bring supplies and took up ambush positions. Winters told the men to wait for his order to fire, but Guarnere, claiming he thought Winters might be hesitant to kill, opened fire immediately with his Thompson submachine gun, killing most of the unit. Later that morning, Guarnere also joined Winters in assaulting a group of four 105mm howitzers at Brécourt Manor. Winters named Guarnere as 2nd platoon's sergeant as the 13 paratroopers came up against about 50 German soldiers. The attack was later used as an example of how a small squad could attack a vastly larger force in a defensive position. Guarnere was wounded in mid-October 1944, while Easy Company was securing the line on "The Island" on the south side of the Rhine River. 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. He stole a motorcycle from a Dutch farmer and rode it across an open field, where he was shot in the right leg by a sniper. The impact knocked him off the motorcycle, fractured his right tibia, and lodged some shrapnel in his right buttock. He was sent back to England on October 17, 1944. While recovering from injuries, Guarnere did not want to be assigned to another unit, so he put black shoe polish all over his cast, put his pants 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 to rejoin Easy Company. The hospital kept him a week longer and then transferred him back to his unit. Guarnere arrived at Mourmelon-le-Grand, just outside Reims, where the 101st was on R&R (rest and recuperation), about December 10, 1944, 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 reinstated in his same position. While holding the line, just up the hill southwest of Foy, a massive artillery barrage hit Easy Company in their position. Guarnere lost his right leg in the incoming barrage, while trying to drag his friend Joe Toye (who had also lost his right leg) to safety. This injury ended Guarnere's participation in