Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends

by William Guarnere

  We ran into Lieutenant Winters; he had about a dozen men with him, and we starting moving toward our objective to secure the causeways. Guys were joining up from the 82nd, 501st, 502nd, all different outfits. Some stayed, some left, some went and hid in a barn. Everyone was looking for their outfit. No one knew what was going on. There was lots of confusion. Lipton joined up, and Winters led the way to Pouppeville.

  About four a.m., it was pitch dark, we heard something coming toward us getting louder and louder. A German supply train came into view—wagons, pull carts, donkeys, horses, dogs. They must have been pulling supplies up to the front. They made all kinds of noise, clip-clop-clip-clop. Sounded like they had bells ringing, too. They had to be stupid making all that damn noise. Thinking back, they were probably conscripted troops, not the elite soldiers. Jesus Christ, you got a million paratroopers all over the place and they’re walking around singing a song. They didn’t know we were there, and we hid behind hedgerows to ambush them. I was ready to kill them all. I had my Tommy gun ready, and I told Malarkey to get the hell out of my way. I was like possessed. They got past us, and we had them trapped. I let loose, started shooting from the rear to the front and back again, annihilated every last one. I took my vengeance out on those sons of bitches. I shot everything I saw that day. People ask if your first kill is hard. It was easy as squashing a bug. I released a lot of anger.

  In the movie, Dick Winters orders us to hold fire, and I start shooting. If it happened that way, I don’t remember, but it could have. I had so much anger I might have turned around and shot him if he tried to stop me. I wanted to shoot every German son of a bitch I laid eyes on. No one could have controlled me. To tell Malarkey, one of my best buddies, to get the hell out of my way, that tells you. It was kill or be killed, period. Another thing, I respected Winters as an officer, but no one proved themselves in combat yet. You don’t know who’s going to get you killed, make good decisions, bad decisions. He was a good leader in training, but combat could be a different story. I didn’t know if Winters would kill. He was a Quaker. Quakers don’t believe in violence. Winters didn’t drink or smoke. He didn’t curse. He was squeaky clean. He wasn’t our company commander, nobody knew where the company commander Lieutenant Meehan was. We didn’t know Meehan’s plane was shot down until later. Your company commander can get you through, or get you all killed. I saw it this way: We got rid of Sobel before D-day—strike number one; then Lieutenant Meehan takes over the company just before D-day, and he’s nowhere to be found—strike number two; now we’ve got Winters, a Quaker—strike number three. This was a quick change of command, bing-bang-boom. I thought, We’re all gonna die.

  In Ambrose’s book, he says two wagons got away and we took prisoners. Nobody got away that I know of, and we didn’t take prisoners. If you took prisoners, you had to guard them. Who was going to guard them? Our mission just started, and our orders were no prisoners. Meehan gave the order in England.

  Right after we blew away the supply train, a French woman came out and screamed, “Why did you kill the horses?” I yelled back at her, “They’re German horses!” You’re not trying to kill the animals, but it’s war.

  We joined up with about forty kids from Dog Company, and Nixon and Hester from battalion headquarters, they had forty more men. We didn’t know a few hundred yards away in St. Come-du-Mont the Germans had four 105mm cannons pointed toward Utah Beach. Our men were perfect targets. We weren’t told this until we got there, but the sides of the roads were mined and flooded. They had Rommel’s Asparagus, like railroad spikes with points sticking up that went right through your body. That was for the gliders and seaborne troops. Unless you landed on it when you jumped, it would go right up your ass. It was one hell of a mess. So the troops had to stay on the road for the higher ground, and the Germans had them zeroed in.

  Headquarters didn’t know about that German battery. A lot of things they didn’t know. We had to take everything as it came at us. When the tide rose, and the troops started coming in from the coast about seven or eight in the morning, the Germans started blowing away the troops on the beach and we learned where they were. They were firing continuously, we had no trouble finding them.

  The battery was at Brecourt Manor; it had a huge field in front of it, lots of property, with hedgerows all around. The hedgerows in Normandy were bad news. They were like cement walls, branches all entwined, they were growing for seven hundred years. They were thick, ten feet high, six feet wide; the things were everywhere. This wasn’t like you see at home. You couldn’t see over them, you couldn’t jump over them, tanks couldn’t get through them. A tank had to have a special plow, like a big iron fork, to cut through. Good places for the Germans to dig in and hide, but it ain’t easy fighting. Good for defense, not for offense. We were told about the hedgerows in the marshaling area, yes, but they said they were a few feet high, like you could jump over the damn things.

  The krauts were dug into a long, winding, trench system along a line of trees, like an L-shape. The whole thing was well hidden. Could have been one gun, five, or fifteen in there. No one knew nothing. The only thing we knew was that Easy Company had orders to attack. With the nucleus of our company missing, they needed men to fill positions. We got promotions on the spot. We had no captain, no headquarters, I had no idea where my platoon sergeant Jimmy Diel was. They made Winters commander, he made me 2nd Platoon sergeant, Malarkey took over the mortar squad. A lot of promotions were made on the battlefield.

  We had about eleven E Company men—Winters, Compton, Malarkey, Toye, Gerald Lorraine, Popeye Wynn, Lipton, Ranney, Plesha, Petty, and me. The frontal approaches to the guns were wide open, so we had to attack from the flank. Winters laid out a plan to attack the first gun closest to our position. We had to run about a couple hundred yards down an open field; we were an easy target for German machine guns covering the trench from across the field. They had them in the front and rear. The krauts wouldn’t expect an attack over an open field. We had to lay down enough mortar and machine-gun fire to keep them from raising their heads. I had the mortar, but I couldn’t find the base plate, so I put it between my legs and started shooting. We were doing like we did in training: Fire the mortar till we run out of ammo, then the machine guns open up on the flanks to keep the krauts’ heads down, then we advance under cover of machine-gun fire. Plesha and Petty were on the machine guns, and Lipton and Ranney were covering us from the flanks. Lipton went up in a tree in the middle of the field, a skinny tree, you couldn’t miss him. Nobody told him to, he did it himself. The Germans were so busy with us, they didn’t have time to see him. You do stupid things, you’re so full of vim and vigor, you don’t care. Afterward you say, Holy Christ.

  Winters picked me, Compton, and Malarkey to hit the first gun. We had to crouch down and run across the field. Winters, Toye, and Lorraine were coming up from the rear. We spread out, but stayed close enough we could see each other. Luckily, the Germans stayed down. You would hide, too! There was fire coming at them from three sides. A hedgerow and trees were blocking the trench, so we didn’t know what we were going to find, how many Germans we were going to come face-to-face with. My heart was pounding. It was scary. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing yet, either. Nobody did. But we didn’t really give a damn.

  Compton reached the trench, burst through the hedgerow, and tried to shoot a Thompson he picked up after the jump, but it didn’t work, so he threw it. The barrel was bent. The British made a bunch of guns—they called them grease guns, they were cheap Tommy guns. They got so hot, they wouldn’t fire, so you unscrewed the barrel and pissed on it or put it in water to cool it down. That’s what Compton had. I jumped in the trench right behind him, and we started lobbing grenades. The Germans ran like hell down the trench in the other direction. Winters and the other guys were right behind us, and all of us started lobbing grenades and shooting everything we had. Tossing grenades and attacking, it was stupid, but we did it so quick, so fast, they thought an entire company
was attacking. We caught them with their pants down. When they ran down the trench, we saw there were a lot more of them than we thought. About forty of them manning the 105s, plus the machine gunners on the flanks. They were all firing at us. Next thing we knew, Popeye Wynn got shot in the ass and fell—two years of working and the first day in combat, bang, you blink your eyes and you’re done. We didn’t let up, we kept chasing the krauts, shooting and shouting. They were firing at us, too. It was chaos. I was raring to take out those Germans. You get the strength of an ox on the battlefield; your adrenaline’s going, you’re hyperalert, you see, hear, and smell everything. Your movements are quick, your body is in survival mode. You don’t think, you react.

  A kraut threw a grenade at us, and we all took a forward dive, and it landed between Joe Toye’s legs. Winters hollered at him, and Toye jumped, and the grenade exploded on Toye’s rifle. He was lucky, the rifle took the brunt of it. Otherwise he’d be singing soprano. He got sprayed with some wooden splinters, but he was okay. We chased the Germans, throwing grenades and shooting, and they started jumping out of the trench and running down the field. Me, Winters, and Lorraine started shooting. They got two of them, I missed my target. I never missed! Never missed! But I made up for it. That kraut was full of bullets when I got done with him. No one got away.

  We got down low and ran to the second gun. The krauts kept firing those machine guns so we had to stay low. That’s when Malarkey ran out in the field because he thought he saw a Luger on a dead kraut. He was a Luger nut. I guess he wanted to give it to someone at home, but he almost got himself killed. How he lived through it, I’ll never know. It wasn’t a Luger either, the dummy! I’ll tell you something about Malarkey, he was the best of the best, an expert marksman, a great soldier. But he ran out in a field with ten machine guns firing at us, that’s how bad he wanted a Luger. I think he wound up with about seventy German guns by the time the war was over.

  Winters had to call headquarters for ammo, guns, and backup. We didn’t even think about what we had, we were so gung-ho, we threw everything at them, and it was almost too late when we realized it. We charged the third gun, firing at them, them firing at us. We had to make sure every shot or grenade counted, because if we ran out, we were done. We were under constant fire. I don’t know how more of us didn’t get hit. We had a kid named Hall with us; he was one of the kids who couldn’t find his company. His head must have gone above the ditch, and bang, a sniper got him, killed him instantly. But we kept going and captured the third gun. Nothing we could do. Wrong place, wrong time. You thank God it’s not you, and you wonder if you’re next, but you don’t have time to think about it. You learn real fast about war. Men drop dead right in front of you, and you better keep moving. You don’t get used to it, believe me. But it’s war, kid. You can’t be affected, or you’re dead. Later, when you’re alone with your thoughts, you can think back to all the men you lost, and then it hits you.

  Winters had to make sure the Germans didn’t come back and use the guns, so Captain Hester and Nixon came from headquarters with TNT and blew the barrels and breeches apart. I think we tried grenades first, but they didn’t even scratch it.

  Lt. Ronald Speirs and some men from Dog Company came down to reinforce us. Speirs went right in to take the fourth gun, and I was so hyped up, I followed right behind him, covered him from the rear. Speirs was as nutty as I was. He sent the Germans fleeing, and took the gun, but he lost two men.

  I picked up some field binoculars and was looking over a hedge at the German machine-gun positions on the flanks, and I fell sound asleep in the ditch. After all the chaos, if you stop moving, the adrenaline leaves you, and you poop out. Joe Toye smacked me in the back of the head, he thought I was dead, and I jumped ten feet in the air. He scared the hell out of me, and I scared the hell out of him! Jesus Christ, I felt like I slept for ten days. We were awake for two days at that point, and had nine or ten hours of straight combat. When you thought you had nothing left, I have no idea how, but you kept moving.

  We killed a lot of Germans, wounded a lot, and got a lot of information on the Germans’ positions, where their supplies were coming from, what outfit we were fighting. Winters grabbed hold of maps that showed where they were, where the machine guns were, everything. Probably helped us in future battles. For what we accomplished, we were lucky, and they had to be stupid. We didn’t know there were forty, fifty of them, and they didn’t know there was just a few of us. They thought it was a bigger force coming at them. They weren’t ready; we hit them at the right time and place. It was a normal maneuver we done in training over and over. No guesswork involved.

  We saved the lives of the kids coming in on the beachheads. We saved quite a few. We got a letter from a guy who came in on the beach and thanked us for knocking out the guns. I think the 4th Division wrote in their history they came in and knocked out the guns, and that was squashed real fast.

  We had one hell of a baptism of fire. I got a lot of kills. When it was all over, I got the shakes pretty bad. I thought, What the hell did I just do? You don’t realize what you’re doing. It felt like it didn’t happen. During the action, my brain was blank. I didn’t feel a damn thing. You act and react, that’s all. Even if I had got hit, I don’t think I would have felt a thing. Would have kept on running.

  We left that field and sat around for a while talking about what we did, thinking back about who did what, how, who got hurt, who got killed. We couldn’t believe what we just done. We couldn’t believe we came out of it alive. We proved Easy Company was damn good. What we knew about each other in training held over in combat. We knew each other’s next move, we trusted each other, it went right back to that bond. You’d give up your life for the man beside you. That’s when boys became men.

  Winters turned out to be a great leader in combat. He called all the shots, and we followed his orders. He was smart, quick, efficient, resourceful, intuitive, fearless. Very good officer. I had a lot of respect for him. He wasn’t a Quaker in combat. He proved himself. A hundred-eighty degrees different than Sobel. We’d have all been dead if it were Sobel. I think one of us would have killed Sobel if the krauts didn’t get him first. That’s no joke. It happened in combat. Not all the time, but it happened. Someone was a bad leader, made bad choices, his own men killed him so they can stay alive. But I knew after the first bullets came in that day, and what we did at Brecourt, we had a good commander leading us. You knew you could follow Winters anywhere.

  Machine-gun fire was still coming from around the house. Malarkey got on the mortar and Toye got on the machine gun and blasted the hedgerows across the street. I jumped on a gun, too. With me, Malarkey, and Toye they didn’t have a chance. We blew those krauts out of there. Nixon came in with the heavy stuff; he brought a couple Sherman tanks and took care of the rest of them. We got every last kraut.

  More men were showing up, and we were getting bigger and bigger. We talked about who was missing, who was dead. I never saw Punchy Diel, never saw Johnny Martin. Leo Boyle joined up. It was a relief to see each man’s face. The men who missed the Brecourt action, we filled them in. Each one told their stories. We all had crazy stories about the jump, who encountered what, how we found each other. We slept in the ground near Culoville for the night, and I don’t remember anything about it, except that I was thankful to come out alive. It took my body a long time to stop shaking. I don’t know how I made it. Never thought I’d last one day. If I could make it through D-day being as stupid as I was, then maybe I could make it one more day. I was a little nuttier than the next guy. I took a lot of chances, kid. But we did what we had to. When the events of the day started to sink in, I thought I done a good job, accomplished the mission, got out alive. If you get most of your men in and out alive, you done a good job.

  It took a week to get the company together. Everything was slow. It wasn’t well organized. We were supposed to leave Normandy and go back to England for another jump, but they wanted us to take Carentan. Carentan connected
Utah and Omaha beaches and they needed it to link up the seaborne troops and bring them inland. It had to be taken, period. But it was defended by the Fallschirmjäger, the German paratroopers—the best Germany had. That’s why they kept us there. You put the best against the best. We figured we’d get the job done in a couple days and go back to England.

  When we marched toward Carentan, we marched into a couple companies of Fallshirmjäger; they were trying to keep us out. Most of the 506th was there. We killed a lot of Germans, took a lot of prisoners, and pushed them back. But these guys were like scallywags. Unorganized. They weren’t the best of the troops. These were put outside Carentan, let them get killed first. The better soldiers were in Carentan. We found all this out later.

  We got Angoville secure, and we went over the Douve River—there were more rivers and springs than I can name—in the pitch dark, in the rain, we got terrible storms, thunder and lightning, and everything was mud. It was hot, wet, miserable. Your feet got stuck in the mud. We were tripping over logs, dead GIs, dead animals, shells, we couldn’t see a damn thing, but it was nothing new to us. We trained and trained and trained for it. Times like that you thanked Sobel in your mind for the hell he put you through.

  On the way, we were following Fox Company—they were on our flank—and we kept losing contact with them, so we kept stopping. Someone was always carrying a phone or a radio to keep up contact. I carried a phone. Rod Bain, George Luz, and a couple other guys had radios. Company headquarters had the big radios, they were huge, and had long range. The rest of us had a small, portable radio, about four times the size of a regular phone. You had to be within range to hear someone talking. Usually company headquarters was on the other end, we could also talk company to company, or relay a call, if someone came on from Able Company, he could transfer you to Easy. We had a good system, but if you were out of range, you lost contact with everyone. That’s what happened going into Carentan, we lost the company we were following, and we could have all gotten killed—the Germans were waiting for us. The officers were at fault for that, but you don’t think about that until later. Somebody said the regimental officers made themselves scarce during night training exercises, and that’s probably true. At the time, you have no idea what the hell is going on, you’re just following orders.