History Professor Breaks Down Band of Brothers Ep. 8 "The Last Patrol" / Reel History

hello everyone and welcome to yet another episode of real history i am history professor jared frederick and we're so glad that you can join us for our next segment but before we delve into the newest episode of band of brothers we first want to make a special invitation to you my friend andrew and i who put these videos together we've noticed that a lot of our comments are dedicated to specific questions about specific historical movies and or suggestions of movies that you would like to see in preparation for our hopefully attaining 1 000 subscribers we invite all of you to go down below into the comments section and pose your question about a historical movie and once we reach 1 000 subscribers andrew and i are going to dedicate a special episode specifically focused on your questions and me as a historian and he is a veteran are going to dive right in and answer those to the best of our ability so if you haven't already make sure you hit that subscribe button and then go down below and share your thoughts and pose your questions now that that advertisement is out of the way let's head into the next episode of band of brothers in our previous episode of band of brothers easy company was going through a rather difficult time in the blue jack and these snowy wood wants surrounding the village of foy belgium in many ways it could be considered a low point it could also be considered a turning point because out of that decisive battle easy company gains itself a new commander in the form of lieutenant ronald spears and spears will be re-emerging here as a major character in some of our final episodes as easy company zeroes in on its next objective in hagen now france hanging out was a village of some a city rather of 20 000 people uh it was located in the alsace region of eastern france for a number of years it had actually been a part of the german empire but in 1919 following the conclusion of the first world war it was actually ceded back to the country of france and so this was a true borderland it had it was it was very multicultural people there spoke both french and german it was located along the banks of the motor river which was just a little bit upriver from the rhine which of course is the big boundary point that would allow the allies to push into the heart of nazi germany and that is where easy company finds itself at this given moment for any of you who are fans of various ken burns documentaries you'll notice that in these opening titles and introductions to band of brothers they use that same style white lettering black background underlined in red very distinctive tom hanks is a big ken burns fan undoubtedly that is where they got that stylistic inspiration from all i knew was what i had read and heard around the replacement details that we had broken the back of the enemy and the war would soon be over the opening here in the muddy streets of hagen now are quite authentic in february of 1945 a lot of the winter snow started melting and the motor river was very swollen it flooded at times everything was just very dreary encrusted in mud and filth including the men who walked through this environment and it was just a very bleary sort of landscape at least bastogne was somewhat picturesque you know the christmas time snow and everything despite all of the cold and horror involved with it um but any of that wintertime allure was long long gone and by this point it was just a bunch of muck and filth and everybody's fatigue was reflective of that filthy landscaping environment yeah right reports a second webster they'll find a place for you next show called webster you'll find a second move one of the absolute best books about easy company is uh david kenyon webster's uh memoir which is entitled parachute infantry and of course webster is the key protagonist of this episode he is the narrator as well and he's a good sort of cinematic vehicle for us the audience looking into the lives of easy company because this was a man who had been wounded in the leg in holland he missed the entirety of the battle of the bulge he rejoins with his platoon in february of 1945 and uh for all intents and purposes at least as it is presented here in the series uh he is an outsider like we the audience and so it works very very well and of course his incredibly rich military autobiography provides all sorts of unique perspective one really interesting thing that webster wrote about is that when he returned to his platoon he noticed that there were only 11 men left and he was essentially my god where's the platoon there's supposed to be 40 men here and then it dawned on him the toll that had been inflicted on his outfit during the battle of the bulge and he could remember there standing in the middle of this muddy road and saying i i could have cried that is what he said in retrospect such what's the matter there webster nervous in the service the show may exaggerate ever so slightly the perspective or the the depth to which webster was in fact looked upon as an outsider in his book he talks about being warmly greeted by a number of his comrades they were glad to see him he was glad to see them uh they perhaps weren't quite as cold as indifferent as what the film might always suggest there you go he's got pneumonia i'm sorry to hear that ah what are you saying about he's alive he's got a couch goddamn blanket snug as a bug in these scenes here we can see a very uh sick carwood lipton uh and indeed in february 1945 he did have pneumonia and uh he later confessed to author stephen ambrose you know i don't get sick often but boy i was really really sick here uh in hagen now in early 1945. and um an interesting little anecdote um that we don't actually see here in the film is he and spears shared a bedroom a single bedroom with this old german couple who who lived here in hagenau and there was one bed and spears told lipton uh you're sick you get in the bed i'll sleep on the floor lipton didn't want to do that he didn't want to deprive his commander of a good night's sleep but spears insisted and the the german couple who were running the household they were cordial hosts and they gave a lipton a big slice of apple strudel and they also gave him a a nice big hearty glass of schnapps and so he he uh ate the strudel he drank the whole thing of schnapps and he said he went right to sleep and the next morning the the surgeon was intending on shipping him to the rear because he was too sick he had a fever he was aching like you wouldn't believe but after he got that full night's sleep after drinking the schnapps and eating the strudel he felt completely better and he went to the doctor and the doctor said i don't believe it you don't have pneumonia anymore you can stay and that is exactly what carwood lipton wanted he wanted to stay with easy company and it wasn't just a matter of sentimentality he was a vital figure in the operations of of the company um and so he was very pleased indeed as was lieutenant spears and in that moment lipton furthered his sense of affection for spears you know this guy was known as a killer he was thought of as as ruthless and cruel but in moments like this spears indicated that he did have a heart that he had compassion and more importantly he showed compassion to men who deserved it and surely carwood lipton did earn it and so just a nice little story there on the side that's uh not often talked about or heard about hey kevin spears sir this is uh lieutenant jones listen christ's sick will you go back in the back and shack out there's some beds back there with fresh sheets this actor is actually colin hanks who is the son of tom hanks the executive producer it's probably easy to figure out how he got this acting spot but uh for reasons that we'll discuss here shortly he's a perfect selection for the character of henry jones regimen wants patrol for prisoners this one comes straight from colonel sink so that's not my idea several hundred yards across the motor river there were indeed these uh german outposts many of the germans were actually hidden in a uh thick tree line knows the the fort de hagenau uh well over a mile away and david webster said that he could see the germans scurrying about in those trees like ants would in an ant farm and so these germans who are in the buildings that captain winters is discussing here were actually you know advanced troops they're in an outpost position much like these men in easy company are on the opposite side of the river and so that kind of offers us a little bit of a tactical overview of how these two sides are assessing each other what'd you graduate june 6 sir june 6th of last year d-day yes sir all right don't get hurt uh this was indeed uh an interesting coincidence in the eyes of some men of easy company uh the fact that the day of their first trial by fire you know you have this rookie second lieutenant uh coming into the ranks of of the 506th uh they undoubtedly saw him perhaps a little bit you know as wet behind the ears but in actuality i can offer a little bit of context on lieutenant henry jones because i just happen to have a 1944 yearbook entitled the howitzer which is the name of the west point yearbook because these are the things that one owns as a historian and we can page through this very very thick volume and right here we can see lieutenant henry jones and his senior graduation photo and indeed he looks a lot like colin hanks it's perfect casting when you think about it jones had grown up in erie pennsylvania and he was able to get into west point through a congressional appointment through his uh congressman and his yearbook described him as this his nickname was jonez and it says about him honest preferred to gain most of his education outside the academic course through his diligent study of men and books his knowledge of tactics firearms and judo as well as his open and inquisitive mind will enable him to become a valuable and resourceful officer his companions will always know him as an original thinker and a sincere and unselfish friend and indeed this is a very accurate summation of who this man was he may have been fresh to easy company but he knew what he was talking about he knew the art of armed warfare and here at hagenow he had every intention of putting that knowledge to good use come on webster spelling captain spears is to pick 15 men lieutenant jones wants to be one of them spears was actually still a lieutenant when this was ongoing it wouldn't be until some weeks later that he would be promoted to captain they have roofs over their heads sir just like us i don't think anybody wants to do anything stupid at this point right why are you holding out me despite the fact that these troopers were indoors and had comparatively comfortable lodgings in comparison to what they'd been in the weeks and months prior there of course still was the continuous danger of random shelling and then even of greater concern for troopers like webster was the potential of german troops crossing the river i mean this wasn't you know a one-way street so to speak uh the germans could cross the river as easily as what the americans could given the right circumstances and so you really had to be on your toes uh here at hagga now i'll tell them i just listen up got some bad news [Music] i love the the juxtaposition here the contrast and uniforms between the weather worn sergeant and the the fresh lieutenant it certainly makes for a striking comparison all right out the px rations just came in including winter shoe packs beautiful yeah finally right why did he hang up the field telephone and then turn the dial makes it ring on the other side christian jackson he was dead before doc rowe even heard the call for a medic [Music] spears seems very agitated in some of the scenes in this episode and that you know really when you you consider the later interviews that his men gave about him he was agitated because he was frantically trying to save the lives of his men and he finally came to this realization that no matter how hard he tried to do this that it was an impossible task that he would never be able to save everybody the the introduction of showers here at hagen now actually happened these were like huge portable industrial sized showers that could bathe 200 men per hour and some added luxuries that the regiment received this same week is that they got a batch of movies and they could actually watch some motion pictures uh in the evening and uh they were a very eclectic mix of movies including uh the more lighthearted rhapsody in blue and alfred hitchcock's suspense thriller called saboteur so there was some opportunity and chance for levity and escape from this frontline monotony on occasion like malachi leader christ the only last is five best friends what the [ __ ] he gotta look for has it been a long time since your last shower professor [Music] webster was sometimes referred to as professor because he had attended harvard university he was a literature student but he ended up joining the paratroops before he received his degree he was a very learned man he was observant his talents weren't necessarily in just soldiering but rather in making a chronicle of you know his observations of men in wartime that was one of his great strengths he was not a man who frequently volunteered for extra duty he did not necessarily always enjoy being in the army despite the fact that he volunteered for the paratroops but i think he wanted to be where the action was because he knew that there would be a good story in it somewhere and so that that interarry uh writer in him uh was drawn to these sorts of environments as a result of that curiosity kid's just trying to do his job all right jesus chris you know what the hell with it none of my best i got to go blast this house you happy now i'm coming back over this film excels in this sort of sarcastic banter which has uh more authenticity than one can imagine intelligence give you the information on the cp third house on the left as soon as our men are back in the votes won a quad 50 opening on captain winners webster talks about this moment in depth where uh spears and winners are standing on this little perch overlooking the river and it's worth reading a short excerpt of his book the officers stood in the middle of the yard below the french doors on a slight mound like napoleonic marshalls at australits and swept the scene with their arms now pointing at the woods now at the motor river now at the farmhouse strong point and at the distant forest where enemy soldiers were crawling about like upright ants among the pine trees it was a clear blue day with unlimited visibility but they showed no concern we watched them a while muttering low about their attracting the attention of the 88s to our home and then went indoors luz fetched the gi phone and started back rolling up its wire on a hand drill as he went mccreary went alone remained outside when the officer saw him they joined him on the threshold of the garage hello major he said pleasantly as one equal to the other hello captain patrol going out soon he leaned against the wall with a cigarette dangling limpy from a corner of his mouth yes mccreery spears replied in just a few days platoon leaders will pick the men s2 wants some prisoners they always do said mccreery why don't they go get them themselves sir and so once again this wonderful banter in this case taking place between uh an enlisted man and an officer and it really shows i think the sense of ease that these men had with each other they treated their officers with respect but in many cases they could still have a casual conversation here as was the case with paratrooper thomas mccreary but such a wonderful visual that webster paints of these two officers uh standing by the river uh leaders in action so uh yeah a great little scene here that we see believe god and i we both speak german yeah you said 15 men there's 16 of us including two translators i find that leapguard and webster did in fact uh speak german but webster likewise did not actually participate in this patrol i know that may be heartbreaking to some of you who are out watching this and are familiar with the series uh but he was perched atop a balcony in hagenau overlooking the river manning a heavy machine gun supporting his comrades who would be going across in these captured uh german rubber dinghies uh that the paratroopers had apprehended to go across um and so that is one of the the greater liberties taken in this episode since webster is the main character of this episode it makes sense to put him in the middle of the action even in actuality he wasn't hey lou got you wanna sit this one out yes sir martin you wanna supervise buddy just three squats sergeant martin was actually not the one to lead the patrol there's actually another very trustworthy sergeant by the name of ken mercier who is not a character in the film but he is a character that shows up frequently in webster's autobiography i mean so once again we can see characters and incidents being condensed and given the scope and the magnitude and the cast size already it's it's perfectly understandable to see why theatrical liberties such as these were taken it's important to point out how rare and occasional it could be that one would actually have the the time and opportunity and the proper environment in order to to sit down and clean your weapon you know here and the the forefront of of the allied advance it was certainly not something that you could easily do in a foxhole the the probability of of losing a piece or a spring or what have you uh was too great but when you're in uh you know this this indoor environment you have a table to work at it's something that you could do with a greater degree of confidence and security and so uh it's important to point out that they are preparing accordingly here in these scenes 15 men crossing a river to capture prisoners from a german observation post getting back safely could be successfully accomplished this sort of no-man's land especially at night it could be very frightening uh webster at one point heard that this sound emanating from the river and it was a repetitive swoosh sound and he said that there's a there's a platoon of germans they're crossing and so he and all his buddies ran out of the basement they went to meet the enemy and here it was it was a fallen tree that was swaying up and down in the river's current and his comrades essentially said you have your damn nerve webster for doing that to us on other nights men in easy companies said that they heard this creaking wagon out in no man's land a similar sound that they had heard outside of karen tan several months before and several of the more superstitious paratroopers in the company insisted that this was a haunted wagon or a haunted carriage that was following them across europe and it was meant to remind them of all of their sins and all the prisoners that they had killed in normandy i mean so indeed um these men could you know get a little bit jumpy uh while they were out here watching the main line of resistance one can only imagine how cold the motor was uh at this time of year and like i said it was unpredictable because um it was constantly ebbing and flowing uh you know rising and decreasing uh with the rains the the spring thaw that was on the horizon and uh you know webster said that there were all of these gray half dead trees on the opposite bank of the river and he said that they looked like ghosts standing there in the midst and it had this very haunting quality to it the riverbank did as we can see here none of the men have any helmets they aren't carrying excess gear they want nothing that will shine or clank and in moments like this where we see private jackson uh barreling headlong into this building in which he threw a grenade you maybe you may be wondering you know why and how in the world could you do such a thing but in the heat of the moment when your adrenaline is pumping there's this automatic instinct okay you know throw the grenade clear the house he wasn't thinking clearly and you know in this high energy of the moment and it's it's perfectly understandable when you look at it in hindsight and this was a a sad reality of this up close and personal nature of combat the paratroopers later recounted that they had absolutely no problem uh picking up these germans and dragging them back across the river uh in many ways these germans were demoralized they knew as well as anybody that the war was nearing its conclusion and they certainly did not feel like being heroic in instances like this where they were taken off guard and so the germans were fairly easy to apprehend in reality uh webster was in the place of lead god here on a balcony manning a heavy machine gun uh but uh on that signal of the whistle uh that was eventually blown as we see here um as uh one eyewitness later recalled uh the whole western bank of the river erupted in this red sheet of flame uh you know these gi's you know they they were uh itching and raring to go and when they heard that signal once their men had reached the riverbank uh they just let the germans have it and it was one heck of a barrage that they unleashed here at this moment the regiment also had spotlights across the river and on most nights they had those illuminated so they could keep a close eye on the opposite side of the river but this was one night of course where they did not have them lit which certainly makes sense but it also adds another degree of danger because it also opens up added possibilities of instances of friendly fire i mean so there was the potential of not only getting shot by the enemy under these circumstances but being gunned down by your own men too it's heartbreaking stuff and there's certainly nothing heroic about it a kid screaming on a blaze basement floor gurgling in his own blood saying that he doesn't want to die and it's all the more painful when you realize that in the broad scheme of thing there's only a little bit over two months in in the war that is left and you know these guys they had been through so much and there's a light at the end of the tunnel but as spears knew not all these guys were gonna make it not all of them were going to see the end eugene jackson became one such person on february 15 1945 it was his own grenade he died of his wounds sir any others no sir dexter fletcher who plays sergeant martin in the series uh has has gone on to a a great degree of fame in the realm of directing if any of you have uh seen the movie rocket man the biographical musical about elton john he was the guy who actually directed that movie and so quite the evolution in turn in his career what you looking at webster yeah that's what i thought college boy as you've been watching the series you've possibly noticed that the character of roy cobb is perhaps one of the more disagreeable personalities who is depicted in band of brothers and indeed he had a number of unsavory encounters with his own comrades throughout the course of the war at this instance in hagen although cobb was one of the men who was in the life raft that capsized as the men were crossing the river during the night patrol and the following day as is depicted in the series there was in fact a wounded german that remained on the opposite side of the river a number of the troopers had been hurling grenades at him trying to put an end to his misery and to stop his constant screaming uh screaming in pain and uh cobb eventually uh hurled a grenade himself and he is credited with eliminating that wounded german on the other side of the motor you drunk trooper leave me alone answer the question yes sir i am drunk sir cobb did in fact become intoxicated on schnapps and lieutenant jack foley also absent in this scene was very quick to confront him on this issue and this ultimately led to cobb's court-martial and dishonorable discharge from the army later on when colonel sink discussed this confrontation with foley he said to foley you just should have done a solve a favor and shot the son of a [ __ ] uh which is not the first instance in which colonel sink said that to his subordinate uh tells you a lot about the high standards uh that he held so he knows we lost a man yeah he knows he also knows you picked up two prisoners who talked about what in the hours after the patrol uh dick winters wrote a long overdue letter to his pen pal dieta allman back in the states and you can read a portion of that letter as well as many others and the book that i co-authored with my friend which is entitled hang tough which looks at dick winter's correspondence and in this letter of february 15th he wrote to dietta if you read the papers you'll see that the 101st has been with the seventh army for a while and they've been feeding us beans and marching us daily he wrote at the present it takes all the personal discipline i have to write a letter just saying hello this old war is mighty rough at times becomes a bit tiring but if those russians can keep going so can i and one week later he added time to daydream play or write just doesn't exist of that i am firmly convinced so don't be uh griping at the mail clerk or me hell i don't even have enough time to sleep and eat let alone to keep going and so uh here you know we kind of get this sense of fatigue even in the letters of dick winters i want you all to get a full night's sleep tonight which means in the morning you will report to me that you made it across the river into german lines were unable to secure any live prisoners even many decades later winners was perfectly comfortable with this secret act of disobedience and on on a broader level uh you know among the masses of americans who were fighting in europe during this time that these sorts of things happened far more frequently than what we will ever know but as far as winners was concerned his men had done their job they had gained the prisoners and the intelligence necessary and this was not about ego to him it was not about pulling off another successful mission he got what he needed he wasn't going to risk the lives of his men and in his mind that was in short this court martial offense was worthwhile uh because uh winners could sleep well he would not have that on his conscience risking the lives of his men further needlessly first sergeant lincoln sir your honorable discharge is an enlisted man just keep him coming battlefield commissioners lipton was informed of his promotion to lieutenant by spears and winters this is something that they wanted to do personally because they held him in great affection they know that he had been ill they wanted to celebrate his recovery and it was a moment of a great endearment to the three men jones regiment has seemed fit to promote you to first lieutenant all right i'll be with you i went to one staff up there with that henry jones uh did survive the war i believe he transferred to the 508th parachute infantry regiment not too long after this he wished to remain in the army he wanted to become a career officer he remained in germany after the war but sadly he was mortally injured in an automobile accident outside of heidelberg germany in 1947. he underwent an operation in an effort to save his life but unfortunately he did not survive that calamity and he had a very promising career ahead of him but like many of the men he served alongside that future was going to be cut short oh clears congratulations major it was in fact around this time that winters was promoted to major and uh spears was likewise promoted to captain well-earned promotions [Music] here [Music] it was on february 23rd 1945 that men of the 36th infantry division relieved the 101st airborne at hagenau and with that these paratroopers were heading back to mormon legrand france where they were going to get a little bit more reprieve from the front lines before they inevitably headed into the heart of germany [Music] a great easter egg that we see here at the end you'll notice that cobb is in the back of a military police jeep and that is a hint a a tip of the hat to his actual arrest and court martial it's something you got to watch out for you would hardly even notice at a passing glance it took me a long time to notice it um but it just goes to show the complexity of this storyline and how much the filmmakers were able to squeeze in perhaps without sometimes even the audience fully recognizing it a lot of good easter eggs in this show that brings us to the end of episode 8 the last patrol i think this episode does a really good job at capturing the the grime and the grittiness of hagen now the fatigue that the men of the 101st airborne were enduring in these final months of the war and as many of them fully realized as they were pulling out of this town heading back into france for a little bit of a breather that the end game was set and as the coda here at the end of this episode would indicate the company would soon be heading in to nazi germany itself and that is where we will pick up next time we look forward to you joining us on the next episode of real history

Channel: Reel History

Views: 39,642

Rating: 4.9755101 out of 5

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Id: EmrKV-eCp7k

Length: 38min 55sec (2335 seconds)

Published: Sat May 01 2021