Book Review: Band of Brothers (Stephen Ambrose)

If the HBO series Band of Brothers had you glued to your television sets, you should pick up this book. Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers is the work upon which was based the popular TV-series produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The book will help flesh out the many awe-inspiring characters in the show, such as Major Richard Winters, Medic Eugene Roe, Sergeant Floyd Talbert, and will further detail the background upon which this story was crafted.

Band of Brothers is the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, during the Second World War. Except that this is not just a fictitious tale. It is a documentation of the real struggles of real people. The book opened in July 1942 with the unit's formation and introduced the key characters including Lieutenants Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon, and Privates Carwood Lipton, 'Bull' Randleman, Floyd Talbert and others. Suffering the tough training and harsh discipline, these men were gradually forged into a combat team. On D-Day, 6th June 1944, Easy Company parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe and quickly witnessed its first casualties as well as heroes. With the original commander killed, Winters emerged to exercise effective leadership and won the respect of his men. The unit went on to see fierce firefights and bitter encounters from Holland through Belgium to Germany. Each exacting circumstance was to see the snuffing out of many lives, all so young and seemingly futile. Each was also to draw out the best from others, such as the brave dedication of Medic Eugene Roe to all his casualties.

While the TV-series concluded with the disbandment of the unit at the end of World War Two, the book went on to trace the post-war lives of the key characters. Some like Winters and Randleman appeared to have been rewarded with good careers and families; others like Talbert, unfortunately, never quite overcome the emotional trauma of the war.

Ambrose's experience as a writer of best-selling history titles is evident in Band of Brothers. Historical genres have that reputation - whether real or mythical - of threatening to bore. Yet, Ambrose was able to balance the need to authenticate the events with a wide selection of sources and at the same time to lead his readers along his narrative. His quotations from soldiers' diaries and veterans' interviews were framed against dispassionate background developments and elaborated with graphically detailed descriptions. Readers are thus transported half a century back to visualise the fire-fights through the soldiers' eyes, to feel their adrenaline rush as Easy Company charged the enemy lines, to experience their camaraderie as if we were soldiers in those very trenches.

Ambrose was criticised for plagiarising from other historians in some of his works, a charge he has admitted to and apologised for. But Band of Brothers is not one of the books under the cloud. Hence, Ambrose has been successful in documenting the historical developments while remaining engaging in his narrative in Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers is certainly worth a read.

Reviewed by James Low

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