Normandy, June 6, 1944. As the Western Allies began their amphibious landings along a 45-mile stretch of coastline, thousands more men were already engaged in life-or-death battles inland to keep those coming ashore safe from enemy gunfire.
Of all the many actions that day, one immortalized on screen in the series Band of Brothers has gone into airborne legend. This is the story of Easy Company's assault on Brecourt Manor.
The men of Easy, more formally Company E, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, were part of the great D-Day invasion. Their job was to drop inland of Utah Beach and secure the main causeways for troops landing later that morning.
But what on paper was straightforward was in practice far from simple. Taking off from RAF Upottery in Devon, England, in C-47 transport aircraft at about 11 p.m. on June 5, they crossed the Channel by night, running a gauntlet of heavy flak.
Easy Company's commander's aircraft was shot down with the loss of all on board before the remaining sticks of paratroopers were deployed in the flooded and pitch-black area beyond Utah Beach. The drop was a nightmare.
High winds, cloud, confusion, last-minute changes in direction, and miscalculation meant that those sticks of paratroopers were scattered far and wide, some miles from their intended drop zones. But despite the chaos, some men did reach their target areas, and within hours of reaching French soil they would be engaged in a brutal fight for incredibly high stakes.
Among them was First Lieutenant Richard Winters, born in Pennsylvania in 1918. Dick had joined the army in August 1941 and volunteered to join the parachute infantry during his officer training. Highly regarded by all his men, he was a natural leader whose star would rise throughout the Second World War.
Lieutenant Buck Compton was a California native with a love of sports. Buck had grown up in Los Angeles and in his pre-war days had appeared as an extra in several Hollywood films, once getting kicked off set after angering the film star Charlie Chaplin. By 1944, he was a respected platoon leader in Easy Company.
Sergeant Wild Bill Guarnere was born in Philadelphia to a large family of 10 children of Italian parents. Bill had joined the Citizens Military Training Camp before the war with hopes of becoming an officer in the U.S. Army. But following the attack on Pearl Harbor and wanting to do his bit, he had instead enlisted, joining the 506th to undertake his training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia.
By about 7:00 a.m. on June 6, just a dozen men of Easy Company, including Winters, had reached the small hamlet of Le Grand Chemin, headquarters of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Strayer's 2nd Battalion, 506th. Strayer, along with all other paratroopers on the ground, was madly trying to gather his forces to take on targets of opportunity. As it turned out, there was one just a few fields away.
Looking toward Utah Beach, we see the stretch of sand upon which the men of the 4th Infantry Division were due to land. While beach defenses here weren't particularly strong, the defenders did have a secret weapon: flooding.
By breaching waterways and drainage systems beyond the beach, the Germans had created narrow channels up which any landing troops must pass in order to move further inland. The key one at Utah was causeway number two.
Situated directly on the route the 4th Infantry Division would need to use to get moving off the beach, it was a classic concentration point, meaning that any artillery within range could fire directly on this area and be almost certain to hit something. And that was exactly what was happening.
Although the Allies had anticipated artillery batteries situated behind the beaches, they simply couldn't find them all. Those that had been found by aerial reconnaissance had in many cases been targeted or neutralized before the landings. The problem was the hidden guns they hadn't yet located.
By turning to an aerial reconnaissance image taken on the morning of D-Day itself, overlaid onto the modern satellite image, we can understand the problem a little better. This is the area just north of Saint-Marie, a little under three miles from Utah's causeway number two.
Do you see an artillery battery here? No. Neither did Allied planners. In fact, by zooming into this patch of field, it's still basically impossible to spot an enemy position. And for good reason.
By this stage of the war, Allied air power reigned supreme over much of Europe, and keeping an artillery battery in plain sight was just asking for it to be destroyed. So the Germans adapted, forming battery positions around existing fields with trenches dug into hedgerows, guns also concealed between trees, and supporting positions built in the surrounding field boundaries.
Looking again at this same image, there's only one very slight clue that this isn't a normal field. These slightly lighter marks showed that something probably heavy and with wheels was moved into this hedge line in these locations.
It turns out that's exactly what happened, as arrayed here were four German 105 mm light field howitzers. The artillery pieces were installed and by 7:30 a.m. on June 6 were firing on Utah's causeway number two.
Every round that held the 5,100 yards to the beach meant that more men on Utah would become casualties. By zooming out again, we can see that rather incredibly, just 280 yards away in Le Grand Chemin, was the 2nd Battalion, 506th's newly established headquarters.
With artillery fire clearly audible just a few fields away, Strayer needed to act, and quickly. A few minutes later, as an already tired Lieutenant Winters snatched a few moments rest, he got the call that he was wanted up front.
On arriving, he met 2nd Battalion's operations officer, Captain Clarence Hester, who, indicating the area to his front, simply said: "This fire along that hedgerow there. Take care of it."
But take care of what exactly? We have an advantage today that Winters in 1944 did not: knowing the layout of the position to be attacked. For him, he was just advancing on gunfire to his front.
By consulting historical records, we learn that those four guns were placed exactly in these locations. We also know from Winters's own hand-drawn map shortly after the event and from other records that there was a single machine gun just here and at least two more placed in these positions right here, facing across this field to defend the battery from the rear. Estimates vary, but it's likely that the position was manned by between 50 and 70 men.
One small point here: there's long been a belief that the battery, as depicted in Band of Brothers, was in the open part of this field with formal trenches linking gun pits. By looking at an aerial image taken on that day, this is clearly not the case. There was literally nothing in that field.
So what makeshift trenches there were, were really adapted ditches running in the existing tree line. Here's Winters: "While the non-commissioned officers prepared the men for the assault, I conducted a hasty reconnaissance of the enemy position. A leader gains an advantage in combat if he's able to appraise the terrain and the situation quickly and correctly."
"Crawling along a hedgerow, I moved into position where I could get a better view of the enemy position. The guns appeared to be set in a trench in a hedgerow covered by machine gun fire from across an open pasture. The battery was firing directly down causeway number two in the direction of Utah Beach."
"Anticipating that it would be too costly to conduct a frontal attack across an open field, I determined our chances of success would be greatly enhanced if we could hit the enemy on the flank and silence one gun at a time."
Returning to Le Grand Chemin, Winters gathered who he had from his company, a total of just 11 men, including Buck Compton, Sergeants Lipton, Ranney, Malarkey, and Guarnere, Corporal Joe Toye, and Privates Popeye Wynn and Gerald Lorraine.
With all assembled, he issued his orders, placing his two machine guns in position to provide covering fire as the assault teams approached. Next, he sent Lipton and Ranney off in this direction to put down flanking fire, while the two main assault groups under Compton and himself advanced along these two hedge lines toward the battery.
Within moments, the fight was on as both American and German machine guns burst into life in a short-range duel, added to by the crack of rifles as they sought targets in the tree lines.
It was now that Winters, seeing the greatest danger lay with the closest German machine gun here, sent Compton with Sergeants Malarkey and Guarnere crawling onto the flank of the enemy position with grenades in hand.
Here's Winters again: "Just as Compton was ready to hurl his grenades, I started across the field with the rest of the assault team so that we jumped into the position together as the grenades exploded. Simultaneously, we held additional grenades at the next position. In return, we received substantial small arms firing grenades from the enemy."
"As we approached the first gun, Popeye Wynn was hit in the butt and fell down in the trench. At the same time, a Jerry potato masher sailed into the middle of our group. We spread out as rapidly as possible, but Corporal Joe Toye just flopped down and was unlucky enough to have the grenade fall between his legs as he lay face down. It went off as I was yelling to him, 'Move! For Christ's sake, move!' He just bounced up and down from the concussion, but he was unhurt and ready to go."
By now, a couple of the men had tossed grenades at the Germans, so we followed up with a mad rush. Arriving moments later, the three attackers burst into the gun pit, causing the crew to flee the position, with three men shot down as they crossed this open ground. The first gun had fallen.
Knowing momentum was key, Winters looked on down the trench to where the second gun was located, only to find a pair of Germans setting up a machine gun directly in front of him. He squeezed off two shots and both men fell. The route to the second gun was open.
Here's Winters again: "Leaving three men at the first gun to maintain supporting fire, we then charged the next position with grenades and lots of yelling and firing. Within seconds, we had captured the second gun."
Consolidating the position, the firefight with the machine guns across the pasture continued. But by now, Winters's men were running perilously low on ammunition.
Fortunately, 30 minutes later, and with men down to their last few rounds, PFC John Halls of A Company arrived and distributed more. The situation was further boosted minutes later as several machine guns from battalion headquarters came up in support.
With fresh clips in, Winters again led the charge, this time on the third gun. More firing, more yelling, and more sheer terror on both sides. And within seconds, that too was in American hands, along with six German prisoners.
That success, though, had come at a price, with 22-year-old John Halls losing his life in the attack. Three guns down, one to go.
It was now that Winters saw Captain Hester crawling toward his position, armed with blocks of TNT and incendiary grenades. They were quickly stuffed down the barrels of the captured howitzers and ignited, with the resulting damage completely disabling them.
As well as bringing TNT, Captain Hester also brought news that Dog Company's Lieutenant Ronald Speirs was on his way with a further five men to reinforce Easy Company.
While awaiting Speirs's arrival, Winters had a chance to look around him, finding, among other things, a map showing every single German 105 mm gun placement on the Cotentin Peninsula, which was quickly sent back to battalion.
Almost two hours after the fight had started, those reinforcements arrived. As Winters recalled: "Finally, Speirs came forward with a contingent from Dog Company and led the assault on the final gun in the battery."
Joining Speirs was Sergeant Bill Guarnere, one of the most consistently brave men in Easy Company. Having just been informed that his brother had been killed in action in Italy, Wild Bill Guarnere fought like a man possessed.
In a savage attack, Speirs captured the gun and promptly disabled it. In the process, he lost Rusty Houch, who was killed when he raised his head to throw a grenade into the gun position, and Leonard G. Hicks, who was wounded.
With the entire battery now destroyed, the men withdrew because the machine gun fire they were receiving from the Manoir house and other positions remained intense. The assault on Brecourt Manor was over.
All told, the assault had been incredibly successful, with a hugely outnumbered assault party neutralizing a battery of guns that was hammering troops coming ashore on Utah, saving countless lives in the process.
For his part in leading the attack, Lieutenant Dick Winters was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but was ultimately presented with a Distinguished Service Cross by General Omar Bradley in its place.
Buck Compton, Bill Guarnere, and Gerald Lorraine each received the Silver Star for their courage in action, and Toye, Lipton, Malarkey, Liebgott, Hicks, Pleasure, Petty, and Wynn all earned the Bronze Star, making the assault on Brecourt Manor one of the most decorated actions of World War II.
Of course, the war would go on. And for the men of Easy Company, there were many more bitter fights to come.