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W Winters Biography & Facts

Richard Davis Winters (January 21, 1918 – January 2, 2011) was a United States Army officer who served as a paratrooper in "Easy Company" of the 506th Infantry Regiment within the 101st Airborne Division during World War II. Winters was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his successful command of the assault on Brécourt Manor during the invasion of Normandy. His exploits were featured within numerous books and in the 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers, in which he was portrayed by actor Damian Lewis. Early life and education Winters was born in New Holland, Pennsylvania,: 4  to Richard and Edith Winters on January 21, 1918. The family soon moved to nearby Ephrata, and then to Lancaster when he was eight years old.: 4  He graduated from Lancaster Boys High School in 1937 and attended Franklin and Marshall College.: 6  At Franklin and Marshall, Winters was a member of the Upsilon chapter of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity and participated in intramural football and basketball. He had to give up wrestling, his favorite sport, and most of his social activities for his studies and the part-time jobs that paid his way through college. He graduated in 1941 with a B.S. in Economics. He obtained the highest academic standing in the business college. Military service World War II Training On August 25, 1941, Winters enlisted in the Army.: 6  He would write in his memoirs that he "had no desire to get into the war" but joined to fulfill a one-year requirement of service and to avoid being drafted later.: 6  In September, he underwent basic training at Camp Croft, South Carolina.: 7  He remained at Camp Croft to help train draftees and other volunteers, while the rest of his battalion was deployed to Panama. In April 1942, four months after the United States entered World War II, he was selected to attend Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia.: 8–9  There he became friends with Lewis Nixon, with whom he would serve throughout the war.: 13  He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry after graduating from OCS on July 2, 1942.: 13  During his officer training, Winters decided to join the parachute infantry, part of the U.S. Army's new airborne forces.: 12  Upon completing training, he returned to Camp Croft to train another class of draftees as there were no positions available in the paratroopers at that time. After five weeks, he received orders to join the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (506th PIR) at Camp Toccoa in Georgia.: 14  The 506th was commanded by Colonel Robert Sink. Winters arrived at Toccoa in mid-August 1942 and was assigned to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR,: 16–17  which later became better known as "Easy Company" in accordance with the contemporaneous Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. Serving under First Lieutenant Herbert Sobel, Winters was made platoon leader of 2nd Platoon, earning a promotion to first lieutenant in October 1942: 25 : 39  and made acting company executive officer, although this was not made official until May 1943.: 39  The 506th PIR was an experimental unit, the first regiment to undertake airborne training as a formed unit.: 18  The training at Toccoa was very tough. Of the 500 officers who had volunteered, only 148 completed the course; of 5,000 enlisted volunteers, only 1,800 were ultimately selected for duty as paratroopers.: 18 : 18  On June 10, 1943, after more tactical training at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, the 506th PIR was attached to Major General William Lee's 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne Division.: 39  Later in the year, they embarked on the Samaria, and arrived in Liverpool on September 15, 1943.: 44  They proceeded to Aldbourne, Wiltshire, where they began intense training for the Allied invasion of Europe planned for spring 1944.: 45  In November and December 1943, while Easy Company was at Aldbourne, the tension that had been brewing between Winters and Sobel came to a head.: 47–52  For some time, Winters had privately held concerns over Sobel's ability to lead the company in combat. Many of the enlisted men in the company had come to respect Winters for his competence and had also developed their own concerns about Sobel's leadership.: 48  Winters later said that he never wanted to compete with Sobel for command of Easy Company; still, Sobel attempted to bring Winters up on trumped-up charges for "failure to carry out a lawful order".: 51  Feeling that his punishment was unjust, Winters requested that the charge be reviewed by court-martial. After Winters' punishment was set aside by the battalion commander, Major Robert L. Strayer, Sobel brought Winters up on another charge the following day. During the investigation, Winters was transferred to the Headquarters Company and appointed as the battalion mess officer.: 52  In the wake of this incident, several of the company's non-commissioned officers (NCOs) delivered an ultimatum to the regimental commander, Colonel Sink, threatening to surrender their stripes unless Sobel was replaced. Winters tried unsuccessfully to talk them out of taking this step.: 53  Sink was not impressed by the threat, and several of the NCOs were subsequently demoted or transferred out of the company. Nevertheless, he realized that something had to be done and decided: 54  to transfer Sobel out of Easy Company, giving him command of a new parachute training school at Chilton Foliat.: 57  Winters' court-martial was set aside and he returned to Easy Company as leader of 1st Platoon. Winters later said he felt that despite his differences with Sobel, at least part of Easy Company's success had been due to Sobel's strenuous training and high expectations.: 287  In February 1944, First Lieutenant Thomas Meehan was given command of Easy Company.: 57  Summer 1944 Meehan remained in command of the company until the invasion of Normandy, when at about 1:15 a.m. on June 6, 1944, D-Day, the C-47 Skytrain transporting the company Headquarters Section was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire, killing everyone on board.: 78–79  Winters jumped that night and landed safely near Sainte-Mère-Église.: 80  Losing his weapon during the drop, he nevertheless oriented himself, assembled several paratroopers, including members of the 82nd Airborne Division, and proceeded toward the unit's assigned objective near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.: 76  With Meehan's fate unknown, Winters became the de facto commanding officer (CO) of Easy Company, which he remained for the duration of the Normandy campaign.: 92  Later that day, Winters led an attack that destroyed a battery of German 105mm howitzers, which were firing onto the causeways that served as the principal exits from Utah Beach.: 78–84  The Americans estimated that the guns were defended by about a platoon of 50 German troops, while Winters had 13 men.: 78–84  This action south of the village of Le Grand-Chemin, called the Brécourt Manor Assault, has been taught at the military academy at West Point as an exam.... 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