The patrol leader was Maj. William Leach, recently promoted and made regimental S-2 by Sink. He had been ribbed unmercifully back at Mourmelon when his gold leaves came through: “When are you going to take out a patrol, leach?” his fellow officers asked. He had never been in combat and consequently had no decorations. Characterized by Winters as “a good staff officer who made his way up the ladder on personality and social expertise,” Leach wanted to make a career out of the Army. For that, he felt he needed a decoration.
The night of April 12, Leach set out at the head of a four-man patrol from the S-2 section at regimental HQ. But he made on fatal mistake: he failed to tell anyone he was going. Easy Company men on outpost duty heard the splashing of the boat the patrol was using as it crossed the river. As far as they were concerned, unless they had been told of an American patrol at such and such a time, any boat in the river contained enemy troops. They opened up on it; quickly the machine-guns joined in. The fire ripped the boat apart and hit all the men in it, including Leach. Ignoring the pitiful cries of the wounded, drowning in the river, the machine-gunners kept firing bursts at them until their bodies drifted away. They were recovered some days later downstream. In the judgement of the company, Leach and four men had “perished in a most unnecessary, inexcusable fashion because he had made an obvious and unpardonable mistake.”
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “Getting to Know the Enemy.” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 254. Print.
Further Reading:
I feel like this one fits with the /s/HistoryAnecdotes post from today pretty well. Both stories involve a person who would have been better off knowing their place and just keep on keeping on. In the other story he was left to do that, but in this story he didn't have the chance to be told as much.
What an impossibly stupid situation this is.