A Company of Heroes

by Marcus Brotherton

  With Old Friends

  How should Ron Speirs be remembered? Toward the end of the war, Ron wrote Forrest Guth a lengthy letter on June 11, 1945, after Guth had won a lottery to be sent home to the States. This to me indicates how much he cared for each of his men individually. It’s four pages long, full of chatty news, and doesn’t say much other than, “You’re not missing anything.”

  Guth wrote to Ron on June 11, 2006, the exact date sixty-one years later. Arguably the best line from Guth’s letter refers to the original letter sent by Ron. “The letter helped me to endure the loneliness of not being with my old friends,” wrote Guth.

  The last years of Ron’s life were extremely difficult, to see this man who had been such a warrior and leader of men deteriorate like he did. I don’t know if he was ever formally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but my biological father died of Alzheimer’s, and I’m pretty sure that’s what Ron had, too. To see his deterioration was extremely painful for the whole family. We were pretty much on call 24-7 in the last days until he passed.

  Ron will be remembered by many people for his actual as well as his rumored deeds during WWII.

  To our family, he will simply be remembered as a loving husband, father, stepdad, grandfather, and great-grandfather. We miss him greatly.

  PART IV

  EASY COMPANY’S FALLEN

  THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LAST FULL MEASURE OF DEVOTION

  21

  BILL EVANS

  Interview with Kelly Mears, great-niece, With information from Margie Evans Kavanaugh, sister, Melba Evans, sister-in-law, Stan Evans, nephew, Ann Evans Biundo and Joan Carroll Varsek, nieces

  My great-uncle, William Stanton Evans, wasn’t liked very much when he was in the Army. I realize that from what I’ve read, and also from what’s been said about him. Even my grandmother admitted that his personality could be grating at times.

  Still, he was family. He was our family. And he had people who loved him—namely us. He was the brother of my grandfather, Larry Evans. My dad was born a couple of months after D-day and was named Stanton in his honor.

  I never met my great-uncle, as he was gone long before I was born, but I’ve felt a strange kinship with him over the years. I grew up hearing stories about him, about how he was an accountant who worked at the Houston Ship Channel before the war and could have been deferred from active duty if he had wanted out. My grandmother said he volunteered for the service so his brothers, who had children, might not have to go to war. I knew he was a paratrooper in WWII and was killed on D-day when the plane he was in was shot down, but I never knew that he was part of an elite group of soldiers until the movie Band of Brothers came out.

  A while back it dawned on me that if I ever wanted to know more about my great-uncle, there was no time to lose. Today’s veterans aren’t getting any younger. I knew very little about military history, but began looking for information about him in earnest. I talked with family members, pored through pictures and journals, contacted other Easy Company members who knew him, and tracked down various archival documents from courthouses, university records, and the military.

  This is what I found.

  The Roustabout Accountant

  William Stanton Evans was born July 16, 1910, in San Antonio, Texas, the fourth of nine children (six boys and three girls). While the family usually called him Stanton, he preferred to be called Bill, which is how he was known in the Army. I call him Stanton throughout this essay to reflect the name he was most called by family members.

  His parents, Thomas (Tim) Evans and Grace Purcell, were Irish Catholics who spent much of their childhoods in Mexico, since both their fathers were construction engineers for railroads being built from Texas into Mexico. His parents met in San Antonio and married in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1905. After they married, the family lived in Mexico City and San Antonio and often traveled between the locations. All the children, including Stanton, were born in San Antonio, except the youngest.

  Tim, their father, was well educated and a stern father. His daughter Margie described him as “intellectual, a good speaker, proud of his family, very religious, impatient, and unforgiving.” She described her mother as “loving, kind, generous, and patient.” Margie was twelve years younger than Stanton and remembers him as a big brother she could go to. “He was handsome, always warm, and encouraged you to do what you wanted to do in life,” she said. After high school Margie joined a convent and became a Dominican nun.

  Mike Evans, Stanton’s nephew, interviewed Stanton’s brother, Walter, in the 1980s, who recounted some colorful stories of the Evans family early years: Around 1914, Tim (the father) moved his family to Mexico City and went to work for a brokerage firm (E.E. Denight) based in Laredo, Texas. His agency represented Dodge, Cadillac, Jefferson, and other automobile companies. All autos sold in Mexico went through this agency. When Americans were forced to leave Mexico during the revolution, he and his family came out on an embassy train. Soldiers came with them on flatbed cars to protect them. During the trip, much fighting occurred. Many times they needed to dive to the floor as bullets came through the train car. Tim took the family back to Texas to live on a ranch in Premont, owned by his sister.

  Grace (the mother) often told a story about their life while living in Mexico after the revolution began. It seems that the revolutionaries were hunting down and killing people of the church, especially priests. She and her husband lived in an old adobe house with the high walls and flat roof. Many times they put a ladder up to the roof, hid the priests and children on the roof first, then followed them up, pulling the ladder behind them. It is not known how many priests they hid or for how long, but it is clear that if they had been caught they would have been killed.

  Stanton was ten years old in 1920 when the family moved to Houston. By then, his father had been hired to establish the Foreign Trade Department for the Houston Chamber of Commerce. His father eventually served as consul to nine Latin American countries and was instrumental in making Houston a major port. They were one of the first families to settle in the city of Southside Place, an enclave then on the western outskirts, but now close to downtown Houston. Tim was its first mayor, and served three terms.

  In Houston, Stanton and his brothers often played at a neighborhood park. It had a big pool, tennis courts, and lots of room for ball games. The family ate dinner together every night, and table manners were stressed. After dinner, dishes, and homework, the children were permitted to relax in the living room with their parents. They were a close-knit family, and remained so even as the children grew up.

  The Evans boys were all athletes. Stanton was a skilled diver and swimmer, and taught diving and swimming at the neighborhood pool when he was older. Melba Evans, who married one of Stanton’s brothers, remembered the fun times they all had going to dinner, or just staying in, playing cards and shooting the bull.

  Stanton and his five brothers all went to St. Thomas, a Catholic high school in Houston, where he was on the football team. I talked to the archivist at St. Thomas, who confirmed that Stanton graduated in 1928. The archivist sent me copies of some of his report cards, and I’d say my great-uncle was not a scholar. He also needed to take summer school to graduate. He and his brother Walter were a year apart in age, but for some reason, they were in the same class at St. Thomas. Stanton’s first job as a young man was delivering milk.

  Records show a one-year gap between high school graduation and Stanton’s enrollment in Texas A&M University, known then as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. The A&M Office of Admissions and Records confirmed that he attended from July 18, 1929, to June 20, 1930, with a major in petroleum production engineering. I asked them to double-check the major, because it was Stanton’s brother Walter who later worked in the petro-chemical industry. They confirmed that Walter’s major was liberal arts and that he attended from 1928-1929. I think perhaps the records may have been mixed up somehow, but that’s what they sent.

  Stanton’s attendance at A&M
counted as prior military service, giving him the experience to become a first sergeant right after enlisting in 1942.

  After college, he worked for Harris County in the purchasing department, where he worked for most of the 1930s. He was listed as such in at least two of the city directories. His sister-in-law, Melba Evans, remembered him later being a CPA for Harris County. She said that when war first broke out, he got a job with the Houston Shipbuilding Company doing accounting work.

  Documents from the Harris County District Court show that Stanton married LaVon Ruth Hyett on June 20, 1935, in Houston. She was born January 5, 1915, and lived in the same area of Houston as he did. Her family was listed in the 1930 census in West University, which is the neighborhood next to Southside Place.

  Apparently LaVon was not well-liked by the Evans family, but Margie, Stanton’s sister, doesn’t remember why. We have a family photograph from 1938 that includes Stanton and LaVon together. Stanton and LaVon had no children, and their divorce was finalized on June 11, 1940. I received copies of the divorce papers, and suffice to say, it was pretty messy. I don’t think it would serve much purpose to air Stanton’s dirty laundry after so many years, and I wouldn’t want to hurt any of our or LaVon’s family. The Texas Death Index and Social Security Death Index show that LaVon later remarried a man by the last name of Montgomery. She died August 15, 1987, in Houston.

  My dad mentioned that Stanton was considered something of a “roustabout,” and often got into fights at bars. Stanton’s brother Walter recounted to his daughter, Ann, that if you went to a bar and a fight broke out, go look for Stanton and get him out, because he probably started it. Stanton’s dental records note that he was missing eight teeth on the left side of his face, which might make sense if he was in a lot of fights with right-handed guys.

  Plane 66

  My grandmother, Melba Evans, and Stanton’s niece, Mary Carroll Rigoni (whose sixteenth birthday was on D-day), both confirmed that Stanton decided to join the Army because his younger brothers had joined, and he wasn’t going to stay home while they were fighting in the war. He was working for the Todd Houston Shipbuilding Corporation (its proper name) in 1941-1942, and was eligible for a deferment from military service, since they were building Liberty ships, vital to the war effort. He was older when he enlisted—thirty-two.

  Melba added that Stanton also volunteered for the Army because he was single and didn’t want his brothers who had children to be among those drafted. She said he was a brilliant man and very partial to his nieces and nephews. She called him “a tough little guy.” (The Evans boys were all kind of short; Stanton’s enlistment record lists him as five-foot-seven). Melba said that he looked forward to finishing his Army service and going back to work at the Harris County courthouse and a normal life.

  His sister Margie noted that before being shipped out Stanton made a point of visiting everyone in his family, including his sister Genevieve and her family in Illinois. Margie said the visits were very important to him. Genevieve’s daughter, Mary, said that they have old home movies of that visit. When Stanton arrived, he was all taped up from a recent bar-room brawl. She remembers him watering the cabbage in their victory garden with his drink.

  Stephen Ambrose writes about how Sergeant William Stanton Evans was one of the first NCOs to come up through the ranks while the men were still training at Camp Toccoa. You had to be tough and a capable leader to make it as an NCO, so I know my great-uncle had a lot of the right stuff in him. He was considered a favorite of the controversial Captain Herbert Sobel, which might have made the men not like him much, and Ambrose notes that “Sobel and Evans played men off against one another, granting a privilege here, denying one there.”32 Once, Sobel and my great-uncle snuck through the company of men as they slept, stealing their rifles to teach them a lesson. They called the company together the next morning, but to their great embarrassment, they had gotten lost and collected rifles from Fox Company instead. Another time, he and Sobel inspected the barracks, looking for contraband, which didn’t help make friends. My great-uncle refused to participate in the NCO mutiny against Sobel.

  Some men from the company apparently did like and respect him. Winters writes how Sergeant Leo Boyle married a girl while in Aldbourne, and my great-uncle served as his best man.33 Marci Carson wrote to say she found my great-uncle’s name in the journal of her father-in-law, Sergeant Gordon Carson, listed as one of his buddies.

  On D-day, Stanton flew to Normandy in a plane with the rest of the company headquarters men, including Thomas Meehan, then the Easy Company commander. It was the lead plane. Winters notes that the plane was hit with antiaircraft fire near the drop zone. Bullets came up through the plane’s undersides and threw sparks out the top. After being hit, the plane’s landing lights came on, as if it was going to land, then it did a slow wingover to the right as it approached the ground. It appeared they were going to make it, but then the plane hit a hedgerow and exploded, killing everybody on board.34

  Easy Company member Pat Christenson wrote about the experience in his journal:D-Day, June 6, 1944. Company E Headquarters plane was carrying a lot of explosives and when hit by antiaircraft fire a chain reaction may have taken place causing the plane to disintegrate killing everyone in the airplane. The airplane was piloted by Harold A. Cappelluto, its identification No. 66.

  Forty-four years later the dog tags of 1st Sergeant William Evans and PFC William T. McGonigal were found in Normandy, France, by a farmer.

  Family members don’t remember the specifics of when or how the family was notified about the plane crash, but the news came as a shock. My grandmother, Melba, Stanton’s sister-in-law, was pregnant at the time, and when they heard the news, it was so upsetting that she went into labor prematurely. Fortunately, the contractions stopped, and her baby, my dad, was born a few months later. He was the one named in honor of his uncle. Records show that the family was notified that Stanton was missing in action soon after D-day, and a telegram confirming his death arrived on November 11, 1944.

  Margie said that, of the three Evans sons in the service, their mother feared the most for Stanton, in part because being a paratrooper was so new back then. Margie said her father took his son’s death hard, but that his mother took it really bad. His mother kept thinking her son was still alive someplace and would turn up again one day. It took her years to accept his death.

  I received Stanton’s Army Individual Deceased Personnel File and it mentioned only that his personal effects were returned. His effects consisted of an envelope with letters, photographs, and a billfold. The rest of the file consisted of dental records and numerous correspondences back and forth between Stanton’s father and the Army about the return of his remains. Apparently, Army regulations stipulated that all bodies involved in group burials be returned to the U.S. and buried in whichever National Cemetery was most central to all the families involved. Since the plane held soldiers from all over the country, the bodies from Plane 66 were buried in St. Louis, considered a central location of the United States.

  To Help His Men

  How would I want people to remember him?

  I asked this question of my grandmother and Stanton’s sister. Melba said simply that he was a good guy and was always willing to help anybody.

  Margie, his sister, said she would want people to know that she loved him very much, and that he was someone who really wanted to serve his country and do the right thing. She said he was probably mean as hell, but was that way only to help his men.

  Sergeant William Stanton Evans was my great-uncle, a cherished part of our family. I wish I had known him. I thank him for his role in preserving our freedom.

  22

  TERRENCE “SALTY” HARRIS

  Interview with Brady Turner, nephew

  I never met my uncle. Growing up, we always knew that my mom, Annette Harris Turner, had a brother in WWII, that he was a paratrooper, and that he was killed in Normandy. For years, that’s about all I ever knew about Terrence “S
alty” Harris.

  After my mom passed away, I thought, “Well shoot, it’s a shame if I never find out more information about my uncle.” So I started to search for his name. It’s about all I had to go on at first. His name led me to information about the Colville American Cemetery and Memorial in Normandy. It listed his unit. I sent an e-mail to Tom Potter, son of George Potter, one of the original Band of Brothers, and information started pouring in. It was jaw-dropping. Letters and e-mails and notes came back, parts of journals and diaries. I live in Alaska and traveled down to California to poke around in my parents’ old cedar chest. My uncle had also grown up in Santa Monica. I found this old photo album I had never seen before. It had pictures of Mom at UC-Berkeley, where she attended in the war years, of her brother in a paratrooper uniform, and of him in Europe. There were letters, too, which provided a wealth of information. I ended up flying out to the Atlanta Easy Company reunion. A few of the vets brought photos of Salty Harris that they passed around.

  This is what I found out about my uncle’s life:

  The Sobel Mutiny

  My uncle had been in Annapolis, the United States Naval Academy, prior to the Army, but resigned from Annapolis under the pressure of accumulated demerits. Starting off as a Navy man is how he got the nickname Salty.