A history of E Company fit perfectly. I knew the story of the British 6th Airborne Division on the far left flank on D-Day thanks to my research and interviewing for the Pegasus Bridge book. Getting to know the story of one company of the 101st on the far right flank was tempting.
There was an even more appealing factor. There was a closeness among the four veterans sitting at our dinner table that was, if not quite unique in my quarter-century experience of interviewing veterans, certainly unusual. As they talked about other members of the company, about various reunions over the decades, it became obvious that they continued to be a band of brothers. Although they were scattered all across the North American continent and overseas, they knew each others' wives, children, grandchildren, each others' problems and successes. They visited regularly, kept in close contact by mail and by phone. They helped each other in emergencies and times of trouble. And the only thing they had in common was their three-year experience in World War II, when they had been thrown together quite by chance by the U.S. Army.
I became intensely curious about how this remarkable closeness had been developed. It is something that all armies everywhere throughout history strive to create but seldom do, and never better than with Easy. The only way to satisfy my curiosity was to research and write the company history.
In May 1990, Drez attended the company's reunion in Orlando, Florida, where he video-recorded eight hours of group interview. That same month I did three days of interviewing with Gordon in my office. In July, I went to Winters' farm in Pennsylvania, where I did four days of interviewing. On the fourth day, a half-dozen men from the company living on the East Coast drove to the farm for a group interview. Later in 1990 I spent a weekend at Carwood Lipton's home in Southern Pines, where Bill Guarnere joined us. I flew to Oregon to spend another weekend with Don Malarkey and a group of West Coast residents.
I interviewed a dozen other company members over the telephone and have had an extensive correspondence with nearly all living members of the company. At my urging ten of the men have written their wartime memoirs, ranging from ten to 200 pages. I have been given copies of wartime letters, diaries, and newspaper clippings.
In November 1990, Moira and I toured Easy's battle sites in Normandy and Belgium. I interviewed Frenchmen from the area the company fought over who had been living there at the time. In July 1991, we visited the scenes of Easy's battles throughout Europe with Winters, Lipton, and Malarkey. Winters, Moira, and I spent an afternoon with Baron Colonel Frederick von der Heydte at his home near Munich.
Mrs. Barbara Embree, widow of Pvt. David Webster, gave me copies of his letters to his parents and his book-length manuscript on his World War II memoirs. Webster was a keen observer and excellent writer. His contribution was invaluable.
Currahee!, the scrapbook written by Lt. James Morton and published by the 506th PIR in 1945, was also invaluable. Don Malarkey gave me a copy, most generous on his part as it is a rare book. Rendezvous with Destiny, the history of the 101st Airborne, written by Leonard Rapport and Arthur Northwood, provided the big picture plus facts, figures, details, atmosphere, and more. Other sources are noted in the text.
When I wrote Pegasus Bridge, I decided not to show the manuscript to Maj. John Howard, the C.O. of D Company, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, or any other of the thirty British gliderborne troops I had interviewed. I was working on a deadline that made it impossible to take up the months that would have been involved. The veterans had frequently contradicted each other on small points, and very occasionally on big ones. Not one of them would have accepted what I had written as entirely accurate, and I feared that, if they saw the manuscript, I'd be in for endless bickering over when this or that happened, or what happened, or why it happened.
I felt it was my task to make my best judgment on what was true, what had been misremembered, what had been exaggerated by the old soldiers telling their war stories, what acts of heroism had been played down by a man too modest to brag on himself.
In short, I felt that although it was their story, it was my book. John Howard was unhappy at being unable to suggest changes and corrections. Since the publication of Pegasus Bridge, he has convinced me that he was right, and I was wrong. Had I had time and allowed John and others to make corrections, criticisms, and suggestions, it would have been a more accurate and better book.
So I have circulated the manuscript of this book to the men of Easy Company. I have received a great deal of criticism, corrections, and suggestions in return. Winters and Lipton especially have gone through it line by line. This book is, then, very much a group effort. We do not pretend that this is the full history of the company, an impossibility given the vagaries of memory and the absence of testimony from men killed in the war or since deceased. But we do feel that, through our constant checking and rechecking, our phone calls and correspondence, our visits to the battle sites, we have come as close to the true story of Easy Company as possible.
It has been a memorable experience for me. I was ten years old when World War II ended. Like many other American men my age, I have always admired—nay, stood in awe of—the G.I.s. I thought that what they had done was beyond praise. I still do. To get to know so well a few of them from one of the most famous divisions of all, the Screaming Eagles, has been a privilege. It is my proud boast that they have made me an honorary member of the company. As I am also an honorary member of D Company of the Ox and Bucks, I've got both flanks covered. Truly my cup runs over.
Stephen E. Ambrose Eisenhowerplatz, Bay St. Louis October 1990-May 1991 The Cabin, Dunbar, Wisconsin May-September 1991
In 1992, the U. S. Congress authorized the building of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans,
on the site where the Higgins Boats were constructed and tested. The Museum's mission is to remind the American people of the day when the fury of an aroused democracy was hurled against Nazi-occupied Europe, and to inspire future generations by showing that there is nothing this Republic cannot do when everyone gets on the team.
In addition to hands-on displays, a photographic gallery, weapons, uniforms, and other artifacts, the Museum will house an Archives that will hold all printed work on D-Day, plus the oral and written memoirs from participants in the battle that the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans has been gathering since 1983. This is the largest collection of eyewitness accounts of a single battle in the world.
For information on how to become a Friend of the Museum, or to donate artifacts, please write the Eisenhower Center, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, 70148.
ALSO BY STEPHEN E. AMBROSE
Upton and the Army Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff
Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment
Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy 1938-1970
Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors
Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945 Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point
The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower:
Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect 1890-1952
Eisenhower: The President Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944
Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962
Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962-1972
Eisenhower: Soldier and President
Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990