Jana J. Monji

‘Band of Brothers’ and Missed Opportunities ⭐️ ⭐️

The 2001 American war drama miniseries “Band of Brothers” was based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1992 non-fiction book of the same name. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg created the drama and served as executive producers. The series won an Emmy and a Golden Globe, but the series is filled with missed opportunities for inclusion. 

“Band of Brothers” follows “Easy” Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.  The events are based on both the book and recorded interviews with Easy Company veterans. Each episode begins with excerpts from the interviews with some of the survivors. The survivors are only identified by name at the end of the final episode.

The title of the book and the miniseries comes from William Shakespeare’s historical drama, “Henry V,” the St. Crispin’s Day Speech before the Battle of Agincourt.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

This 2001 miniseries had 11 episodes, each with a title. The 11th, “We Stand Alone Together,” was a bonus that is the official companion documentary. It was included on the home video of the miniseries and consists of interviews with the real surviving members of Easy Company along with photos and videos from their service and annual reunions. “We Stand Alone Together” is available on YouTube. 

Episode 1, “Currahee,” begins on 5 June 1944 at Upottery Airfield as the paratroopers of Easy Company are making preparations for the invasion of Normandy. The jump is delayed due to weather. Second Lt. Lewis Nixon (Ron Livingston) and 1st Lt. Richard Winters (Damian Lewis) remember how their new platoon were forged into a team two years earlier under their commanding officer Ct. Herbert Sobel (David Schwimmer) at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. Sobel is hated by his men, while Winters is popular.

This episode establishes that there are variations of Whiteness here. Sobel and Joseph Liebgott (Ross McCall) are Jewish. William Guarnere (Frank John Hughes) is Italian. Donal Malarkey is Irish American (Scott Grimes).

In the second episode, “Day of Days,” the men are scattered and Winters leads a group to the rallying point near the village of St. Mere Eglise. When they encounter a group of German POWs, Malarkey (Scott Grimes)  asks them where they’re from. He’s astonished to find one of the German soldiers was from Eugene, Oregon.

The real Donald Malarkey was born and raised in Astoria, Oregon. While France is a world away from Oregon, Astoria is about three and a half hours from Eugene. According to an article in Collider, Malarkey and the German POW “worked across the street from each other for years.” 

In the miniseries, the Wehrmacht soldier tells Malarkey that he returned to Germany to fight for it.   As Malarkey and his group leaves, gunshots are heard. First Lieutenant Ronald Speirs (Matthew Settle) from Dog Company has executed all but one German soldier.

The incident with Spears isn’t quickly forgotten. The men discuss it during Episode 3, “Carentan.”  The attack of Carentan is part of the Normandy Invasion. 

Episode 4: “Replacements”  finds the men at a pub in Aldbourne, England. They find that their replacements which includes Latino Antonio C. Garcia (Douglas Spain), will receive a battalion unit citation for the battle in Normandy that they didn’t participate in. The men prepare for the upcoming Operation Market Garden which will have them jumping into Holland to liberate the city of Eindhoven and hopefully Holland. On 17 September 1944, the men parachute into Holland. But the operation fails. 

In Episode 5, as the members of Easy Company are being transported to Ardennes, the drivers are African American, but they may be the only African American soldiers seen in “Band of Brothers.” 

In episodes 6 (“Bastogne”)  and 7 (“The Breaking Point”), Easy Company are in Bastogne, a Belgian village as the Ardennes Offensive or the Battle of the Bulge. Bastogne is at the junction of seven major roads that connect to bridges. The bridges would allow the German tanks to cross the Meuse River and were vital in the plan to retake Antwerp. “Bastogne” is seen from Medic Eugene Roe’s (Shane Taylor) viewpoint while “Bastogne” is from C. Carwood Lipton’s (Donnie Wahlberg). Spears figures prominently in the latter episode. 

In Episode 8: “The Last Patrol,” when private David Webster (Eion Bailey) rejoined Easy Company, he volunteers to replace Liebgott, telling Winters that he also speaks German. In actuality, Forrest Guth was the interpreter in Hagenau. 

Episode 9: “Why We Fight,” is seen from the viewpoint of Captain Lewis Nixon and involves the occupation of Germany as well as the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp. Captain Spiers has stolen valuables from some of the German houses and mails them home. The men have different experiences with German women but nothing like rape although there is something slightly icky about a soldier offering things to a German farm girl in a barn. Yet rape by US, British, French and Canadian forces “were more commonplace than previously believed.” 

This wasn’t unknown at the time: 

In 1945, TIME magazine published a letter penned by an unidentified American serviceman who stated that “our own Army and the British Army … have done their share of looting and raping … we too are considered an army of rapists.”

During this episode, news that FDR has died reaches them and Nixon received a letter from his wife who asks him for a divorce. Nixon later enters a beautiful German house to steal liquor and while the husband, a German officer isn’t there, the wife is. She says nothing, but stares.

The two men who supposedly speak German have key moments. Webster rants in English against the Germans for starting the war when he sees German POWs marching past. Liebgott translates the accounts of a concentration camp prisoner after the men discover a German concentration camp at the edge of the woods. Webster confronts a baker about the existence of the death camp in English, but Liebgott tells him what the man is saying in German. 

Band of Brothers: Did They Really Liberate a Concentration Camp? (30 September 2023)

The U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division really did find a concentration camp, discovering around 500 dead prisoners there. The U.S. Army also really did order the local German population to bury the dead in the following days. In that respect, the Band of Brothers concentration camp is very much based on reality.

In reality, though, it was the “Screaming Eagle” unit that found the camp, along with the 12th Armored Division, who got there first. This is just one of the things Band Of Brothers leaves out of its story. The units arrived at Kaufering IV, one of 11 camps in the Kaufering complex in Landsberg, on April 27 and 28th 1945. It once held more than 3,600 prisoners in inhumane conditions. When the SS heard of the approaching U.S. Army, they took most of their prisoners on a death march toward Dachau. They also set fire to the barracks to prevent liberation.

It’s easy to see why the show depicts Easy Company discovering the camp, as they are the primary focus. The liberation of the Band of Brothers concentration camp is a worthwhile inclusion — even if the show bends the truth to incorporate it — because it showcases the very real horror of such places. The Holocaust should never be forgotten because it should never be allowed to happen again. The show intentionally fictionalizes some aspects of its story and even makes mistakes, such as the changed the Band of Brothers Blithe death and incorrectly saying he died in 1948. However, Band of Brothers still stays true to the harrowing experience of war.

While it might have been a worthwhile inclusion was it worth the exclusion? In fictionalizing the liberation of Kaufering IV, “Band of Brothers” missed an opportunity to include Japanese Americans.

According to GoForBroke.org, about 650 men served in the 522nd. When activated at Camp Shelby (Mississippi) in 1 February 1943, the unit consisted of nine White officers and 96 enlisted men of Japanese descent. The 522nd Field Artillery Battalion also participated in the liberation of Kaufering IV. The 522nd separated from the 442nd in March of 1945.  The 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team left France for Italy and joined the all African American 92nd Infantry Division.

At the end of April, the battalion joined the 4th Division and came across what was “most likely Kaufering IV.” 

According to Densho: 

While the 522nd FAB covered 1,100 miles in their movement through Germany, their single most infamous engagement occurred in southern Germany around Munich when the men stumbled upon roughly 5,000 prisoners marching through the countryside. Their initial encounter with these thousands of emaciated and mistreated victims of Nazi concentration camps was followed by the discovery and assisted liberation of the Kaufering and Landsberg sub-camps of Dachau. For these men whose artillery service had often kept them behind the front lines and away from the harshest experiences of combat, the sight of such suffering had a lasting impact. Though as was the case at all camp liberations, the Nisei were prevented from offering food and water to the prisoners as it might cause them harm rather than help, this was difficult for the American soldiers. 522nd member Don Shimazu remembered, “Our hearts were saying, ‘Yes, feed them, help them,’ but our heads were saying, ‘No, don’t feed them, those are orders!’ What those freed inmates must have suffered and endured is beyond imagination—they were like walking skeletons.”

In Episode 10: “Points,” the war in Europe has come to an end. Hitler is dead (the wrong date is given) and the Nazis have surrendered. The men of Easy Company are in Austria at Hitler’s Eagle’s Next in Berchtesgaden. The 522nd also joined the 101st Airborne Division near the “Eagle’s Nest.” This is another missed opportunity to show the diversity that did indeed exist. 

There are post-war reasons for including the Japanese Americans. Lewis Nixon did get a divorce from his first wife (Katherine Page) and his second wife, but his third and last wife was Grace Umezawa. Umezawa was a music student (piano and cello) at San Diego State University (SDSU) in California when FDR ordered the incarceration of Japanese Americans. Umezawa was sent to Santa Anita Racetrack which had become an assembly center and from there was sent to Poston, Arizona, the largest internment camp. Dick Winters stood as best man at Nixon’s marriage to Umezawa in 1956. 

Again Liebgott has a prominent role in this episode, killing a German officer after shouting at him in both German and English, accompanied by both Webster and Sgt. Wayne A. Sisk (Philip Barantini). 

Japanese-Americans with the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion pose outside the Kehlsteinhaus (also known as the Eagle’s Nest). May 1945. US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Episode 11 (Bonus): “We Stand Alone Together” is a documentary of the making of the film and the surviving men of Easy Company. 

Besides the moments mentioned, there were other opportunities for inclusion that were clearly missed. It was widely known that clashes occurred in England between White and Black US troops. We do see the men of Easy Company in England, yet these clashes are never discussed. 

Further, the troops trained in Georgia in Camp Toccoa. Not all of these men were from the South and used to the Jim Crow laws and social structure. Surely, they must have witnessed something. 

According to Collider: 

Another story that wasn’t fleshed out completely is that of “Anna” (Rebecca Okot), a Black nurse from Congo. “Anna” is actually a Belgian nurse by the name of Augusta Chiwy, who was awarded the Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service for her “selfless service and bravery.” She saved countless lives, despite an American regulation stipulating that Black nurses could not treat white soldiers (a young Army doctor, John Prior, simply told them “You either let her treat you or you die”). Even though not everyone’s story can fit into the narrative, it is a shame that stories like these are not given the attention they warrant.

There were also minority forces involved in the Normandy invasion: 

After a thunderous naval bombardment, the landings took place at 6:30 AM, H-Hour, along a 50-mile stretch featuring five designated beaches from west to east: Utah, Omaha (both to be secured by American forces), Gold (spearheaded by troops from the United Kingdom), Juno (to be taken by Canadian troops), and Sword (to be in the hands of the United Kingdom forces). In the early waves of the invasion, Code Talkers from the Comanche tribe exchanged radio messages detailing exact Allied landing locations for troop landing craft coming ashore. Meanwhile, soldiers of the 320th Anti-Aircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion, an all-black unit who also hit the beaches early, began their mission: to raise hydrogen balloons laden with explosives above Omaha and Utah Beaches with heavy steel cables as a defense against strafing German aircraft. To complete this task, the 320th first had to clear the beaches under enemy fire as infantry with other troops coming ashore.

The Army 4th Signal Corps Comanche Code Talkers trained in Georgia at Fort Benning. Although Fort Benning (now Fort Moore) and Camp Toccoa are both in Georgia, they are about 4 hours apart by car. Surely all of those people, the Comanche, the Nisei and the White soldiers saw Jim Crow South, but interpreted it in different ways.

Also at Benning was a Korean American officer who would come in as an officer for the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Infantry Regiment and then after leaving the army at the end of World War II, return as part of the 31st Infantry of the 7th Infantry Division, commanding a South Korean guerrilla unit: Young Oak Kim. 

Based on Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1992 non-fiction book, “Band of Brothers,” the miniseries was written by Erik Jendresen, Tom Hanks, John Orloff, E. Max Grey, Graham Yost, Bruce C. McKenna and Erick Bork. Directors included Phil Alden Robinson, Richard Lonecraine, Michael Salomon, David Nutter, Tom Hanks, David Leland, David Frankel and Tony To. 

The miniseries “Band of Brothers” won seven Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television Programming, Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie or Special. 

There were historical mistakes as noted in these articles, but none of them note the contributions of the Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans). 

By giving us testimony of the men they followed, “Band of Brothers” is a sensitive portrayal of World War II from the eyes of these men, but it was still a compartmentalized view of the war that ignored the problems of the US that mirrored the prejudice and racism that were part of the Nazi philosophy.

According to James Whitman, a professor of comparative and foreign law at Yale Law School and the author of “Hitler’s American Model,” in his essay for Time Magazine: 

In Mein Kampf, Hitler called America the “one state” making progress toward the creation of the kind of order he wanted for Germany. In 1935, the National Socialist Handbook on Law and Legislation, a basic guide for Nazis as they built their new society, would declare that the United States had achieved the “fundamental recognition” of the need for a race state.

Beyond its laws, the Nazis also admired America’s conquest of the West. In 1928, Hitler praised the Americans for having “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand” in the course of founding their continental empire. And they knew that the United States had emerged as the dominant great power in the world after World War I. To them, racism had made America great. Plenty of Americans seemed to agree.

Writing for Time Magazine in an assessment of the World War II trilogy (“Band of Brothers,” “The Pacific” and “Masters of the Air“) associate professor of history at Boston University Brooke L. Blower wrote: 

Yet Band of Brothers’ Normandy scenes never reveal that Americans were a minority among the multinational forces that landed—or that Soviet troops’ brutal faceoff with the Wehrmacht bought them the time they needed to get there. Likewise they give little hint of the toll the war took on the province’s French inhabitants, some 20,000 of whom lost their lives during that campaign alone. Houses and villages are for the most part pictured abandoned. Blink and you will miss the seconds-long shot of a small family hiding, unharmed, in a shed.

While Blower feels “talented filmmakers like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg” need “to pivot to a new era of World War II storytelling,” I think we need more people from minority backgrounds or from non-European countries telling the untold stories, the unexplored aspects of all wars, not just World War II. 

“Band of Brothers” is both sensitive and simplistic and in 2001, that might have been enough for some people, but not for so many others. In 2024, watching it on either Netflix or HBO, it reminds one of all the stories from minority soldiers and nurses that have been lost and are left out of the narrative of World War II. 

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