Easy Company
| E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th, 101st Airborne (Air Assault) | |
|---|---|
.svg)  Easy Company
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| Active |
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| Country |
 United States of America
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| Branch |
 United States Army
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| Type | Infantry company |
| Role | Air Assault Forces |
| Size | 140 soldiers listed, but "162 soldiers and officers" is said in part 7 of Band of Brothers because of replacements |
| Nickname(s) | "Easy Company" |
| Motto(s) | "Currahee" (We Stand Alone) |
| March | Blood on the Risers |
| Engagements |
World War II: * Operation Overlord * Operation Market Garden * Battle of the Bulge * Western Allied invasion of Germany |
| Commanders | |
| Colonel of the Regiment |
 Colonel Robert Sink
|
| Notable commanders |
 Major Richard Winters Capt Herbert Sobel Capt Ronald Speirs First Lt. Norman Dike First Lt. Frederick Heyliger
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Easy Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagles", is one of the best-known companies in the United States Army. Their experiences in World War II are the subject of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers based on the book of the same name by historian Stephen Ambrose. In 2009, twenty of the last few remaining survivors from Easy Company recounted their stories in the oral-history book project We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories From the Band of Brothers.
The 506th PIR was an experimental airborne regiment created in 1942 at , Georgia. Easy Company missions were to involve being parachuted from C-47 transport airplanes over hostile territory.
Major Richard Winters described the original organization of Easy Company as follows:
"[Easy] company included three rifle platoons and a headquarters section. Each platoon contained three twelve-man rifle squads and a six-man mortar team squad. Easy also had one machine gun attached to each of its rifle squads, and a 60mm mortar in each mortar team."
Before attending paratrooper training, the unit had to perform the standard battle drills and physical training that comes with being in the parachute infantry. One of the exercises was the regular running of Currahee, a large, steep hill. The phrase "3 miles up, 3 miles down" was derived from this run. Easy Company, while training at Toccoa, was under the command of Herbert Sobel, who was known for his extreme strictness.
Also as part of their physical training, the members of Easy Company performed formation runs in three-four column running groups. This innovative type of training was adopted by the Army in the 1960s.
For Operation Overlord, Easy Company's mission was to capture the entrances to and clear any obstacles around "Causeway 2", a pre-selected route off Utah Beach for the Allied forces landing from the sea a few hours later. The company departed from Upottery airbase in Devon, England, and dropped over the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, France in the early hours of the morning of 6 June 1944. After assembling on the ground, the men of Easy Company disabled a battery of four German heavy guns on D-Day that threatened forces coming along Causeway 2. A town in France called Carentan was crucial for American soldiers to capture because it would link Omaha and Utah beaches together so the soldiers could move equipment through. The Germans knew that so they wanted to keep the town out of allied hands. In one of Donald Malarkey's articles he stated that Lieutenant Winters made him mortar sergeant of second platoon. Easy Company, along with Dog and Fox Companies, were walking down the road to Carentan when they came to an intersection and one or two German machine gun teams suddenly started firing on them. Mortars and tanks soon joined the fight. The American soldiers all jumped into ditches for cover. Winters saw this and as Malarkey states, Winters "got hotter than I've ever seen him." It was a fast attack, at the end of which Malarkey states that he could hear moans and groans of wounded soldiers and occasional gun shots. Also at the end of the battle Winters was slightly wounded in his lower right leg by a ricocheting bullet fragment. The Germans mounted a counterattack, but 2nd battalion held onto Carentan.
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Wikipedia