Band of Brothers

by Stephen Ambrose

  Some of the wounded were worried about permanent disability. Malarkey found this out when he and Don Moone were sitting in the mess hall as Lipton passed by. "Hi, crip," Malarkey called out. Lipton turned and grabbed the two men by their throats, lifted them from their chairs, and declared that he would take them on one at a time or together. They went pale and said they didn't mean anything by the crack. Later Lipton returned, red faced, and said he was sorry to lose his temper, but he feared that the wound to his hand had inflicted permanent damage that would prevent him from playing college football.

  Underlying the release of tension in London, or Gordon's feeble attempts at some humor, was the reality these men had faced and their apprehension about what they would be facing.

  Sergeant Martin looked around the 1st platoon barracks the first night back from Normandy, and half the men who had been there from September 1943 to May 1944 were gone. He said to Guarnere, "Jesus, Bill, here we've got a half a hut full of guys, and we aren't even started in the war yet. We don't have a Chinaman's chance of ever getting out of this thing."

  "If we lost half the barracks in one goddamn little maneuver in Normandy," Guarnere replied, "forget it, we'll never get home."

  They took their leave in Scotland, where they got tattoos, figuring what the hell, "losing that many men in one little deal like that and the whole war ahead of us, why not?"

  Pvt. David Kenyon Webster had jumped with 2nd Battalion's HQ Company on D-Day, been wounded a few days later, evacuated to England, and returned to Aldbourne before the battalion returned. He hid in the shadows of the Red Cross hut as "the thin, tired column of survivors marched into the area," hoping that no one would look him in the face and ask, "Where the hell were you, Webster, when the Krauts made the big counterattack the other side of Carentan and F Company gave ground and E Company's flank was exposed?"

  His embarrassment aside, Webster was overjoyed to see his friends return. "You know everybody in the Battalion by sight," he wrote, "if not by name, and you feel like part of a big family. You are closer to these men than you will ever be to any civilians."

  He applied for a transfer back to E Company, because with HQ Company he had been an ammunition carrier most of the time, had fired his machine-gun only once in Normandy, and "I craved action. I wanted to get the war over with; I wanted to fight as a rifleman in a line company." He became a member of 1st platoon.

  Webster's attitude was, as he wrote his parents, "I am living on borrowed time. I do not think I shall live through the next jump. If I don't come back, try not to take it too hard. I wish I could persuade you to regard death as casually as we do over here. In the heat of battle you expect casualties, you expect somebody to be killed and you are not surprised when a friend is machinegunned in the face. You have to keep going. It's not like civilian life, where sudden death is so unexpected."

  When his mother wrote to express her considerable alarm at this attitude (and her worries about his younger brother, who had just joined the paratroopers), Webster was blunt in his reply: "Would you prefer for somebody else's son to die in the mud? You want us to win the war, but you apparently don't want to have your sons involved in the actual bloodshed. That's a strangely contradictory attitude.

  "Somebody has to get in and kill the enemy. Somebody has to be in the infantry and the paratroops. If the country all had your attitude, nobody would fight, everybody would be in the Quartermaster. And what kind of a country would that be?"

  Lipton felt that "when men are in combat, the inevitability of it takes over. They are there, there is nothing they can do to change that, so they accept it. They immediately become callused to the smell of death, the bodies, the destruction, the killing, the danger. Enemy bodies and wounded don't affect them. Their own wounded and the bodies of their dead friends make only a brief impression, and in that impression is a fleeting feeling of triumph or accomplishment that it was not them. [Thank God it was him and not me is a feeling common to many combat soldiers when their comrades fall; later it can produce guilt feelings.] There is still work to be done, a war to be won, and they think about that."

  Once out of the line, back in a rest camp, Lipton goes on, "they begin to think. They remember how their friends were wounded or killed. They remember times when they were inches or seconds from their own death. Far from combat, death and destruction are no longer inevitable—the war might end, the missions might be cancelled. With these thoughts men become nervous about going back in. As soon as they are back in, however, those doubts and that nervousness are gone. The callousness, the cold-bloodedness, the calmness return. Once more there's a job to be done, the old confidence comes back, the thrill of combat returns, and the drive to excel and win takes over again."

  If that sounds idealized, it can't be helped; that is the way Lipton and many others in Easy, and many others in the Airborne and throughout the American Army—and come to that, in the German and Red Armies too—fought the war. But by no means does Lipton's analysis apply to all soldiers. Millions of men fought in World War II. No one man can speak for all of them. Still, Lipton's insights into the emotional state of the combat soldier provide guidance into attempting to understand how men put up with combat.

  Coming out of Normandy, many of the men of Easy were fighting mad at the Germans and absolutely convinced the Allies would win the war. "I hope to go back soon," Webster told his parents, "for I owe the Germans several bullets and as many hand grenades as I can throw." The Germans had cut the throats of paratroops caught in their harnesses, bayoneted them, stripped them, shot them, wiped out an aid station. Because of these atrocities, "we do not intend to show them mercy." As to the outcome, "after seeing that beachhead, a breathtaking panorama of military might, I know we cannot lose. As for the paratroopers, they are out for blood. I hope to be back in on the kill."

  Promotions were made. Welsh and Compton moved up from 2nd to 1st lieutenant. Regiment needed new junior officers, to replace casualties; Winters recommended Sgt. James Diel, who had acted as company 1st sergeant in Normandy, for a battlefield commission. Colonel Sink approved, so Diel became a 2nd lieutenant and was assigned to another company in the 506th. Winters moved Lipton up to replace him as company 1st sergeant. Leo Boyle became staff sergeant at Company HQ. Bill Guarnere became a staff sergeant. Don Malarkey, Warren Muck, Paul Rogers, and Mike Ranney jumped from private to sergeant (Ranney had been a sergeant but was busted to PFC. during the Sobel mutiny). Pat Christenson, Walter Gordon, John Plesha, and Lavon Reese were promoted from private to corporal.

  Webster was an aspiring novelist, an avid reader of the best in English literature, a Harvard man, a combat veteran who praised and damned the Army on the basis of personal observation and keen insight. His long letters home provide snapshots of some of the men of Easy Company, following its first combat experience. Pvt. Roy Cobb, who had been hit on Harry Welsh's plane over Normandy and thus did not make the jump, "was an old soldier with some nine years to his credit. He managed to keep one long, easy jump ahead of the army. His varied and colorful wartime career had thus far included: 1. An assault landing in Africa with the 1st Armored Division, 2. A siege of yellow jaundice and an evacuation to America on a destroyer after his troopship had been torpedoed, 3. Several months' training at the Parachute School, 4. A timely leg wound from flak over Normandy. Tall, lean, thirsty, and invariably good-natured."

  The first squad of the 1st platoon was "headed by little Johnny Martin, an excellent soldier, a premier goldbrick, and a very fast thinker who could handle any combat or garrison problem that arose, always had the equipment, the food, and the good living quarters."

  The second squad leader was "Bull" Randleman, who was constantly bitching but who could "be very G.I., as I once discovered when he turned me in to the first sergeant for laughing at him when he told me to take off my wool-knit hat in the mess hall. Bull was considered a very acceptable noncom by the officers, who frowned on Sergeant Martin's flip attitude."

  Webster's squad leader w
as Sgt. Robert Rader. "I don't think Rader ever goldbricked in his life; he was the ideal garrison soldier, the type that knows all the commands for close-order drill and takes pride in a snappy manual of arms, that is impatient with men who ride the sick book and slip away from night problems."

  The assistant squad leaders, Cpls. William Dukeman, Pat Christenson, and Don Hoobler, "generally let the buck sergeants do the work. Dukeman had a way of beating night problems and skipping off to London every weekend that was truly marvelous to behold." Christenson was Randleman's assistant, which Webster considered a "snap job" because Randleman, like Rader, was very conscientious. Christenson was "of medium height and athletic build, with curly golden hair, E Company's only glamour boy. Hoobler was his opposite in every way. Hoobler was the only person I met who actually enjoyed fighting; he got a kick out of war. A happy-go-lucky, gold-toothed boy, he volunteered for all the patrols in combat and all the soft jobs in garrison. He was one of the best and most popular soldiers in the company." In Webster's opinion (and he had been around a lot as a member of HQ Company), the members of 1st platoon, E Company, were "younger, more intelligent than those in other companies." For the first time in the Army, and to his delight, he found men who talked about going to college after the war, including Corporal Dukeman and Sergeants Muck, Carson, and Malarkey.

  All these men were what Webster called "new-army non-coms." Their average age was twenty-one. They did not know the Articles of War backward and forward, they didn't care about "the Book that ruled the lives of so many regular-army men." They mingled with their men, they had not served in Panama or Hawaii or the Philippines. "They were civilian soldiers. They were the ones who saved America."

  Webster was also impressed by some of the officers. He described Winters as "a sizable, very athletic individual who believed in calisthenics in garrison and aggressiveness in combat." Welsh was now Winters' executive officer; Webster described him as "small, dark, lazy, quick-thinking, the only officer in the 2nd Battalion who could give an interesting and informative current events' lecture." He thought Lieutenant Compton, leader of the 2nd platoon, a friendly and genial man who was everyone's favorite. He had convinced the college-bound group that UCLA was the only place to go for an education.

  First platoon was led by Lt. Thomas Peacock, a replacement officer. Webster wrote that "he always obeyed an order without question, argument, or thought." Webster felt that Peacock "was highly esteemed by his superior officers and cordially disliked by his men. He was too G.I." Once the platoon came back to Aldbourne from a ten-hour cross-country march; Peacock made the men play a baseball game, because that was what was on the schedule. "Peacock believed in the book; he was in his element in Normandy as battalion supply officer, but as a platoon leader his men hated even to look at him."

  Peacock's assistant was Lt. Bob Brewer. Very young, a superb athlete, Webster described him as "overgrown, boyish."

  In the summer of 1944, Easy Company had excellent billets. The officers were in a lovely brick house near the village green; in back there were stables, which the men cleaned out and used. The stables consisted of a series of box stalls in each of which four men lived in comfort and a dark, welcome privacy. There they could hide,- so many did so when night training exercises resumed that Winters was forced to make a habit of checking the individual stalls to be certain no one was hiding behind the bunks or standing in the clothes hanging from the hooks. Beyond cover and concealment, each stall had a stove, a large, thick, soundproof door, and a high, airy ceiling. There was sufficient room to hang uniforms and barracks bags and still play poker or craps.

  For entertainment, the men listened to Armed Forces Network (AFN) radio. It was on from 0700 to 2300 with an occasional rebroadcast of a Bob Hope show, BBC news every hour, and swing music. The men much preferred it to BBC broadcasts, even though they had to endure SHAEF exhortations to keep clean, salute more often, or refrain from fighting. ("Remember, men, if you're looking for a fight, wait till you meet the Germans!"

  When they didn't like the tune being played on AFN, they could turn to German radio and listen to Axis Sally and Lord Haw Haw. These propagandists played popular tunes, intermixed with messages that were so crudely done they always brought a laugh.

  In addition to the radio, there were movies twice a week, usually cowboy thrillers, seldom a recent release. Occasionally a United Services Organization (USO) show came to the area, but generally the big stars stuck to London.

  Glenn Miller was an exception. For Malarkey, "the big thrill of the summer" came on July 25, when he was one of six men in the company to get a ticket to a concert given by Miller and his Army Air Force Band in Newbury. Forty-seven years later, Malarkey could remember the program; Miller started with "Moonlight Serenade" "the most thought provoking theme song ever written," according to Malarkey), followed by "In the Mood."

  On weekends, when they were not in a marshaling area or on an alert, the men got passes. Malarkey and More would jump on their motorcycle and head for the south coast—Brighton, Bournemouth, or Southampton—for swimming and sun bathing. Upon returning from one such excursion, they got a message from Captain Sobel. He wanted Malarkey and More to know that he knew they had the motorcycle and that it was stolen, but he was not going to do anything about it, except that he intended to confiscate it when the company next went into combat. Malarkey figured that Sobel's relatively reasonable attitude was a result of his unwillingness to confront Captain Winters.

  What was not so pleasant as the billets or the radio or the weekends was the training. "I got the impression we were being punished for going to Normandy," Webster wrote. There was a dreary list of parades, inspections, field problems, night problems, and trips to the firing range.

  Winters had smuggled some live ammunition back to Aldbourne from Normandy. He used it to give the replacements the feel of advancing in an attack under covering fire. There was a risk involved, obviously to the men on maneuvers, but also to Winters himself, as it was unauthorized, and if anyone had been wounded, it would have been his fault. But he felt the risk was worthwhile, because he had learned on June 6 at Brecourt Manor that the key to a successful attack was to lay down a good, steady base of fire and then advance right under it. Done correctly, the job got accomplished with few casualties.

  The training exercises were necessary in order to give the replacements in the company (nearly half the company was made up of recruits by this time, just over from the States after completing jump school), the feel of live fire, and to integrate them into the company. But, necessary or not, they were hated. Still, compared to the 1943 experience in Aldbourne, the summer of 1944 was a joy. Malarkey explained: "We were no longer subject to the discipline and vindictiveness of Herbert Sobel and Sergeant Evans. With Dick Winters fairness and compassion replaced the unreasonableness of his predecessor. The esprit de corps in the company increased tremendously."

  It helped morale that, however rigorous the training program, Easy was spending the summer in Aldbourne rather than Normandy. "I thank God and General Eisenhower that we returned to England," Webster wrote his parents, "whenever I think of the Pacific boys, living in jungles and on barren coral reefs, and of the infantry in France, grinding forward without music or entertainment of any kind until they are killed or wounded." All the men in Aldbourne were keenly aware that the 4th Infantry Division, their partners on D-Day, was still on the line, taking casualties, sleeping in foxholes, eating K rations, never bathing. Rumors were constant. On August 10, Eisenhower himself inspected the division, which convinced everyone that the next combat jump was coming immediately, a conviction reinforced on August 12 when brand-new equipment was handed around.

  Some were sure it was off for the South Pacific, others thought India, others Berlin. Those rumors were ridiculous, of course, but what fed them was the fact that the division made plans for sixteen operations that summer, each one of which was canceled. The problem was that through to the end of July, the front line in Normandy was n
early static; then Bradley's First Army broke out at St. Lo, Patton's Third Army went over to Normandy, and the American ground forces overran proposed drop zones before the paratroopers could complete their plans and make the jump.

  On August 17, Easy was alerted and briefed for a drop near Chartres, to set up roadblocks to cut off supplies and reinforcements for the Germans in Normandy, and to block their escape route. The company, along with the rest of the battalion, took buses to the marshaling area, at Membury airdrome, outside Aldbourne. They were fed steak and eggs, fried chicken, white bread, milk, ice cream. They checked their weapons and equipment, went over their briefing, discussed their objective.

  The recruits were excited, tense, eager, nervous. The veterans were worried. "I hate to think of going again," Webster wrote in his diary. What worried him most of all was the thought of being killed in his chute as he came down, swinging helplessly in the air, or getting caught in a tree or on a telephone pole and being bayoneted or shot before he could free himself. He had acquired a .45 automatic pistol, but it was no match for a distant machine-gun. He felt that if he could live through the jump, he could take the rest as it came.

  Talking to the subdued veterans around him at the airdrome, he noticed that "the boys aren't as enthusiastic or anxious to get it over with as they were before Normandy. Nobody wants to fight anymore."

  Some hope was expressed that with Patton racing across France, the Allies on the offensive in Italy, the Red Army moving forward relentlessly on the Eastern Front, and the Wehrmacht high command in turmoil after the July 20 attempt on Hitler's life, Germany might collapse any day. Most of the men would have welcomed such a development, but not Webster, who wrote his parents: