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July 26 - August 2, 2021
The replacements, eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds fresh from the States, were wide-eyed. Although the veterans were only a year or two older, they looked terrifying to the recruits.
officers worked at blending the recruits into the outfit, to bring them up to Easy’s standard of teamwork and individual skills, but it was difficult as the veterans could not take field maneuvers seriously.
McCreary, Guarnere, and others. As noted, this was not because they craved combat, but because they knew they were going to have to fight with somebody and wanted it to be with Easy Company.
Army wanted to make it so bad that veterans recovered from their wounds, or partly recovered, or at least able to walk without support, would regard getting back to the front lines as an improvement.
The result of all this was the biggest single battle on the Western front in World War II and the largest engagement ever fought by the U.S. Army.
He figured that it would take Ike two or three days to recognize the magnitude of the effort the Germans were making, another two or three days to persuade his superiors to call off the Allied offensives north and south of the Ardennes, and then another two or three days to start moving significant reinforcements into the battle. By then, the German armor would be in Antwerp, he hoped.
Lipton realized that the Germans were putting an antiaircraft battery in among the trees, and had put up the tree Powers spotted as part of their camouflage.
“It all happened,” Lipton summed up, “because Shifty saw a tree almost a mile away that hadn’t been there the day before.”
When the foxhole sanctuary was complete, a man was exhausted, his clothes and body drenched with sweat. Now he sat, got cold, then colder, then began uncontrollable shivering. “When you were convinced that your body could stand no more,” Christenson commented, “you found out that it could.”
For the officer, he continued, with the additional burden of making decisions constantly, under pressure, when there had been a deprivation of sleep and inadequate food, it was no wonder men broke.
This meant that replacements went into combat not with the men they had trained and shipped overseas with, but with strangers. It also meant the veteran could look forward to a release from the dangers threatening him only through death or serious wound. This created a situation of endlessness and hopelessness, as Winters indicated.
By January 3, 1945, Easy Company had spent twenty-three days on the front line in Normandy, seventy-eight in Holland, fifteen in Belgium, a total of 116. Statistically, the whole company was in danger of breaking down at any time.
Easy Company had won the test of will. It had taken Foy.
The Americans established a moral superiority over the Germans. It was based not on equipment or quantity of arms, but on teamwork, coordination, leadership, and mutual trust in a line that ran straight from Ike’s HQ right on down to E Company. The Germans had little in the way of such qualities. The moral superiority was based on better training methods, better selection methods for command positions, ultimately on a more open army reflecting a more open society.
Whenever thereafter a man from Easy experienced cold or hunger or sleep deprivation, he would remind himself of Bastogne and recall that he had been through much worse.
In short, Webster was thrown in with a group of men with whom he had nothing in common. He would not have particularly liked or disliked them in civilian life, he just would not have known them.
In moments [of danger] many have a vague awareness of how isolated and separate their lives have hitherto been and how much they have missed . . . . With the boundaries of the self expanded, they sense a kinship never known before.”
In a short speech, Ike was effusive in his praise: “You were given a marvelous opportunity [in Bastogne], and you met every test . . . . I am awfully proud of you.”
The veterans resolved not to take any chances. The end of the war was in sight, and they now believed what they could not believe at Bastogne, that they were going to make it. Safe. More or less intact. They wanted to escape the boredom of garrison, they knew how to take care of themselves, they were ready to do their job, but not to be heroes.
They loved the Dutch.
The Dutch were, as noted, regarded as simply wonderful in every way
G.I.s were not supposed to talk to any Germans, even small children, except on official business. This absurd order, which flew in the face of human nature in so obvious a way, was impossible to enforce.
