General Taylor came for the battalion review, trailed by a division PR photographer. As luck would have it, he stopped before Hudson and talked with him. The photographer took their picture together, got Hudson's name and home-town address, and sent the photo to the local newspaper with a copy to Hudson's parents. Of course the general looked great talking to a battlehardened soldier just off the front lines rather than a bunch of rear echelon parade-ground troopers. "So," Webster commented, "the only man in E Company with a dirty combat suit was the only man who had his picture taken with the general."
"We didn't realize it yet," Winters said, "but we all started walking with more care, with eyes in the backs of our heads, making sure we didn't get knocked off." After Haguenau, he explained, "you suddenly had a gut feeling, 'By God, I believe I am going to make it!' "
15 "THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD"
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MOURMELON
February 25-April 2,1945
On February 25 the men of Easy Company had a unique experience for them but commonplace for their fathers, riding through France on "40-and-8s," French railway boxcars that held either forty men or eight horses. It was the company's first train ride during the war, and it was properly appreciated. The weather was warm and sunny, the 40-and-8s were knee-deep in straw, there was plenty to eat, and no one shot at them.
"As we jolted through France," Webster wrote, "swinging our feet out the door, waving to the farmers, and taking a pull on the schnapps bottle, I thought there was nothing like going away from the front. It was the best feeling in the world."
They were returning to Mourmelon, but not to the barracks. This time they were billeted in large green twelve-man wall tents, about a mile outside what Webster called "the pathetically shabby garrison village of Mourmelon, abused by soldiers since Caesar's day, consisting of six bars, two whorehouses, and a small Red Cross club." In Webster's scathing judgment, "Mourmelon was worse than Fayetteville, North Carolina."
The first task was to get clean. There were showers, although the water was lukewarm at best. But for men who had not had a proper shower since leaving Mourmelon ten weeks ago, the chance to soap and scrub, scrub and soap, lather, rinse, and repeat was pure joy. Then they got clean clothes and new Class A uniforms. But when they got to their barracks bags, left behind when the company went to Bastogne, their joy turned to fury. The rear echelon "guards" had opened the storage area to the 17th Airborne as that division moved into the Bulge, and the boys from the 17th had pillaged as if there were no tomorrow. Missing were jump suits, shirts, regimental insignia, jump boots, British airborne smocks, panels from Normandy and Holland parachutes, Lugers, and other priceless souvenirs.
The regime imposed by Major Winters added to their discontent. New recruits had come in, and to integrate them into the companies, Winters instituted a rigorous training program. It was like basic all over again, and hated. Webster was so fed up "that I sometimes, in forgetful moments, wished to return to the relative freedom of combat."
One of the recruits was Pvt. Patrick S. O'Keefe. He had joined the Army when he was seventeen, gone through jump school, and shipped out from New York on the Queen Elizabeth in late January. "I was sound asleep when we passed Ireland," O'Keefe recalled, which disappointed him as both his parents were born in County Kerry, the first landfall for cross-Atlantic traffic. He arrived in Mourmelon shortly after the company returned there. His first impression of the men was that "they were all tough, old and grizzled. I thought, 'You have bitten off more than you can chew, O'Keefe.' " He was assigned to 1st platoon, under Lieutenant Foley and Sergeant Christenson.
His third night in Mourmelon, O'Keefe went out on a night problem, starting at midnight. Walking in the dark in single file, he lost sight of the man in front of him and drew a sharp breath. He tensed, looking around.
A quiet voice from behind said, "You're O.K., son. Just kneel down and look up and you can catch sight of them against the sky." O'Keefe did, saw them, muttered "thanks," and moved on. Later he discovered that the advice had come from Major Winters. So here was Winters, his battalion staff cavorting in Paris, leading an all-night exercise for recruits.
O'Keefe took the lead scout position just before dawn. At first light there was to be a simulated attack against a fixed enemy position on the other side of an open field. O'Keefe got to the last ridge before the target. He signaled with his hand for the battalion to stop. He was nervous at the thought of an eighteen-year-old kid leading a group of combat-wise veterans. He signaled for the second scout behind him to come forward, with the idea he would ask to trade places. Private Hickman came up with a rush and before O'Keefe could say a word blurted out, "Boy, am I glad you are up here. I only joined this outfit three weeks ago."
Realizing the battalion was full of replacements restored O'Keefe's gift of gab. "That's O.K., kid," he said to Hickman. "I'm going over the ridge to see what's on the other side. You go back and be ready to pass my signal when I give it."
In a couple of minutes O'Keefe was back on the ridge line, holding his rifle up with both hands as a signal, "Enemy in sight." Foley moved his platoon up to the starting line, shouted "Lay down a field of fire!" and the attack began. After a few minutes of blasting away, Joe Liebgott jumped up, gave an Indian war whoop, rushed toward the objective and attacked the machine-gun pit with his fixed bayonet, ripping open the sandbags, playing the hero. O'Keefe and the other replacements were mightily impressed.
On March 8, Colonel Sink got around to making permanent assignments to officers who had been serving in an acting capacity for as long as two months. Lieutenant Colonel Strayer became regimental X.O. Major Winters became 2nd Battalion C.O. There was some realignment, as Major Matheson shifted from regimental S-4 to S-3, replacing Captain Nixon, who went from regimental S-3 to S-3 for 2nd Battalion. Lieutenant Welsh, recovered from his Christmas Eve wound, became 2nd Battalion S-2. Captain Sobel replaced Matheson as regimental S-4.
Nixon's demotion from regimental to battalion staff came about because of his drinking. Like everyone else who knew him, Sink recognized that Nixon was a genius in addition to being a brave, common-sense soldier, but Sink—an uninhibited drinker himself ("Bourbon Bob" was his behind-his-back nickname)— could not put up with Nixon's nightly drunks. He asked Winters if Winters could handle Nixon. Winters was sure he could as they were the closest of friends.
Former Easy Company officers were by March occupying key positions in regiment (S-3 and S-4) and battalion (the C.O. of 1st Battalion was Lieutenant Colonel Hester; Winters was C.O. of 2nd Battalion, where the S-2 and S-3 were from Easy). One of their number, Matheson, eventually became a major general and C.O. of the 101st Airborne in Vietnam. One is bound to say, one last time, that Captain Sobel must have been doing something right back in the summer of '42 at Toccoa.