E Company, 506th Infantry Regiment

E Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagles", is a company in the United States Army. The company was referred to as "Easy" after the radio call for "E" in the phonetic alphabet used during World War II. The experiences of its members during that war are the subject of the 1992 book Band of Brothers by historian Stephen Ambrose and the 2001 HBO miniseries of the same name.

History

Training and composition

The 506th PIR was an experimental airborne regiment created in 1942 to jump from C-47 transport airplanes into hostile territory.

E Company was established at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, under the command of 1st Lieutenant Herbert Sobel. Before attending paratrooper training, the unit's troops performed the standard battle drills and physical training that comes with being in the parachute infantry. One of the exercises was running Currahee, a large, steep hill whose trail ran "three miles up, three miles down". The troops also performed formation runs in three four-column running groups, an innovation that was adopted by the Army in the 1960s.

Sobel, who was known for his extreme strictness, got the troops in such impeccable physical condition that they were able to skip the physical training portion of Jump School.

E Company's third-ever commander, 1st Lieutenant Richard Winters (originally a 2nd Lieutenant under Sobel, serving as platoon leader of E Company's 2nd Platoon; later a Major commanding the overall 2nd Battalion), said E Company originally "included three rifle platoons and a headquarters section. Each platoon contained three twelve-man rifle squads and a six-man mortar team squad.