The Real Band of Brothers

The Real Band Of Brothers

The 101st Airborne Division, or the Screaming Eagles as they are alternatively known, first came to prominence in the HBO TV series Band of Brothers and followed the adventures of Lt Dick Winters and his men from boot camp via Bastogne to their final war resting place at the Eagles Nest in Bavaria. The Division was only brought into being in August 1942, a good year or so after Britain's Parachute Regiment and more than seven years after the German Luftwaffe's Fallschirmjäger. Still, all three very different and distinct national paratroops excelled during the Second World War, sometimes opposite each other on the battlefield.

This release is a three part documentary series on the Screaming Eagles with three distinct phases.

Episode 1: Date With Destiny

This episode takes us from boot camp to the Normandy Landings in 1944. What becomes clear during this episode is that, as depicted in the HBO series, the parachute landings of the 101st were sporadic and not according to plan - this was mainly due to the inexperience of the flight crews who had never flown under fire before and therefore dropped their payloads wherever they could in order to get away safely. The end result of this was that the Germans couldn't discern any reasonable tactics on the part of the allied troops and therefore struggled to organise any kind of cohesive response.

Episode 2: Fire And Ice

Focussing mainly on Bastogne, arguably the 101st's finest hour, we are also taken on the ill fated Operation Market Garden and on to the Eagle's Nest. The bulk of the episode centres around the events of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, as you might expect, and it can get quite emotional but maybe not quite for the reasons you would expect. During this last offensive by Hitler, a couple of divisions of the Hitler Jugend were pushed in alongside regular troops and one vet describes how he bayoneted and sliced open an enemy combatant, only to discover it was a young girl.

Episode 3: Their Father's Footsteps

The final episode takes us through Vietnam and how the paratroopers had to adapt to a new method of modern warfare. Now designated as Air Mobile, the 101st would go into battle as air cavalry via helicopter. This was also a pretty unconventional war, compared to those that came before it anyhow, due to the presence of insurgents and the tactics employed by the Viet Cong. Amazingly one of the most fundamental differences appears to be that the Viet Cong fought at night, something the Americans were just not trained for - which I find extremely odd.

At forty minutes per episode, the mini series lasts for about two hours, being a mix of old war footage, narration and talking head interviews with veterans from each era of the 101st. The veterans of the World War II incarnation of the Screaming Eagles are not the same as those featured in Band of Brothers, but are just as good - lets face it, the more these stories are told the better. The war footage quality is variable and is all damaged to some extent with both scratches and artefacts, but this is normal for this kind of documentary so nothing that would necessarily spoil the viewing experience.

I'm not sure why they had to call this The Real Band of Brothers, they are part of the same brotherhood and not competitors with those who came before but I guess the makers were just trying to find a way to cash in on the name. Still, not a bad way to spend a couple of hours - now where's my BoB tin set?