By nightfall on June 6, 1944, most of the 101st Airborne Division, including Easy Company, were scattered across the Norman countryside. The outcome of D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history, was still very much in doubt. After surviving a terrifying parachute drop under fire and a day of brutal fighting, many of the men found themselves simply thankful to be alive. But as Lieutenant Dick Winters later recalled, the cost of that day was already enormous, and for many of his comrades, the day of days would be their last.
Among those losses were seventeen men from Easy Company who had been aboard Stick 66, a C-47 transport plane hit by German anti-aircraft fire during the drops. The plane was carrying the company commander, First Lieutenant Thomas Mihan, and First Sergeant William Evans. The loss was staggering, though at the time, it had not yet been fully confirmed. Those seventeen deaths made up the bulk of Easy Company’s D-Day fatalities, but they were not the only ones.
At least two other men from the company were killed after reaching the ground. Private First Class Joseph Jordan was shot while helping a fellow paratrooper detach from his parachute after landing. Second Lieutenant Robert Matthews, one of Easy Company’s platoon leaders, is believed to have died in combat that same day. The fighting had been intense from the moment the paratroopers landed.
Scattered and often cut off from their units, the men of Easy Company spent the day trying to regroup, locate their objectives, and survive. Their most significant accomplishment came during an assault on the four German 105-millimeter artillery guns at Brécourt Manor, a position that was threatening the troops coming ashore at Utah Beach. The attack was led by Winters, who by this point had effectively taken command of the company following the death of Lieutenant Mihan. During the assault, a soldier named John Halls from H Company was killed in action while helping to take out the guns.
In the village of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, where the men rested after the fighting, Winters told his friend, Captain Lewis Nixon, about the loss. He was visibly troubled. Halls, Winters noted, had not even been old enough to buy a beer. The day had transformed Winters.
With Mihan dead, he had become the de facto commander of Easy Company, a role he had never expected to fill. As the episode of the series that chronicled their story reaches its end, Winters walks off alone, watching the flashes and sounds of fighting still echoing across the countryside. Years later, he would describe the prayer he said to himself that night, thanking God for seeing him through what he called that day of days, and praying that he would make it through the next day. The prayer, almost word for word, was the one he had actually offered after surviving D-Day.
He recalled it years later: he got on his knees, thanked God for helping him live through the day, hoped he would live through another, and asked that if he survived the war, he might have a small piece of land, quiet and peace. The war was not over. Eleven more months of brutal fighting lay ahead for Winters and the men of Easy Company. They would go on to fight in the freezing forests of the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, and ultimately push into the heart of Germany before the war in Europe finally ended in May 1945.
Through it all, Winters continued to lead, earning the respect of his men and the reputation of one of the finest combat officers of the war. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Brécourt Manor, though many, including his own men, believed he deserved the Medal of Honor. Still, he carried on. After the war, Winters returned home.
In 1951, he purchased a 106-acre farm in central Pennsylvania near Fredericksburg. There he built a house for his family, and it was there that he and his wife Ethel raised their two children, Tim and Jill. The farm was flanked by a gentle pond, and the land offered views of the Blue Mountains. In that idyllic setting, Dick Winters finally found the peace he had promised himself on his knees in Normandy on the night of D-Day.
The quiet piece of land he had prayed for had become real, and the long road from the chaos of that June morning had finally led him home.