In the Footsteps of the Band of Brothers by Larry Alexander

Author:Larry Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Today, thanks to hindsight, we know Easy’s next stop was Holland, and that was where Forrest and I now found ourselves. We arrived in what would become the 506th’s next destination, the medieval city of Eindhoven, on November 10, following the officious voice on my GPS through the city streets to reach our lodgings, the Sandton Hotel. Located along what was known as Hell’s Highway but is now Stratumseind, it is just a block and a half south of the heart of the old city. I left Forrest at the hotel to rest while I went exploring.

A narrow, lazy waterway that flows south from the Wilhelmina Canal separated my hotel from the oldest part of Eindhoven. The stream is crossed by a small span known as the First Bridge on Hell’s Highway. Once over it, I found myself in the historic part of the city, founded in 1232. It was along this narrow, medieval, cobblestone-lined street that British armored vehicles of XXX Corps had rattled on their way toward Arnhem and the Rhine. Throngs of Dutch citizens, many waving orange flags, greeted them.

This was much the same welcome that Dick Winters and the men of Easy had received when they had entered the city ahead of the tanks, coming from the other direction. I remembered Bill Guarnere writing how the people cheered them, women hugged and kissed them, and offered them beer, milk, and apples.

“They knew they were liberated; it was a celebration in the streets,” he recalled.

Gruff Wild Bill thought the Dutch were “the most beautiful people alive” and noted they “couldn’t do enough for us.” This was a far cry from his impression of the French, whom, he said, he never turned his back on.

“A lot of them liked the Germans a little too much,” he wrote.

The men of Easy Company all love the Dutch, and most have returned to Holland over and over. The town fathers of Eindhoven even named Dick Winters an honorary citizen of the city in 2006, an honor Winters, unable to make the trip back, accepted, greeting the people via a telephone hookup that was broadcast publicly. He was also awarded the Medal of the City of Eindhoven.

Bill Guarnere made his first journey back to this city in 1954 on the tenth anniversary of the Market Garden drop.

“For twenty-one days we lived in Dutch homes,” he recalled. “They had parades. The children put wreaths on the graves of soldiers.”

Babe Heffron recalled staying in the home of “Mom and Pop” Vermuelen, who lived at 402 Hoogstraat. The friendship he forged with them lasted until their deaths in the 1970s.

Since Band of Brothers, Babe said, “everyone knows us.”

“One morning two guys started hollering out to me, they must’ve seen the eagle on my jacket, and the next thing I know, they picked me up bodily and took me to a pub,” he wrote. “Everyone in the bar started clapping and hitting their glasses on the bar.”

Forrest agreed. Even though the number of people of Eindhoven

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