Paratrooper Forest Guth-Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne-stands with his rifle on the road to Carentan, France in June of 1944. For the Band of Brothers in Easy Company, that road in would be a rocky one.
At 6 AM on the morning of June 12th, Easy Company’s paratroopers braced themselves to attack the southern section of Carentan. Lt. Dick Winters had placed Lt. Harry Welsh at the head of 1st Platoon’s column and soon gave the order to “Move out.”
Just as Welsh and 1st Platoon moved in on Carentan, a German machine gun opened fire on them and caused all but six men to stop their attack heading into town and take cover.
While Lt. Welsh figured out what to do next, Lt. Winters tossed off his gear and ran to his men who had taken cover in the open.
As he came upon the paratroopers crouching in the open ditches on each side of the road, he began kicking and shouting orders at the men to “Get going!” He ran from one side of the road to the other with German machine gun fire whizzing by him with the desperate plea ““You’re gonna die here! Move!” At last, the men renewed their advance and entered Carentan to clear houses of any Germans.
Lt. Welsh’s group kept their focus on the machine gun crew that had pinned Easy Company down on the road.
Eventually, they took control of the intersection when Welsh received covering fire and lobbed grenades in with the enemy crew, killing the best chance they had at stopping the Band of Brothers.
No comments:
Post a Comment