Chapter Nine
The Island
HOLLAND
October 2 - November 25,1944
Easy Company, like all units in the American airborne divisions, had been
trained as a light infantry assault outfit, with the emphasis on quick movement,
daring maneuvers, and small arms fire. It had been utilized in that way in
Normandy and during the first ten days in Holland. From the beginning of October
until almost the end of November 1944, however, it would be involved in static,
trench warfare, more reminiscent of World War I than World War II.
The area in which it fought was a 5-kilometer-wide "island" that lay between the
Lower Rhine on the north and the Waal River on the south. The cities of Arnhem,
on the Lower Rhine, and Nijmegen, on the Waal, marked the eastern limit of the
101st's lines; the small towns of Opheusden on the Lower Rhine and Dodewaard on
the Waal were the western limit. The Germans held the territory north of the
Lower Rhine and west of the Opheusden-Dodewaard ... read full excerpt from Band of Brothers ebook
