Free Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose Page B

about 10 kilometers south of Ste. Mère-Eglise, with the objective of killing the German garrison in the village and seizing the exit at causeway No. 2, the road coming up from the coast just north of the village of Pouppeville. The 3d platoon was given the task of blowing up a communications line leading inland from La Madeleine.
    The detailed information given out by Nixon and Hester, and by other intelligence officers briefing other companies, was truly amazing. They passed around aerial photographs of the DZ that showed not only roads, buildings, and the like, but even foxholes. One member of the 506th recalled that his company was told that the German commandant at its objective, St. Côme-du-Mont, owned a white horse and was going with a French schoolteacher who lived on a side street just two buildings away from a German gun emplacement that was zeroed in on causeway No. 1. He took his dog for a walk every evening at 2000. 3
    Each officer had to learn the company mission by heart, know his own and every other platoon’s mission to the most minute detail, and be able to draw a map of the whole area by memory. One point was made very clear, that the Germans relied less on their fixed coastal defenses than on their ability to counterattack. Mobile reserve units would start hitting the 4th Infantry wherever its units threatened to make it across the causeways. The briefers therefore impressed strongly on the officers that, regardless of where their platoons were or how many of their men they had managed to collect, if they spotted German units moving toward the causeways, they should fire upon them with everything they had. Even a five-minute delay thus imposed on the Germans could mean the difference between success and failure at Utah Beach. The importance of each mission was likewise emphasized, most effectively. Winters said, “I had the feeling that we were going in there and win the whole damn thing ourselves. It was our baby.”
    On June 3, Winters and the other platoon leaders walked their men through the briefing tent, showing them the sand tables and maps, telling them what they had learned.
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    Sergeant Guarnere needed to use the latrine. He grabbed a jacket and strolled over to the facility. Sitting down, he put his hand in a pocket and pulled out a letter. It was addressed to Sergeant Martin — Guarnere hadtaken Martin’s jacket by mistake — but Guarnere read it anyway. Martin’s wife was the author; they had been married in Georgia in 1942, and Mrs. Martin knew most of the members of the company. She wrote, “Don’t tell Bill [Guarnere], but his brother was killed in Cas[s]ino, Italy.”
    “You can’t imagine the anger I felt,” Guarnere said later. “I swore that when I got to Normandy, there ain’t no German going to be alive. I was like a maniac. When they sent me into France, they turned a killer loose, a wild man.”
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    On June 4, Easy was issued its ammunition, $10 worth of new French francs just printed in Washington, an escape kit containing a silk map of France, a tiny brass compass, and a hacksaw. The men were given an American flag to sew on the right sleeves of their jump jackets. Officers removed their insignia from their uniforms and painted vertical stripes on the back of their helmets; N.C.O.s had horizontal stripes. Everyone was given the verbal challenge, “Flash,” the password, “Thunder,” and the response, “Welcome.” They were also given small metal dime-store crickets, for alternative identification: one squeeze (click-clack) to be answered by two ( click-clack … click-clack).
    The men spent the day cleaning weapons, sharpening knives, adjusting the parachutes, checking equipment over and over, chain-smoking cigarettes. Many of the men shaved their heads, or got Mohawk haircuts (bald on each side, with a one- or two-inch strip of short hair running from the forehead to the back of the neck). Pvts. Forrest Guth and