Another Band of Brothers Question

[eenerms]

In the episode “Why we fight” the Easy Company are in going to their next town and the pass by two men with helmets shooting three captured Germans. Who were the Helmet Men?

[wedgehed]

They looked like French uniforms to me.

[bouv]

And while we’re on the subject of prisoners getting shot in Band of Brothers.

Did Lt.Spears really shoot those German prisoners? I mean…Malarky saw him, with machine gun, go to the prisoners and offer them cigarettes, then he heard lots of firing right behind him, though I think at the time he had walked too far to see for sure if they had died.

Lt.Spears in the series says something to the effect of “If I don’t deny it, they men respect and fear me.” He kind of denies it, but again not entirely…I mean,it’s pretty clear he never really did shoot a drunken member of his platoon, but if he didn’t shoot the prisoners, why did Malarky hear gunshots from his direction?

[wedgehed]

Here’s the wiki on Ronald Speirs.

Ronald Speirs

It seems to give more credence to Speirs shooting one of his sergeants.

[ryan]

They were French troops.

[wedgehed]

I also had the impression that they weren’t regular French soldiers. I think they were wearing armbands of some kind - maybe military police or intelligence.

[interface2x]

From this page:

In the scene in which 3 German PWs are herded out of a building to be executed with gunshots to the head beside the road, I hope most of the viewing audience was aware that the executioners were FRENCH SOLDIERS, and NOT American GIs. There was no dialogue to point this out, and the only uniform difference obvious to most viewers, was the French steel helmets.

Dave Webster’s revulsion over these unnecessary late war killings was another powerful element of his writings, which was ommitted from the film. After describing how he viewed the brains of one victim “…red and yellow and purple on the snow behind him”, Webster went on to write:

“One of our replacements turned fishbelly white and vomited over the side, ‘Oh God, Oh God, Oh God’, he moaned.
The Frenchman stepped up to his last prisoner. This boy was the youngest of the three. He had never shaved. He had soft brown eyes, and a pink adolescent face that had never been creased by worry or the awareness of death. All the thoughts that old men have but that he never had crowded in an instant into his mind and came out in his eyes and on his forehead. Framed by the dark pines, he put his hands together and prayed and cried softly and waited to die. The DUKW moved forward and we heard the shot from the distance.
I turned to a cocky, bubbling young replacement who had been eager to see action. ‘There’s your goddam war!’ I said. ‘How do you like it?’ He gulped and shook his head.”

[Bijou_Drains]

French troops killed Germans? That must have been the 1st time that happened.

[Death_of_Rats]

Well, in fairness, they were unarmed, captured Germans.

[Skara_Brae]

@bouv

And while we’re on the subject of prisoners getting shot in Band of Brothers.

Did Lt.Spears really shoot those German prisoners? I mean…Malarky saw him, with machine gun, go to the prisoners and offer them cigarettes, then he heard lots of firing right behind him, though I think at the time he had walked too far to see for sure if they had died.

Lt.Spears in the series says something to the effect of “If I don’t deny it, they men respect and fear me.” He kind of denies it, but again not entirely…I mean,it’s pretty clear he never really did shoot a drunken member of his platoon, but if he didn’t shoot the prisoners, why did Malarky hear gunshots from his direction?

This is one thing that has bugged me for a while. In that scene (which was great by the way) the following dialogue takes place.

Ronald Spiers: You want to know if they’re true or not… the stories about me. Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. But then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It’s nothing new, really. I bet if you went back two thousand years, you’d hear a couple of centurions standing around, yakking about how Tertius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners.
Carwood Lipton: Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tertius deny it.
Ronald Spiers: Well, maybe that’s because Tertius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the whole Roman Legion.

My question: Who the hell is Tertius? I tried to google him, but all I could find was about the apostle (and the muscle.) Neither were involved in Carthaginian slaughter, I think…

[Lightray]

Tertius is a stand-in name for “generic Roman legion officer”. He meant that officers have been doing the same thing as long as there’ve been army officers.

Speirs himself never confirmed nor denied that incident; IIRC his step-son kinda-sorta thought something like that might have happened, but greatly exaggerated… and then Speirs did nothing to prevent the exaggeration.

Dave Webster’s revulsion over these unnecessary late war killings was another powerful element of his writings, which was ommitted from the film…

David Webster’s book Parachute Infantry has a lot of stuff ommitted from the miniseries. In fact, the miniseries Webster is an utter fiction without any resemblance into the real Webster. The miniseries authors re-wrote him to get whatever scene they wanted. Most irritating thing about the whole BoB miniseries.

He was actually a far more insightful guy than he comes across in the miniseries. Reading his book, you realize that he’d never have been the schmuck standing up shouting at the defeated Germans as they pass by. And that he’d never have volunteered to go on the Last Patrol. Which, in fact, he didn’t.

[Skara_Brae]

@Lightray

Tertius is a stand-in name for “generic Roman legion officer”. He meant that officers have been doing the same thing as long as there’ve been army officers.

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you!

[nabor37]

They were Russian soldiers. The helmets were typical Russian. After the attempted German invasion of Russia the atrocities they committed against Russian civilians, the Russian troops showed no mercy to any captured Germans.

[terentii]

@nabor37

They were Russian soldiers. The helmets were typical Russian. After the attempted German invasion of Russia the atrocities they committed against Russian civilians, the Russian troops showed no mercy to any captured Germans.

What would Russians be doing in Normandy? I’ve heard of the Germans sending Russian “volunteers” to man the Atlantic Wall, but I didn’t know they were ever given free leave to roam the countryside and kill Germans once the Western Allies had landed.

I’ve seen photos of Free French troops landing in Normandy. They were wearing British “Tommy” uniforms, but with the crested French helmets.

I haven’t seen BoB in a while, so I don’t recall exactly how the execution squad was dressed.

[Ken001]

Let us not be naive. War is cold and brutal. Death is ordinary and banal.

I remember meeting an American soldier from WWII in Mexico City. Maybe because we were Kiwis, maybe because of the time and place. He was a tanker commander and described coming across GIs crucified on barbed wire as he moved forward. From that day his crew not longer bothered to take prisoners.

Completely understand able.

[Lightray]

@terentii

I haven’t seen BoB in a while, so I don’t recall exactly how the execution squad was dressed.

They were French troops.

[clairobscur]

@terentii

What would Russians be doing in Normandy?

The scene takes place in germany, not Normandy. And they’re French soldiers.

I’ve seen photos of Free French troops landing in Normandy. They were wearing British “Tommy” uniforms, but with the crested French helmets.
.

Probably rather in Provence, during operation Dragoon. There was only one French bataillon engaged in Normandy.