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Chapter 10. Resting, Recovering, and Refitting; Mourmelon-le-Grand, November 26–December 18, 1944

Summary

Easy Company’s three weeks at Camp Mourmelon outside the French village of Mourmelon-le-Grand are a welcome change from the frontline duty they had endured in Holland. A hot shower, clean clothing, and mail from home restore the men’s morale. Everyone gets a pass into the local town of Reims, where the men become so rowdy that all passes to Reims are canceled after just four days. Five-mile marches, calisthenics, and organized sports substitute to work off excess energy. The men have access to three movie theaters and the Red Cross club, which serves superb food. It is believed they won’t be seeing action until mid-March.

Everything changes when Hitler launches a surprise attack in the Ardennes in Belgium. Eisenhower deploys the 101st Airborne to the Bastogne area to plug the hole created by the German offensive that routed the American forces who were in full retreat. Now, Easy Company makes its way to Bastogne to join the Battle of the Bulge, unprepared for the cold weather and only partially armed. As Easy Company marches toward Bastogne, they encounter retreating American soldiers, from whom they get ammunition to supplement their meager supply. A soldier named Rice makes multiple trips to an ammo cache at Foy to supply the Easy Company’s paratroopers with ammunition and grenades for the coming battle. Easy Company has no artillery or air support and is light on food rations, and the Germans cut off Bastogne from resupply.

Analysis

Easy Company’s time in Mourmelon-le-Grand restores their spirits, which were wearied by the harrowing patrols, grueling trench warfare, and deaths of comrades in Holland. Mundane comforts civilians back home take for granted, such as wine, good food, and relaxing with a movie or game, provide both physical and mental comfort and rejuvenation. The young men of Easy Company were chosen from the fittest of the recruits to undergo grueling physical training, but this doesn’t remove their human tendency to need emotional release. Despite the downtime, the soldiers can never fully decompress. They know fighting can resume at any time, and the combination of abundant alcohol available in the towns and the death they face in action often unleashes emotional behavior that strict routine controls. Readers recall that these men in their late teens and early twenties, far from home for the first time, have a lot of physical and nervous energy. The Army recognizes that providing pastimes and activities restores the men’s battle readiness, but when the men demonstrate a tendency to get too carried away, their superiors pull them in and manage how they get to decompress.

The system is designed to return them to the front as quickly as possible. However, the high command did not anticipate Hitler’s surprise resurgence in the Ardennes, which the Allies liberated three months earlier. The hilly Ardennes region of Belgium has strategic importance for Hitler as a way to split the Allied forces and cut off a crucial northern supply line. It also represents a route of escape should the offensive be repelled. The haste of Allied soldiers’ deployment means that the men were not outfitted for the subzero winter temperatures or armed with enough ammunition, factors that any soldier understands could mean certain death. The scene of the fresh soldiers asking the panicked retreating soldiers for their ammunition reveals the desperate straits 101st Airborne would encounter.

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