On the hellish battlefields of World War II Europe, Major Dick Winters led his Easy Company--the now-legendary Band of Brothers--from the confusion and chaos of the D-Day invasion to the final capture of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. Winters was a quiet, reluctant hero whose modesty and strength drew the admiration of not only his men, but millions worldwide. Now comes the story of his last years as witnessed and experienced by his good friend Cole C. Kingseed. Kingseed shares the formative experiences that made Winters such an effective leader. He addresses Winters’s experiences and leadership during the war, his intense, unbreakable devotion to his men, his search for peace both without and within after the war, and how fame forced him to make adjustments to an international audience of well-wishers and admirers, even as he attempted to leave a lasting legacy before joining his fallen comrades. Following Winters’s death on January 2, 2011, the outpouring of grief and adulation for one of this nation’s preeminent leaders of character, courage, and competence showed just how much of an impact Dick Winters left on the world. INCLUDES PHOTOS

Praise for Conversations with Major Dick Winters

“Kingseed has captured the essence of a great military leader as only a soldier-historian can.”—Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty
 
“An anatomy of leadership, of courage, of discipline, and above all, of self-knowledge.”—Dennis Showalter, author of Patton and Rommel and Hitler’s Panzers
 
“A remarkable soldier recounts his understated leadership journey through war and peace.”—Brigadier General (Ret.) Frank H. Akers Jr., USA, president and CEO, Oak Ridge Strategies Group, Inc.

Autorentext

Cole C. Kingseed is a thirty-year Army veteran who served in a variety of command and staff positions. He earned his MA in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College and his PhD in history from Ohio State. He taught at West Point, where he served as chief of military history for four years. Kingseed is the author of fifty-three articles on corporate and military leadership and such books as Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956 and Old Glory Stories: Combat Leadership in World War II. He is a founding partner of Battlefield Leadership, LLC, and president of his own leadership consulting firm, The Brecourt Leadership Experience, Inc., whose clients include International Paper, Ernst & Young, USAA, and Bayer Corporation, among others.

Leseprobe

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I am generally skeptical of any author who puts within quotation marks conversations he never heard or who pretends to recollect with absolute fidelity conversations he heard many years ago. I, too, am guilty of some reconstruction, but the conversations with Major Dick Winters that appear in this book are as I best remember them. There are a few conversations in which I did not participate and others that I heard firsthand more than fifteen years ago. The former conversations are based on the memory of mutual friends who shared their recollections with me to provide the reader with a fuller understanding of Major Winters. In the latter conversations, the key phrases appear as I meticulously recorded them in my journal within days of my visits with the major. Additionally, the candid conversations outlined in the forthcoming pages follow a more thematic than chronological order; hence within each chapter the dialogue quoted often transpired over repeated sessions with Dick Winters and was not confined to a single visit. Consequently, I urge the reader to exercise some discretion in accepting with absolute certainty every word that is recorded and to take my recollections with the necessary grain of salt.

FOREWORD

Aside from an occasional short wrap-up on the national network news stations and an Associated Press release that appeared in the obituary section of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News on January 10, 2011, I suspect few Americans noticed the passing of Major Dick Winters of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Winters was a most remarkable man whose story was chronicled by historian Stephen E. Ambrose in Band of Brothers. In the wake of the 2001 Emmy Award–winning HBO miniseries of the same title, Winters published his own memoirs in an effort to set the record straight and to record the accomplishments of an airborne company in combat during World War II. Beyond Band of Brothers rapidly climbed on the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction, peaking at number ten within two months of publication. As for Winters, one reviewer stated that he “was too humble for a genre that requires a little bit of conceit.” The American public disagreed.

I suppose the obituary would have attracted greater attention had it read, “Died January 2, 2011, the commanding officer of the Band of Brothers,” for it was by that title that Dick Winters was more widely known. I had every reason to know him, for not only had he asked me to coauthor his memoirs in November 2003, but our personal and professional association also predated his death by well over a decade. In his declining years, when public access to this aging veteran was extremely limited, I was privileged to visit Winters on a monthly basis. At first, our discussions revolved around his role in the twentieth century’s bloodiest conflict. Ironically, after I mailed the memoir manuscript to our publisher in April 2005, we never again addressed the war in detail. Winters had finally left it behind him. “It is finished,” he stated emphatically when we submitted the manuscript. In his final years, we spoke only of more pleasant issues, nothing more than two old soldiers sharing memories of time long past. What struck me most was his undying loyalty to the soldiers whom he led in the most cataclysmic war in history. In the twilight of his own memory, his thoughts always returned to Easy Company, to happier times when a group of young men joined together to fight for freedom and to liberate a world from tyranny. Especially treasured were the memories of experiences he shared with family, friends, and the men of Easy Company. None was ever forgotten by the old soldier who resided in the white house along picturesque Elm Avenue in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

I first met Dick Winters on April 6, 1998, when he traveled to the U.S. Military Academy to address the Corps of Cadets on the topic of frontline leadership during World War II. As chief of military history in the Department of History at West Point, I routinely encouraged my officers to ask veterans to speak to their respective classes. Few members of the military faculty took me up on my suggestion, for no other reason than that ambitious young officers preferred to teach the cadets themselves and seemed reluctant to turn over control of their classes to outside teachers. On that particular afternoon, however, Major Matt Dawson entered my office to inform me that he had invited Major Dick Winters to address his class on the Battle of the Bulge.

“You know who Dick Winters is, don’t you, sir?”

I had never heard of Winters, although I had read Ambrose’s Band of Brothers six years earlier. His name simply did not register. Fortunately, I did not have to reveal my ignorance because Dawson added, “You know, the guy from Band of Brothers.”

“Yes, Matt, Dick Winters from Band of Brothers.”

“Would you like to join us for dinner tonight?”

Seldom did I “pull rank” on one of my subordinates, but on this occasion I made an exception to my long-standing policy. As with most of the leaders who spoke at West Point on the subject of leadership in combat, I wanted the opportunity …