War Time Tales brings you cinematic short military history documentaries featuring the greatest battles and most heroic stories of modern warfare, covering World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and special forces operations in between.
As images and footage of actual events are not always available, War Time Tales sometimes utilizes similar historical images and footage for dramatic effect and soundtracks for emotional impact. We do our best to keep it as visually accurate as possible.
All content on War Time Tales is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes.
It was Winters, not Sobel, who elevated the reprimand. Winters could have accepted the reprimand, but demanded a court martial instead. This wasn't the first time Winters was reprimanded for being late. He was told to attend a meeting called by the Regimental XO eight miles from the company barracks. His ride didn't show up, so he was late. From Winters book: "When asked why I was late, I explained, but the executive officer inquired why I hadn’t run instead of waiting for the ride." Being on time and having some way of letting people know where you are and how to get hold of you is pretty important. Especially when lives depend on it.
On D-Day Sobel parachuted into Normandy as commander of the 506th's service company. After landing, he assembled four men and they destroyed an enemy machine gun nest with grenades. He then rejoined the 101st Airborne near Carentan. Sobel was awarded the Bronze Star and spent the rest of the war as a staff officer and logistics officer.
I was 100% behind Winters! I worked for a major in SAC in the late 1950s and he was a man everyone respected but he believed in the same style of command and everyone would have followed him with respect and discipline. I too learnt to respect this man . Ruling by fetok
Well, there's always three sides to every story, Winter's truth, Sobel's truth and God's truth. Unfortunately, both men have passed and God isn't talking to any of us. I don't know how truthful Mr Winters was, but since Mr. Winter's passing some inaccuracies have begun to show up from his book. I know that some of you who admire Mr Winters are going to come after me and I get it, but let's start doing some real deep research on some of the mentioned characters before we give weight to the criticisms about Mr. Sobel.
Some of the criticisms against Sobel are unfair. He was his responsibility to censor all out-going mail or have other officers share that duty; Winters and others did it. In garrison, officers are rarely with their men. Company commanders are with battalion/regimental staff; planning future training. The Executive Officer is in charge of getting re-supply for daily and future needs. I was a 'ghost' doing that job; while working 20-hours days in the field. The platoon leaders all have additional duties such as Mess Officer, Supply Office, Finance Officer, etc. so they learn all the things a company commander needs to supervise. In Officer Basic, we got about a half-day's training on each of those jobs; so we spent a lot of O.J.T. And I once was put in charge of an investigation, for another company, to see who fell asleep on guard duty and had to pay for the things which were stolen by locals. It came down to two-thirds to the guy who didn't get up, and one-third to the awake guard who woke up the guy next in line but went to sleep without making sure the other guy got up. I will add that Easy (5th company of the 12 companies in the regiment) was so good precisely because of what Sobel did. We truly hated the man who 'tortured' us in the first weeks of Ranger School. But their mission was to weed out the physically / emotionally weak. We knew we could count on the men who survived. Sobel's problem is he made it personal. Our lead Ranger Instructor (R.I.) didn't even want to know our names.
As portrayed, and if true, an infantry officer who cannot perform adequate land navigation will get himself, if not others, killed. I've always viewed it as a basic function, even for those involved in WWII with poor maps and compasses without declination adjustment. I mean, you don't put someone out there that can't hit the broadside of the barn with a rifle - and you wouldn't do it with an officer that can't read a map adequately.
It is amazing how some people are born with a compass in their head, and some can't find east with the sun coming up. I've seen a fellow Ranger lead the rest of us up a mountain, and then a kilometer later try to lead us down the same side of the mountain. As to marksmanship... if he can fire in the correct general direction we will take him. You seldom get good targets in the chaos; you fire at sound, gun-flash, movement, or "that way".
Thank you . . . while depicting Army officers in the program . . . I can attest 100% that the Navy was not devoid of similar Winter's type officers and Sobel type officers.
