Day of Days

"Day of Days"
Paratroopers throwing grenades
Episode:	2
Preceded by:	"Currahee"
Followed by:	"Carentan"
Focus:	Richard Winters
Subject:	Assault on Brécourt Manor, D-Day
Aired:	September 9, 2001
Directed By:	Richard Loncraine
Written By:	•Stephen Ambrose (based on the book by) •John Orloff

1st Lieutenant Richard Winters: That night, I took time time to thank God for seeing me through that day of days. And prayed I would make it through D-Day plus one. And if somehow, I managed to get home again, I promised God and myself...that I would find a quiet piece of land someplace...and spent the rest of my life in peace.

Day of Days is the 2nd Episode of Band of Brothers. It again puts Richard Winters in a leading role. The story involves the aftermath of the D-Day landings and Easy Company's attempt to destroy 105mm guns at Brécourt Manor.

Plot

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, planes with thousands of paratroopers cross the English Channel to France, where they come under heavy fire. None of the men land where they expected to, and many lose their weapons and supplies in the drop. Winters links up with solitary soldiers, and they set off to find their units. Winters (Damian Lewis) is later chosen to lead an attack on a fortified German artillery position; the mission is successful, but Winters, now acting company commander, loses his first man.

-From the official Band of Brothers episode website

Synopsis

Easy Company and other Airborne paratroopers are now aboard C47s as they prepare to jump behind enemy lines during D-Day. German anti-aircraft guns are firing at the planes, causing many of them to be destroyed, including Easy Company's CO, 1st Lieutenant Thomas Meehan III's plane. Massive numbers of paratroopers jump from their planes, along with 1st Lieutenant Richard Winters, who is forced with his stick to evacuate the plane when the pilot, having just lost his co-pilot to anti-aircraft fire, signals them to jump.

During the jump, many paratroopers lose their weapons and other supplies, as well as missing their drop zone entirely. Just after Winters lands, another paratrooper named Private John Hall from Able Company lands and pairs with him. Hall has lost his radio pack, and Winters has lost all his weaponry except for his combat knife. As they wander through the trees, they find 2nd Lieutenant Carwood Lipton and two more paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. Winters, realizing that the paratroopers are scattered all over Normandy, is able to identify their location with a compass he'd brought and starts everyone moving toward the rallying point near the village of Sainte-Mère-Église. As they go, they encounter Privates Donald Malarkey and Robert Wynn, Corporal Joseph Toye, and Sergeant William Guarnere.

Following a set of train tracks, the group hears a horse; Winters observes a group of German forces and positions the men. Guarnere, still bothered from news of his brother being killed in action, fires prior to Winters' command, forcing the others to shoot as well. Winters reprimands Guarnere's disobedience, much to the annoyance of "Wild Bill" who mutters about Winters being a "Quaker." Lipton hands Winters a German 98 karabiner rifle as a temporary weapon. The men come across several dead Germans lying under a dead paratrooper hanging by his chute cords from a tree. While Malarkey calls "dibs" on any Luger pistols they might find, Winters takes the dead paratroopers' M1 rifle.

Closer to the rallying point, they encounter German POWs. Malarkey jokingly asks one of them where he's from and the soldier answers in perfect American English that he's from Eugene, Oregon. Malarkey is astonished; the Wehrmacht soldier tells him that he answered the call for ethnic Germans to return to their homeland and fight for it. As Malarkey leaves, 1st Lieutenant Ronald Speirs from Dog Company finds the POWs. Gunshots are then heard; Malarkey then turns and sees Speirs executing them, allowing one trembling German soldier to survive.

Major Strayer orders Winters to select some men and lead an assault on a French estate called Brécourt. The Germans have installed four 88mm cannons that are firing directly on Utah Beach and inflicting heavy casualties. Winters assembles the team into two squads: one led by him and one led by 2nd Lieutenant Lynn Compton. Winters proves himself a solid tactician, using a small force to ambush a more massive force on heavily fortified positions. Wynn is wounded in the buttocks and is forced to leave the battle, while Winters and his squad take over the first to third guns that were in fact 105mm. Using Composition B explosive and several German "potato masher" grenades stuffed into the barrels, the guns are destroyed. Winters discovers a map and decides to hold on to it, while Hall is suddenly killed by a booby trap in one of the trenches. Winters sees the lifeless body of Hall, and a disappointed Winters chooses to go on. Dog Company, led by Speirs, provides backup and successfully captures the fourth and final gun, and so they retreat.

That night, the men rest and eat after the assault. Winters is told by 2nd Lieutenant Lewis Nixon that the map Winters found disclosed the locations of all the guns in Normandy and was passed up to Army Intelligence. Winters declares this day as a "day of firsts," when Guarnere, Malarkey, Compton and several other Easy members offer Winters a bottle of French wine to sip. and pledges that after the war, he will secure peace for himself to spend the remaining days of his life.

End Quote

"For destroying the German guns at Brécourt Manor the following awards were awarded

Bronze Stars

Walter Hendrix, Donald Malarkey, John Plesha, Joe Toye, Carwood Lipton, Cleveland Petty, Myron Ranney, "Popeye" Wynn

Silver Stars

"Buck" Compton, Bill Guarnere, Gerald Lorraine

The Distinguished Service Cross is awarded to

Lt. Richard Winters"

"Easy Company's capture of the German Battery became a textbook case of an assault on a fixed position, and is still demonstrated at the United States Military Academy at West Point, today."

Casualties

Meehan’s C47 Plane:

• 1st Lieutenant Thomas Meehan III (KIA)
• 1st Sergeant Stanton William Evans (KIA)
• Staff Sergeant Murray Bonnell Roberts (KIA)
• Sergeant Richard Ernest Owen (KIA)
• Sergeant Carl Newton Riggs (KIA)
• Sergeant Elmer L. Murray jr. (KIA)
• T/5th Grade Jerry A. Wentzel (KIA)
• T/5th Ralph Hansel Wimer (KIA)
• PFC Herman F. Collins (KIA)
• PFC William T. McGonigal jr. (KIA)
• PFC John Neville Miller (KIA)
• PFC Sergio G. Moya (KIA)
• PFC Gerald Reginald Snider (KIA)
• PFC Elmer Leroy Telstad (KIA)
• PFC Thomas Woodrow Warren (KIA)
• Private George Leo Elliot (KIA)
• Private Ernest Lee Oats (KIA)

Flight Crew:

• 1st Lieutenant Harold Andrew Capelluto (Pilot)
• 2nd Lieutenant John J. Fanelli (Co-Pilot)
• 2nd Lieutenant Bernard Friedman (Navigator)
• Sergeant Norman Elbert Thompson (Radio Operator)
• Sergeant Albert Ray Tillotson jr. (Engineer)

Open

• Lieutenant Winters’ Co-Pilot (KIA)
• German Soldiers: Killed during an assault by 1st Lieutenant Richard Winters and his men.
• Several German Prisoners: Believed to be killed by 2nd Lieutenant Ronald Speirs.
• Private Robert Wynn: Wounded in the buttocks by a rifle.
• Warrant Officer Andrew F. Hill: Killed by a headshot by a rifle.
• PFC John D. Hall: Hall supplied the men with TNT to take out the guns, and while running back to collect more TNT, was killed by a landmine.