Band of Brothers

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  He was right. The woods form a U around Foy, with the village smack in the middle. In the attack of January 3, the Americans had taken control of the right-hand portion of the U. Next would come an attack on the left-hand portion.

  On January 9 the company participated in the clearing operation in the woods west of Foy. Resistance was light. The company reached its objective and dug in.

  Suddenly a shell burst in the trees, then another and another. They kept coming. Cpl. George Luz was caught out in the open. He began racing toward his foxhole. Sergeant Muck and Pvt. Alex Penkala called out to him to jump in with them, but he decided to get to his own and with shell bursts all around, splinters and branches and whole trees coming down, made it and dived in.

  Lipton was sharing a foxhole with Sgt. Bob Mann, the Company HQ radio man. The Germans sent over some mail. A shell that was a dud hit just outside their foxhole. Lipton looked at it. Mann lighted a cigarette. Lipton had never smoked, but he asked for one, and that night had his first cigarette.

  Luz went to check on Muck and Penkala, the men who had offered to share their foxhole with him. The hole had taken a direct hit. Luz started digging frantically. He found some pieces of bodies and a part of a sleeping bag.

  · · ·

  The 101st now held all the woods that encircled Foy from the east, west, and south. But Foy, down in its little valley, was not the objective; Noville and the high ground was. General Taylor had wanted to carry on the January 9 attack right into Noville, but for that he needed tank support, and as the tanks could only operate on the road, he had to have Foy. The village had already changed hands four times.

  The 2d Battalion of the 506th got selected to take Foy. It was pulled out of the line west of Foy and put back in south of the village. Winters picked Easy to lead the assault. It was a simple, brutal operation. Charge across an open, snow-covered field of some 200 meters in length down into the village, where every window could be a machine-gun post, where every German had brick-and-mortar protection, that was all there was to it. No subtlety, no maneuvers, just charge and get close enough to the enemy to use grenades to root them out of rooms. The key was to get across the field quickly. If the men pressed the attack, if the cover fire was heavy enough, it should be simple. If they paused, it could be costly.

  Division ordered the attack to kick off at 0900. Winters did not like the timing. He argued for a first-light start, to reduce exposure, but was turned down.

  Winters was watching as Easy formed up for the attack. Standing behind him was a platoon leader from Dog Company, 1st Lt. Ronald C. Speirs.

  · · ·

  Speirs was an officer with a reputation. Slim, fairly tall, dark hair, stern, ruggedly handsome, he cultivated the look of a leader, and acted it. One of his fellow D Company junior officers, Lt. Tom Gibson, described him as “a tough, aggressive, brave, and resourceful rifle platoon leader.” His nicknames were “Sparky” (among his fellow officers) and “Bloody” (with the enlisted). He had led a bayonet attack and won the Silver Star in Normandy.

  There were stories. The rumor mill swirled around Lieutenant Speirs. No one ever saw “it” happen with his own eyes, but he knew someone who did. They may be just stories, but they were believed, or half-believed, by the men of E Company.

  One story was about the time in Normandy when Speirs had a major problem with drinking in his platoon. He put out a blanket order. No more wine. None. The next day he ran into a drunken noncom. He gave an order, the noncom back-talked him, and he took out his pistol and shot the man between the eyes.

  The conclusion to the story goes like this: “And he never had any trouble with drinking after that.”

  Then there was the day in Normandy when Speirs was walking down a road by himself and passed a group of ten German P.O.W.s. They were under guard and were digging a roadside ditch. Speirs stopped, broke out a pack of cigarettes, and gave one to each P.O.W. They were so appreciative he jumped into the ditch and gave them the whole pack. Then he took out his lighter and gave each one a light. He stepped back up on the road and watched them inhale and chat.

  Suddenly and without warning he unslung the Thompson .45-caliber submachine-gun he always carried and fired into the group. He continued raking back and forth until all the P.O.W.s were dead. The guard was stunned. Speirs turned and walked away.

  Tom Gibson, who related this story to me (I heard it from many other sources, although no one saw it happen), commented, “I firmly believe that only a combat soldier has the right to judge another combat soldier. Only a rifle company combat soldier knows how hard it is to return his sanity, to do his duty and to survive with some semblance of honor. You have to learn to forgive others, and yourself, for some of the things that are done.”

  Gibson said he had told the story often over the years, never naming names, but using it as an example of what can happen in war. He continued, “We all know war stories seem to have a life of their own. They have a way of growing, of being embellished. Whether the details are precise or not there must be a kernel of truth for such a story to ever have been told the first time.”

  · · ·

  Winters was not thinking about Speirs and his reputation. He was watching Easy Company attack. Speirs and other officers from the unengaged companies stood behind him. Winters had placed the two machine-guns of HQ section to provide covering fire over the open fields sloping away in front of them, about 200 meters across from the tree line to the town line.2 There were some scattered trees and haystacks in the field.

  Lieutenant Foley, who led 1st platoon on the attack, described the situation: “We knew that Foy had not been tested the previous day or scouted last evening. In the days before we were well aware of the coming and going of trucks and tanks. We were witness to the many attacks and counterattacks that had taken place. We had seen F Company get chopped up in their efforts to hold this spot. Now they were commanded by a 2d lieutenant. So the unknown was ahead.”

  The company moved out, line abreast. The covering fire opened up. There were only a few random rifle shots from the village. Still, as Winters put it, “It was tough going for the men through that snow in a skirmisher formation, but the line was keeping a good formation and moving at a good pace.”

  First platoon, on the left flank, came on an area with some cow pens and small outbuildings. Foley had the shacks checked out. As the men from the platoon (only twenty-two of them) went to work, three Germans were seen scrambling into a shack. Foley had it surrounded, kicked the door in, then said in his best German, “Come out with hands up!” No reply.

  Foley pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade and tossed it in. After the explosion, the Germans emerged, shaken and bleeding. One was a 1st lieutenant, the other two were sergeants. Foley started questioning them about the whereabouts of other German troops. One of the sergeants reached his hand into his opened coat. Another made a similar move. The third cried out, “Dummkopf!”

  One of Foley’s men cut the Germans down with a burst from his submachine-gun. “We had no prisoners,” Foley commented, “but we had the concealed pistols.” The platoon hurried to rejoin the others.

  · · ·

  Dike looked left and could not see his 1st platoon. His other two platoons were moving forward steadily. They were being fired on but had not taken any casualties. But Dike was naked on his left, or so he thought. He made a disastrous decision, the kind of decision that gets men killed. He signaled for the 2d and 3d platoons to join Company HQ section behind two haystacks.

  From Winters’s point of view: “Suddenly the line stopped about 75 yards from the edge of the village. Everybody hunkered down in the snow behind those stacks and stayed there for no apparent reason. I could not get any response from Lieutenant Dike on the radio. The company was a bunch of sitting ducks out there in the snow.” He worried about how long he could keep up the suppressing fire.

  · · ·

  First platoon caught up with the company, grouped behind the haystacks. Foley came to
Dike for orders. Dike didn’t know what to do. Foley insisted he had to do something; Lipton and the other sergeants supported him strongly.

  Dike came up with a plan. It consisted of sending 1st platoon on a wide flanking movement to the left, to circle the village and launch an attack from the far side. Meanwhile he would direct machine-gun and mortar fire from the haystacks. For that purpose, Dike said he was keeping the platoon’s mortar and machine-gun men with him, to participate in the suppressing fire. So eighteen riflemen of 1st platoon went out into the snow, to try to get into Foy from the far side.

  Lieutenant Foley and Sergeant Martin had only a few minutes to plan the route that would get them to an assault position. They picked a path that provided, every 10 meters or so, a tree to hide behind. The line of trees went on into the distance.

  One by one they took off. Within minutes, snipers began to fire, cries for “Medic!” went up and down the line. The platoon returned the fire, but without noticeable effect. Foley went to the nearest wounded man. “This was Smith from California. He moaned and groaned as I ripped open the aid kit and before I found his wound he began ‘confessing.’ Imagine! And what he ‘confessed’ was that he and two other buddies had come across a PX ration and taken it. This consisted of Hershey bars and cigarettes! I told him that he wasn’t dying as I cut open his pants leg, sprinkled on the sulfa and wrapped his leg.”

  Martin told Pvt. Frank Perconte to move behind another tree and start shooting into the buildings from there. “So Frank goes over and gets behind a tree a little bigger than his head, but it wasn’t quite big enough for his ass. And they shot him in the ass.”

  (When Lipton saw Perconte later in the day, he was lying in the snow in a pool of blood but was still conscious and strong. Lipton asked, “Perconte, how bad are you hit?” He grinned and replied, “Lip, a beautiful wound, a beautiful wound.”)

  Martin directed Pvt. Harold Webb to a tree and told him where to fire. Foley got on the radio. “We’re held up by sniper fire. We can’t spot the location. We’ve lost five men. Can you locate? Advise.”

  Someone from company CP called back to say that the first haystack to Foley’s right could be the spot. Foley came back, “Rake that g —— d —— stack,” even as his platoon began firing at it.

  · · ·

  Lieutenant Dike, in Lipton’s judgment, had “fallen apart.” He was frozen behind the haystacks, he had no plan, he didn’t know what to do.

  To the watching Winters, that was obvious. “Here he had everybody hunkered down in the snow and staying there for no apparent reason.” Winters was frustrated by his inability to raise Dike on the radio. “Get going!” he would call out. “Keep going.” No response. Easy Company was taking needless casualties. All it needed was the leadership push to get across the last open space and into town. But the leadership wasn’t there.

  Winters grabbed an M-1 and started to run across the field, headed for the stationary company and its pinned-down 1st platoon. He intended to take command, get those men moving. But as he ran down, he thought, Geeze, I can’t do this. I’m running this battalion. I can’t commit myself. He turned and raced back.

  “And as I was coming up, there was Speirs standing right in front of me. ‘Speirs! Take over that company and relieve Dike and take that attack on in.’ ”

  Speirs took off running. Winters turned his attention to his job. Lieutenant Foley described the results: “Winters commanded the machine-gunners to lay down a base of protective fire so that we [1st platoon] could finish off what we had started, and for the mortars to concentrate on those two haystacks. A grenade launcher let go with several rounds, and when that stack began to burn, the two snipers became casualties.”

  Regiment put I Company (twenty-five men strong) on the right, into the attack. But success or failure rested with E Company. This was an ultimate test of the company. It had reached a low point. Neither the officers nor the men were, on the average, up to the standards of the company that had jumped into Normandy. None of the officers who led on D-Day were with the company in 1945. More than half the enlisted men were new. The core of the old company left was the N.C.O.s. They were Toccoa men, and they had held the company together since Dike took over in Holland.

  They lived in a state of high alert and sharp tension. They lived and soldiered and tried to suppress feelings, always there, feelings that John Keegan points out are the products “of some of man’s deepest fears: fear of wounds, fear of death, fear of putting into danger the lives of those for whose well-being one is responsible. They touch too upon some of man’s most violent passions; hatred, rage and the urge to kill.”3

  In this torrent of passion uncontrollable thoughts raced through their minds. They had seen their officers take a walk or break or just cower, or go mute (as Lieutenant Dike was at this moment of crisis). If they did not have the option of walking away, they did have the option of not leading. No one could force them to do so.

  Just as they could not force Dike to act. These N.C.O.s were Toccoa men, all that was left in Easy from that hot summer of 1942 and Captain Sobel. They had held the company together through a long stretch of inept command at the top and heavy losses among the enlisted ranks.

  So this was the test. Back in ’42 the question was, Can a citizen army be trained and prepared well enough to fight Germans in a protracted campaign in Northwest Europe? Hitler was not the only one who had answered no. But the answer that counted would come on the snow-filled fields of Belgium in January 1945; for Easy Company the test was now being given.

  The sergeants had it ready to be tested. The Toccoa core of the company was ready to be led, and to lead. At this moment, Speirs arrived, breathless. He managed to blurt out to Dike, “I’m taking over.” Sergeant Lipton and the others filled him in. He barked out orders, 2d platoon this way, 3d platoon that way, get those mortars humping, all-out with those machine-guns, let’s go. And he took off, not looking back, depending on the men to follow. They did.

  “I remember the broad, open fields outside Foy,” Speirs wrote in a 1991 letter, “where any movement brought fire. A German 88 artillery piece was fired at me when I crossed the open area alone. That impressed me.”

  Standing at the site in 1991 with Winters and Malarkey, Lipton remembered Speirs’s dash. He also recalled that when they got to the outbuildings of Foy, Speirs wanted to know where I Company was. “So he just kept on running right through the German line, came out the other side, conferred with the I Company C.O., and ran back. Damn, that was impressive.”

  · · ·

  As the platoons with Speirs moved out, 1st platoon started to move toward them. Sergeant Martin made a last-minute check. He noticed Private Webb, in firing position behind a tree, not moving. “Come on, Webb, let’s go, get out, come on!” No response. “Well, hell, they were still shooting, so I made a dash over to the tree, which is just a little bigger than your hand. And I jumped right on top of him, because it’s hard to lay down beside. I turned him around and they’d shot him right between the eyes.”

  · · ·

  The company surged into Foy. The men fired the full range of weapons available to a rifle company: M-1s, tommy guns, bazookas, light machine-guns, mortars, and grenades. They had artillery support. They created a tremendous uproar with bullets zinging off buildings, explosions in the rooms from American grenades, the thump of the mortars taking off, the boom when they hit, scattering bricks and dust through the air.

  Resistance was strong, even so. German snipers, bypassed in the first rush, began to inflict casualties. No one could locate one guy especially, who had stopped movement at a corner with two hits. Then Shifty Powers, the man who had spent so much of his youth spotting for squirrels in the upper tree trunks of the Virginia mountains, called out, “I see ’em” and fired. “We weren’t pinned down anymore,” Lipton remembered, “so we continued the attack.”

  Everyone resumed firing and advancing. Strong as the opposition had been, the Germans — the 6th Company of the
10th Panzergrenadier Regiment of the 9th Panzer Division — were only fighting a rear-guard action to cover a withdrawal to Noville. Still they fought tenaciously, skillfully, and without panic to keep the escape route open. But as Speirs moved his men forward, and threatened to cut the road behind the German position, three Tiger tanks lumbered off, all that was left of the panzer company. A platoon or so of infantry got out with them. Some 100 Germans, mostly wounded, surrendered. Easy Company had won the test of will. It had taken Foy.

  Lipton and Popeye Wynn looked at the place where the sniper had held them up, the one Powers shot at. They found the sniper with a bullet right in the middle of the forehead.

  “You know,” Wynn commented, “it just doesn’t pay to be shootin’ at Shifty when he’s got a rifle.”

  · · ·

  It was early afternoon. A movie camera team moved in to take film of the victory. Back on the ridge line at the edge of the woods, Winters noticed two photographers taking pictures of the stretcher bearers bringing in the wounded from 1st platoon. “When the detail reached about 25 yards from the woods, well out of danger, one photographer put down his camera and dashed out to grab hold of the soldier to help carry him. He grabbed him in such a way that he got as much blood on the sleeve and front of his nice new, clean, heavily fleeced jacket as possible. Then this guy turned toward his buddy, who was still taking pictures, and put on a big act of being utterly exhausted as he struggled across those final few yards to the woods. At that point he immediately dropped out.”

  That evening, Colonel Sink called for a meeting at regimental HQ for all the principal parties involved in the attack. Sink opened with a question for Winters: “What are you going to do about Company E?” “Relieve Lieutenant Dike and put Lieutenant Speirs in command,” Winters replied.