第133页
Winters listened intently, asked a few questions, kept his own counsel.
Replacements came in. "I could not believe it," John Martin confessed. "I could not believe that they were going to give us replacements and put us on the attack. I figured, Jesus, they'll take us out of here and give us some clothes or something. But, no, they get you some replacements, and 'Come on boys, let's go.' And then that's when we start attacking."
He was right. The woods form a U around Foy, with the village smack in the middle. In the attack of January 3, the Americans had taken control of the right hand portion of the U. Next would come an attack on the left hand portion.
On January 9 the company participated in the clearing operation in the woods west of Foy. Resistance was light. The company reached its objective and dug in.
Suddenly a shell burst in the trees, then another and another. They kept coming. Cpl. George Luz was caught out in the open. He began racing toward his foxhole. Sergeant Muck and Pvt. Alex Penkala called out to him to jump in with them, but he decided to get to his own and with shell bursts all around, splinters and branches and whole trees coming down, made it and dived in.
Lipton was sharing a foxhole with Sgt. Bob Mann, the Company HQ radio man. The Germans sent over some mail. A shell that was a dud hit just outside their foxhole. Lipton looked at it. Mann lighted a cigarette. Lipton had never smoked, but he asked for one, and that night had his first cigarette.
Luz went to check on Muck and Penkala, the men who had offered to share their foxhole with him. The hole had taken a direct hit. Luz started digging frantically. He found some pieces of bodies and a part of a sleeping bag.
The 101st now held all the woods that encircled Foy from the east, west, and south. But Foy, down in its little valley, was not the objective; Noville and the high ground was. General Taylor had wanted to carry on the January 9 attack right into Noville, but for that he needed tank support, and as the tanks could only operate on the road, he had to have Foy. The village had already changed hands four times.
The 2nd Battalion of the 506th got selected to take Foy. It was pulled out of the line west of Foy and put back in south of the village. Winters picked Easy to lead the assault. It was a simple, brutal operation. Charge across an open, snow-covered field of some 200 meters in length down into the village, where every window could be a machine-gun post, where every German had brick-and-mortar protection, that was all there was to it. No subtlety, no maneuvers, just charge and get close enough to the enemy to use grenades to root them out of rooms. The key was to get across the field quickly. If the men pressed the attack, if the cover fire was heavy enough, it should be simple. If they paused, it could be costly.
Division ordered the attack to kick off at 0900. Winters did not like the timing. He argued for a first-light start, to reduce exposure, but was turned down. Winters was watching as Easy formed up for the attack. Standing behind him was a platoon leader from Dog Company, 1st Lt. Ronald C. Speirs.