Sink on the Sixth: Celebrating the Fourth of July in Zell am See

On July 4, 1945, the 101st Airborne was stationed in Zell am See, Austria, enjoying its first peacetime summer. Colonel Sink planned a big Independence Day celebration, but rain washed out the fourth and fifth. When the sun finally broke through on the sixth, the men threw a party they nicknamed "Sink on the Sixth," complete with gliders riding the mountain currents over the lake and a borrowed C-47 dropping twelve paratroopers into the water for fun.

The non-fraternization policy technically still applied to Germans and Austrians, but not to Displaced Persons, so local girls showed up wearing D.P. armbands to get around it. One officer later admitted the loophole was obvious to everyone, joking that there wasn't one Displaced Person at the celebration.

One thing that becomes clear when you visit Zell am See is how much the setting itself explains the mood that summer. The lake, the mountains, the resort-town calm — it's easy to see why men who had just fought through Normandy and Bastogne treated this place like a reward.

Today, Zell am See is a resort town on the same lake, ringed by the same mountains, and it is easy to picture a glider drifting over the water on a summer afternoon.

Many of the places connected to Easy Company's occupation duty in Austria and southern Germany can still be visited today, from this lakeside town to the mountains above it.

If you're interested in exploring more of the real locations connected to Easy Company, you can continue discovering them here:
https://bergsandburgs.com/pages/band-of-brothers-trip