Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest [Paperback]

Ambrose's narrative is good, and full of quotes from the soldiers. The only part that got annoying was Ambrose's frequent opinions about how wonderful and amazing the American soldier was and how second rate everyone else was. The Airborne was an elite unit, but probably no better or worse than other elite units in the war. Having read some German accounts of the Normandy campaign, and taken in light of the enormous blunders made by the German high command in planning and carrying out its response to the invasion, Ambrose's "professional" analysis is dead wrong. If the German field commanders had their way, E company would have never gotten to the Eagle's Nest, most of them would have been buried in France by the Germans.

As a personal account of the soldiers journey from training to war, this is one of the best books I read, just take Ambrose's comments with a grain of salt. A good historian is supposed to be objective and take all points of view into account before making a conclusion, Ambrose does neither.

I found that my reaction to the book was basically the same as it had been to the mini-series: I have tremendous respect for Dick Winters and I wish there was much more to what I was reading/watching. When I got this book I was surprised "Band of Brothers" was "only" 333 pages long. One of the strengths of the book is how Ambrose takes advantage of the dual perspective of his sources, who not only recall what they were doing and thinking during World War II, but also what their thoughts are today about what happened back then. However, Ambrose does tend to repeatedly make some key points in his editorial commentary on the historical narrative.

It might be some sort of heresy, but it does not especially matter to me whether or not Easy Company was the premier unit of the United States military during World War II. What is of importance here is the story of the war told from the perspective of "common" soldiers. For the most part when I have read war books they have been big picture books and usually about the Civil War (e.g., Catton, Foote, McPherson), but there is certainly something to be said for the more personal memoirs (e.g., Sam Watkins' "Company Aytch"). That might be why I liked the sections where the actual soldiers provided first person narratives of their story; I would not have minded at all if this had been more of a cut and paste job where Ambrose linked his collection of interviews, letters, and memoirs. However, the thing I would stress is that if you liked the mini-series you should still read the book and get more of the true story of Easy Company.