10 WWII Heroes: Richard Winters 8/10

Historical photos are not mine. They are used for educational purposes. I own all other photographs. You may use all of my photographs, as long as proper credit is given.

This is the eighth in a ten part series about the heroes of World War II. You can view the introduction and table of contents to this series here.

At the beginning of each story I will give a maturity rating from 1-5. 1 means the story is appropriate for younger ages, and 5 means it is appropriate for teens and up. This story is rated 5. I would not recommend the below resources to anyone under 12. However, for teens and up, these are fantastic resources.

Richard Winters, Public domain

Richard "Dick" Winters is probably the most well-known person that I've featured so far. He was born on January 21, 1918 in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. In college, Winters dedicated his life to his studies and part-time job; forfeiting his social life and giving up his favorite sport, wrestling. In 1941, he graduated with a B.S. in Economics and had the highest academic standing in business college.

Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon

After enlisting in late August of the same year, Winters received basic training at Croft, South Carolina. Afterwards, he began training draftees and volunteers. After passing several tests, he qualified for the Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia, and that is where he met his long-time buddy Lewis Nixon. Following graduation from OCS in July 1942, Winters knew he wanted to become a paratrooper. Because there was no position available at the time, he trained another group of draftees at Croft. Five weeks later Winters was assigned to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) at Camp Toccoa in Georgia. At Toccoa, he was a second lieutenant under first lieutenant Herbert Sobel. It was also in Toccoa where he joined E Company - better known as Easy Company. An experimental unit, few men in the 506th PIR had military experience, and the training was rigorous. One of the training exercises was called Currahee - "three miles up (a hill) and three miles down". "Currahee!" later became Easy's motto.

Richard Winters

After Toccoa, Easy Company was sent to England. Although Easy was warned about the strict rationing in Britain, an elderly couple quite enjoyed Winters and invited him to tea. This sweet couple had a son who had died while serving in the Royal Air Force. When the officers barracks became too crowded, the couple offered Winters into their home, which he greatly accepted. He believed that they were "truly preparing himself for what was to come".
During that time in England, for nearly ten months, Easy Company trained in preparation for D-Day.
Just after one o'clock in the morning on June 6, 1944, Winters parachuted out of a plane and landed in France.
A few hours later, Winters led an attack that destroyed a battery of German howitzers that were firing on principal exits of Utah Beach. Although Winters led the attack with only 13 men, it is estimated nearly 50 Germans were guarding the weapons.
Winters heroic actions and leadership skills have been credited for saving many lives. Winters greatest quality - and something he feels very strongly about - is leadership. He believed that getting to know the men made it easier to inspire them. At the same time, he wanted to respect and have a close relationship with his men, yet command and discipline them accordingly. Winters believed if Easy's first commander Herbert Sobel would have led them during the war, casualties would have been more common.

Easy Company; England June 5, 1944

The first of July brought big news - Winters was once again promoted, this time to captain. On July 12, Easy pulled back and returned to England.
Operation Market Garden came in Holland in September 1944. Unfortunately, this airborne mission was unsuccessful. In the cold winters, Easy Company was in Bastogne, part of the Battle of the Bulge. One of the most memorable Easy Company moments was in April 1945. The war was coming to a close, and the men are wondering why Hitler dragged them from their wonderful homes in the US to this stupid war in Europe. While patrolling outside of Easy's headquarters, a few of Easy's men came across something strange, and immediately alerted Winters. The strange location Easy Company ran into was a concentration camp - Kaufering IV, a subcamp of Dachau. The conditions in Kaufering were horrific, with corpses strewn about everywhere. The Nazis had fled the camp and locked the inmates inside. Coming face-to-face with Nazi cruelty, they truly realized why they were fighting.

Richard Winters with a picture of Damien Lewis,
who played him in the miniseries Band of Brothers

After the war, Winters quietly settled down, and worked at Lewis Nixon's family business in New Jersey, Nixon Nitration Works. Winters married Ethel Estoppey in May 1948, and they lived happily
together for over sixty years. Winters trained draftees during the Korean War. After a number of miscellaneous jobs, he retired in 1997. He was awarded several awards for his actions and leadership during World War II.

In Hershey, Pennsylvania on January 2, 2011, Richard Winters died at 92 years of age. Very humble, he requested a private funeral. His grave simply says, "Richard D. Winters World War II 101st Airborne."
A 12-foot bronze statue dedicated to all of the US troops was unveiled in France on the 68th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 2012. The statue was dedicated to all the young men who died during those fateful days.

An Easy veteran walks past the Richard Winters statue
(From the US Army website)

Easy Company participated in the most notable battles of World War II. Their exploits were featured in the bestseller Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks turned the book into a 10-part miniseries in 2001.  Band of Brothers is the highest rated mini-series on IMDb. The 10-part series has an average rating of 9.6 from over 128,000 reviewers. Winters wrote a memoir based on his experiences, entitled Beyond Band of Brothers. I would highly recommend both resources for high school and up. The miniseries is rated R for violence and profanity. It's violent. It's war. The liberation of a Nazi concentration camp isn't easy to watch. It has over 60 F-words. The beginning of pisode 9 has a 15-second scene with nudity. You can skip the nudity scene, because it has nothing to do with the story. Other than that scene and another around episode 6 (the men are showering and you can see their backside) no other nudity/sexual content is present. ClearPlay has edited versions of the series, but I would not recommend editing a lot of violence. I mean, Steven Spielberg is very serious when it comes to editing Schindler's List. He makes it clear he did not want any concentration camp nudity or violence to be edited when it aired on TV - it was all crucial to the film. That's how I feel about the violence in Band of Brothers.

Although Winters' leadership skills made him the most famous, all of the men of Easy Company are heroes. The end of the series Band of Brothers included a documentary, where the real men of Easy Company shared stories about the war. The classic ending line was Major Dick Winters quoting a passage in a letter he had received, "I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day. He said, 'Grandpa were you a hero in the war?' Grandpa said no, but I served in a company of heroes."

For more information and pictures on Winters and Easy Company, you can see my Pinterest board here and the tumblr account Letters to Easy Company.

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In memory of the men of Easy Company. Thank you for your service and bravery!

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