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Regiment put I Company (twenty-five men strong) on the right, into the attack. But success or failure rested with E Company. This was an ultimate test of the company. It had reached a low point. Neither the officers nor the men were, on the average, up to the standards of the company that had jumped into Normandy. None of the officers who led on D-Day were with the company in 1945.. More than half the enlisted men were new. The core of the old company left was the N.C.O.s. They were Toccoa men, and they had held the company together since Dike took over in Holland.
They lived in a state of high alert and sharp tension. They lived and soldiered and tried to suppress feelings, always there, feelings that John Keegan points out are the products "of some of man's deepest fears: fear of wounds, fear of death, fear of putting into danger the lives of those for whose well-being one is responsible. They touch too upon some of man's most violent passions; hatred, rage and the urge to kill."3
3. John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 16.
In this torrent of passion uncontrollable thoughts raced through their minds. They had seen their officers take a walk or break or just cower, or go mute (as Lieutenant Dike was at this moment of crisis). If they did not have the option of walking away, they did have the option of not leading. No one could force them to do so.
Just as they could not force Dike to act. These N.C.O.s were Toccoa men, all that was left in Easy from that hot summer of 1942 and Captain Sobel. They had held the company together through a long stretch of inept command at the top and heavy losses among the enlisted ranks.
So this was the test. Back in '42 the question was, Can a citizen army be trained and prepared well enough to fight Germans in a protracted campaign in Northwest Europe? Hitler was not the only one who had answered no. But the answer that counted would come on the snow-filled fields of Belgium in January 1945; for Easy Company the test was now being given.
The sergeants had it ready to be tested. The Toccoa core of the company was ready to be led, and to lead. At this moment, Speirs arrived, breathless. He managed to blurt out to Dike, "I'm taking over."
Sergeant Lipton and the others filled him in. He barked out orders, 2nd platoon this way, 3rd platoon that way, get those mortars humping, all-out with those machine-guns, let's go. And he took off, not looking back, depending on the men to follow. They did.
"I remember the broad, open fields outside Foy," Speirs wrote in a 1991 letter, "where any movement brought fire. A German 88 artillery piece was fired at me when I crossed the open area alone. That impressed me."
Standing at the site in 1991 with Winters and Malarkey, Lipton remembered Speirs's dash. He also recalled that when they got to the outbuildings of Foy, Speirs wanted to know where I Company was. "So he just kept on running right through the German line, came out the other side, conferred with the I Company C.O., and ran back. Damn, that was impressive."