Stephen E Ambrose - Unravelling The Truth About The Man Who Created Band of Brothers
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- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2024
- I loved the Stephen Ambrose books when I first got into studying WW2 as they were written more like a story than a complicated military piece. Unfortunately though, the man did his readers a disservice in more ways than one.
I have to mention this for lay people. Stuff like this is why you don't just read ONE book on a subject or just ONE author, it's highly recommended to read multiple books and authors on the same subject. Setting the plagiarism shit aside for a moment, any historian/author is only as good as the information that is available to them at the time of writing, so in this case if Ambrose was writing in 1990-1991 for BoB, he only had what was available to him during that time and even if you try to release updated editions with better information, there will always be things you miss and it doesn't always come from "laziness" (sometimes archives are not as organized, certain veteran correspondence is not available, some facts are not verified at time of writing hence left out, or the author isn't looking in the right places by accident). Then add the plagarism concerns on top of Ambroses' faults and you can see why it would be concerning if ordinary folks only took his book as gospel rather than taking it in as just another source of information that needs to be seen in context with other sources.
Even the good historians (leaving out the ones writing in bad faith) get shit wrong or don't have everything they need to offer the complete 100% "factual" story, that's why there are continuing studies and writings on the same subjects. Also, when history goes through years of analaysis, different schools of thought emerge that are always influenced by the social/cultural environment around them and sometimes the author is not cognizant of it. For example, I have two history books of the Mongol Empire in my collection, one is written in 1907 and another in 2004 on the same subject, but both have VERY different aspects and conclusions they come to just because they were written under different social zeitgeists about how to view Asian societies.
Thanks, well said.
Also keep in mind the newer one could be woke bull
I read Compton's book and he stated Ambrose conducted a 30 minute phone interview mostly about Brecourt Manor and that was all. He said anything else about him in the book was someone else's recollection. Ed Shames lived not far from where I live and in a radio interview stated that when he was sent a draft of Band Of Brothers to read through he found over 220 mistakes. So no, I don't think you were too hard on Ambrose.
Thank you. Its hard to know how people will react.
THANK YOU for this video. I have long upheld that Band of Brothers isn't the iron-clad historical "gospel" so many people seem to think it is, and I've caught a little bit of shit for voicing these opinions. But you've done the actual objective research into the official records that reveals the actual truth. Great job.
Thanks mate I appreciate it.
Combat War history as its’ own story is always great enough to stand on it’s own. It doesn’t need embellishment.
Well said.
The best thing I can say is that my dad is in one of his books (DDay)
I like Band of Brothers, but I always dread watching the Blithe episode and it has me questioning other things in the series and stuff The Pacific as well. Great video 👍 Peace ✌🏻
I agree although the Pacific has the advantage that the source material was written mostly by the actual veterans, in Sledge's case a lot of it during his service, so it feels much more accurate (the books, not the show)
@@beltranarana478 Okay, yeah makes sense.
The interviews of the Veterans was done by a film crew Hanks & Playtone sent out for a documentary about the men ,We stand alone together.
Good story mate. The Blithe story is the one that has me questioning a lot of presented movie/series nowadays. There appears to be a lot of 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story' and it surely has effect on those that are being put in the spotlight.
Thanks mate. Go the Lions.
A true history lover with passion is all about the real true facts & research & lives for getting to the truth or as close as possible & uncovering things & previously hidden facts.etc.
When a historian passes off writings as history, then the facts should be straight. When fact is replaced with hyperbole or fictional accounts of events that never occurred, the work can no longer be considered history. So shall we say, his work is excellent works of fiction based on actual events. Which is not history. Therefore a man who writes such works of fiction, can hardly be honored as a renowned historian. You weren't harsh enough in my honest opinion. The annals of history are full of such works, because the story suited the writer, or the political environment at the time best as written versus what actually happened.
Thank you and I agree with what you say.
Well said!!
That was very well expressed and I agree with your statement.
Check out Mark Bandos books on the 101st and 2nd Armored Division if you are lucky enough to find them. Mark has forgotten more about the 101st than Ambrose ever knew. The producers of the series knew of Mark's knowledge but never contacted him as far as I know.
Yes Bando is an incredible wealth of knowledge. I'm trying to get his permission to pass on a lot of work in my videos. Its very difficult to find his books as you say. And the writers of Band of Brothers completely ignored the guy.
A lot of Ambrose bashing here in the comment section. Fair enough. I enjoy his works and have a small Ambrose collection. I’m sure that he is flawed in his works. So be it. Who isn’t. As I wrote previously, I am a son of a CSM 41 year vet. I’ve been to many reunions and heard tons of stories. They are all recollections. Many vets will correct other's stories and so on. Read A Time for Trumpets by Charles B MacDonald. He was the US Armies historian. He fought from Normandy through the Battle of the Bulge. It's very comprehensive yet dry and hard to read at times. Ambrose made history more interesting to read. And if it wasn’t for him there never would have been such an enlightenment on WWII. What gets me is after the success of BoB a lot of E Co vets cashed in on books with their versions. If they wrote them prior to the series no one would know. So, let’s be appreciative of what Ambrose has done for all of these wonderful vets that their deeds will always be preserved. Great video series. I enjoy them and the comments from others as well. Keep up the good work.
Pegasus Bridge is still one of my all time favorite books despite being written by Ambrose. I very much liked his style, you just need to cross check anything you really want to know the truth about.
Have it. Great story. It’s my favorite scene in the movie TheLongest Day. My favorite Ambrose book is Undaunted Courage.
One has to remember that like all of us, with age comes memory deterioration and misremembering .
Most of us want to know the exact truth with all its gritty details, but that is an impossibility to some degree.
Take five veterans and get their testimony about one specific combat action and you will get five different versions with similarities.
I think that your assessment of Ambrose was accurate.
I had always noticed the lack of certain E Company members when it came to interviews and any publicity around the show.
That's why it's always tricky to work from primary sources because they are just as vulnerable to that sort of thing. Even if you get their contemporary recollections what one veteran remembers and recalls will sometimes contradict another veteran at the time. That's also factoring in what their exact POV is, an airborne infantryman in 2-506th isn't gonna necessarily know what's going on in 1-506th or any other division, just their exact unit. If I recall, the reason alot of the Norman Dyke was portrayed the way it was was because the NCOs and enlisted guys had a different relationship with him versus how Winters and other officers did.
Weren't there also issues with the Eisenhower bio? IIRC, he claimed to have spent hours with the President, and according to official diaries they barely met.
I haven't heard that one. Sounds like a good research topic.
there was, he claimed he spent hundreds of hours with Eisenhower while writing his biography during a lecture he once did and claimed he became friends with him. the Eisenhower estate found that they rarely met at all because in his later years all his meetings were logged/archived and time sensitive because of his health
Another claim is that he stumbled upon Ambrose's book about halleck and randomly called him out of the blue to do a biography, when in reality Ambrose asked him if he could do a book on him and Eisenhower looked into him and then gave his consent to do it. Once in awhile I see odd comments about him from other historians who worked with him and they described him as cavalier
I received A Company of Heroes and the first chapter is an interview with Gordon Blithe, Albert Blithe’s son. On page 4 he indicated that he received emails from Hanks and Spielberg apologizing for the oversight. He also indicated that in the BoB Blu Ray the interactive guide states that his father died in 1967, not 1948.
That's very interesting, Ill have to look that up. Its never been stated publicly (apology)
@@War_And_Truth Gordon thinks that the mistake about his father’s death may have arisen because Heffron and Guarnere thought he had died and that they attended Blythe’s funeral.
I think you were fair with Ambrose's work.
Thanks
Excellent script and presentation of this difficult material. Thanks for helping the truth of things come to light. It seems that so many important details have been either overlooked due to sloppy research, or left out for personal reasons that should never be a consideration of a historian. We want the truth. The glorious truth, the hard truth, and the ugly truth. Just tell us the truth.
Some minor examples, but having been left out, cause people to come to wrong conclusions. The saga of Bill Guarnere and David Webster. Guarnere and Webster were both wounded in the leg in Holland. Webster was evacuated to England. Guarnere was not. He was sent to a hospital in France, which implies a less serious wound, but I don't know. Guarnere attempted to go AWOL from the hospital to return to his unit. He was caught and demoted summarily to private (US Army discipline was quite different than it is now). Court-martial papers were supposedly forwarded. Shortly afterwards, Gaurnere was released and sent back as a Private. Captain Winters promoted him to sergeant immediately, but this appears to never have been formalized, or if it was, the paperwork was lost. Webster on the other hand, could not have returned to his unit without permission because it would have been impossible to return from England to France without proper authorization. But because all this was glossed over and not represented properly, we are left with the false notion that Gaurnere successfully went AWOL from a hospital to return to his unit without consequence. But much worse, that David Webster was some sort of shirker who lingered in hospital to avoid his duty.
Also, the "mutiny of the Sergeants" was not accurately told either. But I'll hold off on that for now.
Thanks for the info. There were a lot of issues with Webster in the last patrol as well. I will get to he and Guarnere in the near future.
Thank you for bringing this to attention. Take care.
Thanks, you too!
I think it's important to credit Ambrose for raising the profiles of a remarkable group of men. We are richer for knowing about their experiences. The 'however' is that Ambrose was, at times, extremely sloppy as a historian. Had Ambrose applied your own rigor to his research, the B-o-B book and show might have been more accurate. The danger with what Ambrose and Hanks did is that viewers take a movie or show as gospel. Real individuals with genuine experiences consequently risk having their stories misrepresented, and that is unforgivable.
Outstanding video! My own opinion is that you were not too harsh at all. It’s important to get things right for the sake of the real people who are the subjects of historical accounts and for the sake of history itself. Since first stumbling across your channel I grew to admire your devotion to accuracy. Your standards are in stark contrast to those of lazy writers who allow glaring errors to appear in publications that are consumed by audiences of millions. I hope you keep up your excellent work. 5 Stars from me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️
Many thanks as usual. I really appreciate the comments.
Wouldn't expect anything more Hanks on THE flight list and Speilberg after that poor girl from poltergeist. 😢
I hear a lot of that.
The portrayal of Norman Dike left a bad taste in my mouth.
I’ve reordered Company of Heroes. I think there’s something in there.
A fair summation, but if you are going to call out errors or alledged plagiarism, you really should provide footnotes and references .
RUclips is competitive. I'm not willing to give away where I source my information.
Wow what a twist. Usually it's hollywood twisting the story to suit themselves, not correcting history from a suppossed historian.
I loved Wild Blue. The story about the 454 BG in Italy and a guy named George McGovern. My father as a member of the 450th Bomb Group flew missions with the 454th.
Hate to think Stephen got that one wrong too now.
It seems he got it right because he took a lot of the text from other writings.
@@War_And_Truthoh jeez.😣
I think you were entirely too lenient on Stephen E. Ambrose. He was a bad historian, a lazy author and generally a lousy human being . . .
Lol Yeah I copped a lot with the Lewis Nixon video and I don't want to get sued by Ambrose' family If I get something wrong. The family still runs a pretty big empire.
@@War_And_Truth Understandable! Understandable! lol
I liked Ambrose until I read his book Comrades in which he admitted that he was against Reagan, had voted for Carter in 76, and voted for him AGAIN in 1980 even after experiencing the man in action for 4 years. He was also against the Vietnam war and because he described himself as a "Scholar and teacher" I wondered if his opposition was because he was ensconced in the academic world or because he saw young men going off to (or avoiding) the horrors of war or because he was against the manner the war was executed.
That a military historian who wrote about Hitler and the Japanese gobbling up country after country and understood the murderous toll of Mao and the Soviets was opposed to standing up against the spread of Communism during the hieght of the Cold War astounds me. I know I am touching on several topics superficially.
Ambrose crawls up Ike's ass and damns Nixon as being friendless and without the gift of "Character." I wondered what he attributed the ability of Nixon to keep fighting back throughout his lifetime, time and again.
I was disappointed and disgusted with Ambrose.
@@wingtip7149 For all my dislike of Ambrose, I will not condemn him for having the same views as my WW2 combat veteran grandfather about Carter, Reagan, Nixon and Vietnam . . .
Thanks for reply. I am echoing my WWI combat veteran grandfather and my WW2 veteran parents(WAC and Navy) views on same. Be well.@@bubbagump2341
I think it's also time we stopped giving the "they're miss remembering" when it comes to some of the stories veterans tell. I read Winters' book and personally felt he came across as arrogant and self-absorbed. Ambrose is a hack, yes. But if he's using stories told by veterans, then they need to wear some of the blame if they're not true also.
They are all to blame in some capacity. Some of the veterans did the right thing and just refused to speak. I don't know, the relationship between Winters - Ambrose - Hanks was a strange one. They made an empire of the Band of Brothers/Saving Private Ryan franchise. And most of it was from 'telling stories'.
@@War_And_Truth Tom Hanks is an actor. He is a wonderful actor. He is an accomplished actor and entertainer. He describes himself as an amateur historian though and he is right. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are giants of Hollywood but their “historical” movies 🎥 are certainly not paragons of accuracy. The popularity of their work has served to “educate” masses of people, which has its own tremendous benefits, but serious students of history need to fact check virtually everything they publish.
Ambrose was a popular Historian - not an academic one - though he may have started that way.
I attribute the problem to sloppiness. All of his plagiarism issues were because he failed to put others words in quotes. Quoting others works - with attribution - is fine. You just have to do those two things. One - use quotes and two - attribute your quotation.
Academically - he would have had his head handed to him for screwing that up - but - commercially? Commercially it was more important to get that next book out - than it was to spend twice or three or more times longer - getting all those little details right.
I have a Masters in History and - yes - you are supposed to do that - but people screw up and the more you try to do in a short amount of time - the more you are going to screw up.
Personally - I don't believe that Ambrose actually wrote all his books. The impression that I have - is that he had a commercial enterprise with authors working under him. He would have been responsible for what was published under his name - but - he may not have been the one who actually wrote it. This would go long way to explaining the sloppiness you see.
Again - yes - his real contribution to History - was in popularizing it.
What Hanks and Spielberg were proud of - was the *_relative_* accuracy of what they had done.
If you compare these works to others - Hollywood just flat didn't give a shit.
Look at the movie made on Sullenberger. Sullenberger himself was incensed at the way the NTSB was portrayed.
The thing is - Hollywood uses formula's. The basic formula is the hero who triumphs over the villain. To do that - you have to have a villain. In the movie _Sully_ the NTSB was made the villain. It was them or the Geese - so it was them. IRL those guys *_LOVED_* Sullenberger. He had saved them from looking at a hangar full of dead bodies - which they may well have previously done. They loved him. But - in absence of The Geese - they were all Hollywood had.
The same thing happened in the movie _Money Ball_ where the manager of the team was made the villain - despite the fact that he had supported Billy in what he was doing. The fat kid in the movie - didn't exist IRL. He was entirely made up - for whatever movie reasons.
So - compared to some of the other things Hollywood turns out - yes - Hanks and Spielberg did a pretty good job.
THEN you have Revisionist Historians ... and don't get me started on those guys. Anything you see with the words "Unknown", "Forgotten" or "Secret" in the titles - those are going to be Revisionist Histories. Here - if they don't have something different to say than has already been said - why would anyone buy their book?
Look at - _Shattered Sword: _*_The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway_* (my emphasis).
These guys admit in their book that they are Revisionist Historians.
The standard on that battle was Walter Lord's _Incredible Victory_ . Despite the fact that Lord actually helped them before he died - they chose to state that the battle as NOT an Incredible Victory.
Here - the way they twist this around - is when Lord wrote his book - HE was talking about all the forces available to Japan - whereas Parshall and Tully - were only talking about the actual ships that took part in the immediate battle - not even including all the other Japanese ships that were part of the rest of the Japanese Fleet.
Given what the Americans had to work with - yes - it was an Incredible Victory - not just because of the odds - but because of what that victory meant. Kido Butai had gone around the Pacific with it's six fleet carriers and 400 aircraft just stomping on people - and after Midway - 2/3rds of it was at the bottom of the sea.
That's what Revisionist Historians do - they mealy mouth things and twist around the meanings of them - to make it look like they've discovered something new - which they have not.
I have mixed feelings about this book (and I'm not the only one) - because while they did excellent research - their conclusions are stupid. That and they engage in outright Character Assassination against Mitsuo Fuchida.
Yet - their book was really popular and they've spent a good bit of time guesting on peoples videos on RUclips.
So ... History is hard to write. I hate to read my thesis because it's published now and I can't go through it without finding something I want to change ...
So ... yes ... Ambrose did screw up a lot - but - he did play a role in popularizing History to a lot of people who otherwise just had Hollywood's version of things to go by. Hanks and Spielberg aren't perfect - but they really did try - and what you get out of the rest of Hollywood is the opposite of that.
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Thank you so much for your comment.
The greatest historian of the 20c is A P T Taylor
Compton, in his own book denied having a breakdown.
He must have said it prior to the series being made as he flat out told Neal McDonough he 'cracked up' in those exact words. Ambrose had to take it out of the book and I would have imagined that the vets even in 2001 would have protested had the story not been true.
A lot of what is written in those books comes from notes decades old.
@@War_And_Truth it was in his book, which was written after the series because he talks about how it was portrayed and it wasn't true
@@58biggles Well I don't know what's going on with that. Nobody complained about it. Very strange.
@@War_And_Truth it certainly does seem odd.
Loving the videos though.
@@58biggles Thanks
Greatest historian of the 20th century is Fernand Braudel.
You have astronauts and you have astronomers. Writers hardly ever get it right, even with local news stories. The actors will always get more, because they are an effigy of the real man. Not just a story or someone who studied it.
I have never been an Ambrose fan as I didn’t find his writing particularly good and not as good as other WW II historians although we do have to thank him for writing BoB for without the book there is no series. In the HBO podcast I do believe Hanks apologized for the Blithe error or made a half apology.
Id love to know where Hanks made an apology if you can find out. I have only seen Winters corrected the story (but not apologize as he didn't make the error)
@@War_And_TruthIt’s been a few years since I listened to the podcast so I’d have to go back and listen to the first episode to see what he said. Hopefully, my memory is not faulty.
By the way, did you know that Folio Society is issuing a special edition of Band of Brothers?
@@bradlewin8 If its the HBO podcast he doesnt mention Blithe but there were quite a few. No I didn't know that. Ill check it out thanks.
@@War_And_Truth Yes, it’s the HBO podcast, the one hosted by Roger Bennett.
@@War_And_Truth I went back and looked at the transcript of the Hanks episode as well as the Carentan episode and couldn’t find any apology or explanation for the Blythe error so obviously I was mistaken. It must have been elsewhere. It could have been in the chapter of Blythe in Marcus Brotherton’s A Company of Heroes but I wouldn’t swear to it.
One thing I think is somewhat unfair is blaming Ambrose for his own success. While it seems if your research is accurate that he did take liberties with the truth, probably for narrative purposes, can it really be said that these inaccuracies alone are what made his books such a powerful draw? If he had included that Blithe died 20 years later, would the book’s sales really have been affected? At all? I think probably not.
Also, if any one of those lesser known authors who struggled in the shadow of Ambrose’ massive sales had himself blown up and become a huge success, we would probably now be leveling the same criticism against that person.
Sooo, I think taking a high altitude perspective on the whole thing, I appreciate the fact that Ambrose brought popular attention to an incredible largely accurate true story of American heroes. And reinvigorated interest in a massively important part of our history, parts of which continue to have relevance even at this very moment.
I think most people recognize his contribution to the WW2 space. Personally, I think he was just trying to make a lot of money while the going was good and he simply cut corners. If his kids were doing a lot of the research, how often did he fact check their work? It just sounds like a bit of an amateur (like me) production.
Paging Kamala Harris....Paging Kamala Harris.
Damn your hard on ambrose....you crap on Bevohor or Glantz.
You are the first who has said I wasn't hard enough lol
God do i hate it when you say WW2, its fine as short hand in writing but should defeatedly spoken as world war two, or more accurately 'the second world war'
No problem, I wont abbreviate it anymore. I wasn't sure how it would sound (I'm deaf so I have no idea)