I forgot where I read it but apparently the paratroopers were given orders not to take prisoners if it interfered with their offensive plans.
Yes, that’s what I said and I was using definition 6 of “place”. Leading men into combat was above his level of ability; ergo his “place” was training them.
Quite a few were still alive at the time of the show- those old guys at the beginnings of the episodes are the real men themselves. For example, Dick Winters didn’t pass away until 2011, Don Malarkey in 2017, Bill Guarnere in 2014, etc.
I don’t know the percentage of them who had voluntarily enlisted vs. being drafted, but paratroopers have always been all-volunteer, so they all had volunteered at least once.
I got the impression that Sobel was not sensitive to the fact that these guys were all volunteers and they’d already proven that they were able to get their jump wings (i.e. they were elite soldiers) already. And him being the least bit incompetent at anything basic was enough for him to utterly, completely, and permanently lose their respect and confidence.
I’m not saying they treated him well, but I’m sure when you’re relying on someone to be the brains of the outfit, so to speak, you’re going to be really unwilling to follow him into battle if he can’t read a map, which is something 12 year old Boy Scouts can do. And you’re going to do anything you can to get rid of him, even if it’s underhanded, as that guy is likely to get you killed because of his incompetence, no matter how small. The chickenshit stuff was just icing on the cake; I suspect had Sobel been competent like Winters, they’d probably have grumbled, but put up with the chickenshit. But the mix was too much.
After the first it was certainly a series I was going to watch all of. Plus I’m a fan of Ron Livingston.
And as said up thread, Spielberg and Tom Hanks are going to make a good series.
I always liked the short commentary by the (at the time) survivors and that might bum me out a bit on any rewatch.
ETA: On Tom Hanks, his movie Greyhound is quite good. Fairly accurate. Not much plot. He’s the captain of a destroyer in a convoy during WWII.
BoB held up because it followed the same outfit all the way through from training to victory. The Pacific had three separate stories: John Basileone, Robert Leckie, and Eugene Sledge. It didn’t justify its expense, so Masters of the Air fell back on the earlier form. But it was on a streamer with fewer subscribers, and also lost money.
So I’ll never get to see the miniseries I’d envisioned: starting on a smoke-filled, confused battlefield, revealed to be a Civil War, not WWII battle; further revealed to be the set of The Red Badge of Courage. From there it goes into the real war experiences of Audie Murphy and Bill Mauldin: two poor kids from the American Southwest who’d make their mark.
The North African/Italian/Southern France front most exemplifies “the pity of war,” with the self-inflicted tragedy of the Italians themselves, the destruction of priceless art and architecture, the incompetence of the Allied leadership, etc. A very different war, less-followed at the time compared to Northern Europe and the Pacific, and less-remembered today.
Nope, it showed him shooting prisoners, but it could be interpreted as re-enacting the stories the soldiers were telling each other. Here’s the clip:
Band of Brothers - Legend of Speirs
Jump to 1:43 specifically.
ETA:
This is the earlier clip that you were describing:
Captain Ronald Speirs Killing Germans Part : 01 | Cigarette Scene | Band Of Brothers Ep:02
There was a series on PBS (Masterpiece Theater, maybe?) long ago about an RAF Squadron during The Battle of Britian. It was pretty good. Loved watching those Spitfires!
It was called Piece of Cake.
The paratroopers don’t much like two thirds of the people chosen to lead them. I couldn’t say if that is typical, since there are understandable reasons not to like martinets and people with very bad judgement. The story is about an élite group so they are correct to have high standards. You can clearly get in great shape, and be well trained, and still not have weekend passes cancelled over microscopic infractions. And reading maps is a basic and important skill.
But the story is also a group recollection. It’s a very popular story, and if the portrayal of Dyke and Sobel are incomplete, than there should be a chance to set the record straight, as some have attempted.
I was mistaken about Spiers, confusing the scenes.
This is exactly what is being shown. In one of the scenes, someone else is shooting the prisoners while Speirs is watching with a shocked look.
Later in the series, Speirs tells Lipton that he doesn’t deny the rumors because he feels the effect they have on the other men is useful, fear and respect.
I am pretty sure that the scene was implied to be the imaginings of the soldiers telling the story, with the story teller(s) saying that they didn’t see it happen themselves, but they knew someone who knew someone who did. It was pretty ambiguous that it even happened as portrayed in the show. They all believed it happened, but nobody actually witnessed it.
AMC is running all the Band of Brothers episodes on Memorial Day (starting this morning at 10). 12 hour Marathon 
I already purchased it on Amazon Prime.
It’s so good that even though I’ve owned it in one format or another for 20 years and watched it in entirety dozens of times, if I pass it on the TV that’s an instant stop and watch. And even on the hundredth viewing, Why We Fight is still a tough watch, as it was absolutely intended.
Because you couldn’t reliably find a place that looks like Bastogne where it is snowing just the way Spielberg wants it to and then transport the whole production there.
Plus you also need the ability to replace the snow after different takes so you don’t have foot prints and tire tracks and mud and whatnot.
I don’t really know what Sobel had such a hard-on for Winters. Other than maybe he actually was jealous because Winters was someone who was able to lead and command respect naturally and without the power of rank behind him.
It’s kept intentionally ambiguous throughout the show, even by Spiers himself.
From what I read, it’s a bit of a grey area of whether it would be a “war crime”. At the time I believe the 101st was still scattered about operating in small units and wouldn’t have the mean to safely detain or process POWs without compromising their mission.
I do know that the one character Blythe I think his name was who suffered from hysterical blindness in an early episode and then died from wounds suffered in combat actually survived the war and was decorated. So he kind of got a bum deal.
The show was still very popular.
I don’t like it as much. I think the main reason was that it covered multiple stories in different locations as opposed to just following a single company like BoB.
I highly recommend the third series “Masters of the Air” about the air war in Europe, currently streaming on AppleTV.
I would assume so. Medics would be integrated into units at the company or platoon level. So basically as soon someone started yelling “medic!” they could come running over to bandage them up, sprinkle that white “sulfa” powder on the would and maybe give them some morphine and keep them stable so they can be taken back to the battalion aid station for eventual evacuation to a hospital in the rear.
There’s an entire BoB episode focusing on one of the medics at Bastogne. You can see he spends most of his time scrounging for supplies and trying to be where the action is so he can patch up wounded. At one point he’s told “that’s as far back as it goes” meaning because Bastogne is surrounded the wounded can’t be evacuated from the church or whatever that was being used as an aid station and that short of some air drops during breaks in the weather, no more supplies were coming in.
A bunch. Mostly because it’s awesome and just runs all day on HBO on Memorial Day Weekend.
Damien Lewis (Winters) and Ron Livingston (Nixon) were obviously very good. Donnie Wahlberg was also pretty good. I always enjoy watching Dale Dye who always plays some commanding officer (and usually consultants on the production).
And the nurse featured in that episode was a real person, who died the same way. There is no record of her ever meeting Eugene Roe, but it’s likely they would have encountered one another at some point.
Hot take: I actually prefer the middle of The Pacific to the middle of Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers, like so many miniseries, has a really great first episode (or two) and a really great last episode, but in between it’s somewhat dull. I mean stuff happens, but the important character development is left mostly to the series bookends. What we get in the middle is technically impressive, but far less engaging as drama.
By contrast… I think The Pacific is roughly even throughout, possibly aided by its disconnected storylines, allowing important developments in one storyline at least as others stagnate.
I own both Band of Brothers and The Pacific on DVD, and think I have watched The Pacific more for that reason (but we’re still talking no more than I can count on one hand for each). But maybe I’m biased because I spent much of my naval career in… the Pacific (with some recurring appearances in Southwest Asia).
Neal McDonough (Buck Compton) also made a very strong impression, as basically the only competent junior officer they had.
As a former career NCO, I can say that I found the series to be a fairly accurate portrayal of military life, tactics and weapons use. Those are three things that always bother me in most military-oriented films, particularly weapons use. Controlled fields of fire are critical in combat, and there is not usually a lot of “spray and pray” going on.
No, The Pacific is not nearly as good, IMO. I really disliked it the first time around, I think mainly because it just wasn’t BoB Pacific, but felt more charitable about it upon rewatch.
I have watched BoB a couple more times and am always impressed with the attention to detail. They must have had a good advisor on the set who they actually listened to, which is not always the case.
The pettiest thing? Hard to say. There are a lot of “shit jobs” handed out when there isn’t much for the junior folks to do, usually along the lines of picking up cigarette butts and the like. I was once told by my CO to perform an action that was probably illegal (I was a Navy Chief at the time). He wanted to hide some barrels full of unknown substance prior to an EPA visit to the base. I politely refused to do that and suggested that if he wanted them moved he should give that order to the men himself. This was basically the equivalent of saying “stick that up your ass”. He backed off on it.
It’s been a long time since I watched Band of Brothers, but I do remember being so impressed that I ordered the entire DVD set, which is still available (as well as a Blu-Ray version) and comes in an appropriately military-looking metal box. Highly recommended for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
Buck Compton had an incredible post war career. Detective in the Los Angeles police dept, prosecutor in Sirhan Sirhan’s trial for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and a California Court of Appeal judge.
It’s sobering to realize one errant piece of Shrapnel could have killed him in France or Belgium. The waste of human potential in war is something that should always be remembered.
The men in Easy company went into a lot of different careers post war.
One of the extras in the DVD set that I enjoy is Ron Livingston’s video diary that includes scenes from Dale Dye’s training camp for the cast.