Band of Brothers – Replacements

Easy Company in Nuenen (from YouTube)

I set this up to be posted automatically by Word Press today. I’m on the move right now and looking for a place to stay for the night. As soon as I get settled I will post a link on Facebook.

 

This is episode four of the HBO production Band of Brothers. It’s based on the book of the same name by Stephen E. Ambrose. Stephen Ambrose was a historical writer, having previously written about Eisenhower the general and Eisenhower the president and about President Nixon. He was most notable for his works on the American Civil War.

The TV series is not the book. The video is a dramatization of the service of Easy (for E) Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and it follows this band of soldiers from their time of training at Camp Toccoa in Georgia to the end of World War Two. Video production faces obstacles not encountered in historical writing. Particularly, there is neither the time nor the production resources to show all that was important. Additionally, for viewer interest alone, the producers insert drama that never actually happened. Such is the case with this episode.

This episode is titled Replacements, which is not even close to descriptive of the action. This installment covers Easy Company’s complete involvement in Operation Market-Garden, which got under way on 17 September 1944, 70 years ago today. Market-Garden was British Field Marshal Montgomery’s scheme for thrusting through Holland and into Germany, a plan that would hopefully lead to a drive through northern Germany to Berlin, taking German resistance from the rear and bringing combat in Europe to a quick conclusion.

The Market-Garden plan was for paratroops to seize critical water crossings in Holland and for British ground forces to advance over these bridges, culminating in a crossing of the Lower Rhine at the town of Arnhem in Holland. The task of the 101st Airborne Division was to capture and hold bridges and land routes in the southern end of the drive, north of Eindhoven to Veghel. They were assigned to capture the bridge at Son over the Wilhelmina Canal. Not a lot of this is brought out in the video.

Episode four kicks off with the men of Easy Company back in England. They had jumped into Normandy in the early hours of 6 June 1944, were pulled off the line on 29 June and made it back to England the night of 12 July. They had left England with 139 officers and men. They got back to England with 74. The remainder were dead, missing/captured or invalided back to England.

In England a principal duty was to get back up to company strength. This is where the replacements came in.

The episode starts with interviews with men from Easy Company. Those who joined up after the first action recall being in awe of the combat veterans. These were supermen to them. They were old beyond their age. They were tough. And they were cruel. Men of the original Toccoa bunch who were interviewed recalled the shunning of these new men. They knew these green troops, without combat experience and lacking the rough training the veterans had gone through would not be likely to survive their first combat.

The opening scene is in a pub where newbie’s are insulted and bullied by the old-timers. The program producers cast these fresh troops as less worldly, less tough. In the opening scenes they are almost apologetic at joining such a fabled corps. The pub scene breaks up when the newly promoted company sergeant is introduced. It is Carwood Lipton, who showed exceptional initiative and ability in the first day’s fighting. Now he has bad news. They were leaving England and jumping into Holland. What nobody knew at the time was that Easy Company would never return to England.

The 101st Airborne parachute assault is one of the most spectacular scenes depicted in the series. Fleets of transports fly over the peaceful Dutch countryside under a canopy of high, white clouds, and the sky fills with brown parachutes. Men and equipment land in open fields, gather their equipment, regroup and head off to their assigned objectives.

Only it’s not even like that in the book.

In reality there had been considerable fighting in advance of the drop. Allied bombers had plastered German positions and suspected German positions, demolishing large amounts of the Dutch infrastructure and killing many civilians as well as German troops. The actual drop was not all that pleasant, either.

Disaster, both accidental and by design, beset the flights. Richard Winters, the Easy Company commanding officer recalled hearing a terrible commotion above the drop zone and looking up to see two gliders colliding and crashing to earth. Death stalked the troops all the way from England. Some never made it to the English coast. Glider mishaps dumped more than one load of troops into the sky, without parachutes. Rescue fleets in the North Sea worked constantly plucking downed crew and soldiers from the water. German fire and random accidents did for many others. The video skips all of this.

HBO shows Easy Company arriving in Eindhoven the first day. Actually there was much adventure and a night in the field before Easy Company reached Eindhoven. For one thing, the Germans blew up the Wilhelmina Canal bridge when Winters and Lieutenant Lewis Nixon were just yards from reaching it. Falling debris almost accomplished what the Germans had failed to in Normandy.

When the lead American elements were 25 meters or less from the bridge, it blew in their faces. There was a hail of debris of wood and stone. Winters, with Nixon beside him, hit the ground, big pieces of timber and large rocks raining down around him. Winters thought to himself, What a hell of a way to die in combat!

Ambrose, Stephen E. (2001-10-26). Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (p. 187). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

The movie A Bridge Too Far, about the operation, bills this as one of its spectacular action scenes. Then, Joseph E. Levine spent $22 million of his own money to produce the film in 1976, so there was some small change available to blow up a bridge.

The Dutch were ready for the invasion. Not elaborated in the video, the Dutch resistance had been prepping for the invasion for days. Time and again they pulled out hidden weapons and got ready to go after the German occupiers, only to put their guns back into hiding when no Allied troops appeared the first two weeks in September.

On the second day Easy Company arrived in Eindhoven amid cheering crowds. In the video everybody is waving orange flags (Dutch national color), and men are given food, drink. And from the women much more. Some of the troops are stunned at the sexual advances imposed on them in the crowed street, but presently members of the resistance appear, this time with their weapons, and they drag off a selected few of the women. They strip off the women’s clothing and shave their heads, painting swastikas on their heads. A resistance fighter explains to Winters “They slept with the Germans.” Men collaborators, we are told, are being shot.

The Brits and their tanks show up, and Easy Company heads for Nuenen, which Harvard-educated Private David Kenyon Webster points out as the birthplace of Vincent van Gogh.

It’s at Nuenen that Easy Company meets disaster. Approaching the town, Lieutenant Bob Brewer is in the lead. A German sniper shoots Brewer through the throat and hell breaks loose. It’s some of the most intense battle footage in the series.

The firing is close and intense. Men of Easy Company attempt to point out a German Tiger tank to an approaching British tank commander, but he won’t take the advice. He advances until his tank is in full view of the Tiger and gets blasted. This is an event that closely parallels history. The Brits held fire to avoid unnecessary collateral damage (Holland is a friendly country), and several British tanks got knocked out their crews killed, before they could pull back.

The Americans and the Brits retreated from the scene, and the video shows Sergeant Bill (Bull) Randleman being wounded by fragments from an exploding shell and left behind.

Here the HBO produces get really creative. Randleman is given an extended dramatic sequence, wherein he eludes the advancing Germans and hides in a barn at night, nursing his wounded shoulder. The farmer and his good-looking daughter enter the barn, and the farmer treats Randleman’s wound, while the girl watches in fascination. Then Germans enter the barn to inspect it, and Randleman hides the two civilians, waiting for the Germans to leave. All the Germans leave but one, who remains behind to take a piss.

A sound catches the German’s attention and he goes looking for the source. The noise of aircraft flying gives Randleman his opportunity, and he attacks the German with his bayonet. The German’s gun jams, and Randleman stabes him to death while the farmer and his pretty daughter look on. Randleman sends the two away and hides out in the barn until Allied troops return.

Only none of this is in the book:

Randleman, who had been in the van, got hit in the shoulder and cut off from his squad. He ducked into a barn. A German soldier came running in behind him. Randleman bayoneted the man, killed him, and covered his body with hay. Then he covered himself up with hay and hid out.

Ambrose, Stephen E. (2001-10-26). Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (p. 194). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

Those of you following the story in Ambrose’s book will note this is the second time Randleman killed an enemy at close quarters. His first action after hitting the ground in France in June was to fix his bayonet. His second action was to kill a German soldier in a bayonet duel.

In reality Easy Company was cut off from the rest of the regiment for a while until the Germans could be pushed back. The fourth episode concludes with the Americans holding their position and receiving word that the advance north to Arnhem has been unsuccessful. Winters observes, “I guess we’ll have to find another way into Germany.”

This was not the end of Easy Company’s tour in Holland. They were to stay through October. With Market-Garden the Allies had pushed a pencil-thin column deep into German-held territory, and they spent the following months holding it. In the weeks to come Easy Company would further distinguish itself in some spectacular encounters with German counter attacks.

Cornelius Ryan wrote A Bridge Too Far, about the Market-Garden Operation. I have reviewed that, as well, that review is also being posted today. See, also, the review of the movie.