William Guarnere Biography
Staff Sergeant William J. Guarnere (born April 28, 1923) was a non-commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. Guarnere was portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers by Frank John Hughes. Guarnere wrote Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends: Two WWII Paratroopers from the Original Band of Brothers Tell Their Story with Edward Heffron and Robyn Post in 2007.
Youth
William Guarnere was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of 10 children to Joseph "Joe" and Augusta Guarnere. He joined the Citizens Military Training Camp (CMTC) program during the Great Depression. Guarnere's mother told the Government that he was 17 while he was, in fact, only 15. He spent three summers in the CMTC, which took four years to complete. The plan was that upon completing his training he would become an officer in the United States Army. Unfortunately, after his third year the program was canceled due to the pending war in Europe.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, and six months before graduation from South Philadelphia High School, Guarnere left and worked for Baldwin Locomotive Works making Sherman tanks for the Army. His mother was very upset because none of the other children had graduated from high school. He switched to the night shift and returned to school, getting his diploma in 1941. Because of his job he had an exemption from military service, but did not use it.
On August 31, 1942 in his hometown, Guarnere enlisted in the paratroops and started training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia.
Military service
William Guarnere joined Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He made his first combat jump on D-Day as part of the Allied invasion of France. He earned the nickname “Wild Bill” because of his reckless attitude towards the Germans. Another nickname for him was "Gonorrhea" because of its similarity to his last name (this was used in the miniseries
Band of Brothers). He displayed strong hatred for the Germans because one of his elder brothers, Henry, had been killed fighting the German Army in the Italian campaign at Monte Cassino.
Guarnere lived up to his nickname of "Wild Bill." A terror on the battlefield, he fiercely attacked the Germans he came into contact with. In the early morning hours of June 6, he joined up with Lieutenant Winters and a few other men trying to reach their objective, to secure the small village of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and the exit of causeway number 2 leading up from the beach. As the group headed south, they heard a German supply platoon coming and took up an ambush position. Winters told the men to wait for his command to fire, but Guarnere was eager to avenge his brother and, thinking that Winters might be a Quaker and hesitant to kill, opened fire first killing most of the unit.
Later, on the morning of June 6, he was also eager to join Richard Winters in assaulting a group of four 105mm Howitzers at Brécourt Manor. Winters named Guarnere Second Platoon Sergeant as a group of about 11 or 12 men attacked a force of about 50. The attack led by Winters was later used as an example of how a small squad-sized group could attack a vastly larger force in a defensive position.
He was wounded in mid-October 1944 while Easy was securing the line on "The Island" on the south side of the Rhine. As the sergeant of Second Platoon, he had to go up and down the line to check on and encourage his men, who were spread out over a distance of about a mile. While driving a motorcycle that he had stolen from a Dutch farmer across an open field, he was shot in the right leg by a sniper. The impact knocked him off the motorcycle, fractured his right tibia, and also lodged some shrapnel in his right buttocks. He was sent back to England on October 17.
While recovering from injuries, he didn't want to be assigned to another unit, so he put black shoe polish all over his cast, put his pant leg over the cast, and walked out of the hospital in severe pain. He was caught by an officer, court-martialed, demoted to private, and returned to the hospital. He told them he would just go AWOL again trying to leave the hospital to rejoin Easy Company. They kept him a week longer and then sent him back to the Netherlands to be with his outfit.
He arrived at Mourmelon-le-Grand, just outside Reims, where the 101st was on R and R (rest and recuperation), about December 10, just before the company was sent to the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, on December 16. Because the paperwork did not arrive from England about his court-martial and demotion, he was put back in his same position.
While holding the line just up the hill southwest of Foy, a massive artillery barrage hit the men in their position. Guarnere lost his right leg in battle while trying to help his wounded friend Joe Toye (who could not get up because he had also lost his right leg). Due to this injury, Guarnere's participation in the war came to an end.
Guarnere received the Silver Star for combat during the Brecourt Manor Assault on D-Day, and was later decorated with two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts, making him one of only two Easy Company members (the other being Lynn Compton) to be awarded the Silver Star throughout the duration of the war while a member of Easy.
In his recent autobiography entitled
Beyond Band of Brothers; Memoirs of Major Richard Winters, Richard Winters refers to Ronald Speirs and Bill Guarnere as being "natural killers". When making those statements about both men, Winters says it in a way that reflects respect, not in a negative manner.
Later years
Guarnere returned to the USA in March 1945 and took on many odd jobs. He wore an artificial right leg until he was able to secure full disability from the Army, threw away the limb and retired. He became an active member of many veterans organizations, and presides over many Easy Company reunions.
with Edward Heffron and Robyn Post, outlining activities of Easy Company. The book was published by Berkley Publishing Group, Penguin Books in 2007.
