Free Beyond Band of Brothers by Major Dick Winters, Colonel Cole C. Kingseed Page A

listen to Moose sing songs all night as he celebrated the birth of his son. The rest of us were filled with trepidation, but each trooper took consolation in the fact that he was part of the best damned unit in the entire U.S. Army. As we walked up the gangplank of the Samaria , everyone knew that there was no turning back. Easy Company was off to war.



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Old Beyond My Years
    In early September 1943, Easy Company began its transatlantic passage aboard the British steamer S.S. Samaria . As we departed New York Harbor and passed the Statue of Liberty, I wondered if I would ever be coming back. Had I seen my family for the last time? Would we reach England without encountering any German submarines? Knowing that I was in the paratroopers was some consolation even though each of us knew our mission required us to be dropped behind enemy lines and that we would have to fight outnumbered until we could be relieved. None of the men had any combat experience or had any idea what combat would be like. As New York faded on the horizon, I stood and searched my soul, saying a silent prayer that God would allow me to return home.
    What I remember most was the filthy condition of the ship. The excessive dirt, the terrible food, and the fact that we washed our mess kits in a garbage pail nearly turned my stomach. Forrest Guth, a trooperfrom Allentown, Pennsylvania, who had joined the paratroopers with his two friends Roderick Strohl and Carl Fenstermacher recalled that the prevalent rumor on board was that the British crew consumed American food, while the paratroopers were forced to eat British food. What struck him most was the cooks serving fish chowder for breakfast. After ten days on the S.S. Samaria , I felt as though I had lost all my muscle tone, especially in my legs. The thought occurred to me that if we had to come off this ship and go directly into combat, it would have been mighty rough. Arriving in Liverpool on September 15, we were immediately transported to Aldbourne, in Wiltshire, approximately eighty miles west of London on the Salisbury Plain. Aldbourne was a typically quaint English town with houses constructed of brick and stone. Flowers were in bloom and most homes had well-kept yards with colorful gardens. As company executive officer, I commanded the company in Captain Sobel’s absence and I handled the administrative and logistical requirements as Easy Company settled into their new billets. Within days of our arrival in England, our troops occupied their new barracks, which were Nissan huts and tarpaper shacks, heated by two large pot-bellied stoves. Officers were crammed into a huge manor house until private housing could be obtained.
    Aldbourne would be Easy Company’s home for the next nine months, until the unit moved to the departure airfield for the invasion of France. The initial week in the English countryside was dedicated to orientation to our new environment. To ensure American soldiers understood the intricacies of Allied cooperation, the United States War Department distributed a pamphlet to American servicemen who were going to Britain to prepare for the invasion of occupied Europe. This pamphlet’s avowed aim was to prepare these young American GIs for life in a very different country and to prevent any friction between them and the local populace. Printed in 1942, the Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain attracted a great deal of attention for its candid views of how Britons were viewed on our side of the Atlantic. The booklet cautioned the Americans on how to conduct themselves.Included were orders not “to fight old wars and to bring up old grievances” from the American Revolutionary period so as Hitler would be unable “to make his propaganda effective” and separate the Atlantic partners. If he could do that, his “chance of winning might return.” We were also told not to use phrases and colloquialisms that our allies might find offensive. Two