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
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