I finally got to visit the real site of "The Crossroads", Episode 5 of the tv mini-series Band of Brothers.

The real location of what Dick Winters considered the peak action in the Easy Company story is located a mile outside Heteren, Netherlands (GPS: 51.95802,005.73094) on an area which became known as "The Island" during World War II.

The action itself took place on the night of 4/5th October 1944 when an American patrol stumbled across Germans on the location which became known as "The Crossroads" and heavily outnumbered, retreated . Winters took a small squad back to the location and discovered a number of German soldiers (actually part of the 363rd Volksgrenadiers) had set up a MG facing south towards Hemmen. Winters planned and with the squad killed a number of Germans attacked the MG position before retreating to a ditch about 200m west of the position.

Winters called in reinforecments and a small counter attack by the Germans killed Corp William Dukeman, the only American fatality in the action. In the morning, Winters realised his squard was extremely exposed and led an assault on what he thought was a small group of Germans but turned out to be several dozen. And even more poured over the main dyke road when the assault started.

The action ended when in following up the assault on the retreating Germans, an artillery strike from the German lines sent the Americans scrambling back to their own lines.

The real location is very easy to find and explore. I didn't enter the main field or visit the fall-back ditch (private property) but other then that, the area is very open and accessible.

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