Richard Winters
Richard Davis Winters was a United States Army officer who served as a paratrooper in "Easy Company" of the 506th Infantry Regiment within the 101st Airborne Division during World War II. Winters was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his successful command of the assault on Brécourt Manor during the invasion of Normandy.
His exploits were featured in numerous books and in the 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers, in which he was portrayed by actor Damian Lewis.
Early life and education
Winters was born in New Holland, Pennsylvania, to Richard and Edith Winters on January 21, 1918. The family soon moved to nearby Ephrata, and then to Lancaster when he was eight years old. He graduated from Lancaster Boys High School in 1937 and attended Franklin and Marshall College.At Franklin and Marshall, Winters was a member of the Upsilon chapter of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity and participated in intramural football and basketball. He had to give up wrestling, his favorite sport, and most of his social activities in favor of his studies and the part-time jobs that paid his way through college. He graduated in June 1941 with a bachelor's degree in economics, earning the highest academic standing in the business college.
Military service
Second World War
Training
Winters wrote in his memoirs that he chose to volunteer for induction under Selective Service after graduating from college and complete the required one year of service rather than waiting for a conventional call-up at a later date that might "interrupt a promising business career," subsequently availing himself of any future service commitment should the United States remain neutral; though Winters "felt a strong sense of duty," he "had no desire to get into the war." Winters was inducted into the Army on August 25, 1941, at the New Cumberland Reception Center near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In September, he was assigned to Camp Croft, South Carolina, for basic training. While the rest of his fellow trainees were deployed to units stationed in the Panama Canal Zone in early December, Winters remained at Camp Croft to help train draftees and other volunteers. In April 1942, four months after the United States entered World War II, he was selected to attend Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. There he became friends with Lewis Nixon, with whom he would serve throughout the war. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry after graduating from OCS on July 2, 1942.During his officer training, Winters decided to join the parachute infantry, part of the U.S. Army's new airborne forces. Upon completing training, he returned to Camp Croft to train another class of draftees as there were no positions available in the paratroopers at that time. After five weeks, he received orders to join the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Camp Toccoa in Georgia. The 506th was commanded by Colonel Robert Sink.
Winters arrived at Toccoa in mid-August 1942 and was assigned to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR, which later became better known as "Easy Company" in accordance with the contemporaneous Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. Serving under First Lieutenant Herbert Sobel, Winters was made platoon leader of 2nd Platoon, earning a promotion to first lieutenant in October 1942 and made acting company executive officer, although this was not made official until May 1943. The 506th PIR was an experimental unit, the first regiment to undertake airborne training as a formed unit. The training at Toccoa was very tough. Of the 500 officers who had volunteered, only 148 completed the course; of 5,000 enlisted volunteers, only 1,800 were ultimately selected for duty as paratroopers.
On June 10, 1943, after more tactical training at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, the 506th PIR was attached to Major General William Lee's 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne Division. Later in the year, they embarked on the Samaria, and arrived in Liverpool on September 15, 1943. They proceeded to Aldbourne, Wiltshire, where they began intense training for the Allied invasion of Europe planned for spring 1944.
In November and December 1943, while Easy Company was at Aldbourne, the tension that had been brewing between Winters and Sobel came to a head. For some time, Winters had privately held concerns over Sobel's ability to lead the company in combat. Many of the enlisted men in the company had come to respect Winters for his competence and had also developed their own concerns about Sobel's leadership. Winters later said that he never wanted to compete with Sobel for command of Easy Company; still, Sobel attempted to bring Winters up on trumped-up charges for "failure to carry out a lawful order". Feeling that his punishment was unjust, Winters requested that the charge be reviewed by court-martial. After Winters' punishment was set aside by the battalion commander, Major Robert L. Strayer, Sobel brought Winters up on another charge the following day. During the investigation, Winters was transferred to the Headquarters Company and appointed as the battalion mess officer.
In the wake of this incident, several of the company's non-commissioned officers delivered an ultimatum to the regimental commander, Colonel Sink, threatening to surrender their stripes unless Sobel was replaced. Winters tried unsuccessfully to talk them out of taking this step. Sink was not impressed by the threat, and several of the NCOs were subsequently demoted or transferred out of the company. Nevertheless, he realized that something had to be done and decided to transfer Sobel out of Easy Company, giving him command of a new parachute training school at Chilton Foliat. Winters' court-martial was set aside and he returned to Easy Company as leader of 1st Platoon. Winters later said he felt that despite his differences with Sobel, at least part of Easy Company's success had been due to Sobel's strenuous training and high expectations. In February 1944, First Lieutenant Thomas Meehan was given command of Easy Company.
Summer 1944
Meehan remained in command of the company until the invasion of Normandy, when at about 1:15 a.m. on June 6, 1944, D-Day, the C-47 Skytrain transporting most of the company Headquarters Section was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire, killing everyone on board. Winters jumped that night and landed safely near Sainte-Mère-Église. Losing his weapon during the drop, he nevertheless oriented himself, assembled several paratroopers, including members of the 82nd Airborne Division, and proceeded toward the unit's assigned objective near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. With Meehan's fate unknown, Winters became the de facto commanding officer of Easy Company, which he remained for the duration of the Normandy campaign.Later that day, Winters led the Brécourt Manor Assault which successfully destroyed a battery of German 105mm howitzers, which were firing onto the causeways that served as the principal exits from Utah Beach. The Americans estimated that the guns, which were south of the village of Le Grand-Chemin, were defended by about a platoon of 50 German troops, while Winters had 13 men. The attack has since been taught at West Point as a textbook example of an assault on a fixed position by a numerically inferior force. In addition to destroying the battery, Winters also obtained a map that showed German gun emplacements near Utah Beach.
On July 1, 1944, Winters was told that he had been promoted to captain. The next day, he was presented with the Distinguished Service Cross by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, then the commander of the U.S. First Army. Shortly after, the 506th Parachute Infantry was withdrawn from France and returned to Aldbourne, England, for reorganization. The citation for his DSC reads as follows:
Autumn 1944
In September 1944, the 506th PIR parachuted into the Netherlands, near the village of Son, north of Eindhoven, as part of Operation Market Garden, a combined airborne and armored operation. On 5 October 1944, a German force attacked the 2nd Battalion's flank and threatened to break through the American lines. At the same time, four men in an Easy Company patrol were wounded. Returning to headquarters, they reported that they had encountered a large group of Germans at a crossroads about to the east of the company command post. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Winters took one squad from 1st Platoon, and moved off toward the crossroads, where they observed a German machine gun firing to the south, toward the battalion headquarters, from a long distance. After surveying the position, Winters led the squad in an assault on the gun crew. Soon after taking the position, the squad took fire from a German position opposite them. Estimating that this position was held by at least a platoon, Winters called for reinforcements from the rest of the 1st Platoon and led them, and a platoon from Fox Company in a successful assault. Later it was discovered there had been at least 300 Germans.On October 9, Winters became the battalion executive officer, following the death of the battalion's former XO, Major Oliver Horton. Although this position was normally held by a major, Winters filled it as a captain. The 101st Airborne Division was withdrawn to France soon afterward.
Winter 1944–45 and spring 1945
On December 16, 1944, German forces launched a counter-offensive against the Western Allies in Belgium, starting the Battle of the Bulge. The 101st Airborne Division was trucked to the Bastogne area two days later. Still serving as XO of the 2nd Battalion, Winters helped defend the line northeast of Bastogne near the town of Foy. The entire 101st Airborne and elements of the 10th Armored Division battled about 15 German divisions, supported by heavy artillery and armor, for nearly a week before Lieutenant General George Patton's U.S. Third Army broke through the German lines surrounding Bastogne, reopening ground supply lines.After being relieved by Patton, the 2nd Battalion attacked Foy on January 9, 1945. On March 8, 1945, the 2nd Battalion was moved to Haguenau in Alsace, after which Winters was promoted to major. Shortly afterwards, Robert Strayer, now a lieutenant colonel, was elevated to the regimental staff and Winters took over as acting commander of the 2nd Battalion.
In April, the battalion carried out defensive duties along the Rhine before moving to Bavaria later in the month. In early May, the 101st Airborne Division received orders to capture Berchtesgaden. The 2nd Battalion set out from the town of Thale through streams of surrendering German soldiers and reached the alpine retreat at noon on 5 May 1945. Three days later, the war in Europe ended.