WWII legend Maj. Richard 'Dick' Winters dies

PHILADELPHIA - Even as Parkinson's disease began taking its toll on Dick Winters, who led his "Band of Brothers" through some of World War II's fiercest European battles, the unassuming hero refused, as always, to let his men down.

Friends accompanied him to public events, subtly clearing a path through the crowds for the living legend, whose Easy Company's achievements were documented by a book and subsequent HBO miniseries. His gait had grown unsteady, and he did not want to be seen stumbling.

Winters "didn't want the members of Easy Company to know," William Jackson said Monday of his longtime friend, who died last week at age 92. "Right up to the end, he was the company commander."

An intensely private and humble man, Winters had asked that news of his death be withheld until after his funeral, Jackson said. Winters died in an assisted-living center in Palmyra, Pa.

The men Winters led through harrowing circumstances and under fire from the German army never let the toll of time dull their own admiration for their commander.

"When he said 'Let's go,' he was right in the front," William Guarnere, 88, and dubbed "Wild Bill" by his comrades, said Sunday night from his south Philadelphia home. "He was never in the back. A leader personified."

Another member of the unit living in Philadelphia, Edward Heffron, 87, called him "one of the greatest soldiers I was ever under."

Winters was born Jan. 21, 1918, and studied economics at Franklin & Marshall College before enlisting, according to a biography on Penn State's website. He became the leader of Company E, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, on D-Day after the death of the company commander during the invasion of Normandy.

During that invasion, Winters led 13 of his men in destroying an enemy battery and obtained a detailed map of German defenses along Utah Beach. In September 1944, he led 20 men in a successful attack on a German force of 200 soldiers. Occupying the Bastogne area of Belgium at the time of the Battle of the Bulge, he and his men held their place until the Third Army broke through enemy lines, and Winters shortly afterward was promoted to major.

"His leadership example both on and off the battlefield will continue to inspire 'Screaming Eagle' soldiers for years to come," said Lt. Col. Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division, currently deployed to Afghanistan. "His principles for success on the battlefield are timeless, as they are as critical today in Afghanistan as they were on 'Fortress Europe' during World War II."

After returning home, Winters married his wife, Ethel, in May 1948, and trained infantry and Army Ranger units at Fort Dix in New Jersey during the Korean War. He started a company selling livestock feed to farmers, and he and his family eventually settled in a farmhouse in Hershey, Pa., where he later retired.

Whenever Winters, who published a memoir in 2006 titled "Beyond Band of Brothers," was asked if he was a hero, he'd echo the words of his World War II buddy Mike Ranney: "No, but I served in a company of heroes."