A Company of Heroes Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PREFACE

  PART I - ENLISTED MEN

  Chapter 1 - ALBERT BLITHE

  Chapter 2 - TONY GARCIA

  Chapter 3 - PAUL “FRENCHY” LAMOUREUX

  Chapter 4 - PATRICK O’KEEFE

  Chapter 5 - GEORGE L. POTTER JR.

  PART II - NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS

  Chapter 6 - GORDON CARSON

  Chapter 7 - BURTON “PAT” CHRISTENSON

  Chapter 8 - WALTER “SMOKEY” GORDON

  Chapter 9 - HERMAN “HACK” HANSON

  Chapter 10 - JOSEPH LIEBGOTT

  Chapter 11 - ROBERT MARSH

  Chapter 12 - ROBERT RADER

  Chapter 13 - MIKE RANNEY

  Chapter 14 - LAVON REESE

  Chapter 15 - EUGENE “DOC” ROE

  Chapter 16 - FLOYD “TAB” TALBERT

  Chapter 17 - JOE TOYE

  PART III - OFFICERS

  Chapter 18 - FREDERICK “MOOSE” HEYLIGER

  Chapter 19 - C. CARWOOD LIPTON

  Chapter 20 - RON SPEIRS

  PART IV - EASY COMPANY’S FALLEN

  Chapter 21 - BILL EVANS

  Chapter 22 - TERRENCE “SALTY” HARRIS

  Chapter 23 - GEORGE LAVENSON

  Chapter 24 - WARREN “SKIP” MUCK

  Chapter 25 - ALEX PENKALA JR.

  Chapter 26 - ROBERT VAN KLINKEN

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgements

  APPENDIX I - UNDERSTANDING EASY COMPANY’S PLACEMENT

  APPENDIX II - KNOWN MEMBERS OF EASY COMPANY 506 PIR, 101ST AIRBORNE

  APPENDIX III - KILLED IN ACTION, EASY COMPANY 506TH, PARACHUTE INFANTRY ...

  INDEX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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  Copyright © 2010 Marcus Brotherton

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brotherton, Marcus.

  A company of heroes : personal memories about the real band of brothers and the legacy they left us /

  Marcus Brotherton.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18723-4

  1. United States. Army. Parachute Infantry Regiment, 506th. Company E. 2. World War, 1939-1945—Personal narratives, American. 3. World War, 1939-1945—Regimental histories—United States. 4. World War, 1939-1945—Campaigns—Western Front. 5. United States. Army—Parachute troops. 6. Soldiers—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  D769.348506th .B75 2010

  940.54’12730922—dc22

  2009050664

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  INTERVIEWS WITH THE FAMILIES OF:

  Albert Blithe

  Gordon Carson

  Burton “Pat” Christenson

  Bill Evans

  Tony Garcia

  Walter “Smokey” Gordon

  Herman “Hack” Hanson

  Terrence “Salty” Harris

  Frederick “Moose” Heyliger

  Paul “Frenchy” Lamoureux

  George Lavenson

  Joe Liebgott

  C. Carwood Lipton

  Robert Marsh

  Warren “Skip” Muck

  Patrick O’Keefe

  Alex Penkala

  George Potter

  Robert Rader

  Mike Ranney

  LaVon Reese

  Eugene “Doc” Roe

  Ron Speirs

  Floyd Talbert

  Joe Toye

  Robert Van Klinken

  To the Men of Easy Company

  Mike Ranney’s famous quote from a letter to me on January 25, 1982, will live forever.

  “In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I am treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, ‘Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?’

  “‘No,’ I answered, ‘but I served with a company of heroes.’”

  —MAJOR RICHARD WINTERS

  Easy Company Commander

  PREFACE

  Are you familiar with the Band of Brothers? Let me introduce you to a few.

  Meet Tab Talbert, the best soldier in Easy Company, and Robert J. Rader, a man so community-minded he has a bridge named in his honor in California.

  Meet Moose Heyliger, who set muskrat traps as a child and could name every bird in the sky by the time he led Easy Company, and Pat Christenson, unofficial artist of Easy Company. Pat sketched pictures of the combat he saw—soldiers, tanks, rifles, explosions—always mindful, as he wrote in his journal, that “the true picture of war is impossible to convey, even by those who did the bleeding and the fighting.”

  Meet Robert Marsh, a married seventeen-year-old father who lied about his age to get into the Army, and Eugene Roe, a no-show at his own wedding. (As his bride waited at the altar, Doc Roe was parachuting into Normandy—how’s that for an excuse?)

  Meet Patrick O’Keefe, who once, although hungry, put all the money he had—thirty-five cents—into a collection box for the poor, and Robert Van Klinken, a backwoods mechanic who showed a remarkable skill for writing. As you read portions of Van Klinken’s letters in the pages ahead, watch for his creative use of language, his frequent use of “swell” (definitely the superlative of the day), and expressions such as “pill squirter” for a rifle, and “honey” for a guitar. Van Klinken’s personality comes through strongly, and because you feel you know him after reading what he wrote, his death comes hard.

  Within a company filled with heroes, each man has a story worth telling. In my previous book, I interviewed twenty members of Easy Company who are still alive. In this new book I interviewed the families of twenty-six of the Band of Brothers who have departed. These are their life stories.

  Although this is a book that shows a lot of death, it also shows a lot of
life. I must warn you that not everything in this book reflects the stuff of heroics, particularly what transpires after the war. This is a tribute book, yes, and is meant to represent the men warmly, but it’s also about real people. It shows their lives, warts and all. This book is about the authentic Band of Brothers, who they truly were, how they lived, served, fought, worked, loved, and ultimately died.

  Within a Company of Heroes

  Who were the Band of Brothers? If you’re completely new to the subject, they were the men of the now-legendary Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, an elite group of World War II war fighters. They formed and trained at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, under the tough and controversial Captain Herbert Sobel. After training stateside, the men rode the troop ship Samaria to Aldbourne, England, for further battle preparation. They parachuted into Normandy on D-day and, later into Holland for Operation Market-Garden. They fought their way through Belgium, France, and Germany, survived overwhelming odds, liberated concentration camps, and drank a victory toast in April 1945 at Hitler’s hideout in the Alps. Along the way they encountered horrors and victories, welded themselves into a family of soldiers, and helped swing the tide of World War II and, ultimately, the course of history.

  Although twenty-six men’s life stories are featured in this book, many more men’s stories could be told. At the start of the war, some 140 men formed the original Easy Company at Camp Toccoa. By the end of the war, due to transfers and (mostly) to men getting shot, 366 men are listed as having been a part of Easy Company.

  The company was first chronicled in 1992 by historian Stephen Ambrose in the book Band of Brothers. In 2001, Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg turned Ambrose’s book into a ten-part HBO miniseries by the same name. The series won six Emmys and numerous other awards, and still runs frequently on various networks around the world.

  The essays that follow differ from other books in that they do not trace the war’s chronology. Rather, they act as snapshots from the company as a whole. For readers seeking to learn more about Easy Company or to build a complete library, a number of other books about the Band of Brothers have been published over the years. The books are:★ Parachute Infantry by PFC David Kenyon Webster. Webster was an English literature major at Harvard who fought with Easy Company. He died in a shark fishing accident in 1961. His memoir was published posthumously in 1994.

  ★ Beyond Band of Brothers by Maj. Richard Winters and Colonel Cole Kingseed. Winters commanded Easy Company for part of the war and later went on to serve as battalion staff. This is the first of his memoirs.

  ★ Biggest Brother by Larry Alexander is the second of Dick Winters’ biographies and covers more about Winters’s life after the war.

  ★ The Way We Were by Cpl. Forrest Guth and Michael de Trez. This is a coffee-table collection of Guth’s wartime pictures, published by a European company.

  ★ Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends by S/Sgt. Bill Guarnere and PFC Babe Heffron with Robyn Post is an oral-history account of the war by two friends from Easy Company.

  ★ Call of Duty by Lt. Buck Compton with Marcus Brotherton. Compton, a child actor and college sports star, went on to have careers after the war as a detective, attorney, and judge. He prosecuted Sirhan Sirhan for the murder of Robert F. Kennedy.

  ★ Easy Company Soldier by Sgt. Don Malarkey with Bob Welch is a poignant memoir that describes Malarkey’s fight through the war years.

  ★ Easy Company—In Photographs, published by Genesis Publications, is a limited edition, large-format collector’s book from the UK.

  ★ We Who Are Alive and Remain by Marcus Brotherton is an oral-history book released in 2009 featuring twenty of the last few surviving members of Easy Company.

  Feel free to either read this book straight through or skip around from chapter to chapter. The book works in two ways. First, if you’re new to the Band of Brothers, you’ll be inspired and challenged by the biographies of each man profiled. These were ordinary men who trained to become the best, and ultimately did extraordinary things.

  Second, if you’re already a fan, this book adds insight to understanding the overall profile of the company. Read this book, then watch the HBO series again. Your increased knowledge of each man prompts a deeper sense of identification. For instance, watch the scene in Episode 7 (“The Breaking Point”) where Joe Toye loses a leg during heavy shelling at Bastogne. This is the same Joe Toye you’ve now come to know as the toughest man in Easy Company. This is the same Joe Toye who, if he had been offered better opportunities before joining the army, undoubtedly could have become a professional athlete. This is the same Joe Toye who, after the war, spent his last years caring for the daily needs of a severely handicapped son. After reading this book, you’ll never watch the series the same way again.

  I’ve spoken with the family members who knew the men closely, as well as relied on firsthand accounts from writings, journals, and letters. My hope is that you will benefit from the intrigue and poignancy that comes from reading the stories of each man featured.

  Please enjoy.

  Marcus Brotherton

  Bellingham, Washington,

  September 2009

  EASY COMPANY TIMELINE

  July-November 1942: 506th PIR activated at Camp Toccoa, GA. Basic Training. Hike from Toccoa to Atlanta in late November.

  December 1942: Parachute training at Fort Benning, GA. Additional training at Benning through February ’43.

  February-May 1943: Additional training exercises at Camp Mackall, NC. More training jumps.

  June-August 1943: Additional training in Kentucky and Tennessee, then to Fort Bragg, NC.

  September 1943: Regiment moves to Camp Shanks, NY, boards SS Samaria for England. Arrives in Swindon and moved to Aldbourne.

  September 1943-May 1944: Additional training in Aldbourne. In May regiment moves to marshalling area near Exeter, England, then to Upottery Airfield.

  June 6, 1944: Jump into France.

  June 7-8, 1944: Various battles in Normandy.

  June 8-16, 1944: Battle for Carentan.

  June 29, 1944: Company is relieved and returns to Aldbourne.

  September 17, 1944: Company jumps at Zon, Holland, and advances into Eindhoven, heading for Arnhem. Series of intense battles along “Hell’s Highway” throughout September.

  October 3, 1944: Company is relieved from duty around Eindhoven and transported by truck to the Island, the area between the Waal and the Neder Rhine. Patrols and battles until November when the Company is relieved and sent to Mourmelon, France.

  December 17, 1944: Company sent to Bastogne, Belgium, to fight in Bois Jacques woods.

  January 13-16, 1944: Fighting around Foy, Noville, and Rachamps.

  January 19-February 25, 1944: Company is relieved and moved to Haguenau. Fights along the Moder River.

  March 1945: Now back at Mourmelon, the entire 101st Airborne Division receives the Presidential Unit Citation. This is the first time an entire division has been honored in this way.

  April 1945: Company heads into Germany. Finds concentration camps. Occupies Berchtesgaden.

  May 8, 1945: Victory in Europe day.

  April 6-10, 1945: Company moves to Kaprun, Austria. Begins occupation duties.

  May-November 1945: High-points men are rotated home.

  PART I

  ENLISTED MEN

  THE KEY TO VICTORY

  1

  ALBERT BLITHE

  Interview with Gordon Blithe, son

  Band of Brothers came down on me like an atom bomb. I had never heard of the book, never even heard of it on TV, until a friend of mine, a WWII buff, came over to my house one day. I had all this WWII memorabilia from my dad around the house, which my friend knew about. He asked, “Was your dad in Easy Company in WWII?”

  “I don’t know what company he was in,” I said. “All I know is that he was with the 506th PIR, 101st Airborne.”

  “So far, so good,” he said. “Was your dad’s name Alber
t?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was he born in Philadelphia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Buddy, you better come over to my house and watch this thing on HBO,” he said. “I think it’s about your dad.”

  So I went over, and things started to click. There was this character named Albert Blithe, played by the actor Marc Warren. I didn’t recognize the specific stories because my dad had never talked about the war, so that didn’t mean anything to me. Then, in one episode that featured him, I saw his RA [Regular Army] number. That’s when I realized this was about my dad.

  There were two mistakes with the series when it came to Albert Blithe—one little, one big. The first issue was not as important to me. It showed that my father had been wounded in the neck. Well, it wasn’t actually the neck. It was his upper right shoulder. Growing up, I had seen the scar hundreds of times. He received a partial wartime disability because of the injury. When he came home from WWII he was on disability payment for one year, then he waived it and went back into the army. A man from Texas got in touch with me who had known my dad, and said that my dad had a permanent profile where he didn’t have to salute anymore because his shoulder was so messed up.