Richard Winters

Richard Winters was a member of the 506th PIR in World War 2. He was trained as a paratrooper at Camp Taccoa under the wrath of captain Herbert Sobel. After a very successful bayonet charge in holland he was promoted to captain ,and again later in haganau to major.He fought alongside easy company throughout the War and fought in 3 major campaign.On June 6 1944 he parachuted into Nazi Occupied Normandy France as part of the D-day landings.After the leader of easy company at the time's plane crashed,killing him,Winters took command of easy company, and led them to brecourt manor where they destroyed several German 105 mm guns firing on Utah beach,saving countless lives. He later helped liberate Cerantan, jumped into occupied Holland, fought in the Ardennes forest at bastogn in the battle of the Bulge, liberated a concentration camp in Germany and later,after the war, worked for Nixon Nitrations.He is deceased as of January 2nd 2011

Early life
Winters was born to Edith and Richard Wintes in Ephrata ,Pennsylvania on January 21st 1918. At age 8 he moved to Lancaster where he graduated from Lancaster Boys High School in 1937 and later matricated to Franklin and Marshall College. While there he became a member of the Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity as well as participated in intramural football and basketball as a member of Upsilon Chapter. As sacrafice for making it through collage, and making a living he had to give up his favourite sport ,wrestling and most of his studies. He graduated in 1941 with the highest academic standing in the buisiness college. When the United states entered the war in 1941 he enlisted in the Army.

Militay Services
On August 25 1941,Winters enlisted in the army to shorten his time in service. He underwent basic trining in September at Camp Croft,South Carolina. While the rest of his battalion was deployed to panama he emained at Camp Croft to help train drafted men and volunteers. He was selected selected to attend Officer Cndidate School at Fort Benning,Georgia in April 1942 where he met Lewis Nixon ,who he would befriend and serve throughout the rest of the war with in the 101st. After gradduating from OCS he was commisioned as a second lieutenant on July 2 1942.

During officer training, he decided to join the parachute infantry(PIR). After completing his training, he returned to Camp Croft to train another group of drafted because there were no positions open in the paratrooper infantry.He recieved orders to join the 506th paratroopers infantry regiment at Camp Toccoa in Georgia. After arrivind at Camp Toccoa in mid Augast 1942, and was assigned to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR under the command of First Lieutenant Herbert Sobel. Company E was also commonly reffered to as Easy Company per the contemporaneous Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. Winters served as Platoon leader in charge of 2nd platoon but was later promoted to first lieutenant after ltd Sobel was promoted to Captain. His unit, the 506th PIR was an experimental unit, being the first regiment to undertake airborne training as a formed unit. Many of its men had