What Dick Winters Did When 13 Men Were Ordered to Take Four German Guns

On the morning of June 6, 1944, First Lieutenant Dick Winters of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, got a one-sentence order: "There's fire along that hedgerow there. Take care of it." Behind those hedgerows near Brécourt Manor, a battery of four German guns was firing toward the causeways behind Utah Beach. Winters had landed without his rifle, had been in command of his scattered company for only a few hours, and had about a dozen men with him. This documentary follows what he did next: the solo reconnaissance, the base of fire, the flanking attack along the German trench, the captured map, and the tanks that came up from the beach. We also look at where the sources disagree. Was it really 13 men, or closer to two dozen? Why did the Army's combat historian S. L. A. Marshall record about 200? Were the guns standard 105 mm howitzers or mountain howitzers, and which German unit held them? Why does the official Army history of Utah Beach say almost nothing about the action? And why did a Medal of Honor recommendation end in a Distinguished Service Cross? Along the way, we hear Winters' own words from his memoir and his letters, and we see how a lieutenant from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, became the model for a monument dedicated to every junior officer who led the way on D-Day. WWII American Heroes tells the stories of individual Americans in the Second World War, using documented sources and no invented quotes. Sources: - Roland G. Ruppenthal, *Utah Beach to Cherbourg (6–27 June 1944)*, CMH Pub 100-12, Historical Division, War Department (HyperWar edition): https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-A-Utah/index.html - Dick Winters with Cole C. Kingseed, *Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters* (Berkley Caliber), chapter "Day of Days": https://erenow.org/ww/beyond-band-of-brothers/5.php - Stephen E. Ambrose, *Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne* (1992) - The National WWII Museum, "Dick Winters's Leadership Insights in a Letter to Stephen Ambrose": https://www.nationalww2museum.org/node/135957 - WVIA, "PA native remembered on 80th anniversary of D-Day" (2024): https://www.wvia.org/news/pennsylvania-news/2024-06-07/pa-native-remembered-on-80th-anniversary-of-d-day - DVIDS, "Brecourt Manor: A Historical Account of the Allied Invasion Handed Down Through Generations" (2024): https://www.dvidshub.net/news/printable/477427 - Beaches of Normandy, "Dick Winters' first battle": http://www.beachesofnormandy.com/articles/Dick_Winters_first_battle - Normandy War Guide, Richard D. Winters Leadership Monument: https://www.normandywarguide.com/place/leadership-monument - The World War II Foundation, Monuments: https://wwiifoundation.org/monuments/ - Wikipedia, "Brécourt Manor Assault" (summary of published sources): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A9court_Manor_Assault