Previous Next

Chapter 13. Attack; Noville, January 14–17, 1945

Summary 

Allied strategists Eisenhower and Montgomery select Easy Company to lead an attack on Noville to link up with forward positions and trap the German tanks. Colonel Sink schedules two battalions to attack at high noon on January 14. Winters brainstorms an alternative to Easy Company crossing two kilometers of snow-covered open fields in broad daylight. He splits the two battalions and sends Easy Company to a steep grade along the field. German tanks within Noville open fire on 1st Battalion but do not notice 2nd Battalion moving closer under the cover of the shoulder. By noon the next day, the 2nd Battalion secures Noville. Pushing onto Rachamps, the German troops flee as the Americans move in, and the American forces easily take Rachamps even under German bombardment. The 17th Airborne Division relieves the 101st, and Easy Company loads into trucks to make their way to Alsace, a region in France that borders Germany.

The battles at Bastogne, Noville, and Rachamps make the 101st Airborne into a legend in their own time. The narrator uses the term “band of brothers” to characterize their unique dynamism. As the narrator considers the many factors that contributed to their effectiveness, he credits moral superiority conferred by training, officer selection, and the openness of society under the U.S. democratic system of government. The defeat of the better-equipped and more numerous German soldiers owed to the Americans’ teamwork, coordination, and mutual trust all along the hierarchy, from General Eisenhower to enlisted men.

Analysis

In this chapter, the narrator considers leadership factors in the effectiveness of Easy Company. The manpower shortage motivates Eisenhower to call on the reliable 101st Airborne. Captain Winters once again weighs the objectives handed down from headquarters with fierce protectiveness toward the men of Easy Company. His position in the chain of command from the start of their training until now makes him acutely aware of their strengths and their loyalty to him. This continuity has kept alive the spirit born in training and baptized in battle that transcends a new commanding officer and recruits. A band is a group of people bound together by circumstance and shared purpose, and through their training and battlefield experiences, they became brothers. From the first days at Camp Toccoa in Georgia, the men related as family among themselves. The continuity of leadership by sergeants preserved the integrity of the company. The suffering shared in Bastogne bound the men even afterward as they continued to search for the meaning in the pain throughout their postwar lives.

According to the narrator, moral superiority thrives in people whose worldview is about valuing people, not principles. The distinctive society that the United States fosters based on self-reliance and equality produces warriors motivated by something other than class, culture, or nationalism. The concept of brotherhood brings war down from an ideological construct to personal investment. Easy Company was ready to die for each other, an impulse not typically found outside sainthood.

Previous section Chapters 11 & 12 Next section Chapter 14

Take a Study Break