Dick Winters on Saving Private Ryan, D-Day & Prayer | American Artifact Episode 130

well that's the purpose here we were here to U recognize the veterans and men who took part in World War II and how many people here got to see the saving of private Ryme wow very good now those that didn't put their hand up you got your work cut out for you go see it [Music] when we got the major dick Winter's collection at the gettsburg Museum of History it not only included a lot of the artifacts that he had it had his photo albums his paperwork and his files that he kept on members of easy company and all all the papers that he had from writing the or helping Stephen Ambrose write the book banded Brothers but it also included his media and over the years um he saved a lot of that stuff and it was most of it was like interviews and then a lot of his TV appearances and and things like that and um a lot of it was things that people sent him I don't think he was a real audio uh or video kind of guy but um he he saved all that stuff so when we got it they were in the form of um cassette tapes such as this interviews and videotapes and this one's actually was kind of interesting I mean most of them are home recorded vide tapes of him speaking and things like that but here's one from Band of Brothers It's actually an Oscar um review tape I think it's for We Stand Alone Together which was the documentary part of Band of Brothers so they would send this out to Academy people and I guess dick wyers got one because he was involved with it um but when we got all this stuff we we realized most of it was pretty old anyway I mean some of the tapes were even when we got them 20 30 years old um there were some of the original interviews that stepen Ambrose did with some of the men of easy company so we went out and had them put on to DVDs and cassette I mean uh DVDs and uh um CDs and such as this we went out to a place that does that um there was a place here in gettsburg that was able to do that um so anyway we wanted to make sure that they were preserved so if in case something happened to the tapes they only have a certain shelf life so we were afraid they would be lost forever so we're going to start showing some of those on the channel and um this one in particular is Major winers speaking in get his birth and uh which is really interesting to me um he was invited here for an event and um he was uh it it was right after the movie uh Saving Private Ryan came out so he speaking speaking about that movie so this would have been after the book came out Banda Brothers but before the series came out before the series was even being um considered before he knew about it so uh he was very excited about Saving Private Ryan he tells everybody to go see it and um it's a pretty amazing video because it's like I said it's it's it's pre Banner Brothers series most of the interviews you see with major winners is is after the the series came out so I hope you enjoy it and um we'll be releasing a few of these over the next year or so well thank you for the nice introduction and for your attention here this afternoon uh I'd like before I start off here I'd like to double check do we have anybody here from the 101st Airborne dday experience do I have any D-Day veterans here good for you got one out there yeah let's give them my [Applause] hand well that's the purpose here we're here to U recognize the veterans and men who took part in World War II and how many people here got to see the saving of private Ryme wow very good now those that didn't put their hand up you got your work cut out for you go see it and no excuses for not seeing you'll be proud of yourself after you have gotten around to it because there's a message there for all of us and they did a good job let's give them credit for doing a good job and I there's many lessons to be learned that's okay we don't need that one I got another one here uh there's many lessons to be learned from private Ry if those who have seen it you've seen the 101st Airborne recognized and you've seen uh Company E the 506 recognized in there which I'm very proud of and that's why it's little warm and sticky this afternoon but despite that I'm wearing this jacket for one reason and you can guess why I want you to see this I'm still very proud of that we're going to start off here uh and give you a few memories of the dday the dday jump take you through give you some second thoughts as I look back on the war and I've asked my boy Rick over here to give you a hand signal when I have five minutes I'll sum it up and you can take off the next step of the program that Rick has put together for you very quickly D-Day the jump orders are to be in the plane have all your troops in the plane harness on parachutes on ready to take off at 22:15 on June the 5th 2310 the planes take off on the schedule we jump at 120 and then as it ends up I jump over St M Le now in that flight coming AC after coming across the channel uh we hit a cloud Bank as we approached the shore of France and the cloud Bank caused a lot of confusion for The Troop Carrier command who have never been in combat before they split up so that they don't run into each other and cause an accident and then splitting up the formation goes in all different directions and this causes for the confusion later on on the jump uh they were not supposed to take a vasy action when they hit any aircraft fire but as we start to receive any aircraft fire uh they take a vasive action uh you're normally supposed to make your jump at 100 to5 miles an hour that's the way we did it in training that's what we the shock that we expect to receive when we jump but by taking evasive action and going into a dive to avoid that anti-aircraft fire they set up many problems oh thank you they set up many problems for us because number one as I mentioned before they were off course due to the fog that we ran into and with the uh the evasive action and going into a dive they hit as high as 150 miles an hour and threw us out instead of throwing us out at 700 ft they were throwing us out from anywhere from 150 200 ft which is too close for comfort it takes 75t for that parachute to open in the first place uh the shock was that strong that in my case as in many others the leg bag that I was wearing was ripped right off my leg a leg bag was an British idea that you Fen to your right leg and had a release on it so after the parachute open you would pull the release the bag the leg bag with all your equipment all your ammunition would drop about 20 ft and that meant that the bag would hit before you did you would have a softer Landing there wouldn't be as many injuries it's a great idea it'll work if you jump it around 100 miles an hour you hit 100 50 m hour and the shock is that great that the leg bag tears loose and you lose everything you got I lost everything I had uh and I wasn't the only one just about everybody else that had a leg bag on had the same problem where is a jump knife who has a jump knife here we go bring one up here when I landed thank you I landed the only weapon I had was a jump knife which was strapped to my boot in that fashion and that's the only reason I still had a jump knife first thing I did was take that thank you take that jump knife stick it in the ground get it out of my shoot look around take a leak and say why the hell of my hair this isn't worth it few seconds later there's another guy laying close by he was from F company I went over and helped him out he was smarter than I was he hadn't he had put a leg bag on so he had everything he had his guns his ammunition and everything I got him out of his his harness got him up and said uh I thought about could I Bor one of your weapons you know he's he had two of them and I had none but as I looked at this guy I realized no that's a l the idea because he's one of the few he was shaking he was scared he was just shivering all over you can't ask for a man's weapon you know he has two when he's that scared that follow me so we took off went to the road the closest road and I realized there's no use going for that equipment bundle of mine because that leg bag because uh that's right in the line where there's enemy aircraft fire and machine gun fire coming from that section so eliminated that idea about that time there's somebody coming down the road hard footsteps so I gave a click on my little clicker my little Snapper and I soon had a reply and that was our challenge and to for recognition and there was a sergeant lipon from also from E company he told me he said hey I just passed a road marker down here and then I stopped to look at it in the road marker carved in stone was St Mir GLE off thank you so I bought a poncho from one of the guys who was standing there with me and flashlight and got underneath the Poncho before I did I stuck that trench knife in the ground by my head got under the Poncho got my map out which was in my pocket that was the only thing that didn't tear loose and I found St Mar Lisa said ah I know where I'm at I'm woring it stood up tell the fellas I know where I'm at we're going to go north and then turn East and as I'm getting up and my eyes are adjusting to the dark again I'm reaching around to get my trench n somebody had sto my trench nighte this is Normy I did manage to borrow a h grenade from one of the boys so I started off Norm with a hand grenade one since they had all the weapons I we're going this direction we're going north and we'll turn East we started off and we walked for a while and it wasn't too long until I met some more Troopers and in this group they was a lieutenant colonel Cole who was a outstanding officer in Normy received a Congressional Medal of Honor and he had about 30 men with him and I had about 15 at this time so I put my group with his and we took off and we walked through the night I'm moving along here quickly we get to details more than that uh by don't on uh I happened to run across a trooper who had been killed and I picked up was able to pick up his M1 rifle ammunition and any other any other pieces of equipment that he had so I was armed once again also bumped into the rest of the second Battalion putting everything together at this point we had about 80 men about 8:00 we hit the grand Shan which is a farming Village along the coast of Utah Beach and as we hit there we start to the Battalion starts to receive fire from our right flank from a hedro uh company D was sent up to try and neutralize it and they were kicked out real quick as they came back they said winners they want you up front Company E had orders to take care of that eliminate that fire we're getting from the flank they didn't realize at that point that there was one other officer and myself ten comp myself two officers and we had 11 enlisted men the equipment we had at that point was two light machine guns one bazooka no ammunition for it one motor no bipod for it and we had uh nine rifles we had bumped into a German Battalion uh of 105 M of cannons and if a battery of 105 cannon in the German Army you're running into basically you're running into third 32 men three officers ncos and privates and their mission of course was to be found 105s on the troops landing on Utah Beach we went into action I made a a quick Patrol to get the estimate of the situation figured out this was a a trench and I could see one gun position we went back and set up a base of fire and uh under that base of fire Compton and one of the men crawled forward and threw hand grenades into the trench and at that point along with two other men I made to charge and we got into the trench and eliminated the German troops there and took that gun if you're following me at this point I'm in the connecting trench that runs parallel to Utah Beach and uh as such if I follow that connecting trench I can go down that trench and knock them off one at a time even though they have 136 men I'm taking them on one at a time and I can handle it and that's exactly what we do to keep this situation brief here to day uh we had 13 men taking care of that battery of 105 the significance of that can be demonstrated very quickly you've seen Private Ryan you saw uh artillery Fire coming in on the troops on the beach it was eliminated I can uh demonstrate the story of that in this fashion uh there's first two tanks came in from the for the landing on Utah Beach were knocked out with mines the next two came in they got by but in that two those two tanks that were knocked out uh by mines the one tank commander got out of his tank and started to walk away from the tank and as he walked away from the tank he hit a mine and he went down in the next wave comes a lieutenant by the name of Richardson and Richardson sees the situation he sees this guy all mangled up and laying there by the tank and being a very brave officer medic he tiptoes through the Minefield he goes over and he picks that Soldier up puts him on his Soldier and tiptoes out through that minefield and rescues that man that Lieutenant's name that Lieutenant later on wrote to me after the book came out and the brothers and said now I understand why the artillery fire ceased on Utah Beach this was a good feeling to know that somebody got there recognized what we had done and it had done some good and helped save the day cuz Causeway number two turned out to be the primary Causeway on Utah Beach that day and that Lieutenant signed uh his name Elliot Richardson some of you old folks might remember Elliot Richardson Secretary of State under President Nixon it's a good feeling that came 50 odd years later demonstrates the point of the significance of knocking out that battery it was appreciated and it got the job done uh I'd like to move along next and a memory of a some second thought I'm going to take next some second thoughts I have here today that you can take with you here today number one was asparagus patches we had the pole all over the fields on Normandy and from these poles there was Baro put out in a tent fashion in all directions and this was to help eliminate the danger of the gliders coming in and also give power Troopers a tough time we were never told about this before the jump why not they had aerial photos all over the place they knew everything but they didn't tell us about that next second thought that I want to share with you is motion sickness pills somebody had had a bright idea of having all of us take this motion sickness pills as a uh an officer I had to give one to the men as we got into the plane and they were supposed to take a second pill 15 minutes later at that point in life you know we we didn't know what an aspn was we had no health problem we had never taken motion sickness pills before and our training but we had to take it for this that orders are orders you take them the result was that we got so sleepy that it was a terrible problem to just stay awake a lot of the men went to sleep was tough job for him it was a that was a huge mistake the next thought I have here I want to share with you is a second thought but on the second gun I took in that battery uh laid out in the gun position was a lot of maps this is was the the commander for the battery he had all these Maps laid out there and those Maps showed every single gun position on Utah Beach showed their fields of fire they're connecting fire the whole works my God I realized what I was looking at I gathered these up as quick as I could and thought they got to get these back to Balian got to get these back back to the Navy here is the positions of the whole Utah Beach sent those back as quick as possible I just hope they got in the right hands that it would do some good uh for the rest of dday another thought I had here put down for a second thought was uh the German pres Prisoners the first ones that uh we picked up in those connecting trench when they came to us instead of hollering comrade holding her hands up or whatever no they're comeing us no make me dead don't make me dead you have some German prisoners around here today I noticed I want you to keep these things in mind I want you to know ask those guys how did they surrender did they come down there and say comrade or did they say know make me dead just how' they go about that that's a pretty tricky thing to surrender you know and that another thought for those German prisoners at the end of the day dday I went on a patrol this night on the patrol to get the field of the area around me and I'm on the patol on this Patrol by myself suddenly I hear some hob nail boots coming down the road in back of me I dive in a ditch beside the road try to take cover and uh in a few minutes these troops are going by me puy cl they hot meil boots on the road and the tobacco the smell of that tobacco was so strong so offensive I'd never smelled anything like this that's another thought for you today see if these German prisoners you have around here what kind of tobacco they carry now if they're not carrying good strong German tobacco they're not the real thing let's do this thing right if we're going to reenact these situations in World War II not be [ __ ] footing around next thing I noticed in those German positions wooden bullets there was wooden bullets all over the place bels them never saw a wooden bullet before well obviously they were using wood wooden bullets and their and their problems and their training before we got there never saw wooden bullets after that after that it was the real thing that they were firing at you they weren't firing wooden bullets another thought I want to leave with you I mentioned these hob nail boots coming down the road uh we have to give the Army uh a sincere thanks that they put us in good boots with rubber SS that you could walk quietly and walk a whole lot easier than you can and if you were hob nail Boots the British had hob nail boots and of course the Germans did but believe me what we had is far superior to anything that the Germans or the British had uh pass along here uh I have a story to tell you about a guy by name of Lieutenant Colonel Hanson one luck Panzer Commander German Army hunts was Hatton and Ritter ho that's down in Al s near strawsburg hagenau area and he had he had been down there in a terrible fight with a 79th division between January the 6th and January the 21st 19 1945 we're at right now this battle had going on from I said the 6th to the 21st was a house to house deal uh they had blasted about every house it was a roomto room deal the hardest fighting imaginable uh they had taken a terrible beat in the 79th division had taken a terrible beat but by the 21st our troops pulled out and and we withdrew to hago I'll get around to hago in a minute and when they did of course the Germans came out of their sellers the civilians came out of their sellers this has been a terrible deal there's over a 100 civilians killed during this battle and getting a breath of fresh air think I thank God we're alive Hanson his assistant walked over to this nearby Church which had been blasted the walls had big holes in them and they walked through the a hole in the wall and here was the organ the organ's still standing there it's full of there's bricks laying on top of it dust all over the place Hans walked over to it and brushed off the dirt said to one of the men hey push those pedals there let's see if we can get this thing go on there Hans has some abilities Hans climbs up on there and he plays the organ it works well the people from the community all the civilians and his troops have been gathered in around as Hans played near my God to be that's a very emotional thought you know don't care which side you're on after that they went to work and they buried their dead it was during this time we had just been relieved on January the 17th at that stone after holding on and the 101st is now on their way to Al say line to stop this German breakthrough of which Hans is a part so we got there a few days later and uh during that time we never did tangle with hearts as such but during that time uh he was withdrawn and he pulled out and uh uh the end of this story the reason for this story is the fact that as we're writing the book banded Brothers uh Hans was was with us as we went around to walk the battlefield before Ambrose came home to finish the book and Hans had arranged that we go to this town Hatton Ritter hoffen two town really and as uh with our busload of we had two troops the sergeant lived in milar with myself and some civilians that were going alongside seeing to walk the battlefields we pulled into the town about noon time there wasn't a soul around and as we were getting out of the bus people started pouring out of the their homes nearby and we all ended up going to this Hall in the middle there and uh uh they had set up a very nice meal for us so uh we shared memories with them they had their scrapbooks and got the not each other and after the the dinner and the festivities we all got up and walked across the street and went back to the same church that had been rebuilt as we went in and to sit down for some reason or another I don't know why these things work out like this but all the Germans sat on the right hand side of the aisle and the civilians were with us and my two sergeants we sat on the left hand side a minute this isn't right know my gosh this is wrong I said come on let's go so we stood up we went over and we all sat on the right hand side together and while we were sitting together Hans got up there and he played some hymns and we got around to neari God to be again and we all sang it together we all cried together it's a good thought I wanted to share with you I'm going to move along now to March the 15 1945 and the Mormon France geniz andar this day is to present the 101st airborne division with a presidential citation here's what he had to say in brief never 4 has a full division been cited by the war department in the name of the president for gallantry in action this day marks the beginning of a new tradition in the American Army just as you beginning a new tradition you must realize each of you that from now on the spotlight will beat on you with a particular Brilliance whenever you say you're a soldier of the 101st division everybody whether it's in the street in the city or in the front lines will expect unusual conduct from you I know that you will meet every test in the future as you met your test at Bast Stone good luck and God be with you I throw that in there in honor of Eisenhower who we all respected very highly we're here today at his farming get his for and this is a memorable moment for me Eisenhower was just that kind of a guy he'd recognize a good job and he'd let you know he appreciated it sincerely he did a good job he did his part but he would always end up by letting you know that from now on don't forget to keep your feet on the ground being behave yourself carry yourself direct carry yourself with pride and that's exactly what he had in mind as he said I know you will meet every test in the future just like you had it pass on I throw that challenge out to you today carry it the same way all of you you do a good job fine but keep your feet in the ground and handle your yourself like gentlemen and ladies I'm going to stop here for a minute how much time do we have there seven more seven perfect I'm going to stop and I'm going to close this for if there's any questions I'll stick around later you can ask me questions but there's one lesson that I hope that you've learned today it's a lesson that all veterans learned during combat especially if you're under Fire and that lesson is how to pray every man who has ever been under Fire has learned how to pray I guarantee you naturally in prayer you're to pray for survival personal survival but more importantly you're going to pray that you do not leave your unit down that you don't fail in the mission that's been assign to you're going to pray that you don't leave your buddy on your left or your buddy on your right down that's so important today I think in our society I know we all pray but I think our prayers are coming across more for uh your personal workare and your personal achievements for your health you're praying for your health you're praying for security your personal security you're praying that your football team with or you're praying for a promotion at work or you're praying that you win the lottery which is good I understand all that today's society pra praise for our Personal Achievement now during I think during the period where're we're refer we're honoring today World War II I think first of all we prayed for strength we prayed for strength and guidance and Leadership we were our first thought in mind was to win the war our first first thought was for freedom for all for all of society for the whole world secondly we were asking for divine help so that we personally could survive and we could live come home to our families and our loved ones I just hope today that we sharing these memories with you that you're can learn from our experiences and I hope that you and find peace thank you [Applause]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 119,785

Keywords: band of brothers, dick winters, easy company, 101st airborn, 101st airborne, d-day, june 6th, major winters, saving private ryan, saving private ryan reaction, american artifact, gettysburg museum of history

Id: GgdR1OPGoLk

Length: 37min 12sec (2232 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 02 2024