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BAND OF BROTHERS is the history of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment,
101st Airborne Division, from basic training to D-Day. It follows the jump into
Holland, the Battle of the Bulge, and finally the occupation of Berchtesgaden and Austria.
This is a rarity among military histories, told from the viewpoint of the front line
soldier, the privates, non-coms and officers who carry out the grand strategy of
generals. Many books discuss the inner working of commands at Division and Army
levels, but few detail the day to day life of the soldier. Stephen Ambrose's
book does that and more. It explores the how draftee citizen soldiers of elite
outfits like the 101st Airborne did, in World War II, defeat an enemy like the well
trained German Wehrmach and S.S.
In 1942 the Second Battalion of the 506th was formed and started basic
training. The recruits volunteered for the thrill, the honor, the extra money,
but above all the desire to be better than the ordinary draftee. A description of the
physical effort required in basic training explains why a majority of the volunteers never
made it as far as the door of the airplane. When the Company finally made it to Fort
Benning for jump school, they were in such great physical shape that they outdid the
school's physical fitness cadre. After five jumps in December of 1942, the
company qualified as Parachutists, and nine month later they were on a ship to England to
train for the invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europa.
Ambrose also details the nine months of training that the company endured England in
preparation for the invasion. He tells it from the viewpoint of both officers
and men and explains the final shift in Easy Company hierarchy just prior to D-Day. His
description of the night jump of the 101st in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944,
with men and officers strewn about the countryside, and the confusion, heroism and chaos
that surrounded the successful landings at Utah Beach, is masterful. He
explains how the few outer roads from the beach are zeroed in by German artillery, and
that the job of the airborne was to nullify the artillery and its defending
troops.
The efforts of Lt. Richard Winters to fulfill that mission are one of the high points of
the book. As the book reports "By this time, about 0700, E Company
consisted of two light machine-guns, one bazooka (no ammunition), one 60mm mortar, nine
rifleman, and two officers." Lt. Winters was in charge. With less than 100 men
assembled in the battalion, its Commander could only afford to send Easy Company to attack
and overrun a four gun German battery defended by a fifty man platoon. As the book puts
it, quoting one of the men, "Here the training paid off. `We fought as a team without
standout stars,' Lipton said. `We were like a machine. We didn't have anyone who leaped up
and charged a machine-gun. We knocked it out or made it withdraw by maneuver
and teamwork or mortar fire. We were smart; there weren't many flashy heroics.
We had learned that heroics was the way to get killed without getting the job done, and
getting the job done was more important.`" Three hours after the attack commenced, it
was completed successfully.
Easy Company went on to fight through Normandy until June 29th when it was pulled out of
line and sent to a field camp near Utah Beach. They had jumped into Normandy
with an effective strength of 139 men and officers and ended up with
79. Ambrose's description of those few days from the night jump to their last
fight at Caretan is magnificent.
The book next describes the Company's jump into Holland, near the Rhine River, where they
fought through November of 1944, and then on to Bastogne, to again become front line
troops in the historic Battle of the Bulge. Easy Company was the first Allied
troops to occupy Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden. After occupation
duty in Austria, the company and battalion were sent back to a small town near Paris, and
on November 30, 1945, the 101st was deactivated. As Ambrose puts it, "The Company had
been born in July 1942 at Toccoa. Its existence essentially came to an end
almost exactly three years later..... In those three years the men had seen more, endured
more and contributed more than most men can see, endure or contribute in a
lifetime." BAND OF BROTHERS describes those eventful three years in such a
way as to make the reader experience them too.
--- Reviewed by John Kless
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