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Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Paperback – September 6, 2001
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They came together, citizen soldiers, in the summer of 1942, drawn to Airborne by the $50 monthly bonus and a desire to be better than the other guy. And at its peak—in Holland and the Ardennes—Easy Company was as good a rifle company as any in the world.
From the rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the disbanding in 1945, Stephen E. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. In combat, the reward for a job well done is the next tough assignment, and as they advanced through Europe, the men of Easy kept getting the tough assignments.
They parachuted into France early D-Day morning and knocked out a battery of four 105 mm cannon looking down Utah Beach; they parachuted into Holland during the Arnhem campaign; they were the Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne, brought in to hold the line, although surrounded, in the Battle of the Bulge; and then they spearheaded the counteroffensive. Finally, they captured Hitler's Bavarian outpost, his Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden.
They were rough-and-ready guys, battered by the Depression, mistrustful and suspicious. They drank too much French wine, looted too many German cameras and watches, and fought too often with other GIs. But in training and combat they learned selflessness and found the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They discovered that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them.
This is the story of the men who fought, of the martinet they hated who trained them well, and of the captain they loved who led them. E Company was a company of men who went hungry, froze, and died for each other, a company that took 150 percent casualties, a company where the Purple Heart was not a medal—it was a badge of office.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSimon & Schuster
- Publication dateSeptember 6, 2001
- Dimensions6.25 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-109780743224543
- ISBN-13978-0743224543
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Editorial Reviews
Review
The New York Times Book Review As a member of just such a unit...I am impressed by how well Mr. Ambrose has captured the true essence of a combat rifle company.
The Times-Picayune A valuable and fascinating record...In these pages, the reader can vicariously walk with the men of E Company, suffer and laugh with them.
Publishers Weekly This is a terrific read for WWII action buffs.
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 074322454X
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster; Media Tie-In edition (September 6, 2001)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780743224543
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743224543
- Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #199,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19 in Military Regiment History
- #276 in Military Aviation History (Books)
- #1,733 in World War II History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Dr. Stephen Ambrose was a renowned historian and acclaimed author of more than 30 books. Among his New York Times best-sellers are: Nothing Like It in the World, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, D-Day - June 6, 1944, and Undaunted Courage.He was not only a great author, but also a captivating speaker, with the unique ability to provide insight into the future by employing his profound knowledge of the past. His stories demonstrate how leaders use trust, friendship and shared experiences to work together and thrive during conflict and change. His philosophy about keeping an audience engaged is put best in his own words: "As I sit at my computer, or stand at the podium, I think of myself as sitting around the campfire after a day on the trail, telling stories that I hope will have the members of the audience, or the readers, leaning forward just a bit, wanting to know what happens next." Dr. Ambrose was a retired Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans. He was the Director Emeritus of the Eisenhower Center in New Orleans, and the founder of the National D-Day Museum. He was also a contributing editor for the Quarterly Journal of Military History, a member of the board of directors for American Rivers, and a member of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council Board. His talents have not gone unnoticed by the film industry. Dr. Ambrose was the historical consultant for Steven Spielberg's movie Saving Private Ryan. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks purchased the film rights to his books Citizen Soldiers and Band of Brothers to make the 13-hour HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. He has also participated in numerous national television programs, including ones for the History Channel and National Geographic.
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One of the things that sets "Band of Brothers" apart from other WWII histories is the way it manages to humanize the soldiers of Easy Company. These men are not just faceless soldiers, but fully realized characters with their own hopes, fears, and flaws. The camaraderie and bond that develops between them is palpable and makes their triumphs and tragedies all the more poignant.
Additionally, Ambrose does an excellent job of putting the events of the war into context and explaining the larger strategic decisions being made by the Allied powers. This helps to give a more complete understanding of the war and how it impacted the soldiers of Easy Company.
Overall, "Band of Brothers" is a must-read for anyone with an interest in WWII or military history. It is a powerful and moving tribute to the men of Easy Company and their service to their country, and I would give it a full 5 stars without hesitation.
Stephen Ambrose tells the remarkable true story of E Company, just such a group of guinea pigs. E Company fought with distinction at Normany and in Holland, plugged a key gap in the Battle of the Bulge, and was in on the rather haphazard, MASHian ramsacking of the remains of Hitler's little paradise in the Bavarian clouds.
The heart and soul of E Company was Dick Winters, a soft-spoken, teatotalling (NOT the norm) and kindly CO who works his way up to major by war's end, and who had the occasional Seargent York / Incredible Hulk moments, when Germans fall to the dozen. But after Winters has been promoted out of (much) direct action, Ambrose's spotlight falls more commonly upon the NCOs who provide the backbone of the company from the Battle of the Bulge on. Ambrose sugar-coats nothing: he relates acts of cruelty, drunken folly (too many to count), random acts of fate, and sheer stupidity, injustice, corruption (the front-line troops were robbed blind, and they robbed the locals), and incompetence. Though I have to say, Winters is the only character who really comes alive for me, along with a young writer from Harvard who refuses to be promoted, but does his job and writes competently about what he sees. (I think Ambrose exagerates his talent a bit, but that's fine -- he was at the right place at the right time with a competent pen, that's good enough.) Also Lieutenant Sobel, the hard-case CO against whom the troops rebel, and who gets left behind in England, and grows bitter. The others have their moments on stage, exit left, and are gone. By the end of the book, it's a bit hard to keep track. One comes to realize that with its high casualty and replacement rate, Company E has pretty much replaced all its original cells and we're talking about a new group of men almost entirely.
Ambrose was not, in my opinion, a great styllist. I was reading Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff at the same time I read this, and there is no comparison. Wolfe is truly brilliant. What Ambrose succeeds at most remarkably, is his act of historical reconstruction. This book involved interviewing survivors of E Company on or about 1990, some 45+ years after the fact, along with relentless gathering, reading, and sifting of written reports.
As an historian of religion, I found the undeniable success of Ambrose's methodology particularly interesting. Some skeptics claim that the human memory is too frail a reed, too unreliable and suggestible, for historical reports written decades after the fact to be trustworthy. I think Ambrose shows them wrong. Given that the gospels were written under somewhat similiar circumstances -- 35-60 years after the fact, based apparently on the eyewitness testimony of many once young men (mostly) who had traveled together for a few years and experienced and witnessed traumatic and remarkable events -- I think Ambrose's success (despite occasionally contradictory sources) should give those skeptics pause.
Read the book, and experience World War II from the front lines, as it was really fought. (Without needing to sleep in frozen foxholes with artillery rounds blowing up trees over your head.) Highly recommended. (Along with Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff.)
I highly recommend it and should be required reading in high school history classes.
The young Americans today should have a knowledge of what it took for them to live in freedom in this great country of outd.