Currahee (E01)

June 4, 1944: Uppottery, England. After high winds and poor visibility postpone the Allied invasion of Normandy, Lts. Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon reflect on the events that led them to the brink of D-Day. It is two years earlier: in Camp Toccoa, GA, volunteers train for America's new military experiment, the paratroops. Theirs is one of nine companies in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment: E, a.k.a. Easy, Company, commanded by the domineering Lt. Herbert Sobel. Through a regimen that involves frequent (and often arbitrary) six-mile climbs up and down Currahee, a local mountain, Sobel succeeds in drilling the men into an elite unit. But his heavy-handed tactics, punishments for petty or imagined infractions, and strategic failures during maneuvers, alienate Sobel from his men, who prefer his cool-headed second-in-command, Lt. Winters. After the 506th is shipped to England to complete training, Sobel harasses Winters by citing him for failing to inspect a latrine on time. When Winters requests a trial by court-martial, six of his sergeants — Salty Harris, Chuck Grant, Bill Guarnere, Carwood Lipton, Mike Ranney and Floyd Talbert — request transfer rather than follow Sobel into combat. Although Col. Robert Sink upbraids them for their treason (exiling Harris), he wisely decides to transfer Sobel out of the Company. On D-Day, as the clouds lift and the men board the planes for France, Easy has a new commander — Lt. Thomas Meehan — with Winters right behind. (Home Box Office)