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Band of Brothers Episode 1 - D-Day

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, the men of Easy Company had their "rendezvous with destiny" as they jumped into the night sky over Normandy, France.

For Operation Overlord, Easy Company's mission is to capture the entrances to and clear any obstacles around "Causeway 2", a pre-selected route off Utah Beach for the Allied forces landing from the sea a few hours later.

At 2310 of June 5 the C-47s began roaring down the runway. When they reached 1,000 feet, they began to circle, getting into a V of Vs formation. As they straightened out for France through that night, paratroopers had trouble staying awake. Joe Toye did fall asleep on his flight: “I was never so calm in all my life,” he recalled. “Jesus, I was more excited on practice jumps.” On Winters’s plane, Pvt. Joe Hogan tried to get a song going, but it was soon lost in the roar of the motors. On Gordon’s plane, as on most, men were lost in their own thoughts or prayers. Pvt. Wayne Sisk of West Virginia broke the mood by calling out, “Does anybody here want to buy a good watch?” That brought a roar of laughter and a lessening of the tension.

Winters prayed the whole way over, prayed to live through it, prayed that he wouldn’t fail. “Every man, I think, had in his mind, ‘How will I react under fire?’ ”

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Map: Somewhere in Normandy definitive - 6/6/1944
Gamemode: Operation (3 phases)
Invaders: United States (allies)
Defenders: Germany (axis)

Last update: 10/06/2025