Band of Brothers, They Helped Defeat Hitler (Episode 3 Carentan)

NOTE: "Band of Brothers" is a highly realistic World War Two miniseries from HBO in 2001. Part of the "realism" is the profanity used; so, if you are sensitive to such language, the miniseries is definitely not for you. Also, there are numerous highly bloody scenes of killed or wounded soldiers, and scenes of people in a concentration camp, who have been the subject of horrendous treatment. So here too, if you are sensitive to these kinds of scenes, it is probably a good thing if you skip viewing the miniseries. As for this article and those I'll be doing about the miniseries, I have tried to keep things from being too blatant.

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This very realistic HBO series is based on the book "Band of Brothers" by historian Stephen Ambrose. Remember, this is NOT a documentary nor an actual reenactment, but rather a series with characters representing the actual men, with their real names, of East Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The series does present events and actions that the men of Easy Company related to Stephen Ambrose, the historian who wrote the book. In the book's "Acknowledgements and Sources," Ambrose writes that he "circulated the manuscript of this book to the men of Easy Company." He goes on to say there were criticisms, corrections and suggestions offered by the men, and that Richard Winters and Carwood Lipton were heavily involved in reviewing the book, the original publication of which was in 1992, while the first airing of the miniseries was in 2001. 

 

As I write about this series, I'll likely use a man's army rank on occasion, but for the most part, I'll use last names, just as the men do. The cast of this series is so large, I decided not to list it, as it would have been overwhelming, although I did decide to list just a few names of the cast who portrayed the men most seen, most heard and most heard about in the stories presented in this series. Believe me, the whole cast is likely 8 or 10 times as large as those I list here, and everyone did a great job.

 

Just a little comment and information here about Private John Hall, who was killed on D-Day, while helping some of the Easy Company men destroy a German 105mm artillery battery that was shelling American troops on Utah Beach (covered in previous segment on Episodes 1 & 2). Historian Stephen Ambrose didn't supply a lot of information on this young man in the book "Band of Brothers;" in fact, Ambrose mentions him in a couple of sentences of one paragraph of the book, ending with Winters ordering an attack on one of the German artillery positions, and that "Hall led the way and got killed." (In fairness, there may not have been much more Ambrose could have found out from the survivors of Easy Company when he interviewed them for his 1992 book, as Hall was not from their unit.) The miniseries gives Hall an expanded role, and he is called "a New Yorker," but his name was actually "John D. Halls" (with an 's'), and he was from Colorado. Note also, incredibly there was another paratrooper John D. Hall (no 's') who died when the transport he was on went down on the night of the jump into Normandy. In the series, Halls and Winters are alone, without any idea of where they are in Normandy. The young man is naturally nervous, but Winters talks with him about other things to help settle him down. Just prior to the ambush on the German troops and wagon, Winters gives Halls some responsibility when he tells Guarnere, "You and Hall up front," which brings Guarnere's retort, "Who the hell's Hall?" Later, when Winters is assigning tasks to his men for the attack on the German artillery battery, Halls obviously wants to take part, but he is left out, as he is not part of Easy Company, but later, he shows up at the fighting, and when Winters says he needs TNT, Halls says, "I have TNT, sir," which brings Winters to say, "Good job, Private!" We see throughout the miniseries that Winters tries to encourage the men, not humiliate them. The miniseries shows Halls being killed by stepping on a mine, with an obviously pained Lieutenant Winters stopping briefly when he sees Halls' body. Near the end of the episode, in a brief scene, a visibly affected Lieutenant Winters tells his friend Lewis Nixon about Halls being killed. Nixon tries to take his friend's mind off of Halls' death by talking about a German map with their artillery locations that was captured by Winters in the fighting at the German artillery battery, but it doesn't change Winters' solemn mood. (While the scenes with Halls seem to have been largely written for the script, the fact is, that young man died that day in the service of his country, age 22. He undoubtedly had parents and other family members who mourned his loss. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star for his actions that day. At least the series gave him a little recognition. He is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.)

       

Partial Cast

 

Damian Lewis as Lieutenant, then Captain, then Major Richard Winters

Ron Livingston as Lieutenant, then Captain Lewis Nixon

Scott Grimes as Private, then Sergeant Donald Malarkey 

Shane Taylor as Medic Eugene "Doc" Roe

Donnie Wahlberg as Sergeant Carwood Lipton 

Michael Cudlitz as Sergeant Denver "Bull" Randleman

Frank John Hughes as Sergeant Bill "Wild Bill" Guarnere

Rick Gomez as Technician 4th Grade George Luz

Kirk Acevedo as Staff Sergeant Joe Toye

James Madio as Technician 4th Grade Frank Perconte

Eion Bailey as Private David Kenyon Webster

Dexter Fletcher as Sergeant John Martin

Ross McCall as Technician Fifth Grade Joseph Liebgott

Neal McDonough as Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton

Nicholas Aaron as Private Robert "Popeye" Wynn 

David Schwimmer as Lieutenant> Captain Herbert Sobel 

 

This is the link to the first segment I did covering Parts 1 ("Currahee")  & 2 ("Day of Days"): 

 

https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2023/08/band-of-brothers-they-helped-defeat.html 

 

Part Three "Carentan"- June 8, 1944- This part opens with a paratrooper, helmet in hand, staring up at the sky. Three other Easy Company men, led by Sergeant Floyd Talbert (played by Matthew Leitch), see him, and Talbert calls out "Blithe .... Hey Blithe." The soldier finally turns, puts on his helmet as he walks over to the three men, telling them, "You're the first familiar faces I've seen." When the four men get into town, where the 2nd battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment has its headquarters, Liebgott shows them a Nazi flag he has taken, and Floyd "Tab" Talbert pulls out a German army camouflage poncho. Private Albert Blithe (played by Marc Warren) goes and joins some other men, including Frank Perconte, who pulls up one of his sleeves to reveal some wrist watches he's taken from dead German soldiers. Even though we haven't seen Blithe for very long, he seems to be disconnected from the war. Lieutenant Harry Welsh (played by Rick Warden), commander of the 1st Platoon of Easy Company, calls the men together to tell them they are to take the town of Carentan, a town of about 4000 inhabitants in those days. 

 

The men set off, but after losing contact with the company ahead of them, Corporal Hoobler (played by Peter McCabe) and Private Blithe are sent ahead to make contact with the other company, which they do, and Blithe is then sent back to inform Easy Company. On his way back, Blithe turns and sees a German soldier facing him by a tree, but Lieutenant Winters comes out of the bushes and tells him the man is dead. Lewis Nixon is with Winters and he tells them the German is a Fallschirmjäger, the word for paratrooper in German. The dead soldier has an edelweiss in his lapel (Edelweiss is a flowering plant from the Alps), and Nixon explains that the soldier must have climbed up in the Alps to get it, and it means he's a true soldier. 

 

By morning, the men are on the edge of Carentan and begin to advance, but they face German machine gun fire from German paratroopers defending the town, causing the American paratroopers to take cover in the ditches on each side of the road leading into the town. Winters has to get them moving and the men enter the town to undertake house-to-house fighting, during which time the Germans use mortar and artillery fire to make things even more harrowing. Shifty Powers kills a German sniper who had already killed or wounded a couple of Americans. (Note: Historically, his comrades in Easy Company said "Shifty" was an excellent shot with a rifle.) Liebgott and Private Tipper (played by Bart Ruspoli) check the interior of a house, and as Tipper is leaving, a German mortar round lands nearby. When Tipper emerges outside the house, we can see how badly wounded he is, as blood is dripping from his face, and one eye is essentially gone (historically, Tipper lost his right eye in the battle, but the series shows it as the left eye), his legs are wounded and one shoe is smoking from the blast. In a moving scene, Liebgott has Tipper sit down and he holds him, as well as trying to comfort him (this was the end of the war for Tipper, and he spent the rest of the war in hospitals). 

 

During heavy fighting, we see Chaplain (Father) John Maloney (played by Doug Cockle) going to wounded and dead men without regard to the danger. German resistance lessens and the remaining German troops try to withdraw through swampy land around much of the outside of the town, but Easy Company machine gunners quickly deploy to devastate the fleeing Germans, who are out in the open. (Note: The Germans had expected the Allied invasion that summer of 1944, and they flooded many areas to make the landing of paratroopers and glider troops more difficult, as part of their defensive measures.) The U.S. 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment (also part of the 101st Airborne Division) sends a man on horseback to let Easy Company (a part of the 506th Regiment) know that their part of Carentan has been secured, and Lieutenant Winters tells the soldier that this section is also clear. The 2nd Battalion commander, Major Strayer (played by Phil McKee), asks Winters if it safe now, as they want to move the wounded out. Winters tells him it is, and not long thereafter, Winters is wounded in the lower leg by a ricochet. Winters goes to get the wound cared for by Medic Doc Roe. Nearby on the floor sits Private Blithe and Winters asks Doc Roe what's the matter with Blithe. Doc tells him that Blithe can't see. Winters goes over to Blithe and asks him what happened and Blithe says that his sight blacked out, and that he can't see anything. Winters tells him they're going to send him back to England, but Blithe is emotional and says, "I didn't want to let anybody down," but Winters assures him that's not in question. Winters goes back over to Doc Roe again, but Blithe gets to his feet and says, "Thank you, sir," and he says further, that he's all right and that now he can see again. Winters tells him to stay a little longer, then to head back to his platoon. (Note: In Ambrose's book "Band of Brothers," he relates a similar story about Blithe, and he says Winters said he had never seen anything like it, with Blithe so scared that he lost his sight, but that "all he needed was somebody ... to calm him down.")       

 

A number of the men are sitting around Carentan, when Lieutenant Speirs walks up and tells them they're going to be moving out shortly. Private Alton More (no double 'o' spelling, played by Doug Allen) cracks, "Don't they know we're just getting settled here?" Speirs stares at him, but walks away. This brings Warren "Skip" Muck (played by Richard Speight) to tell More, "You're taking your life into your own hands," with Alex Penkala (played by Tim Matthews) asking if he means because of the German prisoners Speirs shot, or because of one of his company's own sergeants that he shot. This brings Malarkey to emphatically ask, "You mean he shot one of his own guys?" Penkala says he heard that the guy was drunk and refused to go out on a patrol. Muck says he heard that Speirs "came up to a bunch of German POWs (for those unaware, it means "prisoner(s) of war"), gave them cigarettes and even a light, then he swung his Thompson machine gun around and hosed them." The picture on the screen this time (compared to this same incident in the previous part about D-Day) shows the Germans are all Waffen SS troops (in the first version, they are all regular German army troops), and this time, we are shown the executions. Private More adds that it was about 20 German prisoners that Speirs killed, but that he left one alone (the picture on screen shows the one young German prisoner so terrified of what he is seeing, that his lit cigarette burns down between his trembling fingers, but he doesn't flinch. Then Penkala says he heard that Speirs took a German 105 mm gun on D-Day all by himself, and how he went through heavy machine gun fire to do it. Malarkey tells them he saw that and it is true. Lieutenant Welsh calls out for the men to get up, because they're moving out. 

 

When Easy Company is moving along (on foot), machine gun fire starts and mortar shells begin landing. The men run for the bushes (hedgerow) right in front of them and they begin to fire back at the Germans, who are positioned in another hedgerow. Night comes and we see a figure use a pistol to tap on the helmet of a sleeping paratrooper. A very hushed voice tells the soldier to get up, because it's his watch. The soldier, Private George Smith )played by Iain Robertson), awakens and quickly gets to his feet with his fixed bayonet rifle and jabs at the figure, who yells, "It's me, Talbert," but he is wounded by the bayonet, but luckily, Liebgott pushes Smith away, telling him that it's Talbert. Smith looks stunned and he begins apologizing as Talbert calls out for a medic. Doc Roe appears and the situation begins to settle down and we hear Roe tell Talbert he will be okay. 

 

Meanwhile, in another foxhole, Sergeant Martin and Private Blithe are together. They hear Talbert yell for a medic and groan in agony, and they are curious as to what's happening. Blithe says he can't sleep, so Martin sends him to find out what the noise is about. On his way, Speirs pops out and tells Blithe everything is in order; so, they go to the foxhole with Martin. Speirs tells them, "Do what you have to do," which prompts Blithe to tell Speirs, "Sir, when I landed on D-Day, I found myself in a ditch all by myself. I fell asleep." He attributes the sleepiness to the air sickness pills they had been given (historically, there were other paratroopers who complained that the pills made them drowsy). Blithe continues that when he woke up, he really didn't try to find his unit to fight, but just stayed where he was. Speirs asks him if he knows why he hid in the ditch, and Blithe says, "I was scared." Speirs says, "We're all scared. You hid in that ditch, because you think there's still hope ... The only hope that you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can function like a soldier is supposed to function and act without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it." Speirs walks away. 

 

When daylight comes, the Germans begin firing mortars and machine guns, and Easy Company returns fire. The German mortar shelling grows and Blithe is totally panicked in his foxhole, crying and screaming. Winters goes along his line of men who are firing at the German positions. He shouts encouragement and gives instructions at times. He comes to Blithe and he reaches down and grabs him and tells him, "Stand up soldier." Blithe stands and points his gun toward the German positions; Winters tells him to fire his weapon, and Blithe fires. Winters tells him, "Don't stop, keep firing," and Winters stands next to Blithe firing his rifle as he encourages Blithe. It calms Blithe and gives him courage to see the company commander next to him firing on the enemy, and Blithe reloads and continues firing. 

 

The Germans now send some armored vehicles into the battle, all from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division. German paratroopers also kneel in firing position and fire at the American lines. One German assault gun fires and hits the tree and hedgerow area by machine gunner Walter "Smoky" Gordon (played by Ben Caplan), temporarily putting Gordon out of action. Lieutenant Welsh takes Private John McGrath (played by Stephen Walters) and a bazooka to try to destroy the German assault gun. The bazooka's first shot hits the shield for the vehicles machine gun. The assault gun has to then come up over a small rise, and when it dies, Welsh tells McGrath to fire, which he does, and the bazooka round penetrates the more lightly armored underside of the assault gun, which causes it to explode. (Note: German assault guns were often mistaken for tanks, as they were built on tank chassis, but they lacked a revolving turret, but that made them cheaper and easier to produce, and the Germans produced thousands of them on various tank chassis.) Gordon recovers and begins firing again, and as heavy fighting is ongoing, suddenly shells explode around the German troops and vehicles. Sherman tanks from the U.S. 2nd Armored Division have arrived and tipped the battle to the American favor. The Germans begin to withdraw. 

 

Blithe takes aim at a German paratrooper and fires. The man crumples, but then a withdrawing vehicle blocks the view of him, and when the vehicle passes, the man is gone, although his helmet rolls down the uneven ground. Firing stops and American troops begin to move around. Blithe goes up the rise to where the German had been. He sees blood on the ground and he tracks the blood trail a short distance until he sees the German paratrooper dead on the ground. Blithe looks at the man without emotion, then he squats down and takes the man's edelweiss from his lapel and slips it onto his own jacket. Blithe is now a real soldier. 

 

On D-Day + 25, Welsh and Lewis Nixon have a number of men out, when they come onto a farmhouse. Welsh asks for volunteers to check the house, but only Blithe offers to go; so, Welsh picks Martin and Dukeman (Mark Lawrence) to go with Blithe, with Blithe being the lead. As they near the farmhouse, Blithe moves up and sees nothing, but as he starts to signal to the other two men, a shot rings out and Blithe falls to the ground, badly wounded in the lower part of his neck/collarbone. Welsh orders covering fire and the other men drag Blithe clear of the house, where Doc Roe comes to treat him. Lieutenant Winters comes and tells Nixon and Welsh the company is being pulled off of the front line to an area in the rear with hot food and showers, and then they will return to England. 

 

The scene shifts to a field hospital and we see piles of uniforms from wounded men. The camera gets closer and we see a 101st Airborne uniform with an edelweiss in the breast pocket. We then see a hospital. Inside, among the patients, we see Gordon and Popeye Wynn. Gordon receives his third Purple Heart. Blithe, his neck heavily bandaged and his eyes focused on the ceiling, is wheeled in on a bed and placed on the other side of Popeye. Wynn tells Gordon, "How many (Purple Hearts) is that? Two? Three? You have no shame." Gordon tells of his wounds, but Popeye tells him, "He (pointing over toward Blithe) only gets one." Gordon looks somberly over toward Blithe.

  

Easy Company returns to England, where Malarkey and More take an Army motorcycle and sidecar and go speeding through the area. They nearly collide with a truck. We then see the men in a mess hall in England, where Gordon gives the company his version of "The Night of the Bayonet," a poem about Smith bayoneting Talbert, and the whole place rocks with laughter. At the end, Gordon gives Talbert one of his Purple Hearts, since Talbert wasn't wounded by the enemy. Sergeant Lipton asks for the company's attention, and he tells them to pack up all their gear, because they are returning to France, and they aren't expected to return to England. The hall is quiet. Early the next morning, Malarkey knocks at the door of a lady, Mrs. Lamb (played by Diana Kent), who does laundry for the soldiers. He tells her the company is leaving England for good, this time. He pays her for his laundry, and she asks if he could also take Lieutenant Meehan's laundry, as she thinks Meehan has forgotten it. Malarkey has a saddened look on his face, because he knows Meehan is dead, and he takes the laundry and pays her. She then asks about some others, and she reads their names from the bundle of each man's laundry, ending with Albert Blithe. All have been either killed or wounded.

 

This part ends with onscreen information that Easy Company lost 65 men in Normandy. Then comes another bit of information, but it is incorrect. The info says that Albert Blithe never recovered from his wounds in Normandy, and that he died in 1948. Dick Winters and the other men had that same information, and thus, it was put into Ambrose's book and also into the miniseries. How the year 1948 came to be affixed to Blithe's death, is puzzling. Blithe's family contacted people to correct the record. He did indeed recover from his wounds, and he re-enlisted in the Army in 1949 and fought in Korea and was decorated for his service. Blithe died in 1967, he was only 44 years of age. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, which is located just outside Washington D.C. in Arlington, Virginia. 

 

 

  Photo is of the HBO 2015 Blu-Ray Miniseries release ...

WORD HISTORY:  

Shamble(s)-The word really is "shamble," but it has come to be used in the plural form. It goes back to Indo European "skambh," which meant "to support, to prop up." This gave Latin "scamnum," meaning "bench, stool," which produced the diminutive "scamellum," meaning "small bench, short stool," and this was borrowed into West Germanic as "skamil," with the same meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "scamol/sceamol," essentially with the same meaning, but also eventually, "footstool," and then "a bench or stool for displaying goods for sale." The form then became "schamel," but with variants like "shamel, shamel(l), schamil, schambyl(l) and others, all with the "stool, footstool, stool/bench for displaying goods for sale," meanings. The word then became "shamel" (shamels?), meaning bench or small table with the more specific "meat products for sale" (circa 1500); thus also, "meat shop or market," but in some places the word was used for "slaughterhouse" (mid 1500s), which developed into a meaning of "place of slaughter and butchery;" thus later too, "a place of a mess," which began to be applied to "battlefields," and "places of death or destruction." Relatives in the other West Germanic languages: German has "Schemel" (footstool), Low German has "Schamel" (small short stool), Danish "skammel" ("stool," borrowed from Low German, Danish is North Germanic), Dutch "schemel" (low bench).