Well, here it is: our final episode on Band of Brothers and the men of Easy Company. In this wrap up, we discuss further details about a number of the men, particularly ones who weren't featured much in the Ambrose book.

We've really loved covering this series, and learning more about this incredible group of veterans, and, whether they'd call themselves this or not, heroes. It's been an honor. We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.

Here is a list of books that we recommend if you're interested in learning more.

We Who Are Alive and Remain - by Marcus Brotherton
A Company of Heroes - by Marcus Brotherton
Biggest Brother - by Larry Alexander (about Richard Winters)
Beyond Band of Brothers - by Richard Winters
Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends - by Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron
Easy Company Soldier - by Don Malarkey
Call of Duty - by Buck Compton
Shifty’s War - by Darrell "Shifty" Powers
Parachute Infantry - by David Kenyon Webster
Silver Eagle - by Ronald Ooms (about Clancy Lyall)
In the Footsteps of Band of Brothers - by Larry Alexander
Fighting Fox Company - by Bill Brown and Terry Poyser
D-Day by Stephen Ambrose
The Longest Winter - by Alex Kershaw

Well, we've reached the end of the mini-series, guys. It's sad. Well, the episode itself isn't, because we see Easy Company take Hitler's Eagle's Nest, get a bunch of fancy booze, loot some fancy stuff, and the war ends so they all get to go home. But it's sad for us because we've really enjoyed talking about this show, and these guys.

Next week we will be doing a wrap up, and we'll talk about what the surviving members did after the war. So it's not quite over yet.

Additional info: Sgt. Grant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Grant

Alton More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_More

Donald Malarkey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Malarkey

Veterans Day tribute to an Oregon hero: Don Malarkey

Malarkey and Buck meet Prince Charles: http://www.valorstudios.com/Band-of-Brothers-with-Prince-Charles.htm

Easy Company living legacies: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/living-legacies-real-band-brothers-vets-just-wont_quit.html/2

AV CLUB http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/band-brothers-points-205379 Points

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/band-brothers-why-we-fight-205104 Why we fight

In this episode, Easy Company finds a concentration camp. We've all seen pictures, or footage, of the camps, but most of the soldiers who were fighting in the war hadn't even heard rumors of the existence of them.

In doing some research, I found some footage taken by the US Army of the townspeople cleaning up after the prisoners were released, like Nixon goes to observe in the episode. It's awful, but I think necessary to watch to fully grasp what the price of this war was for so many people. I will link it below, along with some other info on the camps.

This episode is rough, and we tried to discuss it as best as we could.

Video of the the camp Easy company was part of liberating, as it was being cleaned up by the townspeople. The Text is in German, but is easily translated through Google. http://www.buergervereinigung-landsberg.de/geschichte/orginalfilm.htm

More info about the Camp, and who actually found it first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaufering_concentration_camp
https://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/KauferingIVLiberation.html

Joe Liebgott: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Liebgott
http://militarypower.wikidot.com/joseph-liebgott

In this episode, Webster returns to a less than welcoming response from his comrades in Easy, and Lt. Jones joins the company pretty much straight out of West Point on his way up the ladder. And, as usual, Easy is tasked with a potentially dangerous patrol to get some prisoners over other companies despite their exhaustion and the fact that they've been on the front lines pretty much since D-Day.


Some additional info:


Pvt. David Webster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kenyon_Webster
http://www.davidkenyonwebster.com/


Lt. Hank Jones: http://apps.westpointaog.org/Memorials/Article/14163/


The Patrol: http://www.dday-overlord.com/eng/band_of_brothers_episode_8.htm


An account of a tour someone took with Guarnere and Heffron of the places Easy Company fought. http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-in-the-footsteps-of-easy-company-during-a-band-of-brothers-tour.htm


The AV Club recap: http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/band-brothers-last-patrol-204901

This is a rough one, you guys. It's pretty much non-stop from beginning until end, with Easy Company losing quite a few of their men due to horrific wounds, emotional burn out, or death. Winters' hands are tied and he can't get rid of their useless CO, until Dike almost gets more of the men killed. Enter Lt. Spiers!

We have a lot of links for you with this one, because so much happened to so many people.

Foy: http://argunners.com/foy-belgium-1945-now-easy-company/
Bastogne & Foy: http://www.ronaldspeirs.com/military/ww2/belgium-bastogne/

Photos of Easy Company Foxholes still in the Bois Jacques Forest in Belgium: https://www.landmarkscout.com/easy-company-101st-airborne-division-in-the-battle-of-the-bulge-foy-belgium/

Ronald Spiers: http://www.ronaldspeirs.com/

Carwood Lipton: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/24/us/c-carwood-lipton-81-figure-in-band-of-brothers-dies.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carwood_Lipton

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/dec/28/local/me-18490

Bill Guarnere: http://www.marcusbrotherton.com/know-bill-guarnere-1923-2014-love/
http://www.history.com/news/bill-guarnere-member-of-world-war-ii-band-of-brothers-dies
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/life-legacy-wild-bill.html
http://militaryhistorytraveler.com/2014/04/wild-bill-guarnere-interview/

Bill and Babe: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/03/14/band-of-brothers-vets-wild-bill-guarnere-babe-heffron-remembrance/

Joe Toye: http://www.marcusbrotherton.com/an-unimagined-success/
https://veteransfuneralcare.com/obituary/Joe-Toye
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=19055725

"Skip" Muck and Alex Penkala: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/33956-muck-and-penkala-grave-markers-in-luxembourg/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Muck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Penkala

Donald Hoobler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Hoobler

Lt. Dike: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Dike

The AV Club recap: http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/band-brothers-breaking-point-204650

In this episode we follow Easy Company's medic Eugene "Doc" Roe as he tries his best to hold his fellows, and himself, together while they deal with a lack of supplies, food, ammo, warm clothing, boots, and morale for weeks in the coldest winter Belgium had ever seen. It's rough.

On the history side of things, we discuss the real Doc Roe, Renee LeMaire and Augusta Chiwy, We sing the praises of Shifty Powers, and learn a little more about Norman Dike.

The Siege of Basogne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Bastogne

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/CSI/CSI-Bastogne/MITCHELL.asp.html

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/bastogne.aspx

Renee Lemaire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9e_Lemaire

http://www.regjans.com/renee-lemaire/

Augusta Chiwy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_Chiwy

Eugene Roe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Roe



AV Club recap: http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/band-brothers-bastogne-204326

Mark Watches 'Bastogne' recap: http://markwatches.net/reviews/2014/05/mark-watches-band-of-brothers-part-6-bastogne/

In this episode, Easy Company is still in Holland, and with too few men are expected to hold the town they're in from the Germans. When Winters is promoted (because he is the greatest of all time, and it's noticed by his superiors), Easy is given a new CO, "Moose" Heyliger, who leads a successful rescue mission of 140 British soldiers before being seriously injured in what surely was called "friendly fire" but was actually a jumpy soldier not waiting to confirm identity before shooting. This brings them their worst CO, who we'll talk about more in the coming episodes.


Here is a detailed description of the fight at the crossroads: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/easy-company-crossroads-battle.html


Operation Pegasus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pegasus


"Moose" Heyliger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Heyliger
Heyliger's legacy: https://www.army.mil/article/49035


The AV Club recap: http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/band-brothers-crossroads-204013

Easy Company jumps safely into Holland, their ranks refilled with replacements, expecting a quick operation of securing bridges and liberating the Dutch from the clutches of a battered and weakened German army. Only it's the opposite, which they learn the hard way. Thousands of soldiers from America, the UK, and Poland, acting on extremely poor intelligence and the arrogance of British and American generals, are casualties of Operation MARKET-GARDEN, one of the biggest failures in World War II.

They need to start listening to Winters.

For more information on MARKET-GARDEN:
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden
101st in MARKET-GARDEN: http://www.ww2marketgarden.com/marketgarden101stairbornedivision.html
http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-101st-airborne-division-holds-the-line-along-hells-highway.htm

The AV Club recap from 2014:
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/band-brothers-replacements-203739

In this episode, we go further into occupied France as Easy Company is tasked with taking back the town of Carentan from the Germans after D-Day. We also meet Pvt. Blithe, who is very different from most of the men of Easy that we've met so far. Like last episode, we discuss both the show and the book chapters about these events.

This episode also has a huge inaccuracy: at the end it claims that Pvt. Blithe died a couple years after the war from the wound he sustained in France. This is not at all true. I discuss the truth with Krista in the show, but if you want to read about it, these links are very informative:

http://old.506infantry.org/his2ndbnwwiiphoto24.html
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/albert-blithe.htm

It's D-Day, and Easy Company's jump into Normandy is a giant mess. Planes crash, pilots speed up while flying too low, and the soldiers land often in the completely wrong place. However, they're so well trained - they studied the sand tables! - that they manage to get to where they're supposed to be (many of them, anyway) and manage to pull off a textbook assault on a fixed position against some German guns keeping the guys out in the water from reaching the beaches.

It's all really exciting.

So, here we are with the second episode in our coverage. This week, we discussed the first four chapters of the book, which covers the events shown in the first episode of the mini-series. There was a lot to discuss, and we hope you find it as interesting as we did.