Roy W Cobb - The Man Band of Brothers Made A Villain
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- Опубликовано: 29 июн 2024
- Roy Cobb was perhaps the most unique member of easy company. He was possibly the only man in the company to have landed in North Africa before taking part in airborne operations. He could have also been one of the oldest enlisted men in the 506th at 30 years old on D-DAY.
As tremendous a tribute to the American fighting man that "Band of Brothers" was, one cannot lose sight of the fact that It came out of Hollywood. One should not be surprised at the taking of "artistic license" when it comes to Hollywood dramas, no matter the subject.
It's also not uncommon to combine characters/people so that you have fewer actors with speaking parts on screen. So it's possible that the we saw on screen Cobb was an amalgamation of several different members of Easy Company.
What they did to Albert Blithe’s memory is criminal in my mind. They took a hero and made him seem cowardly.
I’ll never understand how the veterans who were there and knew him said he died. Like i understand his wound was pretty serious but without any confirmation someone or multiple people decided he was dead and they ran with it and even had a year of his “death” to go with it. His family was naturally pretty furious when the show aired because he served over 20 years until his death
Yes Blithe was a real hero of Korean War and never finished WW2. He was an amazing accomplished brave soldier that need more respect given to him. Cobb was greatly mis interpreted ; I think for drama sake more than anything. He did have a stunt where he got drunk and was a bit out of sorts and got court mashalled for it. There were many others that had the same problems which is why he remained with Easy company till the end of the war. If you saw the things these men saw you may have reacted similarly; each man fights his demons differently.
Blythe, Cobb, Sobel and Blythe Hollywood artistic license that is criminal
Its makes you wonder….. given how much the me too movement has exposed just how much sexual corruption has existed in Hollywood, how would your average hollywood writer like to have THIER name dragged into a dead hooker story
You know, the series is based on Stephen Ambrose's book. The book was based on interviews Ambrose had with Easy Company members. Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron both told him they attended Blithe's funeral. Certainly, Ambrose, as a professional historian, should have confirmed the information but he didn't. BoB is the story of the soldiers as thy remembered it. Some things are wrong.
In the book, Cobb was a very different character than in the show. He was regular army and very reliable and experienced. I was confused when I saw how they made him in the show.
If you watched band of brothers you will see; one of the men who fought with him said he was a quiet man that just did his job and the movie did him a disservice.
The makers of BOB did not think it would be picked over frame by frame for 22 years.
Trashing the reputation of a soldier who fought through Normandy & Bastogne isn't just a small detail, as you seem to be implying. That man had/has a family.
@@RileyRampant I think he is just commenting on the film makers going for a good story over facts. You are certainly right about the carelessness with a soldiers reputation not being a small detail.
Roy W Cobb would have records at the Pentagon.
@@iamgermane The records center in STL had a fire in the early 70s, destroying a large number of WWII/Korean-era veterans records, including my dad's. Maybe that was a factor. Perhaps Cobb had some issues, but they're not on the record, or were available to Ambrose/Hanks. They just made this stuff up.
Cobb's character was besmirched in multiple scenes. Hardly frame by frame nitpicking.
The archive where army service records were stored suffered a fire in the early 1970s. This destroyed the service records of most WWII vets which would explain why you can’t find anything on him. I was unable to find anything on my grandfather several years ago. Also, it was my understanding that Webster was in battalion or regimental HQ company until after Normandy when he asked for a transfer to a line company to be closer to the action, or some such. Anyway, as we’ve seen Cobb wasn’t the only guy done a disservice in the name of drama.
didn’t affect his name, if it’s truly a real guy then they’re there
One possible source of records for European theater documents is the Eisenhower library. It hosts a LARGE volume of documents related to Units and the European theater. I believe the VA even used it post fire to rebuild as much record wise as they could for those affected.
@@bostonrailfan2427you'd have to see if the plane serials rosters are still available, some good airborne historians have had luck digging these up, sometimes names are misspelled and ranks are not exactly correct. I would suggest Mark Bando as a start on trigger time.
That fire effected a lot of veterans my father was caught up in that, friends I've had over the years struggled in letter writing campaigns to get things acknowledged to get things they earned. Good friend was a B26 top turret gunner, his unit crossed the channel first on D-day and bombed and strafed. He couldn't get all his information correct, I wrote letters he had everything in note books from his service from places,names,units,planes ,bombing schedules. It took a year and someone in an office who rejected his first few letters, jotted down on the bottom of the form letter, where to look next. Thank God, but we didn't hear from anyone forever and he gave up. On his birthday a box arrived via USPS with a letter, it was everything he earned and his complete service records. Wow 😮.
It's possible.
Winters said in the documentaries he often would chastise or object to the writers versions of how things were portrayed. I suspect this was one that got through. There were also reports from other officers who were not even included because Winters may not have liked them. The trouble with any story is usually truth is a casualty at some point. This channel does a great job of shinning a light on the other side or the parts that were not convenient for the movie.
Thank you
To be fair, you couldn't possibly include every little single detail in a TV show. On top of that.. It was based of soldiers memories.. So I never considered it as a historical record. They are stories as told by old soldiers.
Who are you kidding? Soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen, doesn't matter, always talked trash to each other. I've never been in a unit where the members didn't rag on each other, or have their "ten percent" of slackers and troublemakers. Sure Ambrose embellished his stories to add interest, but military units were not filled with saints either.
Exactly! It’s the same on police and fire departments.
No but would they tell someone in their own company they werent worthy of a unit citation badge? Thats a little different from crapping in someones pup tent.
@@WorldWarTruthYes they would, I had 3 guys in my Platoon who augmented us. They were Branch artillery so ineligible for the CIB. They bitched pissed and moaned. They were given mountains of shit for being cannon cockers. Two of them were KIA later on but even then they still didn't deserve nor get Combat Infantry Badges. The funny thing about that scene is I've been in two units in combat to both receive a Presidential unit citations. Nobody gives a shit, it's not that big of a deal.
But in BoB - it's not merely trashing each other - the more highly decorated a soldier was, the more wars they fought in, the worse they were portrayed. To say that Dike, Sobel, and Blithe were cowards and incompetents, is the exact opposite of the truth.
I think they dramatized Cobb for the show like they did with other members they didn't have a lot of information on. I don't think it's unbelievable though. You can be a good combat soldier like some soldiers referenced him as but also be an a dick. It wouldn't surprise me either that he was someone who had been in the Army for awhile and even been in another campaign to feel a level of superiority over a lot of other enlisted guys in the unit. That's pretty standard not only for the Army but most occupations.
Honestly, even moreso than the Sobel, Blythe, or Speirs investigations, the "Cobb Issue" was one I've been looking forward to the most.
Thank you so much for digging into this - it's a very nice curiosity to have satisfied, at least inasmuch as the material provides 🤷
"Literary license " is not history. Ambrose and the B of B writers had a lot to answer for.
@@stevenhall2408 ...The Band of Brothers series is a dramatization of a nonfiction book. Movies and TV shows are not history. They're entertainment. As a professional historian Ambrose should have verified the material while he was writing it but the book was intended for a general audience, not as an academic paper. Ambrose acted as an executive producer and consultant for the series so the writers were under no obligation to research the subject more fully. The book is based on interviews with Easy Company so what was presented was a fairly accurate representation of what the men told Ambrose, with a few exceptions to move the story along.
@@MJ-we9vu but these were real men. Sobel, Dike, and Blithe were real men - with impeccable military records, who fought in multiple wars, and were portrayed as the exact opposite of who they really were. What makes you think the same bunch of guys, going to the same reunions decade after decade with plenty of drinks in them could tell any story accurately.
These are great! Thank you for the research. Steven A and Tom are turds for how they portrayed guys in band of brothers, i am glad you’re setting the record straight for those of us who want to listen.
It's good the truth is finally coming out about men who were libelously smeared. To think that guys like Sobel, Blithe, and Dike were portrayed as cowards and incompetents is just disgusting.
I have no idea of what he was really like outside of this video and the series. It's also not my place to judge him. He served, he fought, was wounded and was a part of the "greatest generation". IMO that's more than enough for me to respect him and what he did.
Cobb was probably very private about his life in the army during the war like Liebgott and was probably suffering from PTSD like Liebgott. And if you can’t find his military records the National Archives in St Louis, it was probably destroyed in a fire in 1973.
His family closed his service records.
@@WorldWarTruthassuming he was discharged in 1945 or 1946 then this has not been the case since 2009/2010 when his service records became public despite his family’s wishes…Ambrose likely caused that initial closure, but it got overruled by the law
I had a supervisor back in the 70's who was in the 101st on D-Day; live in NC and he was originally from Connecticut; called himself a Russian Pollack Yankee Jew. Man, the stories. One, on D-Day, he was on a pack howitzer gun crew. Everybody on the crew grabbed the side of the gun and the last guy had to hold the rear of the gun as they pushed it out the door; this person had to release it prior to touchdown. Said that in addition to the approximately 100 pounds of gear they had, they each had 2 75 mm shells strapped to each leg, for an additional 150 pounds. Can you imagine? Said he saw one guy crash through a tile roof, the rounds were strapped primer down, so he said it obliterated that guy. He said pillage was on the menu, so in the days/weeks after, they buried a fortune in money, gold and silver objects across the French country side. He also said, when asked, if he could find it now. He said when they buried, it was pretty much a moonscape, with no real landmarks, so he did not think anyone could. The French will be digging that stuff up for centuries. Said a pack of smokes would get you 3 days with a local girl, not a prostitute, all meals included. Said a pair of nylons could get you the same for a week in Paris. At the time he was telling his war stories, I did listen, being born 17 years after the war, but I was young and don't remember a lot of them. One thing I have noticed about people who have been in combat and those who have done hard time in prison. They both have a unique outlook on life and have very, very similar personality traits.
Thanks for the great story. The vets certainly had plenty to tell. Its a shame they are mostly gone and we will never know.
I hated the character of Cobb, and you're 100% correct in that it is disgraceful to the real man's memory to be crafted into a storybook villain.
Its clear the series writers took the late war scuffle with Lt Foley, something so minor as to not even have him removed from under his command, and simply created a character from it. Every single man in a combat zone is gonna be a little cranky sometimes, but it doesn't mean their whole personality is defined by it.
Absolutely!
Honestly if the BOB writers wanted a heel character, they could have created a fictitious one acting like a jerk. They didn't have to besmirch a real man's reputation.
That's why they took booze away from us in the middle east. Well legal alcohol anyway
All he wanted was to walk down the street people
would say " There goes Roy Cobb, the best there
ever was in this game "
Ty? Another Cobb whose character was maligned by Hollywood and that envious, bitter, dying liar Al Stump.
He was a natural…
@@jackpavlik563 Came right out of Northeast Georgia.
Having served in the army I understand his character on the show. When I entered my 1st unit, they had just returned stateside from deployment. I was the new guy and I didn’t just come home from a year combat. There were a few guys who wanted nothing to do with me. They’d give me shit for not knowing things I hadn’t been trained on. After a while I wasn’t the new guy anymore and they chilled out.
In the show they used Cobb as that guy. I never saw him as a bad guy, just a guy who’s a little war-bitter. Considering that he had already fought in Africa before joining 101st. He has the right to be a little bitter.
💯 It is not surprising and without contradicting evidence to suggest he actually was the opposite of how he was portrayed on the show, I don't think this is some sort of character assassination.
I always resented the way Ambrose spoke in the first person when telling stories of battles and situations
concerning an incident I recognize he was a historian, but he wasn't there anymore than I was.
As much as I liked Dick Winters, he made Ambrose out to be something he wasn't. I will be doing a video soon on this subject as Winters wrote quite a lot about it.
The more I hear about Ambrose, the less I respect him as a scholar and a gentleman.
Once again excellent work. It's important for a man who calls himself a historian, to be held accountable for any inaccuracies or pure fabrication. Which seems to be common place in Stephen's work. I find such behavior to be abhorrent. In the age of information, each lie you tell, can come back to bite, but somehow his reputation as a historian remains untouched.
I was unaware he was such an “old man” or that he had served in combat prior to joining the 506th. Sounds like he was already suffering the beginnings of PTSD by the time he joined Easy. Insightful.
I feel the stress of war can do many things to us, sometimes we break in the heat of it all, sometimes we break later in life. I feel BoB did a lot of things to extend the creative drama of a lot. War, in itself, will stand up to the need for extra drama. An example might be Blackhawn Down, it didn't directly target any specific person as being bad, just that each were complex characters in a larger conflict. In BoB, I feel sometimes, they, the writers/producers/directors, needed to add an extra layer just to fill in an area they thought was missing or needed. Overall, I still like the series, but the series continues to add a list of asterisks to it for seemingly being intentional about demonizing some of the veterans. Thanks for making this video and others like it. Great research.
When I saw Band of Brothers years ago I thought there was something off about all this. So many personalities being portrayed in a bad light. I also thought Cobb would be a fictional character because the show was so scathing of him. History books can be unjustly cruel to individuals if the sources didn't like them. They don't tell the full story. God knows what history books could say about any one of us after we're dead and gone. Thanks for posting this. I've often wondered about this poor guy... 🙏
Hollywood wants a Villain.
In _Money Ball_ it was the manager - who in realty supported what Bean was doing and was infuriated at his portrayal.
In _Sully_ they had to have a villain and didn't want to use the geese - so they made The NTSB the bad guys. Sullenberger was infuriated by this as he was never treated badly by the NTSB. Those guys loved him. He had saved them from looking at another hangar full of bodies. They had to have a hearing - it was a formality - but they were not in any way shape or form out to get Sullenberger.
_Band of Brothers_ does some things well but it's still a Hollywood Series. Anyone who takes what Hollywood presents as factual - is just being silly.
.
When it comes to war veterans you need to get their story right.
Liberties will always be taken and the apologies will always follow. The narrative is what's important to the showrunner, that's all. Thanks for the upload, take care, keep safe.
Historical dramatizations are perilous enough, but they can easily border on insult when the events depicted are in living memory. I loved the show and have watched it multiple times, but boy did they do some of the guys dirty.
I am glad you made the video about Cobb so to clear the air. I imagine that Hanks and Ambrose justified the portrayal of Cobb that way from the one incident and that he was 10-11 years dead by the tile of the making of the show
Yes its easy to give the bad guy role to someone who is not around.
I don't know anything about Roy Cobb, but in my unit (Marine Artillery during Desert Shield) I can see certain guys getting salty with new guys. And I can see a senior NCO busting balls to put a guy who was doing that in his place. The whole "band of brothers" thing is great and I certainly feel that way now but, back then, we were just a bunch of young guys doing our job. We watched out for each other, even the guys we didn't personally like, but the idea of us sharing a brotherhood really didn't register at the time, at least in the deeper sense that it does now that we're a bunch of sappy old bastards. I guess what I'm saying is the episode between Cobb and the replacements and Randleman's reaction didn't ring false to me whether or not the it actually happened. Just my opinion. Btw, I really enjoy your videos and I hope you keep 'em coming.
Thank you.
Sink stating to Foley, concerning Cobb’s court martial, “he could’ve saved them all a lot of time if he had of shot him” is very interesting because he reportedly said the same exact thing to Captain Speirs about Floyd Craver, the drunken soldier who shot Sgt. Grant.
Yes Sink didn't want his boozing time taken away. I had to laugh when I read about the patrol that Winters lied about. He knew that Sink had just had a few whiskeys and would pass out by the time the patrol would be in progress.
I just read your comment now. I just said the same thing 30 second ago. I had to make sure I wasn't getting them confused. Maybe this comment is being used for dramatic affect? Again, like in the movie. Ironic.
When I served in the NZ Army, I was in the 5th Battalion of the Wellington West Coast and Taranaki Regiment, now disbanded. I wore as part of my uniform, collar insignia that from a distance could be mistaken for that of a US Colonel. These " collar dogs " as we called them, were in recognition of the Regiment's incredible service in the Gallipoli campaign in WW1. No-one ever gave us negative comments but it was funny when soldiers of foreign armies or new recruits saluted me when my rank was that of Private. That and the Green beret that all Infantry in NZ wear gave me a few giggles. I very much doubt that the incident over the Presidential Citation ever happened. I class it in the same light as Private Blyth dying of his wounds. Artistic licence due to poor research.
Thanks. Its always good when a vet agrees with me :)
Thank you for your service. In my (small limited) army experience I always enjoyed working with people from across the Tasman.
Another interesting video. I feel the same tbh, Cobb had very little known about him and, like Sopel, I feel has been treated harshly by television.
Given that Stephen Ambrose had been accused on several occasions of plagiarism and getting facts wrong, I don't see how anyone can consider PVT Cobb the villain the series makes him out to be.
I think that this story brings me to the point where I say to myself ‘let Easy rest.’ By that I mean that the level of interest and valorisation of these amazing people needs to be dialled down to the level that all of those that served deserve. No more, no less. There’s too much ‘made for tv’ in their history now to do otherwise.
I would like to hope that the true story or at least something close to it is learned before these men are forgotten about.
It's good that you do these, it's messed up that Hollywood does this to real people's lives.
If they are gonna portray someone as a shallow villain like they did to so many then they should have used fictional names.
I read a book on Vietnam "platoon leader" by capt who lead a platoon of the 173d in Vietnam. He specifically used fictional names to avoid disrespecting peoples memories.
Great video. I've probably seen Band of Brothers 2 or 3 dozen times. I read the book twice, many years ago before the series was released. I've also read Dick Winters' book and a couple others. In spite of all that, I learned things I didn't know today. Thank you.
You're welcome
From what your story said Cobb was a good soldier that like many soldiers that had seen combat that he had a drinking problem but still did his job as a soldier.
Spot on.
I can understand how two-plus years of protracted war could drive a man somewhat batty and he would turn to drink for comfort. What we call "self-medication" today.
The series was a dramatization. Getting two-thirds of something like that was a major miracle.
Remember, it's not a documentary.
Too bad about the Albert Blithe mistake, though.
I spent 6 years in the Army. I was an 11C Mortarman with the 3/505th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) of the 82nd Airborne. Your not believing a soldier not ragging on replacements, and the part of Randelman wouldn't remind Cobb he wouldn't he wasn't in Normandy. Yes, I can tell you that is exactly how they could have behaved. It was the fact you could put on a thick skin and laugh off such extreme ragging that would get you accepted as a trustworthy person.
So its likely that a paratrooper would tell another paratrooper they weren't worthy of wearing a presidential unit citation?
His name was John Vetovich, I tried to find him on a 101st roster years ago, but had no luck. His partner at work was in Patton's 3rd Army, on, I believe either on a 105 or 155 gun crew. He said on their fire missions, they would fire as fast as they could load. If they had to re-orient, one of the guys would grab the end of the barrel and hang on, while the rest of the crew pivoted the gun. This guy was movie star handsome when he was in the army, name of George Hill, but PTSD and alcoholism took their toll on him.
Love how you give a voice to the voice less.
good job
The entire BoB series is really not standing the test of time.
I won't say the character of Cobb was a villain, only someone deeply affected by his experiences in the war. Everyone reacts differently to such horrors. Some are optimistic, some others are completely undone. It's hard to blame someone for simply acting an ass in such circumstances.
Thats the point. I dont think he was a villain at all. It seems he had a drinking problem as a lot of them did and he just lost his cool one time.
Wasn't there. Didn't live through what these very brave young men did. So I'm very reluctant to judge and cast aspersions upon a young man whom I have much respect toward. Yes I consider Roy Cobb, It. Norman Dike and Captain Herbert Sobel as men of honor.
If not for them. Their bravery, tenacity and the many men like them, who knows what our world might be like had the Nazis remained in power?
We don't know the back story of these men. How they were raised, their experiences during The Great Depression with no respite as they were cast headlong into WWII.
I'm satisfied they did their level best in horrific circumstances and personal sacrifice.
I write this from my perspective as a combat U.S. Marine of the Vietnam War.
Thanks for trying to dig into these details. Without meaning to diminish any of the Easy Co. members, we got part of a story largely from one faction of the company. Webster's book paints a somewhat different perspective of his time there and is worth reading. I'd like to find a copy of Webster's diary though. There is more to Sobel than we know as well. Several of the vets paint a slightly less negative picture of Sobel than the miniseries presents. I don't think anyone loved the man but everyone who knew Sobel best went down on that plane in Normandy so that side of the story is lost.
I went to a WW2 Weekend at Reading some years ago and Donald Malarkey was one of the guests. There was a Q&A period and I forgot what the question was, but Malarkey stood up and throughly trashed Webster, pretty much calling him a liar and his book a pile of junk. Sadly, Webster wasn't there to defend himself, disappearing off Santa Monica, California in 1961.
@@lawrencemyers3623 The one time I met Malarkey in 2005 the subject of Webster never came up. I have read Malarkey's book and Webster's book and I enjoyed each. Thanks for the info.
Webster was a Toccoa man but was originally assigned to Fox Co 2nd Bat 506. He jumped with HQ Co on D-Day and transferred to Easy Co in England before operation Market Garden.
He also served in F Company.
@@user-ut5dn9wo5k Yep, Webster went from Fox to 2nd Battalion HQ to Easy.
Exactly. So many refer to Webster’s book but so few seem to have read it. Webster was a Toccoa man but with F Co. not Easy.
Why in Websters book does he write that he applied for a transfer 'back' to Easy Company after jumping with Regimental HQ on DDAY.
Sometimes in historical dramas several characters are rolled into one person. Cobb might be that guy.
Without many details know about him, he could have been the embodiment of some of the lesser appreciated traits.
E Co. had more than 100 men, so the idea that everybody was a "great guy" seems improbable. I'm guessing, so who knows?
I’ve often wondered about Cobb over the last 20+ years after BoB premiered. Like a lot of people I watch the series a couple times a year and I often wonder about Cobb since there’s so little info on him online.
I appreciate this video and I feel like I have a better perspective on the man.
The more of these vids I watch, the more I realize the series was a work of fiction.
It was a work of 50 year old memories sprinkled in with a lot of bias.
@@michaeldelano9233and unafraid to trash people who weren’t part of their small group
I thought I once heard that while they could not feature every single person, in some cases they collapsed stories from multiple people into one. Since not a ton is known about Cobb, this is one possible reason why.
One thing mentioned in here was that he was a 9 year veteran prior to joining East company. He was listed as a private. After 9 years? It would seem he may have actually had a lot of problems that kept him from ever leading men, but since he may have been a great soldier, they kept him around. But 9 years and still a private could have had the guy really pissed off that he’s always looked over.
The 9 years in the service is not known for sure either. I read he joined the army then left then joined up again after Pearl Harbor. There was another Roy Cobb who was around the same age who served in the Navy. The two may get mixed up. If Cobb was born in 1914 then he could have definitely enlisted in the early 30's as he would have been 18+
private after nine years wasn’t uncommon, especially pre-war…there’s also the fact that you can gain and lose a stripe easily, so he might have had one but lost it
Some of what you're saying 3 minutes in is accurate, but I will say that the photo the company in Austria does picture him. That's confirmed and not speculative. He was a prior service soldier (I have a few copies of his enlistments) but not the oldest man in the company or regiment. You have done videos on other troopers such as Joe Liebgott who were actually older than him. Roy did die in California after working as a fry cook for most of his life after military service. The airborne regiments did receive men up until the weeks leading up to D-Day. Even Lynn Compton didn't arrive until days before.
Yes i know officers were transferred in but not enlisted men. California? I will have someone else in the comments claim he died in New York.
This is an excellent intro into the complexity of human psychology & historicity. Well done.
I cannot speak directly about Roy Cobb.
Let me use the example of an uncle I grew up with (during the 1960s). You can read Uncle Rusty’s service record and verify he saw service with the Australian army in North Africa, Greece, Palestine, Syria & Papua New Guinea. What you won’t find is the details of him being on a ship that was dive bombed, taking 3 direct hits (official records say 5!) and shooting one of his mates pinned by wreckage before escaping. This occurred shortly before he developed a problem with alcohol…
Was he intelligent? Hell yeah. Early 1970s, he started stabilising as he dried out (although he never stopped reliving war experiences - share a bedroom with someone & you know how often they wake up screaming) and with sobriety he went from being just a bum wharfie (= longshoreman/stevedore/wharf labourer) to being an instructor on just about every type of crane & machinery on the Sydney waterfront. (As a result I got to do some interesting things with cranes as a kid!)
So how would you replay Rusty if you were an actor?
How would we write about Mr Cobb & portray him in television series?
As long as people are asking questions about the past and people in it, we give ourselves hope for the future
(Army Infantry veteran) NEVER get your History or tactics from Hollywood, or even a non-fiction book which uses drama to fill in the details. Every 'good' story needs a villain. Such as the story of the attack on Foy, Belgium. The attack faltered because of the 'cowardly' company commander, and the hero saved the day. He was certainly a hero, but they left out the part about the original company commander being shot in the chest!
As to this video, it is the privilege of every soldier to resent anyone who has it the tiniest bit easier. The men in the Observation Post resent the men in the front-line; who resent the men at Company H.Q., who resent the men at battalion... (been there, done that) The ones who fought in Normandy resent the man who was wounded and never jumped. He resents the men who, through no fault of their own, missed the fighting in Normandy. Later, the men resent those who were wounded in Holland and missed the bitter cold at Bastogne. This feeling is a reality of life in the military. To present this drama, they chose a man who had passed away and couldn't complain.
Roy Cobb was an jerk . I know this because I saw it on a TV show.
No record of Roy Cobb? Might be because of this fire: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Personnel_Records_Center_fire#Cause
Thank You!
You're welcome!
Anyone who's ever served--any branch, any era, has served with a guy like Cobb.
There's always a guy who feels some need to keep score and try to lean on anyone with a minute's less seniority
👍👍 Fascinating stuff.
Thanks 👍
I’m old enough to remember when this series was new. The fall out being every ww2 reenactor wanting to portray East company.
I am glad to see that we are setting the record straight from 20 something years ago, a series which has become scripture for all things ww2 related.
Accuracy matters.
I loved it at the end of the Last Patrol , you see him being hauled off in a jeep with MP's 😂
Webster wrote in his book that Cobb was "invariably cheerful" so i dont know why they painted him like a jerk in the show.
As I understand it from Webster's book, he, Webster, was originally assigned to and made the D-Day jump with Headquarters Company. After being wounded and evacuated back to England, was then assigned to Easy sometime after they returned.
It is sad that there is so much missing information about people and battles, in what is one of the most important events in modern history. I think of this when watching the Crossroads episode where Winters is writing his after action report and Nixon tells him 'You know Dick, that isn't literature. Keep it simple...' Maybe they should have sent historians along with, or like Jodie Foster's character said in the movie Contact, 'They should have sent a poet.'. The notion is true that without documenting them, all those moments will be lost like tears in rain as these men pass.
Having been in the service, I can say that we are all human
thanks. i found this interesting because there is so little information.
Speaking from experience it sounds like he may not have had positive memories of his time in Easy Company. If that’s true, would explain why there’s no pictures or solid paperwork. Aside from this channel I don’t comment or talk about the military. To be brutally honest you’d be hard pressed to find much on me😂. Again awesome work here. Thank you
Thank you
@@WorldWarTruth when you mentioned “General discharge “, it clicked. Meaning a general discharge for a combat vet of that era was a huge slap in the face. More so than today. I’m sure that easy company and the 506 (as with any organization with 2 or more people), had its own way of doing business. If Cobb had a drinking problem I’m sure he wasn’t alone and watched how the other people with the same problem were treated. If there was any inconsistency, contempt becomes the order of the day. That’s my take on it, unfortunately we may never know.
Every Unit I've served in had it's top 10%, bottom 10% and everything else between. When the mission began, 100% did their job or people took hits that shouldn't have.
Presidential Unit Citations are required to be on a soldier's khaki and/or dress uniform. So, that scene would make no sense. I know this because I'm an Airborne Pathfinder, LRRP, and infantry all the way. 1972-76.
Thank you clarifying. Someone else in the comments told me I was an idiot for thinking that wouldnt happen.
I can tell you this I could see that scene at the bar playing out just like that, I remember coming back from my first trip to the sandbox, First Sergeant or the sergeant major put it out to all the ncos keep an eye on Joe because we had a lot of replacements coming in that were light on the right
Despite the portrayal, I never viewed Cobb as being that way. I figured he may have just been a little abrasive and the film exaggerated it as they did so many other things. Or it was just another creative liberty taken.
If Cobb did fight in Torch, or elsewhere, it would have been very unusual for him to be in the 506th. The regiment was specifically formed to train civilian recruits to be airborne, so the members would not have experience fighting. Even Sink and Strayer did not fight before Normandy. Sobel also didn't fight. The trainers at Toccoa and elsewhere may have had experience, I don't know, but after the training was finished, they were sent off to train other units.
Yes they were supposed to be untrained civilians. Its a story with so many unknowns and I doubt we will ever get to the bottom of it.
there were dozens of guys in it who had military experience just not jump experience or who were brought in to create an experienced leadership to bolster the newer, Sobel and Sink both were military before the 101st was formed
they also took in guys who weren’t at Toccoa up to the Normandy jump, it’s possible that Ambrose lied about his backstory or amalgamated multiple guys into one
I have read else where that in BOB Cobb was really a conglomerate of other enlisted and was slighted by the portrayal.
Well in that case the writers should have given him a fictitious name since he wasn't a real character anyway.
The presidential unit citation is worn by all members of that unit for ever. One of the battalions of our regiment earned it in Korea and people serving in that battalion still wear it to this day. But having been in the infantry, I think your assessment of how one soldier might treat another one is kind of funny. People will seek dominance over other people all the time. And a given soldier might not know how that citation even works. But dudes in the infantry will treat each other way way worse then that. Whether this event happened with this guy, who knows. but that scene struck me as very authentic as to how people can behave when they want to show how tough they are.
It has never been mentioned by anyone, including the replacements who were there prior to Holland that Cobb ever said that. Randleman never mentioned it either.
Unless its documented, I don't believe it.
As much as I liked Band of Brothers, after the series came out, and the veterans wrote their own books, it painted the series in a much different light. A lot of things, events, and people were either condensed or omitted. Each episode was only about an hour long. They needed to keep the pace. Some information wasn't known at the time Ambrose wrote his book, or when production began. Sometimes the information was known to both, but was altered for the sake of storytelling, or production just screwed up.
Like Hall being with Winters as soon as they landed on D-Day. Except his name wasn't Hall, nor was he from Able Company and a radioman from Manhattan. His real name was John Derricks Halls, an 81mm mortarman from Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th, and from Colorado. I suspect this change was made so the audience can gain sympathy for Halls, so his death at Brecourt Manor would have a much more emotional impact.
People have pointed out one of the big flaws was Pvt. Blithe, that he did survive his serious wound in Normandy. He was evacuated back to the States and never returned to Easy. Perhaps giving rise to veteran's belief he died. In fact Blithe continued to serve in the Army through Korea. Unfortunately he died in December 1967 of a perforated ulcer.
Another change made, for the sake of storytelling, Easy Company didn't find the Kaufering IV sub-camp. It was found by the 12th Armored Division (Hellcat) who first found the camp on 27 April 1945. The 101st arrived the next day.
One theme of the entire series focuses on Speirs. He was accused of executing POWs and even one of his own men. As the series progresses, the stories about him get more and more exaggerated, to show how rumors grow over time. Firstly, you don't actually see Speirs kill the prisoners. You hear a Thompson, that he carries one of, firing. In 'Carentan' the troopers talk about Speirs, first claiming it wasn't Speirs who shot him, but another trooper while Speirs watched. Then the story changes that it was Speirs killing first eight men, then twenty and then thirty and then more than thirty. Plus, if you watch the flashbacks, the prisoners themselves change. First their Heer soldaten. Then they change in Waffen SS. Which wouldn't be possible as the first SS units didn't arrive in the American sectory until around 11 June 1944.
What's tragic about this is, Speirs really did execute prisoners. According to PFC Art DiMarzio in a post-war interview, that you can find on RUclips, Speirs, DiMarzio and a sergeant ambushed a group of 4-5 Germans. They heard the Germans walking up the road and the three troopers ducked into the trees. Speirs ordered them to hold until they got close, then stepped out. The three captured the Germans, who were unarmed, without firing a shot. The Germans had their hands above their heads, saying, "The war is over for us. Kaput!" Then Speirs shot them.
As for shooting his own sergeant, that happened after D-Day. To attack Ste. Come Du-Mont the town was shelled by division artillery. As the shells came down, one of Speir's sergeants wanted to attack immediately. Speirs told him to hold. Again the sergeant wanted to attack. Speirs ordered him to the rear, saying he was drunk. The sergeant grabbed his rifle and aimed it at Speirs. Except Speirs was faster on the trigger. He shot and killed the sergeant. The Company CO quickly arrived on scene, spoke to witnesses, including DiMarzio, determined it was self defense, and they all went back into the fight.
Wow!!!! So many inconsistencies on the series & the book itself…
Interestingly I am rewatching the serious and in my own mind already concluded a littler bit of poetic licence was taken with the Cobb character for dramatic effect.
I love your reviews which I feel bring the truth to bear. The worst case of injustice in BoB was the crass portrayal of the British tankies in Holland which puts units in place that were no where near the battle. BoB lost any authenticity from that point for me and I have never watched BoB again.
Thank you and thats a shame. I watch it all the time in bits for these videos and always rewrite the scene in my mind.
War is hell he did his duty to his country the fog of war much is lost from history or distorted give the mans memory a break
Am probably going to mirror other comments here, but I'm glad someone's taking the producers, writers and directors to task about how accurate their take was on the men of (and those attached to) Easy Co. There's a line between keeping things interesting with a narrative through editorial decisions, and just flat out making sh*t up. To me, the latter is no different than what was done culturally during the 60's and 70's to returning vets. This is just the updated Hollywood boomer version I guess, done by some of the same generation from an even more privileged and distanced position.
I would think that someone transferring into the PIR with the experience he had from an armored division with his level of knowledge would not have been the rank of a private unless he made some big mistakes along the way.
Yes its a tough story to crack
Cobb's not horribly portrayed and my guess is it was probably easy to portray him in lesser light due to the intox incidents. Not to mention we really don't know fully what surviving members of Easy told Hanks and others involved in the production of the series.
In Northeast Georgia, we pronounce Toccoa as "Tuh-Coh-uh". I'm certain the Cherokee pronounced it differently. I've always wanted to see the old place.
Without meaning to defend the artistic choices too strongly, the makers of the series are on record as saying they had to condense things in order to focus on a limited number of characters that the audience can follow. Cobb was put into the role of the sad sack who made everyone's life a bit worse than it had to be. Was Cobb like that? Probably not. Were there people who acted like that at least once in a while? Probably.
Maybe somebody with a youtube channel should make an effort to interview as many of the BoB survivors as possible whilst some are still alive. It won't be that far into the future that we'll see them all gone. Though that's the way of humanity, it still would be good to know the truth of it all. The Greatest Generation certainly earned that moniker.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure there aren't any E co veterans left. Whatever interviews are out there are all that's left
All the men of E Company are gone now.
Lt Foley, seemed like a solid leader. Cobb was obviously way out of line, so this is why he was the bad guy in the series. Even if it was a once off incident.
How sad, it was War, that's enough drama & the ever present chance of death.
I'm wondering if they filmed or intended to film a sequence where Cobb kills the wounded German on the river bank. They have the scene with Cobb asking "did you guy leave someone on the bank". They say yes and he says he's getting sick and tired of listening to him. Then the subject is just dropped. I believe they intended to show the truth and decided that showing an American killing a wounded soldier would be a problem for the sensibilities of people who have never been to war.
Webster had tried to do the same thing earlier in the night and missed the guy.
There was plenty of real drama in real life, but it seems the Hollywood folks went for archetypes and chose members that were little known, little recorded, or little remembered to fill those roles.
This makes it easier for them to say what they want about the toll, let’s say, on the men as a whole through one focal point rather than having to have a man in the background then suddenly in the foreground during a small scene in France and leaving viewers to say “who is that and how long have they been there? Were they always that way?” Without the arch of story telling that was desired to drive a general point home.
My uncle Frank was portrayed as a villain in his company on Vietnam
He was a drunken disaster in the rear
but a battling bastard in the field
He survived 2 tours and known for brawls
He certainly wouldn't have been alone in the drinking department.
Did you contact the national archives? If I can figure who was aboard what ship in the Civil War using their records, I would think they have muster records for this unit? Even if his service record is not available, they should still be able to give you everything that would appear in the census about him. Find a grave seems to confirm he is the man buried in
Tulare Cemetery, in Tulare County, CA in 1984.
I think that find a grave is like a wikipedia cemetery. The grave on that site lists his middle name as Wilson. There was a Roy Wilson Cobb who was in the Navy during WW2 and was born in 1915. Many sources say Cobb was born in 1914.
I think they just needed a bad guy type character for the show. so they made him that character since they had no one else? Also Dike was done so dirty too, same with Blithe. I dont get how they can mess that up so hard with the extensive research they did. Granted this was the mid-end of the 90s when they made this so it was hard to find EVERYTHING since so much time and life has passed by
I’m pretty certain their “extensive research” was simply a PR talking point when they were promoting it.
If Cobb had been through as much as it's said in this video, I am quite sure he would be burned out by the time the schnapps episode occurred. I am sure (as with most series) someone had to be painted less than heroic, less than the rest of the company. I think that fell on Cobb's character and the fact that not enough historical documentation is known about him, it was easy for the writers to pick him and exploit and embellish some things that may or may not have happened. Most likely a good guy that war took a toll on.
I agree, and that was my conclusion even after watching the series. It's not a dig at his character, it's completely understandable.
The real question is was he a spook afterward?
I accept the flaws of Stephen Ambrose, both his works and character. That said, I still appreciate him greatly. The renewed interest in ww2 in the nineties and the great books, movies and series that came from it, is partly because of him. I say, well done Sir.
It reminds me of Henry Hook, an utter tea totalling gentleman at Rorke's Drift, in the film Zulu.
Dick Winters described Cobb as a hard nosed man in his book Beyond band of brothers.
Really good stuff mate I always wondered if this guy was a jerk in real life
Cobb, Dike, Sobol, and Blithe all done a disservice by BoB. Maybe they never got the chance, but it bugs me none of the surviving Easy Company men set the record straight.
Little bit horrified about your description of Websters Diary as tedious. What soldiers ate day to day and what they thought about officers is interesting. It is a primary source. This stuff is historical gold. And a lot of war is hurry up and wait, or to quote Terry Pratchett, “War is long periods of boredom followed by even longer periods of being dead.”
I have to be honest, I didn't like Parachute Infantry at all. Webster meant for it to be a personal diary and would have published it himself by 1961 if he would have wanted to do so.
Its the most boring WW2 memoir I have read. That's just my personal opinion.
@@WorldWarTruth I have never read Parachute Infantry by Webster. Since he did not publish the book himself, you can’t blame him if you find his day to day life in World War 2 a bit tedious. The stuff he wrote about in his diary and the things he through of as important to him at the time. What he got to eat that day, was it a hot meal from a field kitchen or bloody K Rations again? What that stupid officer told him to do. That daily tedium of war. And it’s a 1st hand source of information. Biased, very personal but very human.
@@user-lp1fj3ny9v Well have a read of it and tell me what you think. I'm not blaming him for anything, I just found the book boring.
I was under the impression Cobb had previously been in the 82nd Airborne.
No never heard of that one. Lieutenant Harry Welsh is the only Easy co member I know of who was transferred from the 82nd.
I always wondered if Cobb was as much of a "character" as he is portrayed
I have a question, have you searched Army records in the national archives? There is an absolutely amazing amount of information there, the World War II records have been there for quite some time. Everything I have ever searched was US Navy and USGC records, but I can tell you this: there is so much information in there it is like a needle in a haystack, I can almost guarantee you everything you want to know is in there, however, finding it might be a very difficult endeavor. Because you go and ask for something doesn’t mean it isn’t in there if they can’t find it, what it means is that particular research assistant wasn’t able to locate it, on that particular day. But I have had friends go into the archives and request the exact same information I requested and came up with different things than I got. If you don’t find what you are looking for, ask a number of research assistants, there may be entire records groups that they haven’t searched yet, and the amount of information in there is so massive, no one person could know everything.
Thanks for the video.
Obviously, I would have no way of knowing who the man really was. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. I thought that most people who don't get into too much trouble get an honorable discharge rather than a general discharge. Alcoholism is a terrible disease. Maybe he was a man who suffered from that problem. Maybe the war made the problem worse. I hope he was able to recover and have a good life after the war. He must have performed well in the army prior to joining Easy Company. If he hadn't performed well to that point, he wouldn't have been allowed to join an elite unit.
Well said.
Are the service records of these guides not publicly available?
Cobb's family put a block on his service record.
I’d imagine lots of those guys were mean drunks. And a dispute amongst brothers is par for the course.