<P> Before attending paratrooper training, the unit had to perform the standard battle drills and physical training that comes with being in the parachute infantry . One of the exercises was the regular running of Currahee, a large, steep hill . The phrase "3 miles up, 3 miles down" was derived from this run . E Company, while training at Toccoa, was under the command of Herbert Sobel, who was known for his extreme strictness . </P> <P> Also as part of their physical training, the members of E Company performed formation runs in three - four column running groups . This innovative type of training was adopted by the Army in the 1960s . </P> <P> For Operation Overlord, E Company's mission was 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 . The company departed from Upottery airbase in Devon, England, and dropped over the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, France in the early hours of the morning of 6 June 1944 . </P> <P> After assembling on the ground, the men of E Company disabled a battery of four German heavy guns on D - Day that threatened forces coming along Causeway 2 . A town in France called Carentan was crucial for American soldiers to capture because it would link Omaha and Utah beaches together so the soldiers could move equipment through . The Germans knew that so they wanted to keep the town out of allied hands . In one of Donald Malarkey's articles he stated that Lieutenant Winters made him mortar sergeant of second platoon . E Company, along with Dog and Fox Companies, were walking down the road to Carentan when they came to an intersection and one or two German machine gun teams suddenly started firing on them . Mortars and tanks soon joined the fight . The American soldiers all jumped into ditches for cover . Winters saw this and as Malarkey states, Winters "got hotter than I've ever seen him ." It was a fast attack, at the end of which Malarkey states that he could hear moans and groans of wounded soldiers and occasional gun shots . Also at the end of the battle Winters was slightly wounded in his lower right leg by a ricocheting bullet fragment . The Germans mounted a counterattack, but 2nd battalion held onto Carentan . By the time the company was pulled off the line, they had taken 65 casualties including 24 KIA, 17 of which including their CO and 1stSgt, who were killed on D - day when their plane was shot down . </P>

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