Band Of Brothers: The Untold D Day Ambush Story 

Thanks for the shout out

Adding the personal story of the soldier who lost his life there is a noble thing. I think sharing his name and background gives the ultimate perspective that these were young men with families, on all sides of this war. These stories need to be told and shared so that we all remember what war really is.

I appreciate giving credit to the actual people involved. I do not know where the mini series staff got their information. I also appreciate the fact that many actions portrayed in BoB were not completely accurate. Many soldiers were consolidated into one character to ease the film flow of the series. BoB should be recognized for the major piece of history it showed to us. It also should inspire people to dig in and find the truth of the events as they actually occurred. Thank you for shedding light on a truly important piece of history. I do not think BoB intended to overlook anyone on purpose, but had to make choices of how to keep the story flowing as quickly as they could.

During my time serving with the British Army in the 90s, I did a prepared ambush on the exact bridge on Longmoor training area in Hampshire where the second episode of Bander Brothers was filmed. Imagine my surprise when I saw it when I watched that second episode.

At 7:18 in the video, the narration states the video image is of a house at “619 East 39th Street, Indianapolis,” which was the home of Major John W. Vaughn, who was killed in action early on D-Day. And indeed, the image of the house has a superimposed graphic stating, “619 E 39th St Indianapolis, Indiana”. The video, however, gives other, conflicting information on that address. The video displays two newspaper clippings that also include Major Vaughn’s address. Both of those, however, clearly give his address as •624• E. 39th St. - see at 6:50, and 7:07. That leaves the reader wondering, “Where did the narration get ‘619’ E. 39th St.???” For good measure, when one enters “624 E. 39th St., Indianapolis” in Google Maps, it actually yields an image of the very Indianapolis house shown in this video at the 7:18 mark, with a graphic (in this video) identifying it as “•619• E 39th St". And when you do search “619 E. 39th St.”, the app shows the house •across• the street from this one! Obviously, the maker of the video had two sources that agreed on the (apparently) correct home address for Major Vaughn, and procured a photo of the Indianapolis home at that address. How is it, then, that the narration misstated the house number in the address, and also repeated that mistake in a graphic that was superimposed on the image of the house?

As always thank you for the video. I often wondered about this ambush and as you have explained it clearly I understand it all now. Coming up to D - day soon it's very important that this history is explained and passed down to the younger ones as very little is taught in schools now. We must never forget. ❤ 💐

if you turn on auto-generated subtitles it puts up "applause" for Guarnere's Thompson and "music" for the German's screams lmao

Really enjoyed this Rob, well done.

This man lived just a few blocks from the State Fairgrounds. I’ve been near there dozens of times and never knew. Thank you for sharing his story.

First video from your channel I have seen, and I loved the video. Great job!

Great overall presentation. Looking forward to more vids like this.

Well done. Fascinating to see the actual location of a skirmish made “famous” by BoB, even though the show wasn’t entirely accurate.

honestly seeing the real world locations and such is pretty cool

I’m only half way through this video but had to comment that it’s one of the best I’ve seen. Loved the visuals….it helped understand what happened 👍🏾

Never knew this what an interesting story. Love the research sharing these details

I went to this intersection during the 80th anniversary of DDay. Good breakdown.

Liked, subbed to both channels. Many thanks for helping to preserve history in an accessible format!

I love your videos and shorts. Love the history of these places and the stories behind them. 😉

Minor correction, the obit showed his address was 624 E 39th Street, not the stated "619 E 39th Street". Enjoyed the vid and have been subscribed.

Great work ace video!

Well done. So, can you explain why you think the HBO folks decided to place a bridge into this scene? The set at Hatfield had plenty of open area where they could have made a crossroads to depict the area as it was in 1944. I love Band of Brothers but it really puzzles me as to why they make these kinds of changes when it would be a lot easier to just create the set as it was in real life? I get it's Hollywood, but for historically accuracy, this would have been pretty simple to recreate in my opinion. Also, I feel like LTC Robert Cole should have been shown in this scene. Yes, he was in the 502, but not including him and some 82nd guys instead, was a mistake in my opinion. Again, I love BOB! Just some questions about HBO decision-making.

Excellent work! Thanks

I can't believe we're about to do this all over again.

Thanks for this very interesting video! This also explains the inspiration for the scene in the "Brothers in arms: Earned in Blood" game by gearbox where they have a chapter in which Cole performs this ambush on four horse carts.

So sad. Senseless killing. Never can understand war! My South African grandpa and my German Opa fought more or less the same place in North Africa. They must have had lots to talk about.

nice work

Fascinating insights. Thank you. Citations would’ve taken to another level. Question: It seem uncommon that a major would be taken out by friendly fire? Art majors usually a little bit behind the front line of fire? Sounds like this major didn’t waste any time getting out to inspect the seized goods.

Wow. I used to live less than a mile away from that house. I guess it's easy to forget that most soldiers were just that one guy who lived down the street to someone...

All of the movie band of Brothers and it’s really great to see the areas and hear the actual stories of how events happened. As we all know, Hollywood loves to exaggerate stories, unnecessarily in my opinion, but that’s Hollywood.

Wild Bill got some for his brother.

Great story. Thank you

I studied this ambush and several other Easy Company engagements. It was part of our curriculum at West Point in classes dealing with small unit combat tactics. Or maybe it was just me at home in my underwear reading a book that I borrowed from the Chester, PA library and never returned. Either way, you can thank me for my service.

Would suggest: don’t show addresses of homes people might live in today. Other than that great job.

My dad was deployed as a combat engineer at Omaha beach. I did some research because like most vets he did not talk about his experiences. In my research I found out that his unit was moved from Utah to Omaha beach because of a practice landing at Slapton Sands in England. Most of the film that claimed to be from Normandy was from England.

If possible in the future can you identify the number of casualties on the enemy force?

I have a couple of problems with this vid. As a former infantry soldier we were trained in how to react in an impromptu engagement scenario and it was nothing like the battle just described. That is the standard procedure when preparing to engage an enemy in an ad hoc fashion was to move to the right or high ground. In that lay out the high ground appears to be the hedge across from the road they came up. I can't believe an elite unit would be so clueless in such a situation. The second thing is, does anyone else notice the glaring discrepancies in this story and the one in Band of Brothers. Such as the size of the groups involved and the fact that in the show the cart was coming through what looked like a cutting under a bridge. It would be nice to have some explanation for the discrepancy in the scenario, like maybe the second ambush took place later in the day when the paratroopers had coalesced into a bigger fighting force. And that the action described above was later in the day compared with the story where there were barely a couple of hours passed when Winters lead the ambush. Remember this was June in Northern Europe and daylight would have been happening very early, yet the series depicts the action as occurring in the dark.

im more curious about the land layout, guessing there was no railroad bridge there or was there? the series showed it happening under a bridge.

The hedges in 1944 were thicker the nowadays

The difference between a screen version and what probably happened. In the end BoB did an excellent job of portrayal, admitting that details had been changed.

Can't speak to WWII tactics, but the friendly fire incident demonstrates why, when given time to prepare, ambushes are usually made in an L shape. The length of the L is setup on the flank, while the base of the L is in front. When it involves vehicles or carts, you want to take away their ability to accelerate quickly forward, and they usually are difficult to turn around. If you were to establish the base of the L behind the column, the column could potentially speed away quickly. This is why you establish the base at the front of the column.

They could have been wrong but I could have sworn in the band of brothers podcast they said though horse and carts were used by the Germans they weren't actually in the ambush they were showing and were added to the scene for effect. Could the show ambush be referring to a different event?

A contact is not a meeting engagement

Mein großer Respekt an die Deutschen Soldaten vor Ort!!!

The main difference from the film and reality was of course that, in the series, the ambush was made from a bridge over a road - which the Germans were coming down then going under the bridge, but the real place was just a T- junction of two roads, with no bridge at all. Not that it made any difference to the men involved, especially those who lost their lives. It was the last place they walked on in their lives.

I am completely ignorant to this event. What was the environment like at the time of the ambush; weather, noise from aircraft flying overhead and AA?

Nice work. Comment for the algo.

Yeah, knowing exactly what was in the carts beyond milk & bread would be instructive.

Where is it on the SME map in HLL

Its not a crossroads its a T junction. As my old CO would have said, Details matter .

It's lieutenant not leftenant , it wasn't the brits at the ambush.

I heard someone Say June 6 is the devil 's Birthday.

There’s no f in lieutenant, why do you pronounce it with one?

I hope this does not come off as sour grapes but it needs to be said. Dick Winters was a good soldier and by all accounts an excellent officer. The fact is that he was not unique in the US Army. The reality is that he was only made “famous” by the publication of Band of Brothers by Steven Ambrose and later by the Spielberg/Hanks movie by the same name. Prior to both of those presentations, few people beyond the members of Easy Company were most likely not even aware of him. I know I was not and as a West Point grad and former Army officer I read extensively about WWII. Neither was Easy Company unique. There were 100s of line infantry companies and thousands of company grade officers who performed equally bravely during WWII. I get the sense sometimes that the adulation “showered” continuously on Winters and Easy Company obscures this! Winter was, brave. Easy Company did its job. But neither won WWII single handily and perhaps this should be mentioned whenever a tribute is made to Winters or to Easy Company!

It’s not an untold story if they literally made a show about it

Funny that they should choose to show them murdering a surrendering soldier, if they were "heroes." Funny that that passed without comment. Queue the apologists who will claim the Germans shot surrendering GI's as though one atrocity excuses another. Had the uniforms been reversed, people would not be so understanding. By the way, read Antony Beevor's D-Day, using allied sources, he uncovered a lot more instances of allied soldiers, particularly paratroopers, murdering POWs and French civilians than than German soldiers killing allied POWs. So perhaps there was some truth to depicting the paratroopers committing a war crime. I'd be curious, how many paratroopers were there versus the chow train? Were there any survivors? Typically during the war, even in close in actions, wounded outnumbered KIA often 2 or more to 1. If it is the other way around, one should ask questions. Only in the movies do all the enemy troops die without wounded being killed afterwards.

I don't think it's a good thing to call out the names of the family like that and the house address. Everything else is great in this video except for that. I would even report it but I'll instead tell you first to remove that.

You're a poor strategist. The opponent would quickly hide behind the hedge and you would be on the defensive.

Like I said, it's Christians against Christians.

You may be correct...and you may be incorrect. Too many assumptions to place any weight on your assessment. Nice theory, though.

Why all these English actors putting on fake yank accents lmfao, plenty of brits in normandy ffs

👎👎👎 CLICK BAIT ONLY. VERY LITTLE FACT, a lot of unsubstantiated guesswork here.

Alright that was well done, I'll subscribe. You sonuvabitch, I'm in.

Fascinating insights. Thank you. Citations would’ve taken to another level. Question: It seem uncommon that a major would be taken out by friendly fire? Art majors usually a little bit behind the front line of fire? Sounds like this major didn’t waste any time getting out to inspect the seized goods.

Very nice graphics, photography and story. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the content my friend, new sub here !!!!

Good video. Thanks!

It's amazing to imagine what happened here those 80 years ago. That's why videos like this are so important; anyone who didn't know would just pass by oblivious. I see this and recall my own infantry training about how to cross a road with a platoon, securing the other side of the road, posting security, etc. and it still excites me. Amazing stuff.

You keep saying crossroads but it's a T-junction.

The video clip that you show from Band of Brothers is not referring to the ambush at the crossroads. They were walking along a railroad track and their ambush happens underneath the bridge for the train tracks. If you take a closer look at the clip, you will see that it all takes place underneath the bridge. I thought that they did a good job of staying close to the details of the book by Ambrose. And according to interviews with many of the surviving men, the book was pretty accurate.

The families were also victims in the war, never to be whole again.

Was there with Paul a few years ago

A few thoughts... Thank you for this in-depth account and debunk of Hollyweird. Can you further clarify if this meeting engagement occurred in the pre-dawn darkness or the early light of dawn? It would make a significant difference, particularly regarding the blue-on-blue tragedy. Entirely possible the German logistics mission of perishables, like milk, bread, probably butter, etc. to their coastal forces was simply a routine that embarked without knowledge or full understanding of the invasion. In ALL forms of bureaucracy there is always those who don't "Get the Word".

I don't get where you're coming from. This was never portrayed as an ambush. It was shown as a chance meeting first action clusterfuck

Hi, I found this show very interesting, especially the part where you explained what should have been done by the US soldiers. I was actually at that location in April with Paul Woodage on his spring Battle of Normandy Tour. It was an amazing experience. Tom Mullen, Geneva, IL. USA.

Was there ever a viaduct there, like portrayed in the movie?

Absolutely incredible!! Thank you for your dedication of telling the story of these men! I feel for both the allies and enemies! You talk with the utmost respect for these men! God bless you 🙏🏻

I knew both Winters and Guarnere and according to Winters, neither had weapons during this time. Winters words "Bill has told that story so much that now he actually believes it". Winters had his knife like in the series but one of the other men he was with stole it while he was under the poncho, and a grenade. Guarnere told me he shot several SS men he came in contact with including one thru the hand and ultimately forehead as he threw up a Heil Hitler salute in deviance a day or so before the advance into Carentan. I also knew Strayers radio man and he told me the advance around Carentan during the night before the famous BOB attack was worthy of a book in itself.

I think it's important to remember that many, many soldiers attached themselves to first friendly unit they happened to run across due to the miss drops. They then would have been commanded by strangers who they hadn't even seen in the daylight yet let alone know who was who. The only visible difference between the officers and NCO's to set them apart from the enlisted men that night was a horizontal or vertical stripe on the back of their helmet. They didn't even have the advantage of recognizing someones voice when all the shooting and shouting began. Friendly fire was pretty much a when, not an if situation. It was unavoidable.

Why no citations posted, not saying this isn’t correct but having a huge change in information would be nice to have sources of evidence.

Was fortunate, thanks to The Wife, to take the Stephen Ambrose Band of Brothers tour in 2019. We could have taken the June tour but figured it would be just too crazy, which it was, and opted for July. Travel was mostly by very nice coach and we watched the series while driving. Our historian was Chris Anderson and one of his repeated lines was "Yeah, it didn't happen that way..." Thanks for the excellent content and your help in keeping these brave men's stories alive.

criminal war action in my mind

I like this contain.

I thought ambushes were suposed to be "L" shaped?

You think eighty years is so long ago, but it’s really not. Seems doomed to repeat, almost like we forgot the absolute terrible loss we as a collective group suffered.

Great video, is the manakin of JS still hanging from the church in St Mère Église?

Awesome

As always thanks for the video ❤

Great video 👍🏼 I visitid all these places in June 2021. Its time to go again 👌🏼Thank you for the nice work 🙏🏼

I remember visiting Sainte-Mere-Eglise and paying a fortune for a 101st PIR memorial baseball cap and then swiftly losing it! AAAGGGHHH!!! Long way to go back for another one!

I watch the full video, and this is an educational video

Wow fabulous 🤩

I watched the whole video, there is a lot to learn 🥰🥰

Amazing

WOW! These stories really hit home.

Thanks for sharing

BoB was a fictionalized account of events that goes so far as to smear the reputations of some and completely erase and leave out the contributions of others.

You sound Australian. Just found you. Great videos. Well done!

Loved it, what a breakdown. Amazing, please do more as I now explore your vids

Interesting watch. Like many I fell in love with BoB quite late on - I didnt watch when it first came out. Such brave mmen

Quality video as always. Really enjoyed this. Thank you