Richard Winters

• 1. Introduction

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  Richard Winters, the United States Army officer at the center of the miniseries Band of Brothers, ended its final scene with words that were not his own. In an interview that also appears in the HBO companion documentary We Stand Alone Together, he quoted a letter from Sergeant Myron "Mike" Ranney. Ranney wrote: "I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day when he said, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' Grandpa said 'No... but I served in a company of heroes'."

  That deflection tells you something about the man who chose to read it. Winters collected a Distinguished Service Cross, a place in a bestselling book and a famous screen portrayal, yet he kept pointing at the men beside him.

  So how did an economics graduate from Pennsylvania end up commanding paratroopers? What went wrong between Winters and his own company commander before the invasion of Europe? And why, decades later, did he insist that a monument carrying his likeness honor other men?

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• 2. A Reluctant Volunteer

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  Richard Davis Winters was born in New Holland, Pennsylvania, on the 21st of January 1918, to Richard and Edith Winters. The family soon moved to nearby Ephrata, and then to Lancaster when he was eight. He graduated from Lancaster Boys High School in 1937 and went on to Franklin and Marshall College.

  At Franklin and Marshall, Winters joined the Upsilon chapter of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity and played intramural football and basketball. Wrestling was his favorite sport, but he gave it up, along with most of his social life. His studies and the part-time jobs that paid his way left no room. In June 1941 he graduated with a degree in economics and the highest academic standing in the business college.

  In his memoirs, Winters explained why he volunteered for induction under Selective Service right after graduation. He wanted to finish the required year of service rather than wait for a later call-up that might "interrupt a promising business career." He wrote that he "felt a strong sense of duty," yet he also "had no desire to get into the war."

  On the 25th of August 1941, Winters was inducted at the New Cumberland Reception Center near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Basic training followed at Camp Croft, South Carolina. In early December, his fellow trainees shipped out to units in the Panama Canal Zone. Winters stayed behind to help train draftees and other volunteers.

  In April 1942, four months after the United States entered the war, Winters was selected for Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. There he became friends with Lewis Nixon, who would serve with him throughout the war. He was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry on the 2nd of July 1942.

  During officer training, Winters decided to join the parachute infantry, part of the Army's new airborne forces. The paratroopers had no openings at that moment. He went back to Camp Croft to train yet another class of draftees.

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• 3. Toccoa to Aldbourne

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  Five weeks after returning to Camp Croft, Winters received orders to join the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Camp Toccoa in Georgia. The regiment's commander was Colonel Robert Sink. It was an experimental unit, the first regiment to take airborne training as a formed unit. The washout was brutal. Of 500 officers who volunteered, only 148 finished the course, and of 5,000 enlisted volunteers, just 1,800 were chosen as paratroopers.

  Winters reached Toccoa in mid-August 1942 and was placed in Company E of the 2nd Battalion. The phonetic alphabet of the day would later make it famous as Easy Company. Its commander was First Lieutenant Herbert Sobel. Winters took over 2nd Platoon, was promoted to first lieutenant in October 1942, and served as acting executive officer. That role was not made official until May 1943.

  On the 10th of June 1943, after more tactical training at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, the regiment joined Major General William Lee's 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne Division. The men sailed aboard the Samaria and landed at Liverpool on the 15th of September 1943. They settled at Aldbourne in Wiltshire to prepare for the Allied invasion of Europe planned for spring 1944.

  At Aldbourne, in November and December 1943, the tension between Winters and Sobel finally broke. Winters privately doubted that Sobel could lead the company in combat. Many enlisted men, who respected Winters for his competence, shared that worry. Winters later said he never wanted to compete with Sobel for command. Even so, Sobel tried to bring him up on a charge of "failure to carry out a lawful order."

  Winters felt the punishment was unjust and asked for the charge to be reviewed by court-martial. The battalion commander, Major Robert L. Strayer, set the punishment aside. The very next day, Sobel brought a second charge. While that was investigated, Winters was moved to Headquarters Company and made battalion mess officer.

  Several of the company's noncommissioned officers then handed Colonel Sink an ultimatum. Unless Sobel was replaced, they would surrender their stripes. Winters tried and failed to talk them out of it. Sink was unimpressed, and several of the men were demoted or transferred out of the company.

  Still, Sink concluded that something had to change. He sent Sobel to run a new parachute training school at Chilton Foliat. Winters' court-martial was set aside, and he came back to Easy Company to lead 1st Platoon. Winters later admitted that Sobel's strenuous training and high expectations had helped build the company. In February 1944, First Lieutenant Thomas Meehan took command.

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• 4. Brécourt Manor

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  At about 1:15 a.m. on the 6th of June 1944, a C-47 Skytrain carrying most of Easy Company's Headquarters Section was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire. Everyone aboard was killed. Meehan, the company commander, had not been heard from, and his fate was unknown.

  Winters jumped that night and landed safely near Sainte-Mère-Église. He lost his weapon during the drop, but he still got his bearings. He gathered several paratroopers, including men from the 82nd Airborne Division, and headed for the company's objective near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. With Meehan unaccounted for, Winters became the de facto commanding officer of Easy Company. He held that role for the rest of the Normandy campaign.

  Later that day, Winters led the assault on Brécourt Manor. A battery of German 105mm howitzers stood south of the village of Le Grand-Chemin. Its guns were firing onto the causeways that served as the main exits from Utah Beach. American estimates put the defenders at about a platoon of 50 German troops. Winters had 13 men.

  West Point has since taught the attack as a textbook case of a numerically inferior force taking a fixed position. The raid also paid off in another way. Winters came away with a map showing German gun emplacements near Utah Beach.

  On the 1st of July 1944, Winters was told he had been promoted to captain. The next day, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, then commanding the U.S. First Army, presented him with the Distinguished Service Cross. The citation credits his "heroic and determined leadership." It describes two guns of the battery put out of action at first, and the remaining two silenced after he returned with tank support.

  Soon afterward, the 506th Parachute Infantry was pulled out of France and sent back to Aldbourne to reorganize. It would not stay there long.

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• 5. Holland to Bavaria

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  In September 1944, the 506th parachuted into the Netherlands near the village of Son, north of Eindhoven. This was Operation Market Garden, a combined airborne and armored operation. On the 5th of October, a German force attacked the 2nd Battalion's flank and threatened to break through. At the same time, four men on an Easy Company patrol were wounded. They reported a large group of Germans at a crossroads about 1300 yards east of the company command post.

  Winters took one squad from 1st Platoon toward the crossroads. There they saw a German machine gun firing at a long range toward battalion headquarters. After surveying the position, he led the squad in an assault on the gun crew. Soon they came under fire from another position opposite them. Winters guessed it held at least a platoon, so he called up the rest of 1st Platoon. With a platoon from Fox Company, he led a second successful assault. Only later did the Americans learn there had been at least 300 Germans.

  On the 9th of October, Winters became executive officer of the battalion after the death of Major Oliver Horton. The post normally went to a major, but Winters filled it as a captain. The 101st Airborne Division was withdrawn to France soon afterward.

  On the 16th of December 1944, German forces opened a counter-offensive in Belgium that became the Battle of the Bulge. The 101st was trucked toward Bastogne two days later. Winters, still battalion executive officer, helped defend the line northeast of Bastogne near the town of Foy. The division and elements of the 10th Armored Division fought about 15 German divisions for nearly a week. Lieutenant General George Patton's U.S. Third Army then broke through and reopened the ground supply lines.

  The 2nd Battalion attacked Foy on the 9th of January 1945. On the 8th of March, it moved to Haguenau in Alsace, and Winters was promoted to major. Strayer, now a lieutenant colonel, rose to the regimental staff. Winters took over as acting commander of the battalion.

  In April, the battalion handled defensive duties along the Rhine and then moved to Bavaria. Early in May, the division received orders to capture Berchtesgaden. The 2nd Battalion set out from the town of Thale, passing streams of surrendering German soldiers. It reached the alpine retreat at noon on the 5th of May 1945. Three days later, the war in Europe ended.

  Winters, however, was not allowed to go home right away.

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• 6. Farm, Feed and Korea

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  After the fighting stopped, Winters stayed in Europe while occupation and demobilization began. He had enough points to go home, but he was told he was needed in Germany. Later he was offered a regular, non-reserve commission and turned it down. He finally sailed from Marseille aboard the Wooster Victory on the 4th of November 1945. He was separated from the Army on the 29th of November, though he remained on terminal leave until his official discharge on the 22nd of January 1946.

  Back in civilian life, Winters worked as a production supervisor for his wartime friend Captain Lewis Nixon. The job was at Nixon Nitration Works, the Nixon family business in Nixon, New Jersey, now Edison Township. By 1950 Winters was general manager. On the 16th of May 1948, he married Ethel Estoppey. He kept up his education through the GI Bill, taking business and personnel management courses at Rutgers University. In 1951, the couple bought a small farm, built a home there and raised two children.

  In June 1951, the Korean War brought a recall to active duty. Winters was ordered to join the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, but he was given six months to report. He used that time to travel to Washington, D.C., and see General Anthony McAuliffe. Winters hoped to persuade the Army not to send him to Korea. He explained that he had seen enough of war. McAuliffe apparently understood, but said Winters was needed because of his command experience.

  Winters then reported to Fort Dix, New Jersey, as a regimental planning and training officer. He grew disillusioned there. Training officers who lacked discipline and skipped their scheduled classes drained his enthusiasm. So he volunteered for Ranger School, passed and became a Ranger. Orders followed to deploy to Korea. In Seattle, during pre-deployment paperwork, he was offered the option of resigning his commission, and he accepted.

  In 1972, Winters started his own company selling animal feed products to farmers across Pennsylvania. Soon afterward he moved his family to Hershey, Pennsylvania. He retired in 1997, at the age of 79. The 1990s had already given him a second, unexpected role as the subject of books and television.

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• 7. From Book to Screen

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  In 1992, Stephen Ambrose wrote Band of Brothers: Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. HBO later turned it into a miniseries, released in 2001, with Damian Lewis playing Winters. Over the 1990s, Winters appeared in a number of books and television series about the men of Easy Company.

  On the 22nd of September 2002, Winters attended the 54th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The miniseries was nominated in several categories. It won Outstanding Miniseries, one of seven wins that night. At the invitation of co-creator and executive producer Steven Spielberg, Winters spoke on behalf of Easy Company. Other surviving members of the company watched from the Los Angeles St. Regis Hotel.

  Winters told the crowd he wanted "to represent myself here as representing all the men of Company E that are present and accounted for." He spoke for the men who had died. He thanked Ambrose for listening to their stories, and he thanked Tom Hanks, Spielberg and the crew. Then he pointed at the audience, said "I salute you!" and saluted.

  In 2005 came the book Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, The Man Who Led the Band of Brothers, by Larry Alexander. Early in 2006, his own memoir appeared, Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters. He wrote it with military historian and retired Army Colonel Cole C. Kingseed. Winters also gave lectures on leadership to cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

  The recognition did not include the one honor some admirers wanted. Winters had been recommended for the Medal of Honor for his leadership at Brécourt Manor, but he received the Army's second-highest award for combat valor instead. After the miniseries aired, Representative Tim Holden, a Pennsylvania Democrat, introduced a bill asking the President to grant the Medal. It died in the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Military Personnel in 2007.

  On the 16th of May 2009, Franklin and Marshall College conferred an honorary doctorate in humane letters on Winters. It was the same calendar day on which he had married Ethel in 1948.

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• 8. A Statue for Junior Officers

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  Winters died on the 2nd of January 2011 at an assisted living facility in Campbelltown, Pennsylvania. He was 92 and had suffered from Parkinson's disease for several years. A private funeral service was held on the 8th of January 2011. He was buried in the cemetery of the Bergstrasse Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ephrata, next to his parents in the family plot. His grave is marked "Richard D. Winters, World War II 101st Airborne." His wife Ethel died on the 11th of April 2012 at Country Meadows in Hershey, aged 89.

  On the 6th of June 2012, the 68th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the Richard D. Winters Leadership Monument was unveiled near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, France. Sculptor Stephen C. Spears made the 12-foot bronze statue. Winters had agreed to have it bear his likeness on one condition. The monument had to be dedicated to all the junior officers who served and died during the Normandy landings. Among those attending were World War II veterans, former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, who was the first Secretary of Homeland Security, and Major General James C. McConville, then commanding the 101st Airborne.

  During the 70th anniversary events in 2014, a party laid a wreath at the monument. It included Band of Brothers cast members Ross McCall, who played Technician 5th Grade Joseph Liebgott, and James Madio, who played Technician 4th Grade Frank Perconte. Private First Class Jim "Pee Wee" Martin of G Company, 3rd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry, joined them.

  A cast of the sculpture stands in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, in a plaza on the Ephrata-to-Warwick linear trail park near Railroad Avenue and East Fulton Street. Winters lived in that neighborhood with his family from the age of two to eight. That statue was dedicated on the 25th of May 2015.

  Some of Winters' uniforms and memorabilia are on display at two museums. One is the December 44 Museum in La Gleize, Belgium, which covers the Battle of the Bulge. The other is the Gettysburg Museum of History in Pennsylvania. In 2019, a U.S. merchant vessel owned by Sealift Incorporated was renamed the M/V Maj Richard Winters, so his rank and name now travel on the water.

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