8/12/2019 Richard 'Dick' Winters Obituary
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RICHARD "DICK" WINTERS
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Richard "Dick" Winters, the Easy Company
commander whose World War II exploits were made famous by
thebook and television miniseries "Band of Brothers," died last
week in
central Pennsylvania. He was 92.
Winters died following a several-year battle with Parkinson's
Disease,
longtime family friend William Jackson said Monday.
An intensely private and humble man, Winters had asked that news
ofhis death be withheld until after his funeral, Jackson said.
Winters
lived in Hershey, Pa., but died in suburban Palmyra.
The men Winters led expressed their admiration for their company
commander afterlearning of his death.
William Guarnere, 88, said what he remembers about Winters was
"great leadership."
"When he said 'Let's go,' he was right in the front," Guarnere,
who was called "Wild Bill"
by his comrades, said Sunday night from his South Philadelphia
home. "He was never inthe back. A leader personified."
An other member of the unit living in Philadelphia, Edward
Heffron, 87, said thinkingabout Winters brought a tear to his
eye.
"He was one hell of a guy, one of the greatest soldiers I was
ever under," said Heffron,
who had the nickname "Babe" in the company. "He was a wonderful
officer, a wonderfulleader. He had what you needed, guts and
brains. He took care of his men, that's veryimportant."
Winters was born Jan. 21, 1918 and studied economics at Franklin
& Marshall Collegebefore enlisting, according to a biography on
the Penn State website.
Winters became the leader of Company E, 506th Regiment, 101st
Airborne Division on D-Day, after the death of the company
commander during the invasion of Normandy.
During that invasion, Winters led 13 of his men in destroying an
enemy battery and
obtained a detailed map of German defenses along Utah Beach. In
September 1944, heled 20 men in a successful attack on a German
force of 200 soldiers. Occupying the
Bastogne area of Belgium at the time of the Battle of the Bulge,
he and his men held
their place until the Third Army broke through enemy lines, and
Winters shortlyafterward was promoted to major.
After returning home, Winters married his wife, Ethel, in May
1948, and trained infantryand Army Ranger units at Fort Dix during
the Korean War. He started a company selling
livestock feed to farmers, and he and his family eventually
settled in a farmhouse inHershey, Pa., where he retired.
Historian Stephen Ambrose interviewed Winters for the 1992 book
"Band of Brothers,"upon which the HBO miniseries that started
airing in September 2001 was based. Winters
himself published a memoir in 2006 entitled "Beyond Band of
Brothers."
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Two years ago, an exhibit devoted to Winters was dedicated at
the Hershey-Derry
Township Historical Society. Winters, in frail health in later
years, has also been thesubject of a campaign to raise money to
erect a monument in his honor near the beachesof Normandy.
Winters talked about his view of leadership for an August 2004
article in American
History Magazine:
"If you can," he wrote, "find that peace within yourself, that
peace and quiet andconfidence that you can pass on to others, so
that they know that you are honest andyou are fair and will help
them, no matter what, when the chips are down."
When people asked whether he was a hero, he echoed the words of
his World War IIbuddy, Mike Ranney: "No, but I served in a company
of heroes."
"He was a good man, a very good man," Guarnere said. "I would
follow him to hell andback. So would the men from E Company."
Arrangements for a public memorial service are pending.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press
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