Band of Brothers Viewer Guide

 

BACK-STORY 

The series was the brainchild of Tom Hanks and Erik Jendresen, who was the lead writer.  Steven Spielberg was brought on board to add his creative vision.  The series used “Saving Private Ryan” as its template.  HBO was convinced to make the very expensive project.  Back then, before epic series like “Game of Thrones”, a series costing over $125 million was a huge gamble.  It was the most expensive per episode series until the similar “The Pacific” series by HBO.  2,000 German and American uniforms were produced and 1,200 costumes.  10,000 extras were used.  700 authentic weapons were used.  Some days of shooting expended up to 14,000 rounds of ammunition.  There were 500 speaking roles.  The series made stars of Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Donnie Wahlberg, and Neal McDonough.  It also had several future stars in minor roles, like Colin Hanks, Michael Fassbender, Tom Hardy, James McAvoy, Simon Pegg, and Andrew Scott. The main core of actors was put through a grueling ten day boot camp by Dale Dye.  Dye served as technical adviser and also played Col. Sink.   The series was filmed mainly at Hatfield Aerodrome in Great Britain.  The old airfield was converted into a 1,100 acre studio with a 12 acre village set that stood in for eleven different times.  Believe it or not, the Bastogne forest scenes were filmed indoors with 250 real and fiberglass trees.  The snow was a type of paper and plastics.

The series was critically acclaimed.  It won Emmys for Outstanding Miniseries, Achievement in Interactive TV Programming, Casting, Directing, and Sound Effects.  It was nominated for Writing, Special Visual Effects, and Cinematography.  It won the Golden Globe for Miniseries.  Damian Lewis was nominated for Actor in a miniseries and Ron Livingston was nominated for Supporting Actor.  It was awarded a Peabody Award.

EPISODE 1  -  Currahee  (Sobel)  -  The series opens with the now iconic theme music.  No war movie lover can hear that now and not immediately be taken back to the series.  This was followed by the genius decision to start each episode with cuts from interviews with the aged veterans and not identify them so the audience would not know which characters were going to survive.  This episode deals with the training of the unit.  It revolves around the Sobel-Winters dynamic.  There are two acting revelations in this episode.  David Schwimmer joined Matthew Broderick from “Glory” as actors who were able to play against audience expectations.  He gives an Emmy-worthy performance.  The series is going to make stars of several actors, and it obvious from this start that Damian Lewis will be one of them.  It’s also nice to see Dale Dye (with a lot of dye) giving his stamp of approval and being rewarded with a meaty role. The episode lays a firm foundation for the small unit template it will follow.  The appearance of real C-47’s at the end was a good sign that the series would be big on fidelity.  The only real weakness of the episode is it did not do a good job of showing how elite the unit was by having a high percent of the men wash out.  One often overlooked aspect of the series is it makes Sobel a villain and yet he was a real person and the series did not change his name, thus showing it was serious about being historically accurate.     

Herbert Sobel –  Sobel is not a fictional name.  Sobel was the first commander of Easy Company and he is accurately portrayed in the series.  At the Emmy Awards, David Schwimmer apologized for his characters treatment of Winters in the series to the real Dick Winters.  Winters told Schwimmer that the real Sobel was much worse. 

The idea for putting the pig guts on the ground when they crawled under the barbed wire came from Maj. Strayer, the commander of the Battalion.  It became known as the “Hawg Innards Problem.”

Dale Dye –  Dye appears as Col. Sink, but he also served as technical adviser.  Because of this he was made an Honorary Member of the 506^th.  Dye was a Marine combat correspondent in Vietnam.  He was eyewitness to many battles and was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for an incident in the Tet Offensive where he helped with a machine gun and rescued some wounded.  He was a character in Gustave Hosford’s “The Short-Timers” and was portrayed in the subsequent movie “Full Metal Jacket” as Daddy D.A. played by Keith Hodiak.  He created Warriors, Inc. to offer to prepare actors for war movie roles and to ensure realistic depictions of war in films.  His first boot camp for actors was for “Platoon”.  He appeared in the film as Capt. Harris.  He went on to appear in numerous other war movies.

Ambrose in the book does not specify that it was Sobel who served them spaghetti before they had to run up Currahee. 

Their motto was Currahee, which meant “Stands Alone”. 

In the war game, Sobel did not leave a good ambush position to walk into an ambush.  Instead, they were in a defensive position when the wind went rustling through the trees caused Sobel to panic and jump up and yell “Here they come!” 

There was talking about shooting Sobel in combat (what they called “fragging” in Vietnam), especially after the raid on the men’s contraband.  This was an important scene in establishing Sobel as an asshole, but in reality the items he found were contraband and the peaches were stolen.  Would Gunny Hartman  have done anything different? 

NOT HISTORICAL LICENSE:  Luz did imitate the voice of Maj. Horton to get Sobel to cut the fence, thus releasing cows that got a complaint to headquarters by the farmer.

Why did Sobel accuse Winters of dereliction of duty?  Sobel felt challenged by Winter’s competence and the fact that Sink saw him as an officer on the rise.   

Nixon was an alcoholic.  The book does not specify that he insisted on a particular brand.

Why were Harris and Ranney singled out for punishment for the sergeants’ mutiny?  They were the ringleaders.

NOT HISTORICAL LICENSE:  Guarnere did find out about his brother’s death at Monte Cassino when he accidentally picked up Martin’s jacket and then read a letter from Martin’s wife.

$10,000 life insurance -  Members of the armed forces were offered a $10,000 death benefit, but you had to sign up for it.  If you have seen “The Pacific”, you might recall that John Basilone neglected to sign, so his new bride did not get the $10,000. 

leg bags  -  they were someone’s brilliant idea of a way to carry even more gear into the drop zone.  The bag would be attached to the paratrooper’s leg and land just before he hit the ground.  He might even have a softer landing by landing on it.  They carried extra ammunition, radios, machine gun tripods, medical gear, high explosives, etc.  Unfortunately, the shock of jumping out of a plane caused most of the leg bags to part from their owners.  There are no records of any Germans being killed by falling leg bags. 

How many pounds did they carry for the drop?  An average of 70 pounds of gear.

The things they carried -  pocket knife, spoon, razor, socks, cleaning patches, flashlight, maps, three days of K-rations, emergency rations package (4 chocolate bars, pack of Charms, powdered coffee, sugar, matches), ammunition, compass, two fragmentation grenades, anti-tank mine, smoke grenade, Gammon bomb (plastic explosive to use on tanks), 2 cartons of cigarettes, canteen, shovel, first aid kit, M-1 carbine, bayonet, gas mask

Why are their faces painted?  So that the moonlight would not reflect off their faces, making them easier targets.

Some of the men did have Mohawks shaved into their hair.  This would have been pretty common for paratroopers.  Ironically, the Germans were telling French civilians that the paratroopers were felons and psychopaths with shaved heads.

Are those real C-47s?  They used four C-47s.  All were built in 1943-44.

Why do the C-47s have white and black stripes?  To identify them to avoid friendly fire.  In a nice touch, the planes used have a sloppy paint job, which reflects the hurried painting before the actual drop. 

What are the yellow vests they are wearing?  It is an inflatable vest in case they landed in the water.  It was called a Mae West in honor of the buxom movie star.