At dawn on December 20, a heavy mist hung over the woods and fields. Winters rose and looked around. To his left he saw a German soldier in his long winter overcoat emerge from the woods. He had no rifle, no pack. He walked to the middle of a clearing. Two men with Winters instinctively brought their rifles to their shoulders, but he gave them a hand signal to hold their fire. The Americans watched as the German took off his overcoat, pulled down his pants, squatted, and relieved himself. When he was finished, Winters hollered in his best German, “Kommen sie hier! [Come here!]. The soldier put up his hands and walked over to surrender. Winters went through his pockets; all he had were a few pictures and the end of a loaf of hard black bread.
”Think of this,” Winters commented. “Here is a German soldier, in the light of early dawn, who went to take a crap, got turned around in the woods, walked through our lines, past the company CP and ended up behind the Battalion CP! That sure was some line of defense we had that first night!”
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “They Got Us Surrounded – the Poor Bastards.” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 181. Print.
Further Reading:
At least he had the decency to let the man finish.