A bunch of Germans were cut off, hiding in some tall weeds. Christenson spotted them. “Anybody here speak German?” he called out. Webster came up. “Heiaus!” he yelled. “Schnell! Hande hoch! Schnell! Schnell!” One by one, eleven Germans came out. Husky, hard-boiled, they claimed they were Poles. Christenson motioned them to the rear.
Webster went back to the road to get in on the shooting. A German turned to fire back. “What felt like a baseball bat slugged my right leg,” Webster recalled, “spun me around, and knocked me down.” All he could think to say was,
“They got me!” which even then seemed to him “an inadequate and unimaginative cliché.” (Like all writers, he was composing his description of the event as it happened.)
It was a clean wound. The bullet went in and out Webster’s calf, hitting no bone. A million dollar wound. I got it made, he thought to himself. When medic Eugene Roe got to him, Webster had a big grin on his face. Roe patched the wound and told Webster to retire. Webster gave his bandoliers to Martin, “who was still very calm and unconcerned, the calmest, most fearless person I ever saw,” and his grenades to Christenson. He kept his pistol and M-1 and began limping to the rear.
Winters could see more German soldiers about 100 yards away, pouring over the dike from the south side, the previously unnoticed SS company. They joined their retreating comrades in a dash to the east, away from the Easy Company fire. This made the target bigger. Lieutenant Reese had brought the machine-guns forward by this time; Private Cobb set his up and began putting long-distance fire on the routed German troops. The surviving German troops reached a
grove of trees, where there was another road leading to the river. As Winters observed, they swung left and began to follow that road to the river.
Winters got on the radio and called for artillery. British guns began pounding away at the main force of retreating Germans. Winters wanted to push down to the river on his road, to cut off the Germans at the river, but thirty-five men against the 150 or so surviving Germans was not good odds. He got on the radio again to ask 2nd Battalion HQ for support. HQ promised to send a platoon from Fox Company.
Waiting for the reinforcements, Winters made a head count and reorganized. He had one man dead (Dukeman) and four wounded. Eleven Germans had surrendered. Liebgott, slightly wounded in the arm, was a walking casualty.
Winters ordered him to take the prisoners back to the battalion CP and then get himself tended by Doc Neavles.
Then he remembered that Liebgott, a good combat soldier, had a reputation of “being very rough on prisoners.”
He also heard Liebgott respond to his order with the words, “Oh, Boy! I’ll take care of them.”
“There are eleven prisoners,” Winters said, “and I want eleven prisoners turned over to battalion.” Liebgott began to throw a tantrum. Winters dropped his M-l to his hip, threw off the safety, pointed it at Liebgott, and said, “Leibgott, drop all your ammunition and empty your rifle.” Liebgott swore and grumbled but did as he was ordered.
“Now,” said Winters, “you can put one round in your rifle. If you drop a prisoner, the rest will jump you.” Winters noticed a German officer who had been pacing back and forth, obviously nervous and concerned over Liebgott’s exuberance when he first got the assignment. Evidently the officer understood English; when he heard Winters’ further orders, he relaxed.
Liebgott brought all eleven prisoners back to battalion HQ. Winters knew that for certain, as he checked later that day with Nixon.
The ferry crossing the Germans had used to get over, and now would need to get back, was at the end of the road Easy Company was on. Winters wanted to get there before they did. When the platoon from Fox Company arrived, bringing more ammunition, Winters redistributed the ammo and then gave his orders. He set up a base of fire with half the sixty or so men under his command, then had the other half move forward 100 meters, stop and set up its own base of fire, and leapfrog the first group down the road. He intended to repeat this maneuver the full 600 or so meters to the river.