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Chapters 11 & 12 

Summary: Chapter 11. “They Got Us Surrounded—The Poor Bastards”; Bastogne, December 19–31, 1944 

The Germans surround the Allies, and the siege at Bastogne brings intense physical and psychological suffering. With the supply lines blockaded, the American troops lack warm clothing, food, and ammunition. It snows twelve inches overnight. The intense cold makes the experience miserable, and men are tempted to inflict injuries on themselves to get out of their foxholes and into the field hospital. Frostbite is a problem. Easy Company endures daily sniper fire and artillery and mortar bombardments. The German commander broadcasts an intimidating demand for the Americans’ surrender, threatening complete annihilation.

On the day after Christmas, General Patton’s Third Army breaks through German lines, and the 101st is no longer surrounded. Shifty Powers notices a strange occurrence, the presence of a tree that had not been there the day prior. The Germans are camouflaging an antiaircraft battery. Thanks to Shifty Powers’s tracking prowess, the Americans bombard the German position and go on to hold Bastogne from German occupation and prepare to push them back from the Ardennes. The Germans troops outnumber the Allied troops, who are spread thin over a two-front war, in Europe and the Asian Pacific, owing to the U.S. government’s draft policy excluding fathers and agricultural and industrial workers.

Summary: Chapter 12. The Breaking Point; Bastogne, January 1–13, 1945 

Based on Army psychiatric findings, combat exhaustion is inevitable after ninety days. Easy Company's total of 116 days in combat puts them in danger of a morale breakdown. Added to this stress is the Army policy of replacing casualties by slotting in individuals rather than integrating groups of men who have trained together. The veterans and recruits of Easy Company begin an advance through the Bois Jacques woods to take Foy and then Noville. Visibility is low, and the snow and trees absorb the sounds of movement. The men contend with a sense of isolation and exposure as they make their advance over a half-mile under artillery support to a logging road where they establish a position. As some return to their foxholes to maintain the forward line, they take a shortcut through an open field. The German forces see them and begin the worst shelling that Easy has endured in the war. Amid the carnage, Toye and Guarnere are severely injured. Their close friend Compton is unnerved to see them torn to pieces.

Easy Company’s commanding officer, Norman Dike, disappears when the shelling starts. Dike hides behind two haystacks, unable to make a decision, abandoning Easy Company midpoint in their advance across an open field. Winters witnesses Dike’s breakdown and taps a platoon leader from Dog Company, Ronald Speirs, to immediately assume command. Speirs sprints to Dike’s position, relieves him of his command, and confers quickly with the company. He formulates a plan and resumes the forward advance at the front of their position, facing German 88 artillery cannon fire. The men follow his decisive leadership. The company pours into Foy against heavy resistance. Shifty Powers discerns the position of a sniper inflicting heavy casualties and takes him out with a single bullet between the eyes.

Analysis: Chapters 11 & 12 

The chapter title “They Got Us Surrounded—The Poor Bastards” is a quote from an American medic at the Bastogne field hospital, which is full of wounded during the German blockade of the roads leading in and out. Carson from Easy Company asks why they aren’t evacuating the injured. The medic tells Carson the news of the life-threatening German siege, which he turns into pity for their enemy. This radical irony functions as a psychological safety valve. By making fun of a terrifying situation, the medic intends to bolster the morale of the wounded men. Gallows humor refers to cynical comic relief in dire circumstances that are outside one’s control. It captures the bravado necessary to endure, just like the American commander McAuliffe’s one-word response to the German commander’s fulsome, threatening demand for the Americans’ surrender to avoid their “annihilation”: “NUTS!” (pp. 253–254). Combatants often use ridicule as a weapon against the enemy, as seen here between the two opposing commanders of the Bastogne contest.

The narrator describes the impacts of policy decisions in the United States on decisions made by the U.S. Army in the Allied war effort in Europe. During the mobilization of the war manpower, limiting the draft to exclude fathers and offer deferments had real consequences on the battlefield, as seen in the extreme risks Easy Company had to take. The German forces consistently outmanned the American forces in every campaign. For this reason, the creative leadership of Winters and the superior physical fitness and tactical capabilities of Easy Company made the difference between life and death, further reinforcing the trust they had among themselves.

The U.S. Army convention of one-to-one replacement of casualties comes in for criticism. This policy means the only reprieve from the dangers of combat is through death or a serious wound. If groups of men who trained together were rotated in and out at intervals, the cycle of hopelessness might have been avoided. When added to sleep deprivation and insufficient nutrition, conditions are rife for men having the psychological syndrome of combat exhaustion. Norman Dike reaches his threshold under the extreme duress of being responsible for the lives of men. When Winters relieves him from command, Speirs’s decisiveness and bravery stand in sharp contrast to Dike’s incapacitation. Compton also exemplifies the breaking point faced by the bravest of men. He had won a Silver Star on D-Day and had been wounded in Normandy and again in Holland, bearing up under the worst combat conditions that the Germans could inflict. The sight of his friends torn into pieces puts him over the edge, and his evacuation with a severe case of trench foot is both a physical and psychological mercy.

At every point in the narrative, the contributions of individuals loom larger than those of command strategists. Shifty Powers exemplifies this focus on unique traits and personalities that make a big difference. Raised in the Appalachia Mountains of Virginia, he spent hours shooting squirrels out of trees. He picked off snipers hidden in the trees no one else could see and spotted changes in foliage that indicated hidden armament. Ronald Speirs had a brutal streak, a defect of the aggressive, decisive, ruthless virtues that made him so valuable in combat.

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