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Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers (1992) and the HBO miniseries based on it made Easy Company--the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which fought from D-Day to the end of World War II, with 150 percent casualties--well known to more than -military-history buffs. After both publication and broadcast, Winters, Easy Company's commanding officer, received many requests for more information. Feeling that much of the material Ambrose didn't use deserved an audience, he chose to air it and satisfy all those requests in his memoirs. For those to whom the story is familiar, the major and his collaborator developed an excellent narrative voice to recount Winters' experiences, actions, and thoughts during everything from training to deployment to battle to subsequent occupation. Winters has been praised as an exemplar of leadership, and here he shows what he did to earn that praise and how he did it. Very well done, book as well as war service. - Frieda MurrayREVIEWS
In his well-intentioned but impersonal memoirs, Winters tells the tales left untold by Stephen Ambrose, whose Band of Brothers was the inspiration for the HBO miniseries, but Winters's memoir is disappointingly sparse on details unrelated to troop position. It is in the battles and tactical maneuvers of Easy Company that Winters is most at home: on D-Day, when Easy Company's commanding officer is killed, Winters takes charge minutes after landing deep in German territory and leads an assault against a German battery. He carefully explicates the reasoning behind his strategy, leading the reader along as the Company attacks German machine gun and mortar outposts. The narrative is laced with Winters's soldierly exaltations of pride in his comrades' bravery: "My God, it's beautiful when you think of a guy who was so dedicated to his company that he apologizes for getting hit." Although the intrepidness of the group induces more than a tinge of pride, the memoir is devoid of powerful reflections. In the last, sluggish chapters, Winters devotes an excessive amount of time to letters he has received and to expositions on leadership. Winters is too humble for a genre that requires a little bit of conceit.PREVIEW
[lyrics]Author’s Preface
First, this is not a work of fiction. These are true stories that happened in World War II to real people, men I led, and soldiers I fought beside. Even now, I stay in touch with many who are still living these sixty years later.
Stephen Ambrose, in his book, called us a “band of brothers.” Yet in the way we took care of each other, protected each other, and laughed and cried together, we really were even closer than blood brothers. We were like twins—what happened to one of us, happened to us all, and we all shared the consequences and the feelings.
After Ambrose finished the book, he wanted to clear his desk, and his floor, for the next book, the big one, D-Day: The Climactic Battle of World War II. His way of clearing was to send me a huge box containing all the memories of the men who had contributed for the writing of Band of Brothers. My home den thus became the repository for all these memories. It took me a whole winter to sort all the papers and add them to the records that I already had for the men. Ambrose had roughly put them in piles representing the chapters in which he used them, so I had a lot of sorting and reading to do to gather together the memories of each man.
As I read them, I came across so many good stories that for want of space had not been included in the book. I thought then, as I think now, that it was a shame that so many of them had remained “untold.” Since the book publication and especially after the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, I have been deluged with letters from people with questions, people begging for more stories—both more from me and from the men.
This book is the only way I know to reach all those many people, from all over the world, who have such a thirst to know more. Whether I read people’s letters or go out to speak, the cry is always, “Tell us more! Tell us more!” I cannot possibly write or speak to all these people, but one letter writer succinctly summarized the wide appeal of the men with whom I served and the message I wish to convey: “Generals Eisenhower, Patton, and Montgomery, President Roosevelt, and Prime Minister Churchill were giants on a world stage. You and your men were different to me, though. You came from the cities, backgrounds, and places that I came from. You had some of the same problems and situations. Your triumph was one of character more than ability and talent. I do not mean to imply that you or your men lacked talent and ability, but I could identify with your talents and abilities. I will never be able to speak like Churchill or have the ambition of Patton, but I can have the quiet determination of Easy Company. I can be a leader; I can be loyal; I can be a good comrade. These are qualities that you and your men demonstrated under the harshest of conditions. Surely I can do the same in my normal life.”
Another young man wrote from England and mentioned that he had no special links to World War II, “no interesting family war stories, no relatives killed in heroic actions.” Indeed his attachment to the conflict, however, was strong enough that one night he sat in tears watching the “Band of Brothers” documentary We Stand Alone Together. Attempting to express his gratitude to the men of Easy Company, he pondered, “What is my attachment to men such as yourself, whom I have never met? Is it respect because you put your own life on the line to ensure younger people like me have the world we live in today? Is it awe that you could live from day to day watching friends being gunned down or blown apart and still get up the next day prepared to face the same horrors? Or perhaps, fascination at how you and your comrades were able to return to relative normality after the war, with the ghosts of the dead watching what you made of the life they were denied?”
Age is creeping up and taking its toll, and as what war correspondent Ernie Pyle called “the old fraternity of war” enmeshes me one final time, I want to honor the men I served with by telling as best I can the “untold stories.” Many of these stories are from men who are no longer with us, and I can think of no better legacy for them and their families. Most important, I want to share my personal memories in the hope that my experience will serve as an example for present leaders and those of future generations who must make difficult decisions and put their lives on the line in the preservation of liberty.
Memoirs, by their very nature, are intensely personal. In combat, a soldier can only relate his memories of his field of fire. Consequently, accounts by the enlisted men and noncommissioned officers in general completely ignore the fact that the army does have a chain of command and that the chain of command usually works. Noncommissioned officers usually ignore the fact that the army has lieutenants. On occasion a company commander might be mentioned; on rare occasions, a battalion commander. But most memoirs never mention the existence of a battalion, regimental, or divisional staff. Usually the men seem to communicate only with the regimental commander.
While assembling my thoughts, I have, at all times, tried to avoid being guilty of the above tendencies. My reminiscences are based on a combat diary I maintained and the letters I sent over the course of the war. I have crosschecked the factual records with contemporary operational reports. Although I shared many of these recollections with Stephen Ambrose, these memoirs contain many unpublished sources. It is my earnest hope that these memoirs will assist each of you to find your personal peace and solitude in a turbulent world.
Prologue
The takeoff occurred on schedule, nice and smooth. Usually on these flights, everybody went to sleep, but tonight I forced myself to stay awake so I’d be able to think and react quickly, but those airsick pills seemed to slow down my emotions. Private Hogan tried to get a song going after a while. A few of us joined in, but our singing was soon lost in the roar of the motors. I fell to saying a last prayer. It was a long, hard sincere prayer that never really ended, for I continued to think and pray the rest of the ride. When we hit the English Channel, it was really a beautiful sight, but I just couldn’t appreciate its full beauty at this time.
“Twenty minutes out,” came back from the pilot, and our crew chief took off the door. As jumpmaster for my plane, I stood up and hooked up my static line, went to the door, and had a look. I could see the planes in front and behind us in V of V formation, nine abreast. They seemed to fill the air; their power filled the sky. Then I looked at the English Channel and I could see this vast magnitude of ships of all sizes, steaming in the same direction that we were going—the Normandy peninsula. The ships were filled with men counting on us to pave the way for them. My mind filled with the realization that we were a vital part of the biggest invasion in history, that I was leading men in actual combat for the first time. I prayed that I was up to the challenge.
We passed those two islands offshore [Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey]; all water, nice formation, no fire yet. Then we were over land. Standing in the door, I could see the antiaircraft fire, and as we approached what turned out to be Ste. Mere-Eglise, I observed a big barn burning, as well as the landing lights that had been set up by the pathfinders. As the Germans illuminated the night with searchlights and antiaircraft fire, the pilots naturally began taking evasive action. We came in too fast and too low. I did not realize it at the time, but the plane carrying Lieutenant Meehan was hit and plunged toward the earth, killing Easy Company’s entire headquarters section save myself.
“OK, boys! Stand up and hook up. Best to be ready to jump at any time now, and if we do get hit, we won’t be taking it sitting down.”
It was 0110 when the red light went on, ten minutes out, and all was quiet. I saw some antiaircraft fire—blue, green, and red tracers coming up to meet us. My emotions were now accelerating at a rapid rate. Gee, the firing seemed to come slowly, they were pretty wild with it. Look out, they’re after us now. Due to the speed of the aircraft, it is no good shooting straight at us, so the Germans start out right for you, but the antiaircraft fire seems to make a curve and falls to the rear. Now they’re leading us, coming so close you can hear them crack as they go by. There, they hit our tail. Straight ahead, I can see the lights set up on the jump field. Jesus Christ, there’s the green light. We’re holding 150 miles per hour and still eight minutes out. OK, let’s go—Bill Lee [former commander of the 101st Airborne Division]! There goes my leg bag and every bit of equipment I have. Watch it, boy! Watch it! Jesus Christ, they’re trying to pick me up with those machine guns. Slip, slip, try and keep close to that leg bag. There it lands beside that hedge. Goddamn that machine gun. There’s a road, trees—hope I don’t hit them. Thump. Well that wasn’t too bad. Now let’s get out of this chute.
So I lay on French soil working free from my chute, machine gun bullets whistling overhead every few minutes, more machine gun tracers going after planes and chutes still coming in. All of us had lost our leg bags containing most of our weapons in the initial blast when we exited the plane. Why we were experimenting with leg bags on this jump when we had never rehearsed with them during training was beyond me. I later discovered that in our small contingent from Easy Company, we all lost our leg bags and ended up using whatever weapons we could scrounge from dead troopers. Unfortunately, we had no idea if these guns were properly zeroed, but there was little time to worry about anything except survival.
On the outskirts of town [Ste. Mere-Eglise), I saw a large fire, which turned out to be a downed plane. In the distance, a church bell tolled out a warning to the countryside that the airborne infantry was landing. The sound of the bell sent a tingling sensation down my back. When I landed, the only weapon I had was a trench knife that I had placed in my boot. I stuck the knife in the ground before I went to work on my chute. This was a hell of a way to begin a war.
PART ONE
Band of Brothers
From this day to the ending of the world . . .
We in it shall be remembered . . .
We gallant few, we band of brothers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
1
Beginnings
I am still haunted by the names and faces of young men, young airborne troopers who never had the opportunity to return home after the war and begin their lives anew. Like most veterans who have shared the hardship of combat, I live with flashbacks—distant memories of an attack on a battery of German artillery on D-Day, an assault on Carentan, a bayonet attack on a dike in Holland, the cold of Bastogne. The dark memories do not recede; you live with them and they become a part of you. Each man must conquer fear in himself. I have a way of looking at war that I have stuck with in combat and the six decades since the war. I look at those soldiers who were wounded in action as lucky because they often had a ticket to return home. The war was over for them. The rest of us would have to keep on fighting, day in and day out. And if you had a man who was killed, you looked at him and hoped that he had found peace in death. I’m not sure whether they were fortunate or unfortunate to get out of the war so early. So many men died so that others could live. No one understands why.
To find a quiet peace is the dream of every soldier. For some it takes longer than others. In my own experience I have discovered that it is far easier to find quiet than to find peace. True peace must come from within oneself. As my wartime buddies join their fallen comrades at an alarming rate, distant memories resurface. The hard times fade and the flashbacks go back to friendly times, to buddies with whom I shared a unique bond, to men who are my brothers in every sense of the word. I live with these men every day. The emotions remain intense. Here is my story set against the backdrop of war and among the finest collection of men I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.
I was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on January 21, 1918, the son of Richard and Edith Winters. At the time of my birth, my family lived in New Holland, a small town near Lancaster. We moved to Ephrata while I was young and then settled in Lancaster when I was eight years old. What I recall most vividly from my youth was that I was scared to death to go to school and of the strangers around me. By the time I attended junior high school, I had finally adjusted to my changing environment and began to exhibit some leadership talent. The school’s principal took a liking to me and I became a school-crossing guard. I guess this was the first time that I was in a position to exhibit any leadership. Reading and geography were always my favorite subjects. I was an average student academically and enjoyed high school athletics, particularly football, basketball, and wrestling. My dad worked as a foreman for Edison Electric Company. For forty dollars a week, Dad labored tirelessly to provide for his family and to ensure we had the necessities of life. He was a good father, who frequently took me to baseball games in Philadelphia and in the neighboring communities. I had a wonderful mother—very conservative. She came from a Mennonite family, but never converted to that faith. Honesty and discipline were driven into my head from day one. Not surprisingly, Mother was undoubtedly one of the most influential people in my life. A mother takes a child; she nurtures him, she instills discipline, and she teaches respect. My mother was the first one up every morning; she prepared breakfast for me and my sister, Ann; and she was the last one to bed every evening. In many respects she was the ideal company commander and subconsciously, I’m sure I patterned my own leadership abilities on this remarkable woman. In my early days at home, she had always impressed on me to respect women, and my father had repeatedly told me that if I were going to drink, I should drink at home. I made up my mind, however, that I wasn’t going to drink, and I have never lost my respect for women.
My early heroes were Babe Ruth and Milton S. Hershey, who had recently established a chocolate empire near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Every American boy admired Babe Ruth, the most popular ballplayer of his era. As for Hershey, he was not only a shrewd and determined businessman, he was also a great philanthropist. Born in 1857 on a farm in central Pennsylvania, Hershey believed wealth should be used for the benefit of others. He used his chocolate fortune for two major projects: the development of the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 1903 and the establishment of the Hershey Industrial School for orphaned boys in 1909. Now known as the Milton Hershey School, the school’s original deed of trust stipulated that “all orphans admitted to the School shall be fed with plain, wholesome food; plainly, neatly, and comfortably clothed, and fitly lodged. . . . The main object is to train young men to useful trades and occupations, so that they can earn their own livelihood.” Any man who would dedicate his life to doing something for orphans had to be a good man. I admired Hershey tremendously.
Growing up during the Great Depression was hard, but Lancaster County provided sufficient jobs for most of the residents. Lancaster lies in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, where the residents developed a work ethic that stemmed from our heritage and our religious affiliation to the Mennonite and the Amish backgrounds. This work ethic rubs off and it accounts for the fact that each day, you strive to do your best.
I graduated from Lancaster Boys High School in 1937 and matriculated to Franklin & Marshall College, where I finally buckled down and studied harder than I had ever studied in high school. While going to school, I naturally did a great deal of reading. The subjects ran from poetry and literature to philosophy, ethics, religion, sociology, psychology, and all the other subjects associated with a liberal education. To defray college expenses, I earned money for tuition by cutting grass, working in a grocery store, and in what might have been prophetic of my future career with the paratroopers, painting high-tension towers for Edison Electric Company. Studies, work, and the ever-present lack of funds did not provide much opportunity for running around, but I did have a great deal of time to spend with my inner thoughts and ideas stimulated by reading. In June 1941, I graduated tops in the business school and earned a bachelor’s degree in science and economics.
Rather than having the draft interrupt a promising business career, I immediately volunteered for the U.S. Army. Under the Selective Training and Service Act recently enacted by Congress, each man was required to serve one year of military service. It was my intention to serve my time, and then be free of my commitment to the military. My official entry date was August 25, 1941. Though I felt a strong sense of duty, I had no desire to get into the war currently raging in Europe. I preferred to stay out of it, and I was hoping the United States would remain neutral. Volunteering for military service was merely the quickest way to rid myself of compulsory service. I had already decided not to volunteer for anything, to do the minimum work required, and to return home to Lancaster as soon as my year was up. As the day approached for me to join the army, I expressed my intention to just pass my time to my foreman at Edison Electric, who was a former military man. He jumped on me and told me in no uncertain terms to do my best every day and not to become a slacker. In the years ahead, I sent him a note through my father and thanked him for straightening me out.
September found me at Camp Croft, South Carolina, where I underwent basic training. Pay for a private was $21.00 a month, a far cry from what I had been receiving prior to my enlistment. Military life suited me, but my initial months in the U.S. Army were characterized by long periods of boredom punctuated by brief interruptions of spirited activity. When the majority of the battalion deployed to Panama in early December, I remained at Croft to train incoming draftees and volunteers. I still enjoyed reading, but since I had been in the army, I had not been able to enjoy the luxury of the dreams and aspirations that characterized my youth. The army managed to take up a large portion of the twenty-four-hour day, and by the end of each day, my body was half-dead and my brain stopped functioning about the time that Retreat sounded. If anything, my career was aimlessly drifting.
My world changed dramatically the following Sunday when our unit received news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I first heard of the attack while on a weekend furlough at the Biltmore Estate outside Asheville, North Carolina. After the initial shock wore off, my next reaction was somewhat selfish as I realized that I was going to be in the army for more than one year. Everyone clearly understood that he was now in service for the duration of the war and that before too long, each of us would deploy to a combat theater of operations. None of us was exactly sure how each was going to be affected, with the exception that all of us had that empty feeling in the bottom of our stomachs that the country had been attacked without provocation. My duties as a trainer changed dramatically now that the nation was at war. Now that the army had a definite purpose, the cadence around camp quickly accelerated. Officers cracked down on us, proclaiming no Christmas furloughs, censoring mail. Everything now went according to wartime law. The changes gave me an eerie feeling at first, but when I looked at it from a different perspective, I did not feel too badly; the sooner we retaliated against Japan, the quicker the war would be over.
In retrospect, the U.S. Army was totally unprepared for the war in which it was about to embark. Two weeks after the Japanese attack, supply sergeants at Camp Croft collected all our gas masks and shipped them to the Pacific Coast in anticipation of a possible Japanese assault on the California coast. I could not help but think that a few insignificant masks—training masks, no less—would not have much effect on the outcome of the war. Before the reality of war totally transformed the army, I hitchhiked home to Lancaster to enjoy a ten-day furlough with my family.
In mid January, the army picked up its pace and rapidly transitioned from a peacetime establishment to a wartime military force. Six-day weeks gave way to seven-day workweeks. This gave me the opportunity to observe some of the officers more carefully. Most of the officers at Camp Croft had come directly from the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), including my platoon leader. Neither he nor the other platoon leaders knew their jobs. My frustration reached new heights one rainy day when a lieutenant came to teach our platoon about the new M-1 Garand 30-06 semiautomatic rifle, which the army was just fielding. In giving the nomenclature and the operation of the new weapon, he picked up a 1903 Springfield rifle and spent forty-five minutes talking about the M-1. The lieutenant didn’t even realize he wasn’t holding an M-1. I thought this was impossible as no leader could be this dense.
I knew that I was a better man than most of the officers whom I had met, so I flirted with joining the commissioned ranks. I was already exploring the possibility of attending Officers Candidate School (OCS), when our commanding officer asked me if I would be interested in becoming an officer. I was very fortunate to be selected since at the time I was only a private and most commanders were picking noncommissioned officers (NCO) who were career soldiers and who had considerably more experience than I had. Things proceeded rapidly from that point. After filling out an application, I breezed through another physical examination and went before a board of officers. I had hoped to have a few hours to prepare for the interview, but I was told to report that afternoon. I tried to be as confident as possible and evidently succeeded because I received orders to attend a three-week preparatory course at Camp Croft for officer candidates.
Competition in the course was stiff and I certainly had to work to make the grade, for just about everybody attending the course was at least a sergeant, while I was a temporary corporal. I felt like an innocent babe in the woods when I compared myself to these seasoned NCOs. What I lacked in experience, however, I compensated by studying. The one advantage I had over the other officer candidates was a college education, and I clearly understood the importance of study and doing my homework.
The course itself was very broad. The directors of the intelligence, communications, and heavy weapons schools delivered comprehensive lectures to the class during the first few days. By the end of three weeks we received a detailed summary about every aspect of the army. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the preparatory course and enjoyed the opportunity to acquire additional training before reporting to Fort Benning, Georgia. By keeping my nose to the grindstone, I finished the course with flying colors. The only question remaining was to which OCS class I would be assigned. Until I received definitive orders, I remained at Camp Croft.
As I awaited news of my next assignment, I briefly considered an offer to transfer to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to attend OCS as a member of the Armored Corps. Here was a chance to put an end to all the suspense and to get going quickly so I could leave in a few days. After thinking it over and asking the advice of the other officers, I decided against their common advice and decided to stick with the Infantry. I already had seven months of background in the ground service, and the thirteen weeks at Fort Benning would give me a background sturdy enough to enable me to carry my head high. In the Armored Corps, I’d be taking it cold and I was darned if I wanted to be an officer if I couldn’t be a good one. On April 6, I received news that I’d be leaving Camp Croft for the class that started the following day.
Fort Benning, nestled in the red hills outside Columbus, Georgia, is a picturesque military post. Benning was an old army camp with modern facilities. Trees lined the wide streets and brick barracks contained modern furniture and reading rooms. Officer candidates were housed in wooden barracks, like at Croft, but the post was far cleaner than what I had experienced. The food wasn’t plentiful, but it had a certain quality; in fact, it was nearly as good as home cooking.
The equipment used in the course was complete and the best possible. Every time I’d turn around there was a tank going by, somebody jumping from an airplane or off the jump tower that had been constructed for parachute troops. I was particularly impressed with the paratroopers who ran around Fort Benning at an airborne shuffle. Their cadence reflected a military unit with a high degree of morale and enthusiasm.
Within a few days of looking things over, I planned to ask my parents if they cared if I joined the paratroopers after I received my commission. When I finally announced my intentions, I received a strong veto, and many more from friends and neighbors. I had usually taken my parents’ advice, but this time I was determined to trust my own judgment. The more I looked at the paratroopers, the more I was inclined to join them as soon as I graduated from OCS. Of all the outfits I’d seen at Fort Benning, they were the best looking and most physically fit. After ten months of infantry training, I realized my survival would depend on the men around me. Airborne troopers looked like I had always pictured a group of soldiers: hard, lean, bronzed, and tough. When they walked down the street, they appeared to be a proud and cocky bunch exhibiting a tolerant scorn for anyone who was not airborne. So I took it in my head that I’d like to work with a bunch of men of that caliber. The paratroopers were the best soldiers at the infantry school and I wanted to be with the best, not with the sad sacks that I had frequently seen on post.
In addition, the physical training appealed to me: lots of running—five miles before breakfast, and every place they went during the day. The only thing holding me back was my swimming. I was no flash at that angle and it was a requirement to join the paratroopers. Another selling point was the pay of an airborne 2d lieutenant, $268 a month, which wasn’t bad while it lasted. Still, I would have to be accepted, as all the paratroopers were volunteers and they were handpicked to join the elite airborne forces. I reckoned that was why they were so damn good. In the event that I was accepted into the paratroopers, it would mean another month at Fort Benning and then on to an advanced airborne school for parachute officers.
The officer candidate course itself proved physically and mentally demanding, but not as difficult as I had anticipated. Officer candidate school in 1942 was a rudimentary course conceptualized by Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall and implemented by Brigadier General Omar N. Bradley, the commandant of the Infantry School. Officer candidates attended classes and conducted field exercises six days a week, being off Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Classes focused on the essentials of combat leadership and familiarity on weapons systems, infantry tactics, and general military subjects. Following the ordinary training day, we studied an average of two hours every night. After a few weeks the cadre conducted an evaluation to determine which candidates would probably be the best officers and surprisingly, this old private won over the more seasoned NCOs.
One of the peculiarities of OCS was that the cadre was so strict. For almost eight months at Camp Croft, I had never been gigged for any infraction during daily inspections. In April, however, I was cited for two minor deficiencies during a barracks inspection. That was good compared to the average candidate, who received one almost daily. We had to have our shoes exactly in position, uniforms spaced equidistant on hangers, and the fold in blankets 7 inches instead of 6 inches. The cadre went around with rulers during every inspection. They ran us ragged daily and we studied like fools each and every night. Missing a formation resulted in dismissal from the course. The transportation to and from Columbus was so inadequate that I resigned myself to remain on post and study for three months, to see an occasional movie, and to eat some ice cream.
Classes covered a myriad of military topics, ranging from demonstrations on the functions of supply to firepower demonstrations on fortifications with tanks and trucks. Each week the officers and noncommissioned officers told us the next week would be the toughest yet, and they always spoke the truth. Within two weeks we had what was supposed to be the toughest test we would have while we were at Benning. The subject was map reading, but after college, the examination seemed like a true-and-false test. I was not worried in the least about studies, but I studied just for my own satisfaction. Marches increased in length and duration and much more time was spent in the field and on the firing ranges. The range demonstration that perked my interest was one that had been designed to fire machine guns over the heads of our own troops and to hit the enemy. We also learned how to aim at one target and hit another, the idea being that you could still score a hit if a smoke screen had been laid to obscure the principal target. Two weeks prior to graduation we completed the weapons portion of the course and I was not sorry, for all I had been thinking about were lugs, cams, operating rods, gas-operated, and recoil-operated firing mechanisms.
After considerable time on the firing ranges, we began tactical training, which I particularly enjoyed because I could use my head once again. During one field problem, we observed a battalion in the attack at a river line as a company of engineers constructed a footbridge, a vehicle bridge, and a ferry under fire, cover of smoke, and fire from airplanes. In retrospect, I characterized the course as a thirteen-week marathon in the Georgia swamps. As the course neared completion, my ambition remained with joining the airborne troopers and the more I learned about the infantry, the more I was sold on the fact that I wanted no part of it. Stories circulated throughout Fort Benning that 50 percent of the infantry either died from disease resulting from living in the filth or from casualties on the front lines. After observing firsthand the life a doughboy lived, I thought a doughboy had to be crazy.
During my time at OCS one of the officer candidates caught my attention. Lewis Nixon was the son of privilege and wealth. Born September 30, 1918, Nixon was the grandson of the last man to design a battleship as an individual. Educated at Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Nix” was far more educated than most of the members of the class. A world traveler, he returned to the family-run Nixon Nitration Works, a converted industry that manufactured cellulose nitrate to be used in tubing for pens, pencils, sheets for playing cards, and covers for eyeglass frames. Nixon entered military service at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and completed basic training at Camp Croft. Nixon was a hard drinker, a free spirit who enjoyed the wild life and partied with the best of them. On the surface no two individuals were more diametrically opposed in temperament than Nixon and I. I was a confirmed teetotaler and never swore. I preferred a quiet evening in the barracks to the nightlife of Columbus, Georgia, or neighboring Phenix City, Alabama. Despite the differences in lifestyle, I sensed we shared mutual feelings and ways of looking at life. I could understand him and help him understand me, as well as understand himself. Our friendship evolved naturally, and he soon became my closest friend. Lewis Nixon was the finest combat officer with whom I served under fire. He was utterly dependable and totally fearless.
As we neared graduation, I found myself not very excited about the prospect of ending this phase of my career. It was the most despondent that I had felt since my last furlough. This time it was a combination of not knowing where or what my next assignment would be and if I would get my next leave. If I was accepted by the paratroopers, I could be ordered to report the day following graduation. If not, it might be sealed orders, which meant no leave, and then proceed directly to a combat theater. The uncertainty was killing me.
Our OCS class graduated on July 2, 1942. My overall impression of the course was that it had been fairly easy, and while it had not been exactly a vacation, I had enjoyed the experience. We now entered a charmed class, a distinct social class within the army. We now commanded respect and authority. It was the dream of every private from the day he enlisted in the army and we were just about to reach out and grasp it. Minor items now seemed more important, such as the purchase of uniforms. Distinctive officer uniforms had been arriving the past few days and our barracks looked like a fashion show with the men parading around, flashing bars, decorations, and smiles. Even the fact that in three days some of us would be heading for combat made no difference. I determined that was the way to be, to live and let live. At times, however, it was hard to convince myself that I was now a commissioned officer.
With graduation, I was honorably discharged from the United States Army at the convenience of the government in order to accept a formal commission of a second lieutenant. Following lunch at the officers club, we were free to go our own way, though few of us had actual assignments. Nixon was assigned duty at Fort Ord, California, and attached to the military police unit on post. With no immediate openings in the paratroopers, I returned to Camp Croft to train another contingent that had recently arrived. As an officer I didn’t last long at Croft: about five weeks to be exact, before receiving orders to report to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, at Camp Toombs, Georgia. At first I hated to leave Camp Croft for I was well acquainted with my old outfit and the new company to which I had been recently assigned. I still had four soldiers from home in my platoon, including one with whom I had gone to college and wrestled while in school. None of us let a little brass come between us. Other officers frowned on my relation with the enlisted men, but it didn’t bother me at all. I worked darn hard on that platoon and just before I departed, they all qualified on the firing ranges, with the exception of two soldiers. Before I departed Croft, the platoon gave me a Shaffer pen and pencil set as a token of their esteem. Then I left, leaving a camp that held many fond memories.
2
There Is Nothing Easy in Easy Company
Toccoa, formerly Camp Toombs, was the birthplace of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR). Cut from the Georgian wilderness, the camp was located in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. Camp Toombs had been an old Georgia National Guard Camp prior to its conversion to an airborne training center. Toccoa was the name of the closest town and it soon became the name of the first Parachute Infantry Training Center. Dominating the camp was 1,740 foot Mount Currahee, a Cherokee word that means “stands alone.” The 506th PIR to which I was assigned was officially activated on July 20, 1942. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Sink and Major Robert L. Strayer served as the 506th PIR and the 2d Battalion commanders, respectively. They were the first two officers to arrive at Toccoa. Both would be soon promoted and played important roles in the destiny of Easy Company as well as my own military career.
Sink was a 1927 West Point graduate who would command the 506th through the entire war. A no-nonsense officer, he kept a tight reign of his command and insisted that there would never be a breach of discipline. Strayer was a reserve officer who entered active duty in July 1940. He later commanded a company in the 502d PIR before attending the infantry officer school at Fort Benning in May 1942. As a major, he served as Sink’s principal staff officer until he assumed command of 2d Battalion, 506th PIR in September 1942. Major Strayer was promoted to lieutenant colonel in early 1943. His battalion consisted of a Battalion Headquarters Company, Dog, Easy, and Fox Companies. The headquarters company was comprised of a communications platoon, a light machine gun platoon, an 81mm mortar platoon, and the battalion surgeon and his staff.
Following a brief leave, I arrived in Toccoa in mid-August. Disembarking from the Southern Railway train adjacent to the Toccoa Coffin Factory, Lewis Nixon and I were directed to board an army truck for “Camp Toombs.” As soon as we arrived at camp, we were ushered into 506th Regimental Headquarters, where we reported to Colonel Sink. He welcomed us to the airborne and informed us that the 506th was an experimental outfit—the first regiment to train civilian recruits into an elite airborne unit. Sink made it clear that he intended that the 506th PIR was going to be the “best damned unit” in the U.S. Army. I had always prided myself in my ability to judge character, and Colonel Sink was truly inspirational. When I first met Sink, I was in awe. He was sitting behind his desk, smoking a cigarette. He came across as having this West Point “better than thou” attitude, which I had always found disconcerting, but I learned pretty quickly that my first impression was wrong. Colonel Sink was an exceptionally competent officer who issued a personal challenge to every incoming officer—he expected officers to set the example and to lead from the front in everything that we did.
I was assigned to Easy Company, 2d Battalion, 506th PIR. When Easy Company formed in July 1942, it listed 8 officers and 132 enlisted men in its table of organization and equipment. The company included three rifle platoons and a headquarters section. Each platoon contained three twelve-man rifle squads and a six-man mortar team squad. Easy also had one machine gun attached to each of its rifle squads, and a 60mm mortar in each mortar team. First Lieutenant Herbert M. Sobel of Chicago, Illinois, was the first member of E Company and its commanding officer. His executive officer was 2d Lieutenant Clarence Hester. Two officers were assigned to each platoon as a safeguard for anticipated casualties and the continued expansion of the U.S. Army. Most were newly commissioned from OCS or from the ROTC contingents from various universities across the country. In addition to me as second platoon leader, Lewis Nixon, Walter Moore, and S. L. Matheson formed the initial contingent of E Company officers. Lieutenants Matheson and Moore commanded 1st and 3d Platoons, respectively.
As had Colonel Sink, Lieutenant Sobel made it crystal clear that he would tolerate no breach of discipline in Easy Company. Sobel informed the officers that Easy Company would be the first and the best in everything it did. He expected Easy to lead the 506th PIR in every measurable category, including calisthenics, road marching, marksmanship, physical fitness, and field training. Sobel intended that Easy Company would be ready when it entered combat. In the interim, he would train the company to a high degree of physical and mental readiness. In contrast to the regimental commander, Lieutenant Sobel did not impress me as a field soldier, but he was the commander and I was determined to do my part to make my platoon the best in the company.
My first day at Toccoa was a shock. I had been in the army for over a year, but all my experience had been at more established military posts like Camp Croft and Fort Benning. All of a sudden, I felt I was back at basic training. Officers’ quarters consisted of tar-paper huts, two officers to a hut. Our quarters had no doors, no windows, and no electric lights since the camp was still being constructed. The only electric lights were in the latrine. It was pretty rough, but you expected to have it rough if you were going to be a paratrooper. As I sat there that first night, the mosquitoes ate me alive. I learned a valuable lesson that nothing is ever guaranteed. However, you adjust; you get used to the little things and hope for the best.
Few of the original members of Easy Company survived Toccoa. According to statistics compiled by Lieutenant Salve M. Matheson, an Easy Company platoon leader who eventually moved to battalion and regimental staff, it took over 400 officer volunteers to form the 148 survivors who made it through the following thirteen weeks of training. From over 5,300 enlisted volunteers, 1,800 were selected to continue with the 506th when it deployed to Fort Benning for jump school. You could quit anytime you wanted to. All you had to do was walk down the hill to headquarters and say, “I don’t want this.” I made up my mind to stick around because I wanted to be with the best. Fortunately I was in prime physical condition and had no problem with the physical aspect of our training. When I joined Easy Company at Toccoa, I stood 6 feet tall and weighed 177 pounds.
Formed into companies, the training began in earnest as officers and men adjusted to military life. The training program was designed to last thirteen weeks. The majority of the initial weeks consisted in getting the men in good physical condition. Since most of the men had just recently entered military service, they were in terrible shape. Daily calisthenics included chin-ups, sit-ups, deep knee bends, jumping jacks, and running. Surprisingly by the end of the first week, the men began responding to the physical demands for airborne troopers. Those who didn’t adjust were reassigned from the regiment. Colonel Sink demanded that physical conditioning remain intense—pushing each trooper to the point of exhaustion. Everything was done at double time, including a six-mile run up and down Currahee. Daily obstacle courses, calisthenics, endless hours of physical training, nine-mile marches with and without field packs, bayonets, rifles, and machine guns became the norm. And the training never let up. Private Robert T. Smith noted that the training became more rugged with each passing day. He mentioned the obstacle course that included “all kind of contraptions designed to exercise every muscle in your body.”
All enlisted men at Toccoa arrived directly from civilian life for their initial “boot camp” training. Their motivation revolved around additional pay for airborne duty and a desire to be associated with “the best.” The 506th was the first unit to have the authority to do this and to keep only those it wished and to send the rest to other army units. That included officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers alike. Those who were unable to meet the rigorous standards of airborne troopers were assigned to “W Company” and rapidly assigned to other commands. W Company was a special unit established for incoming troops as well as outgoing troops who failed physicals or who “washed out” during training. Men reached camp in small groups almost daily, and after a much more thorough physical evaluation than they had at their reception centers, they were assigned to one of the units within the 506th PIR. Troopers slept in tents until the army built enough hutments. Officers were initially quartered in unfinished huts, no lights, mud galore when it rained, and so cool every night so that we needed two blankets.
Periodic runs up and down Currahee required the men be in tiptop condition. Rising above the camp’s parade ground, Currahee was an imposing sight. Three miles up and three miles down, three or four times a week formed an integral part of our physical conditioning. The run was wicked, a real killer. To move a company up Currahee, you led the company at an airborne shuffle, then, as you felt the ranks falling apart due to stress, you cut the pace back to “quick-time” march. After the ranks closed again, and the troops were breathing normally, you went back to the double-time shuffle. The last mile up Currahee was done more at quick time than at double-time. In a free-run competition to the summit of Currahee and back to camp, I can’t remember anyone who could “run” up Currahee. The record for a round trip up and down Currahee was forty-two minutes; my personal best time was forty-four minutes. I was strictly no runner, just did it by plugging along.
On the days Easy Company did not run up Currahee, Lieutenant Sobel ordered us to negotiate the obstacle course. As with most of the physical training, the obstacle course was a timed exercise, with each soldier required to complete the course in three minutes. Some of the men never completed the course in three minutes and they were subsequently dropped from the 506th. The obstacles themselves were numerous and varied, but each required a certain degree of dexterity and strength—all designed to build the muscle strength necessary for manipulating parachutes and facing prolonged combat. Arm strength was enhanced by means of crossing a thirty-foot body of water by way of a horizontal ladder that had to be negotiated hand over hand. One particular obstacle that led to many dismissals from the company was a ten-foot-high log wall that had to be climbed without assistance from other members of the company. One officer attempted to catch his breath and to hide behind the wall until the next company came through. He then joined the next company as they passed through. Needless to say, he did not remain at Toccoa for long. Between individual obstacles were hills that had to be run, ditches that had to be crossed, and trenches that had to be jumped. By the time one finished the course, he was physically exhausted. As the weeks wore on, negotiating the obstacle became routine as the individual endurance of each soldier improved dramatically.
To say training at Toccoa was intense is an understatement. Colonel Sink insisted on extremely high standards. Since all personnel were handpicked and could easily be replaced, Sink was determined to create the most elite and best-trained unit in the U.S. Army. Within a week, each company in the regiment became proficient in close order drill, marching back and forth and practicing the manual of arms with our individual weapons. From my experience at Camp Croft and from OCS, close order drill became a pleasant distraction from the more rigorous training. Physical conditioning under realistic conditions proved more demanding. Ten-mile hikes gave way to twenty-five miles through the Georgia countryside. The first night march we made was eleven miles long. Lieutenant Sobel demanded that these endurance tests be accompanied by water discipline: no soldier being allowed to take a sip of water from his canteen until the march was over. In addition to field marches, Regular Army noncommissioned officers delivered lectures on weapons, tactics, and parachute training. One of the things that took some getting used to was bayonet training. The first time you went through the drill, it made you think. The thought of sticking a bayonet into a man was not something you took lightly. I had done a bit of wrestling before, so the thought of unarmed combat did not unsettle me, but the thought of thrusting a steel bayonet into someone—that took some adjustment.
Toccoa also contained mock thirty-four-foot jump towers from which eager troopers developed the necessary skills of jumping, guiding parachutes, and landing. The only thing missing from an actual jump was the absence of the prop blast when exiting the aircraft. After climbing the tower, each trooper was strapped into a parachute harness that was connected to a fifteen-foot strap, or static line. The strap, in turn, was attached to a pulley that rode a cable about sixty feet long to the ground, at which point the soldier landed hard. It was incumbent on the paratrooper to position his body properly when leaving the mock-up door and to develop the proper form and to concentrate on the basic fundamentals of the jump in order to escape injury when he landed. Another training station included the suspended harness, in which troopers were suspended from a device that resulted in various parts of the male anatomy being crunched and pulled in every direction. In the suspended harness, each of us practiced the five points of performance—check body position and count “one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand;” check your canopy and your initial oscillation; get your back to the wind; prepare to land; and land.
Training remained demanding throughout our stay at Toccoa. Through thirteen weeks of field training, we experienced the summer heat and red dust so characteristic of western Georgia. Training continued day and night, regardless of weather conditions. Some of the men became demoralized at the pace and the intensity of training. Endless field marches, overnight training exercises in the worst imaginable weather, and exposure to the elements sapped the strength of the fainthearted. Nor were weekends free, since Saturday mornings were more often than not devoted to inspections of equipment, rifles, barracks, and clothing. Few survived recently promoted Captain Sobel’s inspections without incurring some deficiencies. Those who failed the inspections—and in Easy Company most troopers failed—had their weekend passes revoked and were subjected to another run up Currahee.
As the training progressed, leaders honed Easy into a well-disciplined unit within an extraordinarily cohesive regiment. Most of the credit belonged to Colonel Sink, Major Strayer, Captain Sobel, and my fellow platoon leaders. Easy Company met every challenge, exceeded every requirement, as both Sink and Sobel demanded that each company meet the exacting standards that they had established. Those troopers who could no longer bear the strain that our commanders subjected Easy Company were rapidly shipped out. The survivors merely endured.
In early fall, the riflemen in the company traveled to South Carolina and bivouacked and slept in pup tents near Clemson University, where they qualified on the university rifle ranges. Machine gunners remained at Toccoa where they slept in their own barracks and ate in their own mess halls. Lieutenant Salve Matheson ran the machine gun ranges and proved himself an incredible instructor. Both groups spent a full week on the ranges. Every soldier was required to become intimately familiar with each of the company’s weapons, ranging from the M-1 Garand rifle to the .45-caliber pistol to the 60mm mortar. Additional training focused on the assembly and disassembly of light machine guns. When inclement weather confined us to the barracks, map and compass reading became the order of the day.
One of the reasons that Easy Company excelled was undoubtedly Captain Sobel. Born in Chicago in 1912, Sobel graduated from Culver Military Academy and became a reserve officer upon his graduation from the University of Illinois. He arrived at the 506th from Fort Riley, Kansas, where he had been serving as a military police officer. Historian Stephen Ambrose describes Sobel as a “petty tyrant who exuded arrogance.” Ambrose wasn’t far from the mark. Placed in a position of absolute power analogous to the captain of a ship, Sobel was a strict disciplinarian who ruled Easy Company with an iron fist. To officers and soldiers alike, Sobel became known as the “Black Swan,” which soon evolved into “Herr Black Swan” due to his tyrannical methods of command. As company commander, he tolerated no breach of discipline or loyalty, either real or imagined.
I have always felt that for the eyes of the enlisted men, a junior company officer should try to be a reflection of his company commander. Easy Company’s junior officers found they simply could not emulate the image of Sobel and live with themselves. Sobel was not just unfair; he was plain mean. As time went by and the pressure shifted from the training of the citizen soldiers to the proving and testing of the leadership in the company, Sobel started to wilt and his disposition grew increasingly impossible. In a bad mood he could go down a line of men during an inspection and find five or six dirty stacking swivels or weapon slings in a row. Then he might switch to finding three or four soldiers with “dirty ears.” A man could not pass inspection if Sobel had a grudge against him, and it seemed that our company commander held many grudges.
Every soldier who served in Easy has his share of Sobel stories, many of which are recounted in Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. Private First Class Burt Christenson recounted his initial meeting with Sobel, which was not unlike my own. Reporting to the commander’s office, Christenson recalled that Sobel said: “Each man in this company will learn the importance of discipline and practice it or he won’t remain in this unit for long. If you don’t complete your assignments or pass inspections, you’ll receive company punishment. If you continue to fail to accomplish what I consider is your duty, you’ll be disqualified from the parachute infantry.” Never an admirer of his company commander, Christenson remembered one incident when Sobel viciously humiliated a soldier whose principal crime was nothing more than it was his turn to be the object of the company commander’s scorn. Once during a routine inspection, Sobel was standing in front of Private First Class (PFC) William Dukeman, a model soldier. Dukeman was a strapping six-foot, one inch, well-built trooper. His uniform was always immaculate. Yet Sobel stood there and continued to scrutinize Dukeman. Then suddenly Sobel thrust his face within inches of Dukeman’s face and in a normal tone asked, “What size shirt do you wear, soldier?”
Dukeman replied, “Size 15, sir!”
With a scowl on his face, Sobel shouted, “G—damn it, I can put two fingers between your neck and your shirt!”
Dukeman merely responded, “Yes, sir,” as Sobel quickly moved to the next man and found similar fault with him.
Yet even Sobel had to chuckle about some of the men’s antics on furlough or on weekend passes. Take Private Wayne “Skinny” Sisk, one of the first soldiers to join Easy Company. To win over the girls in the 1940s, Sisk used his smile, wit, and the glamour of being a paratrooper. On one occasion the military police arrested “Skinny” on a Saturday afternoon for making out with his girlfriend along the railroad tracks. When asked by Sobel to explain his conduct, Sisk replied, “The train was coming, she was coming, and so was I.”
Suffice it to say Herbert Sobel was a complex and volatile officer, difficult to serve over, impossible to serve under. For those of us who served in the company, he treated us with equal disdain, officers and enlisted men alike. His constant raving that “The Japs are going to get you,” and his “Hi-Yo Silver,” led to widespread snickering behind his back. Never comfortable in a tactical environment, our commander could not read a map, was constantly lost, and tended to panic when confronted with an unexpected situation. As a result, Captain Sobel rapidly lost the respect of the men. The men did what he ordered because they wanted those wings. Yet they never respected him. If he could not lead men on a hike or on a military maneuver, how could he lead Easy Company in combat? His inability to lead by example or remain calm in a crisis soon became questions that permeated the entire company.
Despite his personal shortcomings, Sobel drove each member of the company to become an elite soldier capable of taking the war to Hitler’s Germany. In that sense, Herbert Maxwell Sobel “made” Easy Company by producing a combat company that acted with a single-minded purpose. Carwood Lipton, who would later receive a battlefield commission in Europe, noted that Easy Company was very similar to the groups of men in every company in Sink’s 506th save one. Yet there was a difference because Easy coalesced to protect itself against Sobel. In that way, Easy ended up a different way than Sobel intended. Sobel drove us hard and he continued driving us when other companies had already fallen out and gone to the showers. While the other commands within the 506th were getting the hot showers and the early food, we were still out there working, taking an additional lap around the track, and standing at attention to see if anybody was moving. Soon other companies knew of Captain Sobel, including the officers throughout the regiment. No one envied us, but Sobel was producing a magnificent company. Having said that, I would be remiss to disregard the contributions of Easy’s first batch of noncommissioned officers who emerged from the ranks: the Carwood Liptons, Joe Toyes, Bill Guarneres, Floyd Talberts, and others.
In Sobel’s defense he was equally demanding on himself. Charged with converting “civilians” into an effective fighting force in a relatively short time, he permitted himself few luxuries. Shortly after he assumed command of the battalion, Major Strayer remembered one instance when he disciplined the company commanders for not showing up on time for staff meetings. To demonstrate his point, he confined the company commanders to the camp area for an entire weekend. Their wives raised holy hell. Sobel was the only company commanding officer who was always on time and did as he was instructed, therefore he was not penalized. To his credit he also stood up for his men to higher headquarters. Prior to Easy Company’s movement to the port of embarkation, our battalion commander had the authority to leave any officer behind whom he felt was unsuitable for deployment. When Sobel heard Major Strayer was going to drop one of his officers from the manifest, he went to battalion headquarters and made such a spirited defense that Strayer agreed to keep the officer in the unit and actually pulled him to battalion staff in order to keep him away from troops.
What bothered Easy Company’s officers, me included, was not Sobel’s emphasis on strict discipline, but his desire to lead by fear rather than example. Each evening he quizzed us on our field manual assignments, which he gave us daily. In his critiques, Sobel was very domineering. There was no give and take. His tone of voice was high-pitched, rasplike. He shouted rather than spoke in a normal way. It just irritated us to no end. Iron discipline the officers could tolerate, but armed with the ultimate authority to dismiss any man in the company, Sobel exceeded the boundaries of acceptable conduct in dealing with citizen-soldiers. If infractions of discipline were not found during inspections, he manufactured deficiencies to prove a point or to emphasize his authority as company commander. To the individual soldiers, Sobel’s propensity to find fault was pure chickenshit, so-named by former infantryman and noted author Paul Fussell because “it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously.”
At other times, our commander deliberately embarrassed the platoon leaders in front of their men. Not surprisingly, Sobel rapidly emerged as the central target of hate and scorn within Easy Company. One officer summed up our collective appraisal by stating that Sobel was dedicated to doing everything by the book, but he seemed to possess tunnel vision. He could not, or would not, see or anticipate the results of his disciplinary measures on the men. As a result Easy Company gave their loyalty and devotion to their platoon leaders, who in turn took care of their men the best they could and who softened Sobel’s dictatorial behavior. Several troopers, including Richard “Red” Wright, Terrence “Salty” Harris, and Lieutenant Walter Moore, however, sought an escape from Sobel’s wrath and they volunteered for the pathfinders.
Any relationship between company commander and company officers that existed in Easy Company remained strictly professional. Captain Sobel had no friends within the company and few within the regiment. At the end of the day, he went one way, and we officers went the other, hoping not to run into him at the officers’ club. As training progressed through the first half of 1943, Sobel’s tactical ineptitude, coupled with his increasing paranoid behavior as our overseas deployment neared, led to the total loss of any confidence that remained in his leadership. So traumatic was my own relationship with Captain Sobel that sixty years after the war, it’s still painful remembering my initial meeting with him.
Why then was Captain Sobel retained in command by Colonel Sink and Major Strayer? I suspect the answer lies in Easy Company’s performance vis-à-vis the other companies within the regiment. Sobel’s hard hand, for better or worse, resulted in a well-disciplined and physically conditioned airborne company. Senior officers tolerated Sobel’s erratic behavior because he produced the desired results. One indicator of Easy Company’s success within the 506th was reflected in the number of company officers who were pulled up to battalion and regimental headquarters. Senior commanders only assign the most talented officers to headquarters staffs. Colonel Sink and Major Strayer were no exception. Within the first eight months of the company’s existence, Lieutenants Matheson, Lavenson, Nixon, and Hester were all reassigned to 2dBattalion staff. Hester, Matheson, and Nixon remained on Strayer’s staff until Colonel Sink advanced them to regimental staff. For Matheson, the call to regiment occurred before D-Day. Hester was transferred to 3rd Battalion in Holland, while Nixon joined regimental staff during Bastogne. Lavenson was severely wounded outside Carentan. For the remainder of the war, every vacancy in battalion staff was filled by an officer from Easy Company. For that, Sobel deserved a portion of the credit. He was a satisfactory training officer, but he was definitely not a leader of troops. I suspect he did his best, but he was in the wrong job and that was hardly his fault. Having grown up in urban Chicago, he was ill-suited for the outdoor life required for the leader of an elite infantry unit. Nor was he cut out for the field grade officer. Better suited for administrative duties, Sobel stayed in Easy Company until imminent combat conditions dictated his reassignment—but that was all in the future.
Interpersonal relationships and command problems aside, training at Toccoa remained as demanding as ever. After several weeks of intense physical training, Colonel Sink lined up a C-47 Dakota aircraft to qualify his officers before the bulk of the troops arrived for basic infantry training. The airstrip at Camp Toccoa had been constructed by leveling the top of “Dick’s Hill,” a medium-sized hill that the Le Tourneau Earth-Moving Company had lopped off about halfway up and flattened for an airstrip. The landing strip was very short and built to take care of Piper Cubs, not Army C-47s. The length of the runway required that a C-47, in taking off with a load of jumpers, could just barely get airborne by the end of the strip. To reach flying speed, the pilot had to dive the plane parallel to the downward slope of the mountain. That was a real thrill. To land the plane, the pilot could not stop while going in a straight line, so, as he came near the edge of the mountain, he had to turn left or right, as the wing of the plane extended over the edge of the slope. It was much safer to jump from the plane than to land in it.
To determine who would serve as jumpmaster of the first contingent of officers, Sink conducted a “Junior Olympics.” The competition consisted of the best time up and down Currahee, most push-ups, most chin-ups, and the best time through the obstacle course. First Lieutenant Wally Moore was the only man to beat me on that run up Currahee when my legs cramped. I won the overall competition, however, and was rewarded by becoming number one jumper in the first stick to jump at Toccoa. As the aircraft climbed to 1,000 feet, it circled over the drop zone and decelerated to around ninety miles per hour. A Regular Army sergeant instructed us to “stand up and hook up.” Hooking my static line to the anchor cable, I placed my left foot on the edge of the open door. Gazing down to the drop zone, I looked over the cornfields below and placed both hands on the outside edge of the plane. The green light came on and the sergeant yelled, “Go!”
Out I stepped into thin air and the inexorable force of nature took over as gravity carried me downward. It was an exhilarating feeling, but I experienced no sensation of falling. On my initial jump, I almost caught my chute in the high-tension line running through the cornfield that was also our landing field. Having landed safely, I was back up with the other officers until we all made five jumps by evening. We were now airborne qualified and could “blouse our boots,” the traditional mark of an airborne soldier. Colonel Sink ran three or four groups of officers through this system of qualification before the plane had an accident while landing on the field. He determined that this method of qualification was too dangerous, so the remainder of the regiment qualified at Fort Benning. That night the officers congregated at the officers’ club to celebrate our newly acquired status as airborne officers. The liquor flowed freely and I received my share of good-natured ribbing because I was a teetotaler.
Every soldier who endures basic training emerges with stories that evolve with passing years. Both Sink and Strayer developed innovative training programs to bolster our morale and to foster unit cohesion. Before the regiment left Toccoa, Colonel Sink directed that a final physical test be conducted to eliminate unsuitable men from the regiment. Companies were rotated through the testing center, with noncommissioned officers from other battalions judging the individual stations. One of the men, Burt Christianson, remembered that the day before the test, Easy Company was primed and ready, confident that the men were now in the best physical conditioning of their young lives. On the day of the test, we began with the obstacle course. Each soldier received ten points if he successfully negotiated the course in three minutes. For every three seconds under three minutes, he earned an extra point. From the obstacle course, Easy Company marched to the push-up area, where each trooper was required to do thirty push-ups for ten points. For each additional push-up, another point was awarded to the contestant. Many members of the company had placed wagers on Captain Sobel’s inability to do thirty push-ups, but he successfully passed this station. Next up was the standing broad jump, also worth ten points with additional points for additional distance.
Sink’s decathlon continued with the pull-up station, where each trooper had to do six overhand pull-ups to the chin from a hanging position using a horizontal bar. The next event was to run at a ten-foot wall, leap up to catch the top of it, and then pull oneself over for ten points. This was followed by a duck-walk for fifty yards in thirty-five seconds, a feat that was far more difficult than it sounds. The 100-yard dash was next over a field where the green grass was about four inches high. To obtain the required ten points, you had to cover the ground in thirteen seconds, not too hard except by this point each member of the company was near exhaustion. The final event was the one mile run over a half-mile course. When a soldier reached the turnaround point, he shouted his name and received his time. If you completed the mile in six minutes, you received ten points and another ten points if you made the half-mile in three minutes. The men who received the highest scores in Easy Company in the physical competition were Burt Christenson, Gordon Carson, George Rainer, Carwood Lipton, and Robert Van Klinken. Their collective reward included bragging rights in the company and the opportunity to represent the company in the battalion competition the following day.
Much has also been written about the “Hog and Innards Problem” over Thanksgiving. This sounds gross, but it actually wasn’t that bad. The setup for the exercise consisted of stringing barbed wire on top of stakes about eighteen inches high. This ended up being like a net, covering an area approximately twenty feet wide and fifty to sixty feet long. The ground was covered with hog entrails—hearts, livers, intestines, the works. And then, to make sure you kept your head and butt down, two .30-caliber light machine guns were set up to fire live ammunition over the top of the barbed wire. The barrels of the machine guns rested on 2'' x 4'' supports and the legs of the tripods were sandbagged down. For a basic infantry training exercise, this resembled a real combat atmosphere. We had a real incentive to keep our heads and butts down in the hog guts. I thought it was an excellent exercise, and it’s one everyone remembered.
The most grueling exercise Easy Company endured during our time at Toccoa was the field march to Atlanta, a distance of 118 miles, during the period December 1 to December 4, 1942. Some reports say the march was 112 miles, others 115 miles. Who cares? It was a killer! Prior to deploying the regiment to Fort Benning, Colonel Sink had discovered a newspaper article that said the Japanese had conducted a forced march of 100 miles in seventy-two hours down the Malayan Peninsula. Determined to demonstrate that his men could better the Japanese mark, Sink selected 2d Battalion to prove his point while 1st Battalion traveled to Columbus, Georgia, by train and 3d Battalion marched directly to Fort Benning from Atlanta to begin airborne training. Lieutenant Sal Matheson, who had joined battalion staff as adjutant, laid out the course for Major Strayer. The march was conducted during unusually severe weather conditions with full field equipment less rolls. Private First Class Smith remembered that the march started out with the assumption that the battalion had landed in hostile territory and had only its regular war rations and equipment. Approximately 100 miles of the march was made over rough and muddy roads, with temperatures dipping below freezing every day. Of the 586 men who initiated the march, only twelve failed to complete the journey. The elapsed time to complete the entire exercise was seventy-five hours and fifteen minutes according to the battalion’s letter of commendation, with the actual marching time of thirty-three hours and thirty minutes.
Seven miles outside the gates of Camp Toccoa, a cold winter rain turned to snow as the battalion began its trek toward Atlanta. The first day out, we covered forty-four miles, followed by forty miles on the second day. My worst memory was the morning of the third day. It had been raining the entire preceding day so that when we camped late that night, we were in mud to the tops of our boots. When we lay down to sleep, we were in the mud. I took my boots off and put them by my head in the mud. During the night the temperature dropped dramatically and the mud froze, so when I awoke, the sleeping bag was frozen in the mud and I was stiff and sore all over. But the worst part was that my boots were frozen stiff and I could hardly get them on, even with the laces loosened all the way. The lesson I learned that morning, and I’ve never forgotten, was to always get your boots or shoes nice and wide and a little on the long side. Your feet always swell under severe stress.
PFC Robert T. Smith described the field march as “the most miserable experience” he ever had. By the end of the hike, Smith’s knees and ankles were so swollen that he could hardly walk for three days afterward. Another of Easy Company’s men, Gordon Carson, remembered that those four days were the worst four days he had ever spent. Beginning on Tuesday at 7:30 A.M., the company marched in the cold and rain through the mud and rain in the Georgia back hills. We stopped to eat at 12:15 P.M. and resumed the march an hour later, not stopping until we reached the bivouac area at 8:45 P.M. The wind was so high the men couldn’t keep their fires going. Tuesday night, said Carson, “was the most uncomfortable night I ever spent in my life.” Tuesday, Carson was never colder; Wednesday, he was never more tired. I vividly recall seeing Floyd Talbert, one of our best soldiers, slugging along with his machine gun. I can still see the determination on Talbert’s face. Later we developed a personal friendship that transcended rank. Talbert was athletic and dedicated. You knew if your life were on the line, he would come through. Another of my 2d Platoon troopers, DeWitt Lowery not only carried his light machine gun, but also the company’s faithful mascot, “Currahee,” in his backpack. Second Battalion had adopted Currahee shortly after the majority of troopers had arrived at Toccoa. He stayed with Easy Company long enough to see all the qualified paratroopers receive their hard-earned wings on graduation day.
Dog and Fox Companies shared equally in Easy’s hardships. Private First Class Leonard Hicks of Fox Company remembered the freezing rain that drenched everything and everyone the first day out. As his pain increased, he began hallucinating, claiming that at one point he saw two or three Johnny Rebs watching the battalion as they trudged through the Georgian woods. The miserable weather also affected Fox Company’s 1st Sergeant Willie Morris, whose usual enthusiasm was waning as the day progressed. Aided by his buddies, Private Hicks and the remainder of 2d Battalion reached the campus of Oglethorpe University on the evening of the third day.
After “cursing everything the Lord created,” the battalion finally reached Atlanta after an overnight halt at the Oglethorpe campus. It was reported that Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Wolverton, the commanding officer of 3d Battalion and who would later be killed on D-Day, finished his hike in his stocking feet. By now our march was the subject of every newspaper and radio broadcast. Lieutenant Wally Moore’s 3d Platoon of Easy Company crossed the finish line with every man crossing the line unaided, so he led the company parade down Peachtree Street to Five Points in the center of Atlanta. The other platoons objected that Moore had violated the “rules of engagement” by having his men remove the barrels of their machine guns for the hike, but 3d Platoon captured photographic honors anyway. The mayor of Atlanta and other dignitaries greeted us and presented the battalion with a key to the city. Following ceremonies at Five Points, we then marched to the train station, only too eager to board the train for the ride to Columbus.
As I look back on the officers and men who served in Easy Company during the war, my thoughts always return to the corps of soldiers who survived Toccoa. To this day I keep a list of the Toccoa men by my desk and I look at it every day. Every trooper who joined Easy Company after Toccoa was a replacement. Many of them made fine soldiers, but they were replacements. Toccoa men are special, and they are always the guys I remember first....
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DETAILS
TITLE: Beyond Band Of Brothers
Author: Richard Winters
Language: English
ISBN: 9780425213759
Format: TXT, EPUB, MOBI
DRM-free: Without Any Restriction
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