Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

by Stephen E. Ambrose

Winters felt as strongly about the men as they did about him. In 1991 he summed up his company’s history and its meaning: “The 101st Airborne was made up of hundreds of good, solid companies. However, E Co., 506 P.I.R. stand out among all of them through that very special bond that brings men together. “That extra special, elite, close feeling started under the stress Capt. Sobel created at Camp Toccoa. Under that stress, the only way the men could survive was to bond together. Eventually, the noncoms had to bond together in a mutiny. “The stress in training was followed by the stress in Normandy of drawing the key combat mission for gaining control of Utah Beach. In combat your reward for a good job done is that you get the next tough mission. E Company kept right on getting the job done through Holland—Bastogne—Germany. “The result of sharing all that stress throughout training and combat has created a bond between the men of E Company that will last forever.”