@@shire1944 There is no question in that. But the reason Winters had chosen Spiers to relieve Dike was because he was the first man standing behind him. Major Winters even stated "It was just a roll of the dice that he was standing there when I needed someone."
When officers get their orders they are also informed of the intent and mission of other platoons or companies involved so they know what their LOEs are and etc
Zero hesitation, zero self-doubt, zero room for error. Spiers didn't even say a word when Captain Winters ordered him to take command of E company. He knew what had to be done and was ready to do it without a moment's pause. No questioning, no deliberation, just action. Be like Spiers.
Not many people know this character was based on true events. He was a WW2 legend but also a very great uncle of one Britney Spears. It was said that he charged into battle screaming "hit me baby one more time!" Hence where Brit' got the lyrics for her smash pop hit.
Band of brothers as a series suffered greatly from over exaggeration. Maj Winters was portrayed as some kinda God. Most of it I believe wasn't intentional, the realities of war don't translate to a very entertaining form when not embellished. But you would have a pretty inaccurate view of the actual events if you base your understanding on this show.
As much as I love Band of Brothers, this portrayal of Norman Dyke is probably the biggest travesty in the entire show. Dyke definitely was not an extraordinary leader like Winters, but he lost the ability to command not because he simply froze but because he was wounded in combat.
Absolutely- I’ve pointed this out before. Dyke had previously been decorated and, as you rightly point out, was wounded in the attack on Foy. But be Dyke wasn’t popular Ambrose, a poor historian, allowed himself to be inflator show Dyke as a coward. Compare this with Compton who had a breakdown but, because he was liked, this was treated very differently.
@@Eddiestab hes only viewed as a coward to people who have no idea what they're talking about. Literally any man can freeze like that. It's what the term fight flight or freeze comes from. It has nothing to do with bravery or cowardice. It's our bodys response to stress. Trained men freeze all the time and it can happen to anyone.
But his nickname was Foxhole Norman before he got wounded. I agree with that this was too much, Ambrose went too much on Winters' word without conducting proper research after the interview, but I wouldn't call it a travesty. More like an exaggeration.
@@AndyP998 we have a first hand witness in Lupton who specifically tells of the run back and his amazement at managing it, it's who Ambrose bases this section of the book on. Multiple other members of Easy Company also attested to it
@@chrisluffingham845 yes think was Lupton himself said in other interview back in days that he "run" advanced from building to building and "run" back while remained unseen amazingly. So its choise of words.
When Death arrived to get Speirs. Speirs looked him in the eyes and said. Do you want a cigarette. Death said I did not come for that. I’m being replaced by you. And hell no I do not want a cigarette from you .
And don’t forget the greatness of Sink. Saving one of his battalion commanders from an emotional decision and yet still standing back and let him do his thing once he’d snapped out of it.
@@Jason-iz6ob Sink wasn't there in real life, Winters stopped himself, realizing he was "running" the Battalion (the entire Battalion was committed to the attack) and couldn't just run off without any one knowing.
Spiers knew everyone's job and took command this is just what a true leader does and gets it done. My favorite series of all time and unbelievable of what a generation of men did.
I am visiting Foy 3 month ago. From the Bastogne War Museum you drive 5 km to the forrest over Foy. The foxholes of easy company still exist in 2020. I walk there with a good friend and we were spechless. There is little monument with the names who fight there and who died there. These man of the easy company are no "suckers and loosers". They give there lives that I can have a live in freedom and peace and I as a german will never forget this. BoB is the best Series ever made. GZ from Germany
@@pauldonnelly910 "Muh anonymous sources" lmao. Dozens of staffers/officials went on record saying that wasn't the case. I believe the people who aren't cowards and will put their names next to their statements.
wierd thing that they had the turret facing backwards and were driving the in forward gear to be able to manuever it faster. Probably because they expected that the Airborne troops will not have any heavy anti-tank guns or rockets.
A tank has infantry with them for defense because a single man with a sticky bomb can disable a tank easily. They probably thought that is what he was attempting.
I once spoke with Joe Lesniewski about the series. He said it was 80% true and 20% Hollywood. We both agreed and almost said simultaneously, "And that's pretty good....."
I've watched this at least 25 times over the years, but this is the first time I see Dike's eyes at the moment the mortar is launched at the sniper. Such an amazing detail.
Luitenant Dike who is portrayed in this episode as an incompetent coward apparently earned 2 bronze stars. one for regrouping and leading scattered, outnumbered paras and fighting off the germans time after time at Market Garden in Holland and later one for removing 3 exposed wounded soldiers under heavy fire. At this scene in the Foy assault he had to be released by Speirs, not because of panicking but he had a shoulder wound and could not lead the assault anymore. But that is not the way they portrayed Dike ! 🙄🤨. Maybe they wanted to show that not everybody was suitable for combat , but this is plain slander on Dike ! You wonder what is real about 'cpt. Sobel' ..
This is the most underrated comment. LT. Dike was well decorated and proven to be a very competent leader. He may have not have been a fit for Easy but he certainly was no coward. This was his second purple heart and most likely suffering from shock.
Very hard and courageous. Profoundly stupid too.... We've heard his story. You know which story we havent heard? The story of the few thousand others who tried this and died like sheep. We only hear the story of the one lucky enough to succeed. Common sense is called that for a reason.
@@nikosgreek352 its called war unfortunately but luckily the Russians, English and Americans defeated tyranny, what was your countrymen doing for the war effort?
@@EugVR6 I think it is best if you google it. Youll see we did our part. More than our part in fact. In any case you have misunderstood. This wasnt meant to be an anti-war comment that badmouths soldiers in general. I was commenting on the stupidity of this specific maneuver.
0:46 I love how you see the artillery impact and for a second it looks like Spiers is dead then he just casually hops out of the blast like it's nothing and continues running
I love how the Nazis wasted a tank shell on a single guy running towards the battle from a long distance, like they knew Speirs was gonna turn the tide of the battle.
Lmao I know its messed up but I just pictured how the scene would have looked if Spiers actually died there lol. "Hes dead already????" Then Winters has to send yet ANOTHER officer out
The good news is that because of incidents and leaders like this, the modern day U.S. Army has put a lot of training and decision making into the hands of lower ranking leaders such as Non Commissioned Officers, no modern day infantry, or any other army unit, would wait on a commanding officer who was obviously ineffective or freezing up in a combat situation such as this, they would just take charge and order air/artillery strikes on that building and get everyone moving.
Didn't NCO's do that in WW2 as well though? I remember reading about Peleliu battle where a commanding officer was killed so an NCO took temporary command until a replacement was found
I don’t know why, probably the music... I’ve seen this clip over 30 times (minimum] since it first aired on HBO. Every time Lipton says “...he came back” I tear up 😢
I never got over the fact that Lipton told a soldier to get on his feet and then grabs him by the collar only for that guy to get shot the moment he stood up.
Spiers is legendary. No other soldier in the history of all wars ever cause so much defilade from tank rounds, mortal shelling, or small arms fire ricocheting off his huge steel balls than Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Charles Spiers
There were plenty of soldiers who did such feats, but Spiers is one of the only who survived. If Spiers were to have gotten shot at soon as he started running towards I company, that wouldn't mean he was any less brave. Many did such selfless acts, most died making them, many died well before their bravery became known
I made CPT and knew that I didn't have the talent to go any further. After a year on staff duty I knew it was time to get out of the way and let someone more capable take the next command slot.
After Desert Storm and before Black Hawk down incident, The US Army had the best damn leadership nobody can't buy. The Drawdown of the 90s saw such a deterioration of leadership (officers and NCOs) that the leader's of today are so GODDAMN inept that, when I'd retired as First Sergeant (which it was not my intentions to become one)my superiors was looking for so many ways to let me stay. I choose to RCP me out to retirement. I wrote an essay on how the 90s Drawdown destroyed leadership. Here's the simplified version. Good ones- left the Army because they gave incentives to leave. (GI BILL, EARLY RETIREMENT, SSP (lucutive lump sum payout to soldiers getting honorable discharges prior to the Soldier's hump-less than 10 years in Active service) Bad ones- stayed in because they dont know how they'll end up in civilian world so they stayed in, with limited or frail intelligence. To offset, they intimidate, cheat, lie, take credit, do whatever it takes to stay in and look good. The young enlisted- they're like Charlie Sheen in Platoon. Finding a mentor to follow. Tom Barringer (Barnes)is the bad leader while William Defoe(Elijah)is the good one. It's human nature that Barnes will find a way to destroy anything good about Elijah's leadership including killing him. Yet Charlie have grown up more or less both leaders. Towards the final battle and also the end of Charlie's tour, it's seems the welding of the two seems crude yet complete. A few of the new enlisted (like me) didn't have much mentorship because the bad ones were afraid that I'd be a lot more efficient than them so, like Barnes, they'd hazed me, trip me up, trump up BS details to break my spirits. So long as I'd observed the good from bad and take notes on all leadership styles, I was going to become go to guy that leadership picks me. Yet, it got very old to be that go to guy because, when I produce success and outshine my peers, that's all what Command wants...positive results.
I did some research and this in fact did not happen with Dike. In fact he had been wounded and had not been overcome with fear. Spears should have been given the MOH for what he did.
This epic historical fact should be required reading in all our schools from K-12 to Colleges, University's and beyond to show future generations what REAL man balls looks like.
As a young paratrooper, learning to shoot with either hand, was part of our Training. Cover and/or the Tactical Situation may dictate being able to fire using your off-hand/non dominant eye. The M60 machine-gun was my primary weapon, and more of a challenge to shoot off-hand because the brass (expended casings) eject from the right side.
Winters needs to tell the colonel that as long as he, Winters, is responsible for the battalion, he is going to issue the orders that he thinks are necessary. What is the colonel gonna do- fire you and not let you go get killed? Winters owes his men the best commander he is able to place in their company. If Winters was doing his job right, Dike never would have been promoted to CO until he showed that he can function on a battlefield, and even then his command should have been tentative, depending on his being up to the job. Dike, as portrayed here was a liability on the battlefield.
2:40 - that soldier has got to be the worst shot in the entire Wehrmacht, but thank God for that. Lt. Speirs wouldn’t have been able to complete the mission if it wasn’t for dodging all those bullets (by just running straight, apparently).
@@somename6955 Speirs also wasn't shooting or charging directly at any of the German soldiers. That got him immediately downgraded as a threat. They were way too distracted by all the Americans trying to kill them to think hard about someone who was not trying to kill them (at the moment).
The average quality of the Wehrmacht soldier declined considerably by this point in the war. Germany formed many ad-hoc army units scraping the barrel for manpower. There were many instances of Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel being absorbed into infantry units. I don't know if that was the case in this battle in real life but it's a possibility
@@RealRotkohl Yes, hollywood made him run in middle of street with some powerfull heroic music in backround. He moved house to house to made contact and then came back. Heroic thing indeed but not like this at all that makes scene kinda silly
Be it bloody gulch or Foy, the biggest inaccuracy in BOB is that battles took 10 minutes. Caritan took 2 days and was only won with MASSIVE superiority in men and artillery (half the Germans were actually Ukrainians who didn't want to fight). In Band of Brothers it took 20 guys with rifles 8 minutes.
Ronald Speirs was Scottish by birth, born in Edinburgh. His son became a Lt. Col. in the British army, commanding a regiment known as the Royal Green Jackets.
You know the saddest bit about Speirs. Someone wrote below he went into battle "accepting he may die", but he still had a wife back home - whom he loved. Back when the Americans were looting the Nazi homes, Spiers sent tons of silverware to his wife back home. Later, he returns home to find his wife had taken all the silver, then run off with some other guy.
@@frolianmoreno7297 It was a myth that she had been married before . She had not. I believe she never remarried and just raised her son she had with him . She just didn't want to move to the USA . The GI brides had a less than easy time when they moved to the US . That was what probably put her off .
@@frolianmoreno7297 The only reason I know that is because at the time BOB was aired there was a documentary aired in England which I can no longer find based on the Easy Company's time in England but less polished. Let's just say while is was a good series a lot was left out
Just like the Aussie light cav at Beersheba in the First World War, if the enemy has artillery superiority, you've just gotta get in under the guns before anyone knows what's going on.
"You're the battalion commander now git back here!!" Absolutely correct. The BC commands the battalion; the company commander, and more importantly the platoon leaders, fight the fight.
Yeah, no shit, but it's far more nuanced than that. The current CO was about to get them all killed. Winter's *was* a company commander. Specifically Easy company, the one we are seeing in danger. Not only did he have a personal bond with them but the battle was hinging on their success and he had more than enough experience to salvage the situation. Seeing them getting pinned down out in the open like that made his combat instincts kick in and was willing to take direct command to ensure they succeeded. Roles aside he knew what he was doing, especially when he ignored Sink and sent in Spiers.
OK, I made it up to this episode but now I am done. The Allies were sitting outside Foy for quite a while (they said a month in this episode) and as portrayed here, there was ZERO initial artillery or airstrikes against the embedded Axis forces, no smoke round for concealment and they just ran across a 150 meter field in broad daylight for the assault??? I can understand taking SOME leeway for dramatic purposes, but that was ridiculous.
The requirements for the Medal of Honor were standardized among all the services, requiring that a recipient had "distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty." Basically doing something that would have you dead to rights with no expectation of making it back alive.
Those German 88s were some weapon any target air, tanks, infantry, they were deadly why didn't we copy them.they dont make men like them of easy company anymore RIP FELLERS YOU GOT THE JOB DONE.
Lipton won't just grab a guy or even any staff stg. for that matter and force people to move forward, he'd at least see if the guy was giving covering fire. Sadly, a lot of lives lost for the town of Foy.
Can somebody knock me on the head so I can forget that I watched BoB and have the sheer excitement and dread from watching it for the first time again?
