Band of Brothers Viewing Guide #9

 

EPISODE 9 -  Why We Fight 

The episode begins with Easy Company in Thelem, Germany on April 11, 1945.  It then flashes back for the episode.  Inexcusably, at the end of the episode, we return to the opening scene and Nixon tells the men that Hitler has just died.  Hitler died on April 30! 

Speirs was one of the biggest looters in the company.  He sent the loot back to England to provide for his wife and baby.

Private Janovec (Tom Hardy) fraternizing with the girl is not in the book.  If he did, he was lucky because the German girls were hard to seduce.  But it's Tom Hardy, so...

Nixon was one of only two Easy Company members to make all three combat jumps.  Considering he was an intelligence officer, his statement that he had never fired his weapon would not have been unbelievable.    

The concentration camp episode is a bit enhanced.  It was not an extermination camp, but the inmates were starving and there were a lot of corpses.  The book does not mention having to put the people back in the camp.  There is no mention of Leibgott doing the translating.  Also, Leibgott was not Jewish,  he was Catholic.  Most of his mates thought he was Jewish due to his name.  He did hate Germans.  His parents were Austrian immigrants and he thought the Nazi had ruined the reputation of the Germanic people.

Lewis Nixon III -  He was born rich.  His grandfather was a famous shipbuilder.  He designed the first modern battleships and supervised construction of the first modern submarines.  Lewis III was yacht racing at age 7.  He traveled the world before adulthood.  He left Yale to enlist in 1941 and attended Officer Candidate School.  He transferred to paratroopers.  He became battalion intelligence officer.  In Holland, a bullet penetrated his helmet and creased his head.  He became an alcoholic after this.  His whiskey of choice was Vat 69.  Due to his drinking, he was demoted to operations officer.  Gen. Maxwell Taylor assigned him to observe Operation Varsity (a landing across the Rhine).  He was one of only three survivors when their plane was hit.  He did not fire a shot in the war.  After the war, he went to work at the family Nixon Nitration Works.  He hired Winters.  He had two failed marriages before his third wife helped him kick alcoholism.  Winters gave the eulogy at his funeral.