Easy Company Assault on Brecourt Manor - A Historian Reacts

welcome back everyone to another reaction video well with tomorrow being the anniversary of d-day i wanted to do some d-day content so we're going to be taking a look today at uh a channel called operations room and they have this video that shows you kind of an overview of easy companies assault on break or manor on the morning of d-day on the german 105 batteries and uh if you're familiar with band of brothers you know this very well this is uh the action for which uh dick winters was initially uh nominated for the medal of honor it was downgraded to a distinguished service cross because of this stupid arbitrary limit uh of one medal of honor per division for actions on d-day and that went to another to a battalion commander named bob cole i think it was so it was downgraded and there was an effort to get that back to a medal of honor but it was never able to happen pretty much every person who was involved from easy company of the 506th in this assault was given a medal silver star bronze star uh things of that nature or the distinguished service cross for winters and uh they often talk about this dick winters would actually go to west point and give guest lectures even though he wasn't a west point graduate himself because this has been often taught at west point as the kind of the definitive example of how a smaller group can of troops can defeat a larger force because of superior leadership uh and dick winters kind of gets forced into a position of leadership he's a platoon commander going into d-day and uh he actually is given command of the uh company on d-day beca even though they don't know it yet his company commander's plane has crashed on d-day along with everybody in the headquarters section so he has command of the company and the company at that point only consists of about 12 men so uh in band of brothers it's really cool watching it but it's hard to understand exactly what's happening because of the way the cameras are shot and you can't really understand exactly what's happening where so this is really cool because it gives you kind of the overhead view of what's happening uh and so we're gonna watch this i probably won't say a whole lot during i'll probably pause here and there but i want to watch this and in the links in the description below will not only be the link to the original content creator make sure you go over and check out his channel and give him a like and a comment on the original video but also to some of my other d-day content that i've done recently with d-day coming up tomorrow uh the plan is sometime in the next year or so maybe less i'm going to be going to normandy i might be going with my friend jd from the history underground he's putting together a trip for next may so it may be a part of that if i don't go sooner but let's go ahead and dive into the operations room description of the easy company assault on brickhour manor [Music] after a chaotic night of confused parachute landings in which many american paratroopers were dropped many miles from their intended landing zones first lieutenant winters of the 506th parachute infantry regiment 101st airborne division has spent the night trying to find comrades from his unit easy company it's june 6th 1944 d-day linking up with men from dog company and the battalion headquarters staff the heavily under-strengthed second battalion has stopped to rest by the small village of le sherman at 7 am winters is ordered to battalion headquarters he is informed that dog company have found a german artillery battery in the grounds of nearby braycor manor and is simply told there's fire along that headrow there take care of it now at the time they thought that these were german 88s i think they turned out to be 105s and they're firing on utah beach where i think the is it the 29th infantry division is landing at utah beach i forget which one's the 29th and which one's the fourth i'll have to look it up but um they're firing on the beach and he tells easy company to take care of well easy company isn't the 140 men that easy company should have it's like 12 men but this is a brilliant decision by winters on how he handles this the importance of silencing the german artillery battery is paramount the 405 millimeter artillery pieces are firing directly on utah beach just as the american fourth infantry division are attempting to push inland easy company's commander lieutenant mien is still missing along with everyone from his aircraft and so command of the company and the execution of the assault will fall to winters he is not briefed with a specific battle plan or any intelligence on the size of the german force at braycorp manor he orders his men to drop everything other than their weapons and ammunition he proceeds to scout the german position alone and forms a plan of action and so this is one of the things that's brilliant about winters he never thinks of sending someone else and that's something a lot of his men said you know they said you know it never occurred to him to not lead the way that was what he thought and he would never ask his men to do something he wasn't willing to do himself so he goes and he scouts it out himself he doesn't send somebody else to do it he doesn't ask anybody else to risk it he checks it out himself so he knows exactly what's happening and then he forms his battle plan and puts it into motion winters decides a frontal assault over flat ground is risky and instead decides that it would be best to assault the german position from the flank and secure each gun in turn he divides his force of 23 paratroopers mostly of easy company into small groups with specific tasks to perform in the assault and begins to move them into position and i don't think he initially has 23 i think that 23 probably includes spears and the men from dog company who come up later to help out he asks for reinforcements i don't think he had that many when this started to cover their assault winters positions the first of his two machine guns crewed by privates petty and liebegot in a headrow to the front left of the battery he then deploys his second machine gun cruised by private's pleasure and hendrix in a headrow facing the first gun and adjacent to the mg-42 nest further down the same hedgerow sergeants lipton and ranny have taken up position by some trees to bring the first gun under flanking fire as winters moves into position to begin the assault he notices a german soldier moving along the trench and immediately fires twice dropping the man see that to me i don't know i wasn't there obviously i'm in no position to question what dick winners did but i feel like that kind of gives your position away doesn't it when you fire on a guy like that but you know winter's never thought of that stuff he just fired and he did what he needed to do and it always seemed to be the right decision as gunfire begins to erupt all round winters sends lieutenant compton with sergeants malarkey and garnier to flank the first gun and assault it with grenades under fire from multiple angles the germans at the mg42 nest and first gun do not spot compton's flanking move and compton's assault team throw their grenades at the german position winter's assault team charges the position aiming to reach it just as the grenades explode as they charge into the trenches private popeye win is wounded he apologizes profusely i'm sorry i goofed i'm sorry he cried when winters was describing i'm pausing way more than i said i would when winters was describing this wounding of popeye win he just i remember in his interview he says isn't it beautiful here's a guy who got hit and he's apologizing for letting his men down this is the kind of character that these guys had you know these guys enlisted in the paratroopers because they wanted to be the best and fight with the best and they were the best the guy gets wounded and he's apologizing for it um you know one of the things that if you've watched this in band of brothers it sure doesn't seem like that machine gun was right next to the first gun does it i mean it seemed like it was way off somewhere else the one that they take out with the grenade so that's why i like this because it helps you understand things a little better the germans who have not been killed or wounded by the hail of grenades and gunfire panic and start to run across the open field towards braycor manor winter's team opens fire on the fleeing troops lorraine hits his target first time garnier misses so winters finishes the other two men off which is the opposite of how they show one directly in the head with a grenade a german grenade lands amongst the men right between the legs of corporal toy seeing this winter shouts at toy to move for christ's sakes move he lunges forward as the grenade explodes luckily he is uninjured winter's attention immediately turns to the prospect of a german counter-attack he begins to progress down the trench toward the second gun and sees two german soldiers setting up an mg-42 down the trench again winters goes first both with two shots from his n1 rifle due to the intensity of german machine gun fire coming from the hedgerow behind the battery winter's men are restricted to staying within the german trench network he decides that he has to assault the second gun now and with five men throws grenades and charges towards it the gun crew who are not killed or captured flee having captured the second gun winter's men have burned through much of their ammunition consequently winters brings forward his machine guns and sends a runner back to hq for more men and ammunition due to how extended his position has become another thing that you don't get a sense of in band of brothers is how long this actually takes i think it's something like a half hour to an hour for this whole thing to progress that's why they're getting low on ammunition they've only taken two of the guns it's kind of an extended fire fight it's not the really quick operation you see in band of brothers the assault pauses and around half an hour later more ammunition and a few men from the 2nd battalion arrive winter's decides now is the right time to assault the third gun in the assault private hall from able company is killed but the third gun is now in their possession and six prisoners are taken just as the third gun is taken captain hester from battalion hq arrives with tnt and winter's men begin to use it to destroy the guns under their control hester also tells winters that lieutenant spears of dog company and five men are on their way to support him whilst winters holds position at the second gun he finds german documents highlighting every german artillery and machine gun position in the entire cottontan peninsula this information is promptly sent back to battalion hq whilst winters and his men set about destroying all the german equipment they can find spears arrives and with his band from dog company charges the fourth and final gun aggressively climbing out of the trench under fire to move faster across the open ground a man from dog company is wounded and another from fox company is killed by machine gun fire as he attempts to hurl a grenade at the german position the germans at the final gun flee but leave a live grenade spotting it spears kicks it down into the mud just before it explodes having put all four guns out of action winters decides to withdraw due to the volume of german machine gun fire they are now receiving he instructs his machine guns to fall back first followed by the rifleman by the time winters eventually leaves the battlefield the time is 11 30. having only 12 men against what turned out to be a force of 50 germans easy company have eliminated a german artillery battery firing directly on utah beach and the number two causeway beyond it yeah see he said like 24 at the beginning but it was only 12 men from easy company that made this attack on you know well over 50. i think later on they come back you see a scene at band of brothers where nixon's on a tank that's riding inland and winters gets up on it historically what happened was they actually directed those tanks over to braycor manor to finish off the remaining germans that were there by destroying the artillery battery at braycorp manor easy company have undoubtedly saved the lives of many of the men coming ashore from utah beach that day despite a great deal of personal praise for his leadership winters would later say our success however was due more to our training and the unflinching courage of easy company than to my personal leadership however modest there can be little doubts that winter's men were led by a very capable officer that day and winter's men will all i mean they they practically worshipped the guy when you when you've served under a lot of bad leaders and they had some bad platoon leaders and some bad company commanders you know just how much to appreciate a good one like winters like spears uh like compton was as a platoon leader um yeah so really fascinating to see this kind of unfold from a bird's eye view you get a better sense of it but i would love to hear your thoughts use the comment section below let me know what you think about all of that also check out some of my links to some of the other videos that i've done about some d-day things we'll probably do some more d-day content tomorrow so if you have a particular suggestion on something you'd like me to highlight for d-day tomorrow let me know in the comments thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 40,568

Keywords: band of brothers, 101st airborne, band of brothers d-day, band of brothers spiers, brecourt manor, d day, 101st airborne d day, dick winters, world war ii, us army, utah beach, infantry tactics, band of brothers reaction

Id: hPYgRHY4Gk0

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021