Band of Brothers - Book Review

Band of Brothers Book Review

The Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose is a historical account of the United States Army’s Easy Company that took place during World War II. The Easy Company played a part in the Normandy D-Day invasion as well as was the first group of American allied troops that was able to make it to the Hitler’s nest in Germany and get many German soldiers to surrender. The Easy company was made up of volunteer soldiers that came from various different parts to the U.S. with different backgrounds socially and economically. Most of these men in the Easy Company had no military experiences and some have never even travel internationally before. The Commander, Captain Herbert Sobel, of the Easy Company was strict and very demanding. He required the men to go above and beyond with their training forcing them the physical exhaustion. His difficult training regimen irritated the men. Sobel had many simple things that he could do however, which infuriated the men. First off Sobel was very demanding pushing men harder than any other company, but it was because of his arrogance that made him so unlikeable. Sobel struggled with reading a map correctly and his pride would take over and he wouldn’t try to get help or understand. Because of their lack of respect of Sobel, the men looked up to the person who was second in charge, Lieutenant Richard Winters. Winters was opposite of Sobel. Winters was humble and fair which caused the men to like him. Winters also was able to show that he had excellent leadership potential. Sobel’s downfall eventually came as a group of officers threatened the group with mutiny. This was the beginning of the Easy Company.

The missions of the Easy Company began by helping out in an Allied Invasion into the country of Normandy. This invasion is known as D-day. June 6, 1944 was the date in which D day took place. The easy company’s involvement consisted of jumping out of an aircraft with a parachute in the middle of all the confusion that was going on at the time of the invasion. It was however not the best idea as the leg bag idea was a huge fail and German Soldiers quickly shot at the paratroopers as they were falling from the sky above. On the ground the men ran around trying to find one another. The troops were all scattered around a radius distance of twenty kilometers. It is in France were the Easy Company thrived under the new leadership of Winters. Winters led an attack against heavily weaponized German soldiers who was wielding four heavy machine guns. Winters was able to accomplish this with only twelve men. Being the great leader that winters was he was able to motivate his men to march into Carentan while they were under heavy enemy fire and take a forceful approach on the occupying German Troops. Because Winters showed to be such a genius in the field of war, he was promoted to the status of Captain. They men of the Easy company then was to then carryout Operation Market-Golden which was supposed to be an easy mission that was to make the best of the event that took place prior, which was the D-Day invasion. The simple operation was unsuccessful as the Easy company had many casualties. Not giving up the men fought continuously. A record was given that was surprising to most. The American soldiers actually like the German soldiers and respected them. When the war was nearing its end the Easy company traveled cautiously into Germany where the encountered little resistance as German soldiers surrendered to them.