t feel like writing anymore. I couldn’t explain why, but the only emotion that I could arouse were feelings of anger and after staying mad all day and half the night, I was just plain tired. Mad at what? Just about everything, for just about everything was done wrong or it wasn’t done perfectly. Since nothing but perfection was acceptable, I stayed mad. What struck me most was how damn tired I became by the end of each day and how difficult it was to concentrate. I now had people asking me questions about weapons, targets, harassing fire, grazing fire, chow, transportation, and base of fire. It never ended. I had no time to consider a person’s feelings or devotion to the point, or incidental matters. Combat required that my thoughts and feelings remain hard, cold, indifferent, and effective. As to any tender thoughts I might have possessed before the war, I had left them behind in the marshalling area in England. There was no room for trivialities. I did, occasionally, think about death. Sure, I
thought long and hard about the paratroopers who had paid the ultimate price, but there was no time to mourn them. Whether on the front line or in a rear area, I refused to lower my guard. Commanding a battalion required every ounce of energy that remained—no time to let up now that the war was drawing to a close.

  12

  Victory

  On April 1, Colonel Sink alerted 2d Battalion that the regiment had received another defensive mission, this time along the Rhine River to assist in sealing the Ruhr “pocket.” Our job was to hold the west bank of the Rhine opposite Dusseldorf and the area south to Worringen, while General Omar Bradley’s armies encircled and pinched off the pocket to the east. Second Battalion’s sector extended from Sturzelberg on the north to Worringen on our south flank, where we linked up with the 82d Airborne Division. The 82d Division’s paratroopers’ area extended ten or twelve miles north and south of Cologne, from Worringen on the north to Bonn on the south. Both airborne divisions were basically occupation troops, sending only harassing patrols and artillery fire across the river, and receiving occasional artillery fire in return. This occupation duty continued until the pocket collapsed on April 18. In the interim, we patrolled across the Rhine, although not with the intensity that characterized our combat at Bastogne. Occupation duty also produced our first real contact with the native German population and with the problems associated with fraternization. Eisenhower’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was adamant on the point of no association between American GI’s and the German populace. With so many camps populated with displaced persons (DP) of various nationalities who had been brought into the Fatherland for slave labor, nonfraternization proved a pipe dream. None of our soldiers performed much manual labor since the DP did most of the menial tasks and irritating duties like KP associated with soldiering. The orders prohibiting personal contact were well-intentioned, but totally unrealistic, particularly to soldiers who had spent months on the line with no female contact. As battalion commander, I strove to enforce the regulation, but was never so naïve to think that my paratroopers didn’t develop innovative ways to circumvent SHAEF’s policy.

  As we waited for the Germans encircled in the Ruhr pocket to capitulate, my battalion received orders to send a patrol across the Rhine. The area I selected lay directly across the river from Sturzelberg. This was the safest area in our sector. On the German side of the river, we had observed no activity and the farmland on the opposite shore was covered by an extensive orchard. Lieutenant Harry Welsh, Battalion S-2, was given the job of leading the patrol and I personally set the objectives and controlled the covering artillery concentrations as I accompanied the patrol step by step up the east bank of the river toward the industrial center of Benrath. Welsh was thoroughly disgusted with the safety limits I purposely imposed on the patrol, but I had no intention of losing any more soldiers. Actually we went through the motions of a combat patrol, found nothing, and everybody returned safely. The most dangerous part of the patrol was crossing the Rhine and returning since the river was 350 yards wide and flowing very swiftly.

  I also toured a small town named Zons on our side of the river. Zons was a typical German village, founded in the early fifteenth century. All of the buildings, the castle, and walls were constructed of stone, and a moat surrounded the castle. I wondered how many times this town had been under attack over the past 550 years. After all the destruction that I had witnessed, I was elated that Zons had not been destroyed by the air corps or by artillery fire. In contrast to the small villages that dotted the German countryside, Allied bombers had obliterated the large cities like Cologne. Months of bombardment left only a few houses standing in the entire city. Much of the population fled to the countryside and the few who remained in the large urban areas wandered around in the rubble in search of food and personal possessions. Cities that I had read about in travel journals when I was young simply no longer existed. During the early stages of the war, German residents could scarcely imagine how terrible war could be. They now appreciated the horrors of modern warfare as they witnessed their own cities crumble around them.

  In the countryside the Germans fared far better than their urban counterparts and much better than the inhabitants in the countries in which we had fought since D-Day. The rural Germans weren’t hurting for much during this war, but who would expect them to with France, Poland, and a handful of other countries supplying them with silk stockings, raw materials, and other amenities. What a contrast to the English, who rationed virtually every commodity since early in the war. In my estimation, the people in Germany had not suffered nearly as much as our newspapers had led us to believe. German towns and villages were really something to behold. I never had seen anything like them in England, France, or Belgium. On the whole, military duty in Germany wasn’t half bad. The battalion moved into a town, picked the best house, told the folks, “I’ll give you a reasonable time to move—fifteen minutes. Leave the beds, silverware, and cooking utensils.” At the end of the reasonable length of time, 2d Battalion had a nice command post and if time permitted a good meal, bed, and bath. What a great way to fight a war! Occupation duty was much better than Normandy, Holland, or Bastogne, where we lived in foxholes most of the time. Now that we were playing ball in their backyard, a fellow gained a degree of satisfaction in knowing that these people were going to pay for bringing on the war. They knew it, too. After seeing what others had endured at the hands of German occupiers, I was hardly sympathetic to the plight of the German people.

  On April 10, the majority of the battalion received a seven-day furlough to Nice, France. While they enjoyed the amenities of the French countryside, the 506th continued sending out periodic patrols. On one of these patrols, Lieutenant Purdue from Fox Company was wounded by a booby trap and was immediately evacuated. That same day, Major William Leach, 506th Regimental S-2, led his first combat patrol. In preparation for the patrol, Leach persuaded my friend Sergeant Al Krochka, a photographer from division headquarters, to fly a small Piper cub over the Rhine for photos of a suspected machine gun emplacement. The plane was hit and Krochka was wounded in the arm by fire from the machine gun. That night, Major Leach and four men attempted to cross the river. Unfortunately they failed to notify Friendly forces that they would be crossing the Rhine. Midstream, Leach and his patrol were fired upon by an American machine gun crew and all were killed. Their bodies were recovered on April 18 in front of Fox Company’s position at Sturzelberg.

  Leach was a good staff officer who made his way up the ladder of success on the strength of his personality and social expertise. During the crunch times—this Ruhr pocket duty was nothing more than police duty—Leach had never led a patrol. Like Lieutenant Hank Jones at Haguenau, he had not yet earned a battlefield decoration, and like Jones, Major Leach planned to make the army a career. Jones survived his initial brush with combat and was immediately transferred out of the company, but Leach was not as fortunate. The common feeling after his death was that this was a foolish patrol, and that Leach was on an “ego trip,” trying to earn a stupid decoration. In the process he got his entire patrol killed. Six days later, German resistance in the Ruhr pocket came to an end when 325,000 German soldiers surrendered on April 18. This was the largest bag of enemy prisoners in the war to date.

  By mid-April, the war in Western Europe neared a rapid conclusion. Even the Germans realized that the war was over. They battled on only because they were professional soldiers. As we prepared for the final push, the battalion received word that President Roosevelt had died on April 12. Roosevelt was more than a fixture in our lives. He was the only president most of us could remember. Every American soldier in the U.S. Army held the commander-in-chief in utmost respect. Few were familiar with his successor, Harry S. Truman, but none doubted that the new president would see the war to a successful conclusion. By General Eisenhower’s orders, each command conducted a simple memorial service for our fallen commander-in-chief. In the interim, 2d Battalion received badly nee
ded supplies. April 19 marked an important day as each paratrooper received a new pair of socks, three bottles of Coca-Cola, and two bottles of beer. Life now was a far cry from what the men had experienced at Bastogne and Haguenau. For the most part the farther that we traveled into Germany, the better we lived. One trooper noted that for the past month, he had never eaten better, kept cleaner, or slept in more comfortable beds than at any other time in the twenty months that he had been overseas. Rations also improved. Instead of eating K-rations, the men enjoyed fresh eggs for breakfast six days in a row. Staff Sergeant Robert Smith joked that if living conditions continued like this for the remainder of the war, he “might sign up to be a thirty-year man.” On careful reflection, he then wrote, “What am I saying? Someone must have jabbed a morphine needle in me.”

  Three days later, the entire 101st Airborne Division was en route to Bavaria as Allied headquarters attached the division to Lieutenant General Alexander Patch’s Seventh (U.S.) Army in southern Germany in its advance to secure Hitler’s “Alpine Redoubt.” Whether Hitler ever intended to fortify the Bavarian Alps was anyone’s guess, but Eisenhower wasn’t taking any chances. We left our defensive positions along the Rhine and boarded 40' x 8' (cars designed to carry either forty men or eight horses) railroad cars. Supply also issued five K-rations per man. Due to the conditions of the German railroad system at the time, the rail convoy trip of 145 miles traversed four countries: Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France to reach Widden, Germany. On April 25, we switched modes of transportation and climbed aboard big, amphibious vehicles called DUKWs: D (1942), U (amphibian), K (all-wheel drive), W (dual-rear axles) to carry us to the vicinity of Miesbach southeast of Munich. We traveled through the German countryside, continuing our journey through Mannheim and Heidelberg until we reached Ulm. At Ulm astride the Danube River, we stopped to gas the DUKWs and then proceeded to Buchloe, which lay at the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. There we halted for the night because once again the convoy was low on fuel. Our standard operating procedure was to dispatch reconnaissance patrols whenever we halted. Earlier in the day, Frank Perconte, one of the original Toccoa men from Easy Company, reported that he and his patrol had discovered a German concentration camp. The 10th Armored Division had entered Landsberg the previous day and had also come across several concentration camps in the Landsberg-Buchloe area. Later we discovered Hitler had constructed six large “work camps” in the vicinity.