In the early hours of June 6, 1944, Lieutenant Richard Winters of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, was informed that a battery of four German 105mm howitzers at Brecourt Manor was firing directly onto the exit causeways at Utah Beach, causing devastating casualties among troops trying to move inland.

Winters gathered 13 men — roughly a third of what he should have had, since the chaotic airborne drop had scattered his company across Normandy — and led an assault on the gun positions.

The Assault

The guns were protected by a network of trenches manned by approximately 50 German soldiers from the 6th Parachute Regiment — experienced paratroopers, not conscripts. Winters used a technique of laying down a base of fire with one group while another maneuvered along the hedgerow trench line to attack each position in sequence.

The first gun was taken in a fierce close-range assault. Winters personally shot and killed several German soldiers in the trench with his M1 carbine at near-contact range. The men then worked their way down the trench system to the second, third, and fourth guns, destroying each in turn with thermite grenades dropped into the barrels and TNT placed in the breech mechanisms.

During the assault, Winters found a map on a dead German officer that showed the positions of all German batteries and defensive positions along the Utah Beach coastline. This intelligence was immediately forwarded to the 4th Infantry Division and proved invaluable in neutralizing the remaining coastal defenses.

Legacy

The Brecourt Manor assault eliminated a direct threat to the Utah Beach landings and is credited with saving hundreds, possibly thousands, of lives on the beach. The action is still taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point as a textbook example of how a small, well-led unit can overcome a larger, entrenched force.

Of the 13 men who participated, two were killed during the assault — Robert "Popeye" Wynn (wounded) and others. Winters was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor, but a policy limiting one Medal of Honor per division in the campaign prevented the upgrade.