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 Ambroses 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 schools 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 Hitlers 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 didnt 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 werent 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. Ambroses description of those few days from the night jump to their last fight at Caretan is magnificent. The book next describes the Companys 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 Hitlers 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.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:04:04 +0000
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