Band of Brothers

Easy Company was part of the ring of defenses around the 101st Airborne, Combat Command B (10th Armored), and the 463th Field Artillery in Bastogne. They were outnumbered and outgunned by the Germans, who faced them with “fifteen divisions, four of them armored, supported by heavy artillery” (179). Casualties for the 1st Battalion of the 506th were high from December 19-20, but their actions bought enough time to establish a defense of Bastogne.

The situation on the “defense perimeter was fluid and confused” (179), so much so that Winters sent back to headquarters to make sure that his battalion was placed where it should be. Easy Company was uphill in a wood that was 1 kilometer from Foy. They dug the main line of resistance (the most important defensive position, usually near the front of the battle position) just inside the woods. Winters established his headquarters on the south side of the woods.

On December 20 the 1st Battalion of the 506th left Noville and went into reserve. Easy Company continued to wait for the Germans to attack, a moment that never cameat their position because the 101st had done its job well, forcing the Germans to other parts of the perimeter. The weather wascold because of the snow and wind, and the men were not dressed for it, leading to cases of trench foot. The Luftwaffe bombed the town that night. The night sounds—silence punctuated with sniper fire, mortars, the wounded crying out, and commands to prepare for attacks—were unnerving. The tight conditions of the foxholes made it impossible to sleep, so some men passed the time by telling stories about home and singing.

On December 21 Lieutenant Peacock sent the men out on a combat patrol to reconnoiter the Germans’ main line of resistance, acquire a prisoner, and count their numbers. Peacock, who was known for his indecisiveness, had no answers to the questions the men asked him about the plan to carry out the mission, which made the men nervous. Although they found the German main line of resistance, the mission was not a success, with one man killed, one man injured, and no prisoners captured.

Things continued much as before over the next few days. The American artillery didn’t have the resources to prevent the Germans from shelling them or to stop the German supply lines because they were almost out of ammunition. On the 23rd, however, the weather cleared long enough for Allied C-47s to drop food enough for one day and more ammunition that was still short of the total needed. The men continued to freeze at night since there were not enough blankets for everyone. When officers saw men breaking under the difficult conditions out at the perimeter, they’d bring the soldiers further behind the line for different duties, according to Winters (186-187).

As bad as the conditions were, the men continued to go out on patrols as instructed, even if they could have pled legitimate sicknesses like diarrhea and trench foot to stay put. Not one man shot himself to escape by evacuation, although one soldier apparently shipped out after getting frostbite intentionally. When wounded soldiers were evacuated, their peers were glad for them, and when they were killed, the men saw the survivors as having escaped their suffering (187). On the same day that Easy managed to throw back an intense German attack, Welsh and Lipton were among those who were shot and evacuated. Gordon was temporarily paralyzed by a near-fatal shot from a sniper.

On December 25, the Germans attacked Bastogne on the side opposite from E Company. On December 26, Patton’s Third Army got through the German lines, breaking the siege and allowing for the resumption of communications and supply drops to the 101st (190). General Taylor earned the ire of the men when he returned from the safety of Washington, where he’d been in meetings,for a brief inspection.

When the men of the 101st finally got the chance to see the backlog of newspapers, they were surprised to learn that they were famous. The newspapers nicknamed them the “Battered Bastards of the Bastian of Bastogne” and labeled their performance in the face of almost-impossible odds as heroic, a welcome change from all the other bad news about the entire campaign (190). The other troops fighting on the north side of the Ardennes got no such publicity and went unnoticed by the civilians back home. The 101st was less pleased, however, when Patton’s Third Army was credited with coming to their rescue.

Eisenhower was short on men and weapons in the face of a larger and better armed German force, so there would be no going back to Mourmelon for the 82ndand 101st. Eager to attack the salient the Germans had established at the Bulge, Eisenhower wanted to go on the offensive by launching an attack before New Year’s Eve. He was stymied by the sluggishness of Montgomery, who did not get his American forces on the northern part of the Bulge moving in time. Easy stayed put as a result, and although conditions improved, with better supply lines and warmer clothing, the men still had to remain vigilant.

On December 29, for example, men on patrol reported seeing a tree that had not been there previously. When Lipton examined it with his binoculars, he discovered that the Germans were attempting to camouflage an anti-aircraft battery that was a part of a new German effort to push into Bastogne. The Germans had to get through Bastogne to “hold their position in the Bulge and to be prepared for withdrawal” (193). They attacked the town from the south, sending eight German divisions accompanied by Panzers to battle. Patton attacked from the north of Bastogne. General Courtney Hodges, under the command of Montgomery, was tentatively scheduled to attack in the south. A concerted attack from these three forces would cut off the Germans, while a stop by the Germans would allow them to escape.

Easy Company was down to less than a hundred men, having buried seven in the woods near Ardennes and shifting out several others. Among those was Gordon, who spent six weeks wrapped in steel designed to keep his broken spine stabilized while it healed. He was done with fighting for now.

By New Years of 1944, Easy Company was on the offensive with its entire battalion. Their first objective was to clear the Bois Jacques, a nearby forest that was full of Germans who had to be removed to reach thenext objective, the village of Foy. From there, they needed to reach the high ground at the village of Noville. This task was primarily assigned to the entire 2nd Battalion of the 506th. The Germans bombed them on the night of January 1.

On January 2, 1st and 2nd Battalions moved into position. It was intensely cold when Winters ordered his men to move out and only got more so as the sweat they worked up cooled. Once they entered Bois Jacques, the snow and trees ate up all sound, causing communication to break down at every level and inspiring fear in the men. German artillery fired directly into the front of E Company and was followed by answering American artillery. The Germans stopped firing, and then started up again. 900 meters in, E Company came to a logging road, only to be surprised by a German on horseback. The German attempted to retreat, but Corporal Hoobler picked him off before he could escape. Hoobler died later that night after accidentally shooting himself in the thigh with a Luger from the horseman (198).

Sergeant Martin called together the noncommissioned officers of the 1st Platoon to let them know Peacock was going back to the United States for a public relations tour designed to encourage investment in war bonds. Peacock, who was universally disliked because of his poor leadership ability, missed the irony when the men told him that they were happy to see him go. He was replaced by Lieutenant Foley, an officer who did have the respect of his men (199).

By January 3, Winters assigned 1st Battalion to hold the line with an understaffed D Company. He then assembled 2nd Battalion, 3rd Battalion, and a bazooka team from the 10th Armored to head for Foy. German artillery spotted them while they were en route, killed two of the gunners, and wounded several others, including Toye. The shelling stopped momentarily. When the men left their foxholes to retrieve the wounded, the Germans resumed shelling. Lt. Dike left his company, supposedly to get help, while Lipton sat with Toye and Guarnere, who seemed to be fatally wounded. Their commander, Buck Compton, was shaken by what he saw. He broke, and was shipped from the front because of trench rot, a common ailment that plagued most of the men but that rarely served as a good enough reason to be taken off active duty.

Winters told Ambrose decades later that the departure of so many officers made him begin to worry about the entire battalion reaching a breaking point beyond which it could no longer be effective. He assumed that he was going to die soon, but never reached the point of breaking himself. Officers, “with the additional burden of making decisions constantly, under pressure, when there had been deprivation of sleep and inadequate food,” were certainly vulnerable, however (202).

The practice of replacing men in rifle companies, especially infantry, with raw recruits meant the replacements had to integrate into units with which they had not trained and that the veterans knew they could get home only by dying or getting a serious wound. The job of soldiers—to kill strangers and be killed by strangers, and then be praised for it—inverts the ethics of the civilian world, contributing to the likelihood that men will break. Ambrose quantifies the impact of functioning in a combat zone by quoting an Army report, Combat Exhaustion, which points out that the effectiveness of the soldier in combat peaks at 90 days and rolls over into the completely ineffective range as early as 140 days (203). Easy Company had been in combat for 116 days.

The wear of those days on E Company became apparent in January 1945, as they prepared to take Foy. Lipton, one of his reliable sergeants, told Winters that the men were worried that Lt. Dike’s inability to act was going to get them killed. Winters followed up with questions but didn’t relieve Dike. Even worse, the Army sent in inexperienced replacements to supplement his numbers just before the attack on Foy.

Winters managed to capture the woods around Foy on the east, west, and south, but he needed to get through the village to get beyond Foy to Noville. He assigned the objective to his 2nd Battalion. The plan was to march 200 meters downhill at a quick pace into Foy and deal with the Germans likely to be hidden there once they got into the town. They hadn’t had time to scout the town, so this was a risky plan. Backed up by Lt. Spiers, a man who was respected and feared by the men (he was rumored to have killed ten German POWs in cold blood and a drunk noncommissioned officer who disobeyed his orders), Winters launched the attack.

As they made their way across the field in a line, Foley, on Winters’s left, dropped a grenade on Germans in some shacks and killed them rather than taking them prisoner. Meanwhile, Lt. Dike, assuming he was uncovered on his left flank, halted his platoons behind some haystacks and failed to answer an irate Winters, who needed to know why he had halted the line. Lt. Dike decided to send 1st Platoon, led by Foley and one of his sergeants, on a left-flanking maneuver to attack the village—a poor decision that left his comrades vulnerable. Instead of moving, he kept the machine gun and mortars with him while he hunkered down, “frozen behind the haystacks” with “no plan” (209). Tasked with running the battalion, Winters ultimately sent Speirs to relieve Dike, who had clearly broken.

Ambrose identifies the moment of the attack on Foy, the lowest moment in the war for these men, as the test of the ability of a civilian army to face off against Hitler. E Company, whose core was still the remaining men who had trained at Toccoa back in Georgia, bore the brunt of that challenge when they followed Speirs into Foy. Speirs, apparently undaunted by the German bullets, ran through the field until he reached Foy, then ran back and forth through the German lines. As they reached Foy, the men faced strong resistance from the Germans (212). The Americans took Foy, passing their “test” (212). Sink relieved Dike of E Company’s command on Winters’ advice that night and replaced him permanently with Speirs.

In an interview at the start of Chapter Thirteen, Winters rails against General Taylor, who returned from the United States as Winters and Easy Company were pulled into the attack on Noville in January 1945. While Winters believes Easy Company participated because General Taylor wanted to prove himself to his superiors after he returned from the United States, Ambrose points out that their participation provided much-needed manpower as a part of a “general offensive designed to cut through to the north and link up with U.S. First Army, thereby trapping the German tanks in the tip of the salient” (213). The decision was Eisenhower’s.

After the attack on Foy, the 2nd Battalion was put in reserve to the south. The 3rd Battalion assumed responsibility for countering the German counterattacks that came after. Conditions on the ground worsened as the temperature dropped and more snow fell. The path to Noville was also a difficult one because the men would have to cross open ground, clear dense woods, and navigate a town that gave the Germans the high ground and hiding places for snipers and tanks. The plan was for Winters’s 2nd Battalion to lead the attack on Noville at noon on January 14 by moving south from Foy, then west to take the town of Recogne, then to attack the Germans in an open field near the village of Cobru. 1st Battalion’s assignment was to move north in the woods on 2nd’s left, in order to clear the Germans. Winters was not happy about having to attack in the snow and in the daylight, but he had his orders.

He made the decision to have the men run along a deep shoulder southwest to get out of Noville, which added both speed and danger due to additional exposure. Shortly after they departed, German tanks shot at the 1st Battalion, and their machine guns fired on the 2nd Battalion. Speirs had his machine gunners fire back to allow the men to move ahead in groups and jump a small stream in their path. By nightfall, 2nd Battalion had made it to Cobru. The men went down for a cold night’s rest after the officers detailed their plans for the attack. Lipton, who was responsible for leading the 2nd Platoon, scouted ahead with his radio and, after asking permission from Speirs, checked Noville to see if their tank support had arrived. He discovered that the Germans still held the town.

Easy Company encountered resistance, including tanks they mistakenly thought were friendly, when they attacked the next day, January 15. Air support destroyed the German tanks as they fled the town. By noon, 2nd Battalion had taken Noville, something the 101st had been trying to do since December 20. General Taylor then assigned the 2nd Battalion to clear the village of Rachamps to the east, which they did with ease.

Despite the lack of supplies and miserable conditions that were much worse than that of the well-supplied Germans, the units of the 101st had managed to win time and again. According to Ambrose, “[i]t was a test of arms, will, and national systems, matching the best the Nazis had against the best the Americans had, with all the advantages on the German side” (219). He credits the wins to the moral superiority and more open society of the Americans (219). Their victories made “legends” of the 101st and popularized their patch, the “the Screaming Eagle” (219).

The101st was relieved by the 17th the next day. Easy Company rode through Bastogne—the town they’d lost many men to defend—for only the second time as they headed for Alsace, on the border between Germany and France. Easy Company, according to Ambrose, was by now “a band of brothers” because they had fought together in so many different settings, because of their common fear of death and that their sacrifices had been for nothing, and because their sergeants especially had not broken when they faced their test at Foy at the start of January (221).