Beyond Band of Brothers (14 page)

In any event, we were up in an instant and Easy Company provided covering fire as 1stBattalion crossed the canal. In the front of that battalion was the commanding officer, Major James La Prade, tiptoeing from rock to rock, trying to make his way across the canal without getting wet. He had his .45-caliber pistol in one hand as he tried to maintain his balance. It struck me as funny. I thought to myself,
For God's sake, man, carry an M-1 rifle if you're expecting trouble. Give yourself a little firepower. Furthermore, carrying an M-1 makes you look like another soldier, not an officer. Snipers like to look for officers.
Three months later La Prade, now a lieutenant colonel, was killed at Bastogne. As for E Company, we crossed the canal by dark, and I slept in a wood shed that night to keep out of the rain. Later, the Royal Engineers of the 14th Field Company laid a 110-foot long Bailey-bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal for the tanks to cross once Hell's Highway was secured.

The following day, the 506th renewed its advance toward Eindhoven, a city of 100,000 residents. As we approached Eindhoven, Colonel Sink ordered 2d Battalion, with F Company leading, to the left flank of the regiment. F Company was stopped cold, and E Company was sent to the left flank of its sister company. During the subsequent attack Lieutenant Bob Brewer, Easy Company's 3d Platoon leader, was hit. I had sent Brewer to lead E Company in the attack. The field in front of Eindhoven was flat, with absolutely no cover. There was a slight rise in elevation as we approached the town. Brewer had dispersed his platoon in perfect formation: scouts forward, no bunching
up. The formation was perfect except for one thing. Brewer was way out front with the scouts. Being a tall man, about six-foot-three, waving his arms and hollering, he looked like an officer. Brewer was a perfect target. I could see it coming; everyone could see it coming. I hollered over the radio, “Get back. Drop back. Drop back!” No radio contact. He just kept going ahead. Suddenly, a single shot rang out and down he went down like a tree that had been felled by an expert lumberjack. The bullet passed through his throat just below the jawline. I was sure he was dead. At that moment, I didn't have time for pity. Without a pause, I kept driving the company across that field as fast as we could go. I never looked back. We reached Eindhoven without further resistance. As for Brewer, he miraculously recovered and later joined Easy Company at the end of the war.

After Normandy, I wondered if I would ever find any elation in war. When we entered Eindhoven, however, our biggest problem was pushing the troops through the crowds of people that greeted our men. Having suffered over four years of occupation by the Nazis, the reception by the Dutch population of the first Allied soldiers they had seen since April 1940 was unrestrained. It must have been similar to the outpouring of emotion that greeted our troops when they liberated Paris in late August. The streets of Eindhoven were literally engulfed with civilians, smiling, waving, and offering the men drinks and food. Many residents brought chairs from their homes and encouraged our soldiers to sit down and rest for a while. This reception contrasted sharply with what we had encountered in Normandy, where we had been suspicious of snipers posing as French civilians. I was still afraid of snipers after just seeing Brewer get hit, so I put my map case under my pants belt. I next pulled my fatigue jacket over the map case and the binoculars, to conceal both. I then turned the collar of my jacket up to conceal my rank. I tried as much as possible to look like just another GI, which was why I always carried an M-1 rifle. It just felt good knowing that I could take care of myself in all situations.

Easy Company soon pushed through the crowd and secured the

bridges over the Dommel River. I figured the party could wait until later. Not getting to that first bridge before it was destroyed on September 17 had left us feeling that we had failed to do our part in accomplishing the assigned mission. However, the guilt didn't last long, since the forward elements of the British armored column did not arrive until the afternoon of September 18. Then they promptly halted in the center of town, set up housekeeping, and proceeded to make tea. This lack of urgency for the need to push on to the 82d at Nijmegen and their comrades at Arnhem left us feeling a bit bewildered. By 1830, the main body of the British Guards Armored Division started passing through Eindhoven from the south. This completed the mission assigned to the 506th at the start of the operation. That night, I set up outposts as Colonel Strayer established his battalion headquarters in the center of Tongelre, a suburb on the east side of Eindhoven.

While we consolidated our forces, the enemy remained active. The First Allied Airborne Army had dropped into a hornet's nest. German troops prepared for an immediate counterattack to sever the lone road that ran from Eindhoven to Arnhem. On September 19, two days into the operation, Easy Company, with a platoon of tanks attached for support, was given the mission of advancing toward Helmond, eight miles east of Eindhoven to make contact with the enemy. As we departed Eindhoven, the Dutch were out again, cheering, waving flags, offering food and drink. We crossed the line of departure and passed through Nuenen, a small village whose chief claim to fame was being the birthplace of Vincent van Gogh. No sooner had we departed Nuenen, than we encountered heavy fire from enemy tanks. The Germans destroyed several of our tanks and pinned down the company so quickly and tightly that we found it impossible to advance. Most of the men took cover in ditches adjacent to the road since we only had a few buildings that we could use as cover to set up and return fire. All we could do was to maintain fire until night. Then we broke off the fight and crawled back through the ditches until we could consolidate the company and return to Eindhoven. Nixon arrived late in the afternoon
with enough trucks to haul the company back to town. The Germans had administered a tremendous beating to American paratroopers who had started the day fully confident.

As soon as we returned to Eindhoven, the German air force gave the center of the city a terrific pounding. The image of that aerial and artillery bombardment remains seared in my mind to this day. The Dutch, who just that morning had been so happy to be liberated, and who had cheered us as we marched out toward Helmond, were now inside, closing their shutters, taking down their flags, looking dejected. It was a sad sight. They obviously felt that we were deserting them in the face of a determined enemy advance. Large fires continued burning in the town, and it wasn't until the morning before Eindhoven's residents brought the fires under control. To the population of this city, their world seemed to be coming to an end. We, too, felt badly, limping back to town. For the first time, Easy Company had been forced to retreat. Without sufficient armor support, our position was tactically impossible. Besides, we had ascertained the enemy location and determined their intention. I immediately settled the men down for the night and made my way to battalion headquarters to report. As I walked in, everybody seemed to be in a jovial mood and enjoying a scrumptious dinner. Lieutenant Colonel Strayer saw me, turned, and with a big smile asked, “How did it go today, Winters?”

“Sir, I had fifteen casualties today and took a hell of a licking.”

I wasn't smiling either. Needless to say the mood of the party changed abruptly. The only good news concerning our recent engagement was the return of “Bull” Randleman the next morning. Randleman had been reported as missing in action. Wounded and cut off from the rest of Easy Company, he took refuge in a vacant barn and waited until nightfall. Before long, a German soldier entered the barn to scout it out. “Bull” bayoneted him and concealed the body with hay. Then he covered himself and hid until the following morning when he was rescued by soldiers from A and D Companies.

Randleman was typical of the NCOs in Easy Company, and the
fact that he had stood on his own two feet, behind enemy lines, and had not lost his composure said a lot about the company's ability to function in combat. Private Tony Garcia, one of his squad members, described Randleman as “big and tough: tough not only against the Germans, but also in a milder way with his squad.” “Bull” talked slowly, but he had a commanding presence. If you needed to get the company up in the morning, you did not need a bugle. You just put Randleman in the middle of a field and told him to have everybody fall out. That was all you needed. No matter what kind of job you gave him, he got it done. He was extremely dependable. And the men loved him.

After two days in defense, Easy Company received orders to mount its men on trucks and move toward Uden on “Hell's Highway” in anticipation of a German attack. We were part of a two battalion–size force under command of Lieutenant Colonel Chase, the regimental executive officer. Easy Company only had sufficient trucks to carry half of the company, so I commanded the first serial. Captain Nixon and Lieutenant Welsh accompanied me as we approached Vechel. No sooner had we passed through Vechel en route to Uden, a scant four miles away, than the Germans severed the road in two places. Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, commanding the British XXX Corps whose mission it was to secure Hell's Highway, later referred to the German attack as his “Black Friday.” The German assault also left us isolated. I turned to the men and said, “Men, there's nothing to get excited about. The situation is normal. We are surrounded!” Together with three British tanks that were caught in town with us, we remained surrounded for the remainder of September 22 and for the next two days. I reported our dispositions to Colonel Chase, who immediately directed me to establish a defense in Uden. Roadblocks were set up on all roads entering Uden. To coordinate the defense, Nixon and I climbed the church tower. We climbed as high as we could go, to where the church bell was suspended. From here we could observe the battle taking place in the vicinity of Vechel.

It was not long before we noticed a German patrol of platoon strength moving through an orchard on the southeast side of Uden. We ran down the tower and I grabbed a couple of rifle squads and sped off to intercept the patrol. We hit them hard and they withdrew. I returned to the tower to enjoy my catbird seat, watching enemy tanks approach Vechel under tactical air support from the
Luftwaffe
. I couldn't believe that with all this action going on, no one was coming toward us at Uden, just a few miles away. The bliss of this front row seat did not last. A German patrol must have spotted Nixon and me, or, at least suspected that somebody was in that tower. They sent a long shot our way and it literally “rang our bell,” which was right over our heads. We came down the stairs of that tower so fast that our feet did not touch the steps more than two or three times. After we hit the ground, we enjoyed a good laugh just thinking about how we must have looked coming down.

At the road junction on the south end of Uden, I established a company strongpoint in a store adjacent to the road. The plan was simple: In case of attack, we would make a stand. If they brought tanks against us, we would drop composition C charges and Molotov cocktails on the tanks from the second-floor window as they passed the strongpoint. There was no talk of retreat or withdrawal and certainly nobody thought of surrender. That evening, around 2200, I decided to check all my roadblocks one last time before settling down for the night. Lieutenant Welsh was in charge of the roadblock on the northwest side of the town. On the left-hand side of the road junction, there was a large home that sat well back from the road. This would make a good command post (CP) for the roadblock, and that was where I had wanted the CP to be located. On the right-hand side of the road junction, there was a tavern. When I reached the road junction, I found a British Sherman tank in place, as we had agreed. However, I could not find a single Easy Company trooper in position. Damn mad, I went to the house where I had wanted the CP, figuring that everyone was inside. I knocked on the door, and a maid answered. I couldn't speak Dutch; she
couldn't speak English. Somehow, she got the message that I wanted to see “a soldier.” She escorted me down a hallway and opened the door to a large, lavishly furnished living room. The sight that greeted my eyes left me speechless. Sitting on the floor, in front of a large, blazing fire in a fireplace, was a beautiful Dutch girl, sharing a dinner of eggs with a British lieutenant. She smiled, he turned, and over his shoulder asked me, “Are my tanks still outside?” My reply to that question did not improve Anglo-American relations.

I returned to the road junction, went across the street, and found Welsh and his men sacked out on top of the bar at the tavern. Lieutenant Welsh and I sometimes had different priorities when it came to combat. Harry and I talked this whole situation over and I left, satisfied that we would have a roadblock set up to my specifications and that I could get a good night's sleep without worrying about a breakthrough. We remained in defensive positions until the afternoon of September 24, when the rest of the 506th arrived in Uden. That afternoon, however, the Germans cut the road again, this time south of Vechel, just north of the village of Koevering.

At 0300 the regiment was ordered to return from Uden back to Vechel in order to open the road again. In a heavy rain, the regiment launched an attack five hours later south of Vechel. Our battalion was initially in reserve, but by early afternoon Strayer committed 2d Battalion on a flanking action to the left. We had half a squadron of British tanks in support. Even with Easy Company in the lead, our advance was slow. Captain Nixon accompanied me as we scouted the terrain, planned, and executed each move of the flanking action. The pathway we selected was solid and firm, good traction for the tanks. On our right was a stand of woodland. The woodland cover ran out about 350 yards from the highway. To reach that highway, we had to cover 350 yards of open ground with absolutely no cover or concealment.