My grandfather was dog company 501st. His little brother took the beaches. They didn't take the guns in time. His little brother never got off the beach. Charles milliron 2nd rangers Feb 17, 1921-june 6, 1944. 🕊 James milliron 501st airborne may 1st, 1919 - November 25th, 2001 🕊
Right around the time that Easy was looting those bodies, that’s when the landings started on both Utah and Omaha Beaches. Additionally, where the landings started for the British, Polish and Canadians over on the other side (Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches.) My grandfathers golfing buddy was first wave on Utah Beach as part of the combat engineers. He distinctly remembered when the artillery stopped coming in the beach. This is directly after Easy Company took out those guns at Brecourt. They saved a lot of lives by destroying those guns so quickly.
Regarding the horses: the German army was never fully mechanized. They used horses right up to the end of the war to haul all kinds of stuff around behind the lines.
The powder they were sprinkling on Popeye's wound was sulfanilimide or "sulfa". Came in small packets, like a sugar or creamer packet. The sulfa was intended to prevent infection until the soldier arrived back at the casualty collection point or aid station. For the airborne soldiers, they carried a first aid packet tied to their webbing suspenders or boots or (later) helmets. In the packets was sulfa powder, a large wound dressing, and a morphine syrette. You can also see soldiers using the powder in later episodes, as well as the wound dressing and the morphine syrettes. Same as in the film, "Saving Private Ryan."
I'm a chemist and use sulfanilamide in one of my solutions daily at work, also a big WW2 nerd, but it took me significantly longer than I'd care to admit to go "oh shoot this is what they used in WW2 on wounds"
As an added bonus, it will combine with your blood to build like a blood-sulfa cement, that will help plug and stick your wound together under the bandage. We had it until the mid 90s in eastern Europe and i got it used on me a couple of times on severe bleeding cuts.
I watched this as a retired Marine, former infantryman - from a professional perspective, that attack on the German position at Brecourt Manor was as close to perfect as you could get. Normally, to take enemy in a dug-in position, the rule of thumb is that you should outnumber them at least 3 to 1, if you're more or less equally well armed and experienced. In this case the men from Easy were themselves outnumbered, by about 4 to 1. They had never been in combat before that day and were up against veteran German troops (for the most part, the German army was the most effective man for man in that war.) The Germans were entrenched and had three extremely deadly machine guns covering all their positions. Those were MG42s, one of the German weapons the Allied troops considered the most terrifying because of its accuracy and its very high rate of fire. And WInters had been in command of Easy Company for all of half an hour. There are no words that really describe how good he and the rest of them were. Literally a textbook example, as the closing explanation relates. Of the medals awarded, the Distinguished Service Cross Winters received is the U.S. Army's second highest award for heroism, second only to the Medal of Honor. The Silver Star that some of the others received is next in precedence, and the Bronze Star with Combat V that the others got is next after that. Their battalion commander nominated Winters for the Medal of Honor, but someone in Washington decided that all the Medals of Honor should go to the troops making the beach landings, so Winters got downgraded to the DSC. Even so, at the literal end of the day, the thing on Winters' mind was the young soldier who had been killed under his command. That says so much about his character. The reason Spiers killed the prisoners was that the 101st was still cut off and they had no way to guard them and no higher-level unit to hand them off to. It was ruthless but not personal: if they had been in contact with a higher unit that could have safely taken them, that's what they would have done instead. As it was their only alternatives were killing them or letting them go to fight again. The commanding general of the 101st had given a verbal unofficial order that they were not to take prisoners until they linked up with the forces landing on the beaches. That happened, and still does, far more than people talk about or most people realize.
I'm not sure about what you write regarding "all the Medals of Honor should go to the troops making the beach landings." True, there was concern at higher levels that too many awards for valor would be handed-out, thus "cheapening" the award--or so some general officers thought. At least for the two U.S. airborne divisions, the guidance was a limit of one MoH for each airborne division. Accordingly, there was probably unfair scrutiny the nomination documents. As well many witnesses--required for an MoH-- could either not be located or had been KIA or WIA and were somewhere in the evacuation system. Those were chaotic days. Sixteen MoH were awarded during the landings and subsequent maneuvering off the beaches and inland. Two MoH were in the 82nd Airborne Division: One went to PFC Charles DeGlopper, C Company, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment. He was KIA during the engagement for which the medal was awarded. The second MoH went to PVT Joe Gandara, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment. One MoH was awarded in the 101st Airborne Division, going to LTC Bob Cole, commander of 3rd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry, who led a bayonet charge during the advance on Carentan. Sadly, he was KIA on Sep 18 during Operation Market Garden, before the MoH could be presented to him. There were many other incidents where a MoH was entirely justified, but a Distinguished Service Cross was awarded, such as with Winters. Of interest is that PVT Gandara's MoH was approved and presented to next of kin in 2014, following a review by Department of the Army of award submissions to ascertain if Hispanic, Jewish, African-American or other such soldiers had been unfairly deprived of awards. Hence, the 82nd ended up with two MoH, and the 101st ended up with one for Normandy.. Source: National Medal of Honor Museum
Infrastructure was only a small portion or the reasons why prisoners were to be not taken by the airborne til a beachhead had been established another reason was fear of being outnumbered by prisoners, loss of operational capability, slowed progress to objectives, ect
My favorite scene from this episode is the end, when Winters prays to God that he will survive the war and his promise about finding a small piece of land and living the rest of his life in peace. Something I can really appreciate and respect as a Veteran myself.
Those old vet interviews just never fail to get you, and show how much they had to deal with. Imagine being brought to tears by talking about events 60 years later?
The guys you see with the Mohawk haircuts are part of the Filthy 13, The 1st Demolition Section of the Regimental Headquarters Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne. Their job was to act as saboteurs and take on the most dangerous missions. The gave each other Mohawk haircuts and painted their faces in honor of their leader Jake McNiece who was a Choctaw Indian. They were the inspiration for the book The Dirty Dozen, which was made into a movie by the same name in 1967. You might want to check it out.
@@CHARLAAYYY I thought I caught a glimpse of them but I guess I was wrong. However, in documentaries about Airborne troops they are quite often seen. I recall one documentary where the narrator speaks of these troops as just pumping up their courage by shaving their heads and applying war paint. The Fat Electrician did a program about them.
@mikealvarez2322 Oh no because I saw somewhere else,someone said they showed them in band of brothers for like a second and I just want to see it. But yes I believe I saw the fat electrician one. It's good too. It's an interesting story to me.
Yes, those are interviews with men of easy ref to an episode eleven called " We Stand Alone Together " a must watch. Chandra seems too be very much on top of the action, with great reaction from you both.
The battle at Brecourt Mannor took 4 hours to accomplish. The medic was sprinkling Sulfa powder on Popeye's wound. It was developed to prevent infection. The Germans continued to use a lot of horses all through the war.
One of the amazing things about this series is that every single episode gives you a completely different and unique experience that gives you as the viewer a different aspect of a feeling felt or situation as it plays out in the war.
I am a combat vet and if I told you what i am about to say before please forgive me. As you both watch this you are going to feel more and more as if you are part of Easy. For someone like me it's really cool to see that happen . If you can try to remember that I said that. Thank you for this and may God bless both of your lives.
"Holy moly, that's a fast gun"---that was an MG42--it was an incredibly fast machine gun, a truly advanced design which has been copied and are still in service in many armies. A very high rate of fire, the barrels heated up and had to be quickly changed for a fresh barrel (which was also a simplified design). We talk about technological breakthroughs during the War, this was a very deadly design.
The reason Speirs jumped out of the trench was because it was being blocked by a U.S. paratrooper and German soldier who were fighting hand-to-hand (you can see them grappling in the trench for a split second.) This obstacle was slowing down the assault, so, Speirs went up and around in order to not lose the initiative and attack the enemy position as fast as possible. Incredible soldier.
13:20 "I wonder what he was sprinkling on him?" Sulfa powder. It was an early antibiotic in powder form used in first aid by armies in WWII and Korean War.
Well, this is when the sh*t gets real. No more training. Imagine if Sobel had made the big jump while Winter's was still scrambling eggs. "We're not lost Private...we're in Normandy." This one line displays Winter's ability to instill confidence in his men, even unarmed in the face of all adversity. And this soldier wasn't even a member of Easy Company. Currahee ♠
Sobel jumped on D-Day. "On D-Day, Sobel parachuted into Normandy with the rest of the 101st Airborne Division as commander of the 506th's service company. Immediately after landing, Sobel assembled four men and destroyed a German machine gun nest with grenades before joining the rest of the division near Carentan." If he had been in command of Easy Company he would have been in Meehan's plane, and would have ended up dead when it was shot down.
As another commenter said, the German Army wasn't fully mechanized. One of my grandfathers was in the US Army during WWII. He never left the US and was stationed at various US bases. One of those assignments was near a POW camp. He would sometimes go to the fence line and talk to German prisoners who spoke English. One of them told him the moment he knew they would lose the war is when he saw a convoy of Army trucks drive by. Truck, after truck, after truck. Even if they were all empty, it meant just one of the allies had the resources and manufacturing capability that dwarfed the Germans.
"...their intel must have been so spot-on." Actually, no one knew the guns were there until they started firing. So well camouflaged that the aerial photos didn't show it.
What’s crazy was how close the German gun positions were to the HQ that the U.S. paratroopers had set up. If you look at the locations from aerial photos or on google maps, they were just a few hedgerows away from each other. Maybe a 3-4 minute walk.
Can you imagine juming out of a plane at night not knowing if you are going to land safely in a field or break your neck landing in a tree or fence or in a flooded area where you might drown? Before, during and after jumping you have flak and machine gun bullets coming at you...can you imagine?
One of the most incredible things that happened in WW2 was there someone talked his way on to a boat carrying heavy water from Norway in order to sink it to prevent it from getting into German hands, the nerves on that had to be incredible, but one really had to keep them tamped down in order to not appear nervous around the boat crew. Those guys had to have nerves of steel.
The paratrooper drop planes were VERY easy targets for the Germans. They only flew at a couple thousand feet, they were loud and they were very slow. The Germans basically had a field day when they were overhead. But since the invasion was expected farther to the east in Pas de Calais, the anti-aircraft units were fewer and farther apart.
Thanks for your reaction. This was their first time in combat and some of the men took risks they never would again. Like Malarkey going into the open for a Luger, or Lipton taking a firing position up in a tree. In the interviews from the book by Ambrose, many said that they were amazed they lived through D-Day taking the chances they did.
This series did take some liberties in certain places for flow. Malarkey didn't meet that German soldier till d plus 2, and they didn't work 100 miles apart but only across the street
In “Ike: Countdown to D-Day” about Eishenhower (played by Tom Selleck) and the lead up to D-Day he is informed by Trafford Leigh-Mallory that they are estimating a loss of over 60% of British and American paratroopers. So there’s a touching moment when Ike goes to meet the members of the 101st Airborne (the “Screaming Eagles” - the same division these guys are in) because he needs to see the faces of the guys he’s sending to death. Fortunately the losses were more like 10% but even here he notes that if you’re a family of one of those, it’s 100%. All of Eisenhower’s deputies were British. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder was his deputy-commander General Bernard Law Montgomery was the senior army commander. Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was the senior aerial commander. Admiral Bertram Ramsay was the senior naval commander. Ike was assisted by American Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith, as chief of staff.
Hall's death really wrecked me like a baby man. They built up his character well here for a short time, being that guy who tries to blend in with another group & stuff.
Also one thing to note that most if not all reactors miss, is that the plane that caught fire and went down, was LT. Meehans plane, along with all of the battalion HQ. Had Sobel not been transferred, he would have been on that plane. All onboard were KIA.
Following the action of the battles is sometimes difficult, so I highly recommend the channel Operations Room, which has top down animated videos that cover all the details of most of the battles depicted in the show. There is one about the action to take the guns at Brecourt that is shown in this episode, and whether you do a reaction to it or not it is a really good short video to watch. The videos on that channel become increasingly helpful as the series progresses due to the battles getting much more confusing, but also because it was impossible to recreate some of the future battles on the show exactly as they happened in reality...so the Operations Room's analysis will fill you in on all the variances.
Hollywood loves the grenade in a gun barrel trick - but the guns were destroyed by a TNT block down the barrel followed by a German stick grenade, which blew the breech blocks off the guns. Gun barrels are tough to take the force of firing artillery shells... but it looks cool. Grenades were used to destroy radios, telephones and ranger finders. German grenades were mostly blast, very little fragmentation, unlike allied grenades. The US d-day drops were very scattered and happened at too high a speed, for most pilots it really was their first time under fire. Stephen E Ambrose who wrote this book learned about the Pegasus Bridge assault, while doing his research, and quite inspired - wrote a book dedicated to just that. Have been to Brecourt and Ste Mere-Eglise - fascinated by all the feats of that day of days.
The real guys at the start of each episode are real guys from Easy Co who survived the war and some of those talking about their experiences are portrayed in the series itself.
The "Flash" and "Thunder" challenge/response was chosen because "thunder" was very difficult to say clearly with a German accent. So even if the Germans had learned the correct answer to slip by an American soldier, they'd probably still stand out.
My Grandad was flying a Mosquito Fighter/Bomber plane for the RAF. Doing bombing and Gun Runs on German positions/infrastructure on D-DAY+1 and onwards. One operation was supporting US Airborne troops couple miles south of Carentan to stall the German reinforcements "Panzer Division" coming from the South and West.
The white powder you see being sprinkled on wounds is sulfa, which acts to prevent infections. As for finding the position of the big guns, scouts probably had it spotted but a 105mm howitzer is a loud gun. You could probably listen for the nearest cannon fire and find it. As for the sniper, despite all the sniper memes in movies it wouldn't be a regular part of most units. In fact, snipers were detested by most regular troops and the Geneva Convention did not protect them. A sniper taken in combat could be legally executed right up until after the Korean War.
To give a bit of perspective about mindset, there's a story (maybe apocryphal, but likely true in essence) that during the briefings for the amphibious landings on D-Day, the troops who were slated to go in in the first wave were told that command was expecting 66% casualties. As the story goes, every man in the room looked at the men on either side of him and thought, "You poor bastards." These guys were young, new to combat, and likely carried the confidence of youth that THEY weren't going to get hit. I have no doubt that they knew, academically, that people were going to get killed, but I'd venture to guess that most of them "knew" it was going to be "the other guy" that would get it.
6:06 the German army used a LOT of horses, in fact they weren’t as mechanized as many believe due to the “Blitzkrieg” propaganda, quite a bit being dished out by the US. 10:08 the Heer (the ground army part of the Wermacht) mainly organized around the machine gun, predominantly the MG-42. It’s one of the bits about them that tends to differentiate them from other national ground forces of the era. 14:32 how else would it happen? It’s not like someone walks out and says “I am here to shoot the person walking next to you, please prepare” or “I think I’ll step on that mine there, move out of the way”. Back in Scouts in the late 70’s and early 80’s we were often “gifted” Vietnam era meal rations, AKA C rations (specifically the MCI ones). We ate them ALL the time at campouts, especially summer camp. Having ultimately consumed MRE’s in the late 80’s, based on eating earlier Vietnam rations, I can’t even imagine how bad the WW2 K-Rations were.
If you think the story about Malarky and the German POW is wild the true story is more unbelievable. Not only was the German from Oregon in real life, but he and Malarkey had actually worked right across the street from each other for years before the war. There is no evidence the two had ever had any memorible meetings though. They had to change it to make it more believable.
There’s this myth that the German military in ww2 was highly “mechanized” when actually they relied on MASSIVE amounts of horse power. That actually shocked the allies.
The Axis forces in Europe always had to work with limited fuel as they had little access to oil. So though they had some very good machines, they used coal and fodder to fuel as much as possible.
Great reactions! I think that this episode (along with the first episode) shows the comradery found in the service. This is something to be admired about the military (as well as military families). The US (as well as Canada) is often referred to as a "melting pot" -- an "E Pluribus Unum" ("out of many, one") society. My dad was in the military. Shows like BAND OF BROTHERS do a good job showing the fraternal nature that is inherent with military service. That fraternity is experienced by the families too. We lived most of our childhoods in and around military bases across the U.S. We had neighbors from all different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds and locations. We all became the best of friends. I think that it is because we all had to endure the same struggles that many military families faced. Many families struggled to live on military salaries. Our parents would be gone for months or even years at a time. We were happy to get a call from some foreign country on our birthdays or holidays. As difficult as those times might have been, we were all closer because of it. If someone's father or mother passed away, we felt that loss too. That bond is very strong. To this day, I remain close with some of the people that I met when I was just a young child. In some ways, they feel more like family members than mere friends. The same is true with the people that my dad worked with in the military.
Brécourt Manor Assault Turned out there were four 105mm artillery pieces at Brecourt. The Americans lost four men killed, and two wounded. Winters lost one man, Pfc. John D. Halls (of A Company) from an 81 mm mortar platoon. Another, Private Robert "Popeye" Wynn, was wounded during the attack. Another casualty was Warrant Officer Andrew Hill, who was killed when he came upon the battle while searching for the headquarters of the 506th PIR(he was not actually part of the attack). Also killed were Sgt. Julius "Rusty" Houck from F Company, who was with Speirs, and one soldier from D Company under Speirs' command. Another soldier from D Company was wounded.
It was referred to as *Angry Moustache Model's* Buzzsaw for good reason. Design elements from the MG-42 are still used in modern belt-fed machine guns.
You said “There could be enemies anywhere”. One element of Americans parachuted into the town of Sainte-Mère-Église where there were Germans who shot them all as they descended. One guy’s chute caught on the church steeple and he hung there helpless watching all his comrades butchered.
The German machine gun (MG42) was so good and ahead of its time it is still in use today. Most modern machine guns are also patterned after it in some respect.
@@adamwells9352 I recall hearing or reading somewhere that the crew for this gun was 5 men, a gunner, assistant gunner, and the rest were barrel/ammo bearers. The MG34 was really the first machine gun to have a quick-change barrel. In other words, they knew what they had.
The MG42(which you will see often since it was now the primary MG for the Germans) was so fast firing that they had special training films about it. To break some of the horror factor of it.
The distance from Southern England to Normandy is 200 to 250 km. This type of plane has a maximum speed of 360 km/h. So I guess the flight would probably have taken about an hour. Not a long flight, but probably a very long time when you're all geared up and just waiting to drop into a battle.
A lot of intelligence was provided by the civilians involved in resistance. Even a young Dutch teen girl was carrying messages to downed Allied pilots hiding in woods from Germans. Her name was Audrey Hepburn!
Can I pick up on your comment "hearing a horse would be weird" you may not know this but the German army relied very heavily on horses during WWII. The popular images of Germany during the war include tanks, jets, and rockets, but the reality is that horses pulled two-thirds of the vehicles and supplied 80 percent of the German Army’s motive power. Everyday is a school day, and you have so much more to discover during this series.
OKAY MAPLENUTS, it's a little early but I think I'd like to put out there that since you are watching this it would be nice for you to commit to the entire trilogy that was done by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg!! After the 10th of Band of Brothers there's a docu episode "We Stand Alone Together", which has more of the interviews with the veterans and it's a definite must watch with the series!! Next on the list would be "The Pacific" which, as the title implies, is about the Marines fighting the Japanese in the Pacific theater!! The final series is called "Masters of the Air"! And that follows the 100th bomb group of the 8th Army Air Force!! They were nicknamed the bloody 100th, and from 1943 through the end of the war, conducted bombing missions over occupied Europe and Germany bombing key targets, but in the process taking the heaviest losses of any branch of the military in World War II. All three series are excellent and I would say probably 95% accurate! All were done from the writings and memoirs of the actual veterans so different people with different memories that kind of thing!!
I was in E/506th Reenacted back 90's got to met and know the Real men of Easy- 1:02 mark I was there when we gave XXX the E/ 506 guidon (Flag) on the wall behind him, got to meet him many times and his wife he was always so much fun to listen too. i have flown in Whisky 7 (W7) the C47 that was the lead plane for the 2nd wave for the 82nd we had the door on so it was warm and not too noisy inside. The troopers would also be wearing their Wool uniform under their jump uniform so they were warm. 3:15 mark thats LT Meehan's plane crash there is now a monument in that spot honoring all those on that plane, 5:35 mark Officers were issued escape kits which they then hid the items in their uniforms (map, compass, saw, ect) 6:04 mark - SO the ambush scene is wrong - there were 3 ambushes that night. during the 1st Guarnere didn't have a weapon either during this ambush he took 2 P-38 Pistols off some dead Germans then he used those in a 2nd ambush later that morning , Were Guarnere earned the nickname "Wild Bill" then he picked up the Thompson SMG later. the Ambushes took place at a T intersection and they weren't even German troops but Georgian's Troops fighting in the service of Germany . having talked with XXX & XXXX that were there at those ambushes they were ok and understood why they had to portray it as shown for the show. Guarnere while in Normandy earned the nickname "Wild Bill" as he killed every German soldier for revenge of his brother (i had a drunk grunt too grunt talk with XXX on how Bill really earned it but i won't say here) oh you will come to like him lol 8:05 mark Yes Spier's did kill the POW's BUT not as shown here, it did happen alot on both sides esp during the opening hours as there was an order "No Prisoners" I had the honor of being walked through this attack by a few who were there and it's dam close to how it was .12:13 mark he didn't fumble the grenade another trooper was moving behind him and knocked his arm making him drop it. the gun emplacements were closer to the buildings but they don't show them here and a few details were changed but still very well done. Yes it was a stew made with rations and some items they found per XXX who was there
@10:43 The intel was poor to lucky on D-Day, when the paratroopers hit the ground each Company had a scouting squad, there were also path finders or S2 (Intelligence officers) like Nixon who would scout for the positions and report to the HQs that would come in with more paras.
Plus Band of Brothers was voted into the top 20 greatest tv series ever made. Me personally it's number 1!!! We should never forget the scale, horror and desperation of WW2!!!
This is an excellent production but real world rifle rounds don't whiz when they go by they make a quick crack or snap sound, unless they hit something and ricochet. So if you ever hear strange cracks in the air around you, sometimes followed by matching pops in the distance, you're being shot at.
There were enclaves in the US made up of German immigrants, including some like Fredericksburg, TX where German was the primary language spoken at home. Even before the war started, letters were sent to homes of German immigrants asking them to return to the Fatherland. My great-grandparents received several of them, and threw them out. Other families moved back to Germany.
Keep in mind that when they say 90% of the men are unaccounted for, they literally mean that. They just haven't heard from 90% of the men yet. It doesn't mean those 90% have been killed or wounded, just that they haven't managed to report in to battalion HQ yet. D-Day was rough on the Paratroopers but not THAT rough.
Some dead, some wounded and evaced out, some pinned by nearby German troops, some fighting with other units, some just lost. Guys would show up a few at a time over the next two weeks. And some never turned up at all. I remember a news story from the early 1970s. The French were building a bridge, and dredged up a partial skeleton and a pair of dog tags. The tags were badly corroded, but a forensics lab was eventually able to identify the body as being a corporal from the 101st. After almost 30 years, they could move him from "missing and presumed dead" to "killed in action. " A handful, as always, are MIA to this day.
i think no matter who you landed with even your biggest rival in the platoon you would trust them because you have to, and they would have to trust you right back. the germans flooded a lot of farmland to limit airborne landing options and bog down troops who did wind up landing there. Compton's Tomson he got from a wounded paratrooper at some point, the firing pin was broken thats why he never gets a shot off.
It was certainly not unusual to hear/see a horse .... the initial attack forces of the German Army were highly mobile mechanised tanks/trucks etc, but the majority, around 79% were horse drawn ...
Also, the number of men and women who received driver training in the armed forces during WW2 had a profound effect on post-war society. It made suburbs and car culture possible, as well as providing job skills and mobility for hundreds of thousands of people.
Also... at this point in the war the allies had been focusing a bombing campaign on German oil refineries and the Wehrmacht was just starting to feel it's effect.
Buck Compton was never trained on the Thompson. He jumped into Normandy with a rifle, but picked up the Thompson very soon after that. It jammed on him because he did not put it into battery correctly. The mini-series doesn’t explain this, but are true to the events happening in the assault. What the mini-series “invents” is the script at the end. The assault on the guns is not taught at West Point…… at least not at the time of filming. Happens a couple of times in the series. No idea why they decided to pad the heroics with that stuff. Not needed.
the real veterans at the beginning, you will know who they are in the end of the last episode. You don't know right now, thats because if you knew, you would know who survives or not.
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower Supreme Allied Commander's other speech, D-Day was never a guarantee as it seems to be.
unsolicited reading recommendation: "D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches" by Stephen E. Ambrose (Band of Brothers author) excellent account of the first 24 hours
4:00 "Like they said, there could be enemies anywhere." Nope, not anywhere. Everywhere. There is not a friendly soldier within a hundred miles (except these paratroopers where are scattered all over Normandy), but there are tens of thousands of German soldiers within that distance, all around them, surrounding them. Everywhere.
I give the two of you credit for honest and empathetic reactions - I cannot stand the foolsih faces (hands on both cheeks, mouth open wide is SO fake) that reactors pull for their thumbnails. Hence I believe that what you are feeling is more genuine, and I want to know how you see things compared to me. Getting choked up when you are reminded that this isn't fiction is exactly what this show is about. It's not a long show, but a great one.
As good as the first episode is, the first episode and the one with Tom Hanks son are my two least favorite episodes of the show. hearing a horse was not actually that weird. The german's often used horses instead of jeeps and other vehicles to move their equipment.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
My grandfather was dog company 501st. His little brother took the beaches. They didn't take the guns in time. His little brother never got off the beach. Charles milliron 2nd rangers Feb 17, 1921-june 6, 1944. 🕊
James milliron 501st airborne may 1st, 1919 - November 25th, 2001 🕊
May his memory be a blessing. And I thank you for telling us the story of you Grandfather's service
Right around the time that Easy was looting those bodies, that’s when the landings started on both Utah and Omaha Beaches. Additionally, where the landings started for the British, Polish and Canadians over on the other side (Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches.)
My grandfathers golfing buddy was first wave on Utah Beach as part of the combat engineers. He distinctly remembered when the artillery stopped coming in the beach. This is directly after Easy Company took out those guns at Brecourt.
They saved a lot of lives by destroying those guns so quickly.
Regarding the horses: the German army was never fully mechanized. They used horses right up to the end of the war to haul all kinds of stuff around behind the lines.
The powder they were sprinkling on Popeye's wound was sulfanilimide or "sulfa". Came in small packets, like a sugar or creamer packet. The sulfa was intended to prevent infection until the soldier arrived back at the casualty collection point or aid station. For the airborne soldiers, they carried a first aid packet tied to their webbing suspenders or boots or (later) helmets. In the packets was sulfa powder, a large wound dressing, and a morphine syrette. You can also see soldiers using the powder in later episodes, as well as the wound dressing and the morphine syrettes. Same as in the film, "Saving Private Ryan."
yep. Sulfa was an antiseptic that was easy to carry, was dry, and effective enough in the field for a soldier who was shot or hit.
I'm a chemist and use sulfanilamide in one of my solutions daily at work, also a big WW2 nerd, but it took me significantly longer than I'd care to admit to go "oh shoot this is what they used in WW2 on wounds"
As an added bonus, it will combine with your blood to build like a blood-sulfa cement, that will help plug and stick your wound together under the bandage. We had it until the mid 90s in eastern Europe and i got it used on me a couple of times on severe bleeding cuts.
@@alecleibensperger4869 Cool.
Nobody asked but i'm allergic to sulfas, lol Guess how i came to realize this😅
I watched this as a retired Marine, former infantryman - from a professional perspective, that attack on the German position at Brecourt Manor was as close to perfect as you could get.
Normally, to take enemy in a dug-in position, the rule of thumb is that you should outnumber them at least 3 to 1, if you're more or less equally well armed and experienced.
In this case the men from Easy were themselves outnumbered, by about 4 to 1. They had never been in combat before that day and were up against veteran German troops (for the most part, the German army was the most effective man for man in that war.) The Germans were entrenched and had three extremely deadly machine guns covering all their positions. Those were MG42s, one of the German weapons the Allied troops considered the most terrifying because of its accuracy and its very high rate of fire.
And WInters had been in command of Easy Company for all of half an hour. There are no words that really describe how good he and the rest of them were. Literally a textbook example, as the closing explanation relates.
Of the medals awarded, the Distinguished Service Cross Winters received is the U.S. Army's second highest award for heroism, second only to the Medal of Honor. The Silver Star that some of the others received is next in precedence, and the Bronze Star with Combat V that the others got is next after that. Their battalion commander nominated Winters for the Medal of Honor, but someone in Washington decided that all the Medals of Honor should go to the troops making the beach landings, so Winters got downgraded to the DSC.
Even so, at the literal end of the day, the thing on Winters' mind was the young soldier who had been killed under his command. That says so much about his character.
The reason Spiers killed the prisoners was that the 101st was still cut off and they had no way to guard them and no higher-level unit to hand them off to. It was ruthless but not personal: if they had been in contact with a higher unit that could have safely taken them, that's what they would have done instead. As it was their only alternatives were killing them or letting them go to fight again. The commanding general of the 101st had given a verbal unofficial order that they were not to take prisoners until they linked up with the forces landing on the beaches. That happened, and still does, far more than people talk about or most people realize.
I'm not sure about what you write regarding "all the Medals of Honor should go to the troops making the beach landings." True, there was concern at higher levels that too many awards for valor would be handed-out, thus "cheapening" the award--or so some general officers thought. At least for the two U.S. airborne divisions, the guidance was a limit of one MoH for each airborne division. Accordingly, there was probably unfair scrutiny the nomination documents. As well many witnesses--required for an MoH-- could either not be located or had been KIA or WIA and were somewhere in the evacuation system. Those were chaotic days. Sixteen MoH were awarded during the landings and subsequent maneuvering off the beaches and inland. Two MoH were in the 82nd Airborne Division: One went to PFC Charles DeGlopper, C Company, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment. He was KIA during the engagement for which the medal was awarded. The second MoH went to PVT Joe Gandara, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment. One MoH was awarded in the 101st Airborne Division, going to LTC Bob Cole, commander of 3rd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry, who led a bayonet charge during the advance on Carentan. Sadly, he was KIA on Sep 18 during Operation Market Garden, before the MoH could be presented to him. There were many other incidents where a MoH was entirely justified, but a Distinguished Service Cross was awarded, such as with Winters.
Of interest is that PVT Gandara's MoH was approved and presented to next of kin in 2014, following a review by Department of the Army of award submissions to ascertain if Hispanic, Jewish, African-American or other such soldiers had been unfairly deprived of awards. Hence, the 82nd ended up with two MoH, and the 101st ended up with one for Normandy..
Source: National Medal of Honor Museum
8:53 for context, the orders were to not take any prisoners on D-Day. as there wasn't any infrastructure established for that.
Wouldn't that break the 2nd amendments to Geneva Accords? The 3rd being in the 1950s.
@@aTofuJunkie Yes it was technically a war crime. We also nuked cities though so..
Infrastructure was only a small portion or the reasons why prisoners were to be not taken by the airborne til a beachhead had been established another reason was fear of being outnumbered by prisoners, loss of operational capability, slowed progress to objectives, ect
My favorite scene from this episode is the end, when Winters prays to God that he will survive the war and his promise about finding a small piece of land and living the rest of his life in peace. Something I can really appreciate and respect as a Veteran myself.
And he did.
oddly enough Winters said that that never happened. It was just hollywood.
@@TerpeneProfile1 False. It's in the book and in his memoirs. He DID pray and make that promise.
Those old vet interviews just never fail to get you, and show how much they had to deal with. Imagine being brought to tears by talking about events 60 years later?
The guys you see with the Mohawk haircuts are part of the Filthy 13, The 1st Demolition Section of the Regimental Headquarters Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne. Their job was to act as saboteurs and take on the most dangerous missions. The gave each other Mohawk haircuts and painted their faces in honor of their leader Jake McNiece who was a Choctaw Indian. They were the inspiration for the book The Dirty Dozen, which was made into a movie by the same name in 1967. You might want to check it out.
Love The Fat Electrician's video on McNasty.
@@jordanpeterson5140 Absolutely, his stuff is great.
When did it show the guys with the mohawks? I might very missed that part cuz that's really interesting
@@CHARLAAYYY I thought I caught a glimpse of them but I guess I was wrong. However, in documentaries about Airborne troops they are quite often seen. I recall one documentary where the narrator speaks of these troops as just pumping up their courage by shaving their heads and applying war paint. The Fat Electrician did a program about them.
@mikealvarez2322 Oh no because I saw somewhere else,someone said they showed them in band of brothers for like a second and I just want to see it. But yes I believe I saw the fat electrician one. It's good too. It's an interesting story to me.
Yes, those are interviews with men of easy ref to an episode eleven called " We Stand Alone Together " a must watch. Chandra seems too be very much on top of the action, with great reaction from you both.
"You jump and you just pray you make it to the ground..." Oh, you'll make it to the ground alright. The Airborne has never left a man up there!
Alive smart one.
Except Cobb. ;-)
That guy in the tree didn't make it to the ground
The battle at Brecourt Mannor took 4 hours to accomplish.
The medic was sprinkling Sulfa powder on Popeye's wound. It was developed to prevent infection.
The Germans continued to use a lot of horses all through the war.
Ya their front lines were mechanized but almost of of their logistics ran on horses.
One of the amazing things about this series is that every single episode gives you a completely different and unique experience that gives you as the viewer a different aspect of a feeling felt or situation as it plays out in the war.
I am a combat vet and if I told you what i am about to say before please forgive me. As you both watch this you are going to feel more and more as if you are part of Easy. For someone like me it's really cool to see that happen . If you can try to remember that I said that. Thank you for this and may God bless both of your lives.
"Holy moly, that's a fast gun"---that was an MG42--it was an incredibly fast machine gun, a truly advanced design which has been copied and are still in service in many armies. A very high rate of fire, the barrels heated up and had to be quickly changed for a fresh barrel (which was also a simplified design). We talk about technological breakthroughs during the War, this was a very deadly design.
Ah yes the MG42, know as "Hitler's Buzzsaw" due to its high rate of fire.
The German MG-42 killed more Allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy than any other weapon.
Speirs was extremely well trained just like the rest of them. He just doesn’t give a shit
The reason Speirs jumped out of the trench was because it was being blocked by a U.S. paratrooper and German soldier who were fighting hand-to-hand (you can see them grappling in the trench for a split second.) This obstacle was slowing down the assault, so, Speirs went up and around in order to not lose the initiative and attack the enemy position as fast as possible. Incredible soldier.
13:20 "I wonder what he was sprinkling on him?"
Sulfa powder.
It was an early antibiotic in powder form used in first aid by armies in WWII and Korean War.
Well, this is when the sh*t gets real. No more training. Imagine if Sobel had made the big jump while Winter's was still scrambling eggs. "We're not lost Private...we're in Normandy." This one line displays Winter's ability to instill confidence in his men, even unarmed in the face of all adversity. And this soldier wasn't even a member of Easy Company. Currahee ♠
Just like with blithe in the next episode! Just a chat with winters made him feel ready to return to duty.
Sobel jumped on D-Day. "On D-Day, Sobel parachuted into Normandy with the rest of the 101st Airborne Division as commander of the 506th's service company. Immediately after landing, Sobel assembled four men and destroyed a German machine gun nest with grenades before joining the rest of the division near Carentan." If he had been in command of Easy Company he would have been in Meehan's plane, and would have ended up dead when it was shot down.
11:10 that’s the same machine gun in the bunkers from the landing scene in Saving Private Ryan. The MG42 is a very devestating gun. 1,200-1,500 RPM.
As another commenter said, the German Army wasn't fully mechanized. One of my grandfathers was in the US Army during WWII. He never left the US and was stationed at various US bases. One of those assignments was near a POW camp. He would sometimes go to the fence line and talk to German prisoners who spoke English. One of them told him the moment he knew they would lose the war is when he saw a convoy of Army trucks drive by. Truck, after truck, after truck. Even if they were all empty, it meant just one of the allies had the resources and manufacturing capability that dwarfed the Germans.
I like your reactions to this show, I just wish they were longer.
Patreon has the full length versions.
"...their intel must have been so spot-on." Actually, no one knew the guns were there until they started firing. So well camouflaged that the aerial photos didn't show it.
What’s crazy was how close the German gun positions were to the HQ that the U.S. paratroopers had set up. If you look at the locations from aerial photos or on google maps, they were just a few hedgerows away from each other. Maybe a 3-4 minute walk.
Can you imagine juming out of a plane at night not knowing if you are going to land safely in a field or break your neck landing in a tree or fence or in a flooded area where you might drown? Before, during and after jumping you have flak and machine gun bullets coming at you...can you imagine?
One of the most incredible things that happened in WW2 was there someone talked his way on to a boat carrying heavy water from Norway in order to sink it to prevent it from getting into German hands, the nerves on that had to be incredible, but one really had to keep them tamped down in order to not appear nervous around the boat crew. Those guys had to have nerves of steel.
The paratrooper drop planes were VERY easy targets for the Germans. They only flew at a couple thousand feet, they were loud and they were very slow. The Germans basically had a field day when they were overhead. But since the invasion was expected farther to the east in Pas de Calais, the anti-aircraft units were fewer and farther apart.
Thanks for your reaction. This was their first time in combat and some of the men took risks they never would again. Like Malarkey going into the open for a Luger, or Lipton taking a firing position up in a tree. In the interviews from the book by Ambrose, many said that they were amazed they lived through D-Day taking the chances they did.
This series did take some liberties in certain places for flow. Malarkey didn't meet that German soldier till d plus 2, and they didn't work 100 miles apart but only across the street
In “Ike: Countdown to D-Day” about Eishenhower (played by Tom Selleck) and the lead up to D-Day he is informed by Trafford Leigh-Mallory that they are estimating a loss of over 60% of British and American paratroopers.
So there’s a touching moment when Ike goes to meet the members of the 101st Airborne (the “Screaming Eagles” - the same division these guys are in) because he needs to see the faces of the guys he’s sending to death.
Fortunately the losses were more like 10% but even here he notes that if you’re a family of one of those, it’s 100%.
All of Eisenhower’s deputies were British.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder was his deputy-commander
General Bernard Law Montgomery was the senior army commander.
Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was the senior aerial commander.
Admiral Bertram Ramsay was the senior naval commander.
Ike was assisted by American Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith, as chief of staff.
Hall's death really wrecked me like a baby man. They built up his character well here for a short time, being that guy who tries to blend in with another group & stuff.
Also one thing to note that most if not all reactors miss, is that the plane that caught fire and went down, was LT. Meehans plane, along with all of the battalion HQ. Had Sobel not been transferred, he would have been on that plane.
All onboard were KIA.
*Company HQ as the Battalion CO was Lieutenant Colonel Strayer.
Following the action of the battles is sometimes difficult, so I highly recommend the channel Operations Room, which has top down animated videos that cover all the details of most of the battles depicted in the show. There is one about the action to take the guns at Brecourt that is shown in this episode, and whether you do a reaction to it or not it is a really good short video to watch. The videos on that channel become increasingly helpful as the series progresses due to the battles getting much more confusing, but also because it was impossible to recreate some of the future battles on the show exactly as they happened in reality...so the Operations Room's analysis will fill you in on all the variances.
Hollywood loves the grenade in a gun barrel trick - but the guns were destroyed by a TNT block down the barrel followed by a German stick grenade, which blew the breech blocks off the guns. Gun barrels are tough to take the force of firing artillery shells... but it looks cool. Grenades were used to destroy radios, telephones and ranger finders. German grenades were mostly blast, very little fragmentation, unlike allied grenades. The US d-day drops were very scattered and happened at too high a speed, for most pilots it really was their first time under fire. Stephen E Ambrose who wrote this book learned about the Pegasus Bridge assault, while doing his research, and quite inspired - wrote a book dedicated to just that. Have been to Brecourt and Ste Mere-Eglise - fascinated by all the feats of that day of days.
The real guys at the start of each episode are real guys from Easy Co who survived the war and some of those talking about their experiences are portrayed in the series itself.
The "Flash" and "Thunder" challenge/response was chosen because "thunder" was very difficult to say clearly with a German accent. So even if the Germans had learned the correct answer to slip by an American soldier, they'd probably still stand out.
That's why it pissed me off that battlestar Galaticas new version used it.
Assuming of course (as was pretty reasonable), that you didn't run into a German soldier from Eugene, Oregon :).
@anonymes2884 well there's exceptions to every rule
I consider around 6 of these episodes to be some of the best episodes of tv ever. This is one of them, and in contention for best of the series.
The opening scenes are in fact veterans of Easy Comoany 501st many of whom are depicted in the show.
My Grandad was flying a Mosquito Fighter/Bomber plane for the RAF. Doing bombing and Gun Runs on German positions/infrastructure on D-DAY+1 and onwards.
One operation was supporting US Airborne troops couple miles south of Carentan to stall the German reinforcements "Panzer Division" coming from the South and West.
Yes, the reason the beaches were so important was to move infrastructure and supplies inland. Including tanks.
The white powder you see being sprinkled on wounds is sulfa, which acts to prevent infections. As for finding the position of the big guns, scouts probably had it spotted but a 105mm howitzer is a loud gun. You could probably listen for the nearest cannon fire and find it. As for the sniper, despite all the sniper memes in movies it wouldn't be a regular part of most units. In fact, snipers were detested by most regular troops and the Geneva Convention did not protect them. A sniper taken in combat could be legally executed right up until after the Korean War.
To give a bit of perspective about mindset, there's a story (maybe apocryphal, but likely true in essence) that during the briefings for the amphibious landings on D-Day, the troops who were slated to go in in the first wave were told that command was expecting 66% casualties. As the story goes, every man in the room looked at the men on either side of him and thought, "You poor bastards."
These guys were young, new to combat, and likely carried the confidence of youth that THEY weren't going to get hit. I have no doubt that they knew, academically, that people were going to get killed, but I'd venture to guess that most of them "knew" it was going to be "the other guy" that would get it.
6:06 the German army used a LOT of horses, in fact they weren’t as mechanized as many believe due to the “Blitzkrieg” propaganda, quite a bit being dished out by the US.
10:08 the Heer (the ground army part of the Wermacht) mainly organized around the machine gun, predominantly the MG-42. It’s one of the bits about them that tends to differentiate them from other national ground forces of the era.
14:32 how else would it happen? It’s not like someone walks out and says “I am here to shoot the person walking next to you, please prepare” or “I think I’ll step on that mine there, move out of the way”.
Back in Scouts in the late 70’s and early 80’s we were often “gifted” Vietnam era meal rations, AKA C rations (specifically the MCI ones). We ate them ALL the time at campouts, especially summer camp. Having ultimately consumed MRE’s in the late 80’s, based on eating earlier Vietnam rations, I can’t even imagine how bad the WW2 K-Rations were.
If you think the story about Malarky and the German POW is wild the true story is more unbelievable.
Not only was the German from Oregon in real life, but he and Malarkey had actually worked right across the street from each other for years before the war. There is no evidence the two had ever had any memorible meetings though. They had to change it to make it more believable.
Hall hit a trip mine btw.
You will see Spiers get more intense as the series progresses.
There’s this myth that the German military in ww2 was highly “mechanized” when actually they relied on MASSIVE amounts of horse power. That actually shocked the allies.
The Axis forces in Europe always had to work with limited fuel as they had little access to oil. So though they had some very good machines, they used coal and fodder to fuel as much as possible.
The Allies deployed in trucks and armored vehicles, the Germans deployed in rail cars and horse-drawn carts.
Great reactions! I think that this episode (along with the first episode) shows the comradery found in the service. This is something to be admired about the military (as well as military families). The US (as well as Canada) is often referred to as a "melting pot" -- an "E Pluribus Unum" ("out of many, one") society. My dad was in the military. Shows like BAND OF BROTHERS do a good job showing the fraternal nature that is inherent with military service. That fraternity is experienced by the families too.
We lived most of our childhoods in and around military bases across the U.S. We had neighbors from all different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds and locations. We all became the best of friends. I think that it is because we all had to endure the same struggles that many military families faced. Many families struggled to live on military salaries. Our parents would be gone for months or even years at a time. We were happy to get a call from some foreign country on our birthdays or holidays. As difficult as those times might have been, we were all closer because of it. If someone's father or mother passed away, we felt that loss too.
That bond is very strong. To this day, I remain close with some of the people that I met when I was just a young child. In some ways, they feel more like family members than mere friends. The same is true with the people that my dad worked with in the military.
Brécourt Manor Assault
Turned out there were four 105mm artillery pieces at Brecourt. The Americans lost four men killed, and two wounded.
Winters lost one man, Pfc. John D. Halls (of A Company) from an 81 mm mortar platoon. Another, Private Robert "Popeye" Wynn, was wounded during the attack. Another casualty was Warrant Officer Andrew Hill, who was killed when he came upon the battle while searching for the headquarters of the 506th PIR(he was not actually part of the attack). Also killed were Sgt. Julius "Rusty" Houck from F Company, who was with Speirs, and one soldier from D Company under Speirs' command. Another soldier from D Company was wounded.
The German MG-42 machine gun had a rate of fire of 1200 rounds per minute. That's 20 rounds per second.
It was referred to as *Angry Moustache Model's* Buzzsaw for good reason. Design elements from the MG-42 are still used in modern belt-fed machine guns.
Best mini-series ever!!
In the European theatre, horses were the standard, the Japanese pioneered bicycle infantry. Funny effective during Vietnam
You said “There could be enemies anywhere”.
One element of Americans parachuted into the town of Sainte-Mère-Église where there were Germans who shot them all as they descended. One guy’s chute caught on the church steeple and he hung there helpless watching all his comrades butchered.
The German machine gun (MG42) was so good and ahead of its time it is still in use today. Most modern machine guns are also patterned after it in some respect.
It did need an operator with nerves of steel so he didn't fire it as fast as it could fire; MG not much use with a melted barrel.
@@adamwells9352 I recall hearing or reading somewhere that the crew for this gun was 5 men, a gunner, assistant gunner, and the rest were barrel/ammo bearers. The MG34 was really the first machine gun to have a quick-change barrel. In other words, they knew what they had.
@@Bakura5445 I'm sure they did--but musta been hard to calmly fire in controlled bursts when facing a wave of angry Russians!
👍fantastic reaction ❤🇦🇺
The MG42(which you will see often since it was now the primary MG for the Germans) was so fast firing that they had special training films about it. To break some of the horror factor of it.
The distance from Southern England to Normandy is 200 to 250 km.
This type of plane has a maximum speed of 360 km/h.
So I guess the flight would probably have taken about an hour. Not a long flight, but probably a very long time when you're all geared up and just waiting to drop into a battle.
10:34 hahaha
they can hear the cannons firing from a mile away 😆
It's still hard to believe that this is a MOVIE???😮
11:08 "Hitler's chainsaw" MG42 or earlier MG34. Notable for their terrifying fire speed and sound
Wasn't it "Hitler's buzz saw"?
@@danl.909 You are probably correct
A lot of intelligence was provided by the civilians involved in resistance. Even a young Dutch teen girl was carrying messages to downed Allied pilots hiding in woods from Germans. Her name was Audrey Hepburn!
Can I pick up on your comment "hearing a horse would be weird" you may not know this but the German army relied very heavily on horses during WWII. The popular images of Germany during the war include tanks, jets, and rockets, but the reality is that horses pulled two-thirds of the vehicles and supplied 80 percent of the German Army’s motive power. Everyday is a school day, and you have so much more to discover during this series.
OKAY MAPLENUTS, it's a little early but I think I'd like to put out there that since you are watching this it would be nice for you to commit to the entire trilogy that was done by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg!!
After the 10th of Band of Brothers there's a docu episode "We Stand Alone Together", which has more of the interviews with the veterans and it's a definite must watch with the series!!
Next on the list would be "The Pacific" which, as the title implies, is about the Marines fighting the Japanese in the Pacific theater!!
The final series is called "Masters of the Air"!
And that follows the 100th bomb group of the 8th Army Air Force!!
They were nicknamed the bloody 100th, and from 1943 through the end of the war, conducted bombing missions over occupied Europe and Germany bombing key targets, but in the process taking the heaviest losses of any branch of the military in World War II.
All three series are excellent and I would say probably 95% accurate! All were done from the writings and memoirs of the actual veterans so different people with different memories that kind of thing!!
They could not take prisoners on DDay. They needed to keep moving
In a firefight you have bullets and other explosives around you. You can't tell where they are coming from most of the time but can't afford to panic.
I was in E/506th Reenacted back 90's got to met and know the Real men of Easy- 1:02 mark I was there when we gave XXX the E/ 506 guidon (Flag) on the wall behind him, got to meet him many times and his wife he was always so much fun to listen too. i have flown in Whisky 7 (W7) the C47 that was the lead plane for the 2nd wave for the 82nd we had the door on so it was warm and not too noisy inside. The troopers would also be wearing their Wool uniform under their jump uniform so they were warm. 3:15 mark thats LT Meehan's plane crash there is now a monument in that spot honoring all those on that plane, 5:35 mark Officers were issued escape kits which they then hid the items in their uniforms (map, compass, saw, ect)
6:04 mark - SO the ambush scene is wrong - there were 3 ambushes that night. during the 1st Guarnere didn't have a weapon either during this ambush he took 2 P-38 Pistols off some dead Germans then he used those in a 2nd ambush later that morning , Were Guarnere earned the nickname "Wild Bill" then he picked up the Thompson SMG later. the Ambushes took place at a T intersection and they weren't even German troops but Georgian's Troops fighting in the service of Germany . having talked with XXX & XXXX that were there at those ambushes they were ok and understood why they had to portray it as shown for the show. Guarnere while in Normandy earned the nickname "Wild Bill" as he killed every German soldier for revenge of his brother (i had a drunk grunt too grunt talk with XXX on how Bill really earned it but i won't say here) oh you will come to like him lol 8:05 mark Yes Spier's did kill the POW's BUT not as shown here, it did happen alot on both sides esp during the opening hours as there was an order "No Prisoners" I had the honor of being walked through this attack by a few who were there and it's dam close to how it was .12:13 mark he didn't fumble the grenade another trooper was moving behind him and knocked his arm making him drop it. the gun emplacements were closer to the buildings but they don't show them here and a few details were changed but still very well done.
Yes it was a stew made with rations and some items they found per XXX who was there
@10:43 The intel was poor to lucky on D-Day, when the paratroopers hit the ground each Company had a scouting squad, there were also path finders or S2 (Intelligence officers) like Nixon who would scout for the positions and report to the HQs that would come in with more paras.
the german mg42 was known as the ..buzz saw
Much of the German army was not mechanized. They used a lot of horses.
Much of the Wehrmacht wasn't even German in Normandy at this point
the D-Day was in France, not Germany
Nearly 70 million people died during WW2!!!
Let that sink in....
Countries had lost 2 generations of families in that war alone!!!
Plus Band of Brothers was voted into the top 20 greatest tv series ever made.
Me personally it's number 1!!!
We should never forget the scale, horror and desperation of WW2!!!
I think you guys would love "Hacksaw Ridge" it's a true story about a WW2 medic that is incredible. Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying this!
This is an excellent production but real world rifle rounds don't whiz when they go by they make a quick crack or snap sound, unless they hit something and ricochet. So if you ever hear strange cracks in the air around you, sometimes followed by matching pops in the distance, you're being shot at.
Exited to follow along with Band of Brothers, its a great series :)
There were enclaves in the US made up of German immigrants, including some like Fredericksburg, TX where German was the primary language spoken at home. Even before the war started, letters were sent to homes of German immigrants asking them to return to the Fatherland. My great-grandparents received several of them, and threw them out. Other families moved back to Germany.
Keep in mind that when they say 90% of the men are unaccounted for, they literally mean that. They just haven't heard from 90% of the men yet. It doesn't mean those 90% have been killed or wounded, just that they haven't managed to report in to battalion HQ yet. D-Day was rough on the Paratroopers but not THAT rough.
Some dead, some wounded and evaced out, some pinned by nearby German troops, some fighting with other units, some just lost. Guys would show up a few at a time over the next two weeks.
And some never turned up at all. I remember a news story from the early 1970s. The French were building a bridge, and dredged up a partial skeleton and a pair of dog tags. The tags were badly corroded, but a forensics lab was eventually able to identify the body as being a corporal from the 101st. After almost 30 years, they could move him from "missing and presumed dead" to "killed in action. " A handful, as always, are MIA to this day.
Tissues after this episodes. It now gets more depressing. Especially episodes 6 and 9.
This series is an absolute masterpiece. You also MUST read Ambrose’s book, upon which this series is based.
i think no matter who you landed with even your biggest rival in the platoon you would trust them because you have to, and they would have to trust you right back. the germans flooded a lot of farmland to limit airborne landing options and bog down troops who did wind up landing there. Compton's Tomson he got from a wounded paratrooper at some point, the firing pin was broken thats why he never gets a shot off.
It was certainly not unusual to hear/see a horse .... the initial attack forces of the German Army were highly mobile mechanised tanks/trucks etc, but the majority, around 79% were horse drawn ...
If you haven’t watched all the episodes, have tissues nearby
Even in the 1940s horses were still used even in cities. More people in the US used horses or donkeys etc than cars until after ww2.
Also, the number of men and women who received driver training in the armed forces during WW2 had a profound effect on post-war society. It made suburbs and car culture possible, as well as providing job skills and mobility for hundreds of thousands of people.
Also... at this point in the war the allies had been focusing a bombing campaign on German oil refineries and the Wehrmacht was just starting to feel it's effect.
The German Army was extremely dependent on horses for their logistics. Only its most elite unit were fully motorized.
The stick greanades were german and called potato mashers by Americans.
They were dropping into a German controlled area, but not actually Germany at this point, it was France.
Buck Compton was never trained on the Thompson. He jumped into Normandy with a rifle, but picked up the Thompson very soon after that. It jammed on him because he did not put it into battery correctly. The mini-series doesn’t explain this, but are true to the events happening in the assault.
What the mini-series “invents” is the script at the end. The assault on the guns is not taught at West Point…… at least not at the time of filming. Happens a couple of times in the series. No idea why they decided to pad the heroics with that stuff. Not needed.
the real veterans at the beginning, you will know who they are in the end of the last episode. You don't know right now, thats because if you knew, you would know who survives or not.
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower Supreme Allied Commander's other speech, D-Day was never a guarantee as it seems to be.
A leader who was actually going to take responsibility for a defeat. Trump would NEVER do that. That kind of action takes courage and character.
@@newsguy5241Correct, there's no way Ike would try to pass the buck
That was our American young men!! Yours and mine,great reactions!! Thank y’all for sharing 👏👏👏👍✌️🇺🇸🇮🇱😊
unsolicited reading recommendation:
"D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches"
by Stephen E. Ambrose (Band of Brothers author)
excellent account of the first 24 hours
4:00 "Like they said, there could be enemies anywhere."
Nope, not anywhere.
Everywhere.
There is not a friendly soldier within a hundred miles (except these paratroopers where are scattered all over Normandy), but there are tens of thousands of German soldiers within that distance, all around them, surrounding them.
Everywhere.
He was sprinkling sulfa powder on the guy.
👍
Welcome Germany! (Franc) Same Germany family and Japan go back and join the Army!
I give the two of you credit for honest and empathetic reactions - I cannot stand the foolsih faces (hands on both cheeks, mouth open wide is SO fake) that reactors pull for their thumbnails. Hence I believe that what you are feeling is more genuine, and I want to know how you see things compared to me. Getting choked up when you are reminded that this isn't fiction is exactly what this show is about. It's not a long show, but a great one.
As strong a force as Marines are,They didn't do much service in Europe,Mostly fought the Japanese who were tough little Nuts..
real people doing real stuff , so you can sit there and share your thoughts.
As good as the first episode is, the first episode and the one with Tom Hanks son are my two least favorite episodes of the show. hearing a horse was not actually that weird. The german's often used horses instead of jeeps and other vehicles to move their equipment.
Good reaction 👍
Did they really just say that hearing a horse would be weird!? 🤦♂️🤯 Truly shocking lol. It's the 1940s you guys..
It's no wonder they were called The greatest generation
Occupied France.
Please watch "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin"