A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

On Quora, Cory Dun asks: How realistic is the miniseries Band of Brothers as far as the airborne divisions are concerned? Was Easy Company a real parachute infantry company? I replied: Cover of the 2001 "miniseries tie-in" edition. © 2001 Home Box Office and Simon & Schuster Band of Brothers  is a 10-part adaptation of Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1992 non-fiction book  Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Nest,  which itself was a companion book to his 1988 book  Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944.  Based primarily on interviews with surviving E (or Easy) Company veterans, correspondence, unit histories, diaries, and other resources,  Band of Brothers  was a look at a light infantry unit (albeit an elite one) that fought in many of the major campaigns in Northwest Europe from D-Day all the way to V-E Day (May 8, 1945) and through the summer of 1945. Because it is a dramatization of a non-fiction b...

(C) 2001 Simon & Schuster. Cover art (C) 2001 Home Box Office, Inc.  I must be honest and admit that I did not read Stephen E. Ambrose's Band of Brothers until I had read several other works by the late historian and biographer who, along with Steven Spielberg and Tom Brokaw, helped renew interest in World War II and the amazing men and women of what Brokaw calls "the Greatest Generation." In fact, it wasn't until almost 17 years ago that I bought Touchstone Books' third edition of Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, even though Ambrose's book had been around since 1992, two full years before the publication of his trailblazing D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (Simon & Schuster, 1994). But after having read the latter and its follow-up, Citizen Soldiers , I had become an avid reader of Ambrose's World War II books.  Band of Brothers ...