I continued to watch the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers. This weekend I watched the second episode which is called Day of Days.
It started with interviews with the actual paratroopers from Easy Company. They talk about how they felt when seeing their drop zone at Normandy and when jumping out of the plane into the way of the enemy.
The regiment Easy Company was getting ready to land in Normandy when their plane was shot at, when looking out of the plane they could see other paratrooper's planes being blown to pieces. Other planes start on fire, quickly drop, and explode on the ground. One of the pilots of Easy Company's plane was shot and killed through one of the front windows of the plane. All of the paratroopers made their jumps out of the plane and ended up scattered all across the region and away from their designated drop zone. Soldiers were left alone and searching for others in their regiment. When some of them found each other, they continued to where they were supposed to land. The paratroopers were walking by captured troops who were their "enemy" and one of the paratroopers asked where one of them was from and he said he was from Oregon. The paratrooper was shocked and told the soldier that he was also from Oregon and was sent there to fight because that's where he was born. That captured soldier was later shot and killed.
Easy Company then met up with another regiment and talked about how 90% of their men were still unaccounted for. They found out that Lt. Meehan, commander of Easy Company, was dead. Lt. Winters then took command of the regiment. Winters later took out a set of German gun emplacements at Brecourt which won him the respect of his soldiers.
Most of the episode showed the men of Easy Company fighting, usually in trenches. Many men were killed. This episode showed that in war, there is no mercy. One mistake could cost you your life or the lives of your fellow soldiers. The troops of Easy Company seemed to have not been prepared for the reality of war. By the end of the episode, many troops were still scattered across Normandy and they were unsure how successful the invasion was.
This episode seemed a little harder follow but it was still very good. I do not like violent movies so some parts were hard to watch. My favorite parts of these episodes are the interviews at the beginning.
Comments
Well done Alex! Really enjoy your summaries in class!