Bob #17

But as good as Easy Company of the 506th was, and there was no better light infantry company in the Army, there was nothing it could do about that terror of the battlefield, modern artillery. Easy had to cross the dike to get home. It could not stay in the open field and get pounded. But in crossing the dike, the company, the company exposed itself to zeroed-in German artillery. A few minutes of total terror, and the company had taken more casualties than it had in its encounters with German rifle-men by the hundreds earlier in the day.

"Artillery is a terrible thing," Webster said. "... I hate it."

- Chapter 9: "The Island", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

youngblood.

BoB #16

Easy by contrast, did almost everything right. Winters called this "the highlight of all E Company actions for the entire war, even better than D-Day, because it demonstrated Easy's overall superiority in every phase of infantry tactics: patrol, defense, attack under a base of fire, withdrawal, and, above all, superior marksmanship with rifles, machine gun, and mortar fire."

More can be said. For example, the physical fitness of the Easy men was a sine qua non. They put out more energy than a heavyweight boxer in a fifteen-round title match, way more; they put out more energy than a man would playing sixty minutes in three consecutive football games. Also notable was the company's communication system, with radio messages, runners, and hand signals being used effectively. The leapfrog advances and retreats put into play the training they had undergone at Toccoa and were carried out in textbook fashion. The evacuation of the wounded was likewise carried out with the calm efficiency. The coordination with British artillery was outstanding.

So was Winters. He made one right decision after another, sometimes instinctively, sometimes after careful deliberation. The best was his decision that to attack was his only option. He provided not only brains but personal leadership. "Follow me" was his code. He personally killed more Germans and took more risks than anyone else.

- Chapter 9: "The Island", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #15

"I cannot understand why you hope for a quick end of the war. Unless we take the horror of battle to Germany itself, unless we fight in their villages, blowing up their houses, smashing open their wine cellars, killing some of their livestock for food, unless we litter their streets with horribly rotten German corpses as was done in France, the Germans will prepare for war, unmindful of its horrors. Defeat must be brought into Germany itself before this mess can come to a proper end; a quick victory now, a sudden collapse, will leave the countryside relatively intact and the people thirsty for revenge. I want the war to end as quickly as anybody wishes, but I don't want the nucleus of another war left whole."

- Chapter 7: "Healing Wounds and Scrubbed Missions!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #14

Lipton felt that "when men are in combat, the inevitability of it takes over. They are there, there is nothing they can do to change that, so they accept it. They immediately become callused to the smell of death, the bodies, the destruction, the killing, the danger. Enemy bodies and wounded don't affect them. Their own wounded and the bodies of their dead friends make only a brief impression, and in that impression is a fleeting feeling of triumph or accomplishment that it was not them."

- Chapter 7: "Healing Wounds and Scrubbed Missions!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #13

When his mother wrote to express her considerable alarm at this attitude (and her worries about his younger brother, who had just joined the paratroopers), Webster was blunt in his reply: "Would you prefer for somebody else's son to die in the mud? You want us to win the war, but you apparently don't want to have your sons involved in the actual bloodshed. That's a strangely contradictory attitude.

"Somebody has to get in and kill the enemy. Somebody has to be in the infantry and the paratroops. If the country all had your attitude, nobody would fight, everybody would be in the Quartermaster. And what kind of a country would that be?"

- Chapter 7: "Healing Wounds and Scrubbed Missions!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #12

The previous day Niland had gone to the 82d to see his brother Bob, the one who had told Malarkey in London that if he wanted to be a hero, the Germans would see to it, fast, which had led Malarkey to conclude that Bob Niland had lost his nerve. Fritz Niland had just learned his brother had been killed on D-Day. Bob's platoon had been surrounded, and he manned a machine-gun, hitting the Germans with harassing fire until the platoon broke through the encirclement. He had used up several boxes of ammunition before getting killed.

Fritz Niland next hitched a ride to the 4th Infantry Division position, to see another brother who was platoon leader. He too had been killed on D-day, on Utah Beach. By the time Fritz returned to Easy Company, Father Francis Sampson was looking for him, to tell him that a third brother, a pilot in the China-Burma-India theater, had been killed the same week. Fritz was the sole surviving son, and the Army wanted to remove him from the combat zone as soon as possible.

Fritz's mother had received all three telegrams from the War Department on the same day.

Father Sampson escorted Fritz to Utah Beach, where a plane flew him to London on the first leg of his return to the States.

- Chapter 6: "Move Out!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #11

Wynn was hit in the butt and fell down in the trench, hollering over and over, "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I goofed off, I goofed off, I'm sorry." A german potato masher sailed into the trench; everyone dived to the ground.
"Joe, look out!" Winters called to Toye. The grenade had landed between his legs as he lay face down. Toye flipped over. The potato masher hit his rifle and tore up the stock as it exploded, but he was uninjured. "If it wasn't for Winters," Toye said in 1990, "I'd be singing high soprano today."

- Chapter 5: "Follow Me", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #10

Here the training paid off. "We fought as a team without standout stars," Lipton said. "We were like a machine. We didn't have anyone who leaped up and charged a machine-gun. We knocked it out or made it withdraw by manoeuvre and teamwork or mortar fire. We were smart; there weren't many flashy heroics. We had learned that heroics was the way to get killed without getting the job done, and getting the job done was more important.

- Chapter 5: "Follow Me", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #9

A German machine-gun opened fire on the group. When it did, the prisoners tried to jump the Americans. Guarnere shot them with his pistol. "No remorse," he said when describing the incident forty-seven years later. "No pity. It was easy as stepping on a bug." After a pause, he added, "We are different people now than we were then."

- Chapter 5: "Follow Me", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #8

"the realisation we were being fattened for the slaughter didn't stop us from going back for seconds."

- Chapter 4: "Look Out, Hitler! Here We Come!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #7

They were ready. But, of course, going into combat for the first time is an ultimate experience for which one can never be fully ready. It is anticipated for years in advance; it is a test that produces anxiety, eagerness, tension, fear of failure, anticipation. There is a mystery about the thing, heightened by the fact that those who have done it cannot put into words what it is like, how it feels, except that getting shot at and shooting to kill produce extraordinary emotional reactions. No matter how hard you train, nor however realistic the training, no one can ever be fully prepared for the intensity of the real thing.

- Chapter 4: "Look Out, Hitler! Here We Come!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #6

Easy got its briefing for Eagle on May 10-11. the objective was a gun battery covering the beach. At dusk on May 11, Easy took off. The planes made "legs" over England, flying for about two and a half hours. Shortly after midnight, the company jumped. For Easy, the exercise went smoothly; for other companies, there were troubles. Second Battalion Headquarters company was with a group that ran into a German air raid over London. Flak was coming up; the formation broke up; the pilots could not locate the DZ. Eight of the nine planes carrying Company H of the 502d dropped their men on the village of Ramsbury, nine miles from the DZ. Twenty-eight planes returned to their airfields with the paratroopers still aboard. Others jumped willy-nilly, leading to many accidents. Nearly 500 men suffered broken bones, sprains, or other injuries.

The only consolation the airborne commanders could find in this mess was that by tradition a bad dress rehearsal leads to a great opening night.

- Chapter 4: "Look Out, Hitler! Here We Come!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #5

Climbing aboard the C-47s was difficult, because of all the gear each man carried. Individuals were overloaded, following the age-old tendency of soldiers going into combat to attempt to be ready for every conceivable emergency. The vest and long drawers issued each man were impregnated, to ward off a possible chemical attack; it made them cumbersome, they stank, they itched, they kept in body heat and caused torrents of sweat. The combat jacket and trousers were also treated. The men carried a pocket knife in the lapel of their blouses, to be used to cut themselves out of their harness if they landed in a tree. In their baggy trousers' pockets they had a spoon, razor, socks, cleaning patches, flashlight, maps, three-day supply of K-rations, a emergency ration package (four chocolate bars, a pack of charms, powdered coffee, sugar, and matches), ammunition, a compass, two fragmentation grenades, an anti-tank mine, a smoke grenade, a Gammon bomb(a two-pound plastic explosive for use against tanks), and cigarettes, two cartons per man. The soldier topped his uniform with a webbing belt and braces, a .45 pistol (standard for noncoms and officers; privates had to get their own, and most did), water canteen, shovel, first aid kit, and bayonet. Over this went his parachute harness, his main parachute in its backpack, and reserve parachute hooked on the front. A gas mask was strapped to his left leg and a jump-knife/bayonet to his right. Across his chest the soldier slung his musette bag with his spare underwear and ammunition, and in some cases TNT sticks, along with his broken-down rifle or machine gun or mortar diagonally up-and-down across his front under is reserve chute pack, leaving both hands free to handle the risers. Over everything he wore his Mae West life jacket.Finally, he put on his helmet.

- Chapter 4: "Look Out, Hitler! Here We Come!", "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #4

The men continued to play tricks on Sobel. Pvt. George Luz could imitate voices. One night E Company was leading the battalion on a cross-country march. The barbed-wire fences kept slowing the progress. Sobel was in the front.

"Captain Sobel," a voice called out, "what's the holdup?"

"The barbed wire," Sobel replied, thinking he was addressing Maj. Oliver Horton, the battalion executive officer.

"Cut those fences," Luz called out, continuing to imitate Horton's voice. "Yes, sir!" Sobel replied, and he ordered wire cutters to the front.

The next morning a contingent of Wiltshire farmers confronted Colonel Strayer. They complained mightily about the cut fences. Their cows were wandering all over the landscape. Strayer called in Sobel.

"Why did you cut those fences?"

"I was ordered to cut them, sir!"

"By whom?"

"Major Horton."

"Can't be. Horton's on leave in London." Sobel caught hell, but he was never able to learn who fooled him and was therefore unable to retaliate.

- Chapter 3: Duties of the Latrine Orderly, "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #3

This was not combat, but it was as close as the Army could make it. The manoeuvres held in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana from June 5to July 15, 1943, combined paratroopers and gliderborne troops in the largest airborne exercise to date.

On June 10, the 506th PIR officially joined the 101st Airborne Division, thus making that date the greatest date the 101st ever had. Adding the 506th noticeably raised the morale of the 101st, at least according to the men of E Company.

The manoeuvres, pitting the Red Army against the Blue Army, ranged over a wide area of backwoods hills and mountains. Easy made three jumps. Christenson remembered one of them vividly. It was hot, stifling hot inside the C-47, and the heated air rising in currents from the hills cause the plane to bob and weave. Cpl. Denver "Bull" Randleman, at the back of the stick and thus farthest from the open door, began vomiting into his helmet. The man in front took one look and lost his lunch. The process worked right up the line. Not everyone managed to vomit into his helmet; the floor was awash in vomit, the plane stank. Christenson, at the front, was hanging on, but barely. "My stomach was on the verge of rebellion... "Why don't they turn o the green light? There it is!" From behind, shouts of "Go!" "Go! Dammit, Go!" Out I went into the clean fresh air. I felt as if someone had passed a magic wand over my head and said, "Christenson, you feel great." And I did."

- Chapter 2: Stand Up and Hook Up, "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

BoB #2

How fit the men of Easy were was determined at Mackall when the department of the Army had Strayer's 2nd Battalion - already famous for their march to Atlanta - take a standard physical fitness test. The battalion scored 97 percent. As this was the highest score ever recorded for a battalion in the Army, a Colonel Jablonski from Washington thought Strayer had rigged the score. Winters recalled, "They had us run it a second time, officers, men, service personnel, cooks, everybody - and we scored 98 percent."

- Chapter 2: Stand Up and Hook Up, "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose

shifty.

for you little star.

(click.)

BoB #1

"On the next field exercise, E Company was told that a number of its men would be designated as simulated casualties so the medics could practice bandaging wounds, improvising casts and splints, evacuating men on litters and so forth. Sobel was told he was a simulated casualty. The medics put him under a real anaesthetic, pulled down his pants, and made a real incision simulating an appendectomy. They sewed up the incision and bound it up with bandages and surgical tape, then disappeared.

Sobel was furious, naturally enough, but he got nowhere in pressing for an investigation. Not a man in E Company could be found who could identify the guilty medics.

- Chapter 2: Stand Up and Hook Up, "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose.

got a penny dialogue and screenshots. [luz, lipton, toye]

"look at me, i'm john wayne and the costume department set me up with these great navy whites whaddya think?"

"shut up i'm trying to watch this."

"i've seen this movie 13 times."

"well i haven't so shut up."

"watch the movie, fine!"

"lip! favourite part!"

""got a penny? got a penny? got a PENNY?""

"got a penny?"