Chapter 9. The Island; Holland, October 2–November 25, 1944

Summary 

Easy Company receives orders to help hold “the island,” a five-kilometer-wide area between the Rhine River on the north and the Waal River to the south, captured three weeks earlier by Allied troops. The Germans hold higher ground north of the Rhine River, where they have a good view of approaching soldiers. Easy Company’s task is to defend the island from counterattacks, support the British artillery by turning back any German infantry assaults, and serve as forward artillery observers.

Within three days of setting up outposts along the front line, a four-man Easy Company patrol surprises a full company of German SS troops trying to infiltrate the Allied position. After being notified of the German penetration, Winters assembles a squad to deal with the SS company. Winters performs reconnaissance and devises a plan to use a ditch running parallel to the dike to take out seven German sentries and a machine gun placement. Winters assigns each soldier a target, and when he gives the signal, twelve rifles fire simultaneously, dropping seven Germans and nailing the German’s machine gun placement.

When reinforcements arrive, Winters divides his men into three squads, sending them to the right and the left while he leads his squad up the middle. They move quickly to find more than 100 Germans tightly packed together at the juncture of the dike and the road. As Winters shoots the sentry, the SS react clumsily, hampered by their long winter overcoats. The SS company is in full retreat to the ferry they had used to cross over the night before when Winters tells his squads to fire at will. Thirty-five Americans rout two German companies of nearly 300 men.

Four days later, Winters is promoted to executive officer, the administrator duties a big step away from the strategizing he thrives on. The World War I–type trench warfare drags on through the end of November when Canadian forces arrive to replace the 101st. Easy Company has suffered nearly fifty casualties, not from close-range warfare but long-distance artillery fire.

Analysis 

The events described in this chapter reveal how Easy Company’s strength in guerrilla-type warfare is once again immensely valuable just as it was in Normandy. At first glance, the mission of holding the island from German recapture seems destined to be more like World War I trench warfare. With the German long-range artillery set up within range on higher ground with excellent visibility, covert operations that Easy Company specializes in seem out of the question. However, Winters pushes his patrols to the German front and discovers enemy weaknesses to exploit, from poor troop positioning to bulky overcoats that slow down their movements. Winters’s superior leadership skills again facilitate multipoint attacks and a signature strategy perfected in Normandy. Easy Company’s outstanding marksmanship with rifles, machine guns, and mortars contributes to their deadly precision. However, the Germans show the upper hand in artillery fire, taking the lives of some Easy Company soldiers as they make their way back to the Allied command base.

The promotion of Winters from commanding officer to executive officer has ominous tones. Up until this point, he has been the architect of the company’s tactics from the first day in Normandy. Winters’s creative understanding and use of the men’s considerable strengths contribute to their effectiveness. In the field, his nerves of steel and astute observation of the enemy give Easy Company strategic advantages time and time again. Having seen the tendency of leaders on both sides to make unrealistic and impractical decisions sending men into harm’s way, the reader may feel concerned that Winters’s promotion will impact the safety and success of the men he is so used to leading.

The narrator’s reference to World War I–style trench warfare evokes primitive fighting tactics at odds with the technological advancements of the Germans with their cutting-edge weaponry, including 88 mm artillery and Luger pistols. This contrast makes Easy Company’s success with stealth fighting all the more satisfying for the reader and impressive in the eyes of the historian. The men of Easy Company truly constitute a well-oiled machine with endless reserves of energy and morale as they go about besting the ruthless system of German domination and extermination.