Endurance – Bastogne Part 1
Band of Brothers, December 19-31, 1944
One of my all time favorites! If you are not familiar with the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne you need to read the book ‘Band of Brothers’ by Stephen Ambrose. The DVD mini series is AWESOME but like so many things…reading about it is even more amazing. I will say, because it takes place during WWII, and because Easy Company traveled all over Europe, that watching the DVD first helped me to visualize where Easy Company was more easily when I then read the book. PLEASE understand that my very short synopsis of Bastogne will hardly do the men, book and series justice. But this part of history, of real American heros, deserves to be re-told again and again!
So who is Easy Company? Their accolades include parachuting into France early D-Day morning, fighting throughout Europe, and also the capture of Hitler’s Eagle Nest at Berchtesgaden. A tremendous company could only be led by a tremendous leader and his name was Capt Richard Winters.
Dec 17th Eisenhower declared that the crossroads city of Bastogne as the place that had to be held no matter what. So they decided to use the 101st paratroopers to plug the holes in his lines and hold Bastogne. Easy company, who had just arrived at Mourmelon for some recovery time was ordered to go along with 11,000 other men. The men of Easy had recently come from fighting in Holland and had not received a winter issue of clothes. Their boots were not lined or weatherproof and no long underwear or wool socks were available.
Dec 19th Easy went into the line south of Foy as one part of the ring defense. They suffered through the worst of conditions, temperatures below zero, twelve inches of snow; trying to sleep in foxholes at night they said that ‘shivering became as normal as breathing.’ Food rations were low. Capt Winters remembers his Christmas Dinner that year was 5 white beans in a cup of broth. Because they were surrounded by Germans, warming fires were out of the question. Runners who went into Bastogne would bring back flour sacks for the men to pile on top of each other and use as blankets. The Germans persisted trying to get through so shelling into the pines was a common occurrence.
(A clip from the HBO series, man, if this doesn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand up then I don’t know what will! What an excellent portrayal of courage despite horrible conditions!)
By January 3rd, 1945 Easy had spent twenty-three days on the front line in Normandy, seventy-eight in Holland, fifteen in Belgium, for a total of 116. Statistically, the whole company was in danger of breaking down at any time. According to Army psychiatrists, they reported that a man reached his peak of effectiveness in the first 90 days of combat, after that his efficiency began to fall off and he steadily became less valuable.
Wow! Talk about Endurance! It just amazes me what those men went through and I want to say THANK YOU to all of you who have served in the military helping to protect the freedoms we all enjoy.
I know we are all going through a battle in one way or another and I pray you have the endurance to keep fighting through.
Take care,
Tim Schmidt
March 17th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Tim,
RE: BAND OF BROTHERS
I am a small town guy of an older generation. I heard a lot of first hand WWII stories from the guys who lived them. My father was MIA Dec. 17, 1944 and KIA Dec. 23, 1944. A favorite uncle was at Bastogne (Airborne) and told me a lot about that battle. So, I have an interest in that area and time frame of WWII. Knowing some of those stories and what they endured and knowing that I was better trained and equipped than they were helped me keep my courage up while doing my job in various parts of the world, and here at home. There is no end to the respect I have for those guys, some of whom were gone from home four years and went through N. Africa, Sicily, Italy and continued to fight in Europe for nearly a year after D-Day.
I want to tell a little story about my favorite uncle. He survived the war with some physical disability but was mentally sharp until the day he died. He was a lawyer in a town small enough that everyone knew him by his first name.
The time is the 1970’s. A Mr. McCann had fired some shots from a .45 and had retreated into his home vowing to shoot anyone who entered. His home was across the street from the high school. The students were evacuated to the far end of the building and the Police had surrounded Mr. McCann’s home. My uncle heard about this disturbance and went there and spoke with the Police Chief. He then entered the home and talked with Mr. McCann for about an hour or so and then walked out of the home with the .45 in his coat pocket. He told the Police Chief that Mr. McCann was ready to go the the V.A. Hospital.
When asked how he had the courage to enter the house of an armed man who had vowed he would shoot anyone who entered, my uncle simply replied, “We were both at Bastogne.”
That, to me, illustrates the meaning of, “The Band of Brothers.”