Not Private Blithe... :/ *Band of Brothers*! [Ep. 3] Reaction 

you might want to watch 1:00 again

This show was researched meticulously and written from the journals of the men, and particularly the writings of Ambrose. The fog of war is a truly staggering thing, it's almost impossible to make sense of anything. It wasn't until the 1960s when Blithe suddenly showed up to an EZ company reunion that anyone knew he survived. He was shot in the neck and wasn't seen for 2 decades (before the internet or before most people even had telephones) what were they supposed to think? This was a period where interstate highways were a radical concept. Keeping in touch with people was pretty difficult. There is also a huge inaccuracy about Lt Dyke. He was actually shot twice in the chest while leading the attack on Foy in episode 7. He was a pencil pusher and a well connected college boy... however, many men wrote that he was a coward and broke down in combat. In reality he was mortally wounded at the onset of the attack before being relieved by Lt Spears. No one knew how gravely he was injured because of his heavy winter clothing. Much like Blithe, no one saw him again for decades, and his reputation was ruined because of the fog of war.

Two of the other guys attended a funeral for a man with the exact same name, believing it was the same Blithe who had been with them. They reported attending the funeral to Ambrose. The wounds Blithe from Easy Company received did kill him, though. He became an alcoholic and died from complications related to that.

@@saltwatertaffybag Thanks for the info. Not sure that Dike was mortally wounded though. That means a wound that kills you. I think he weenr on to serve in Korea. What's interesting with Blithe is Ambrose decided he died of his wounds in 1948. Two big assumptions given people simply didn't hear from him for a long time. He came to several reunions in the 60's though so I'm surprised no one mentioned this in the research

@@DJLtravelvids Blithe dying in 1948 was a rumor that no one knows the origin of. Someone heard it from a buddy in D company who got a letter from his mom in the same town Blithe was from, who heard it from her second cousins son in law and blah blah blah. Somehow this became the narrative between the men of EZ and they believed it to be the truth. As far as "mortally wounded" it generally means that without immediate medical care it is a lethal wound. Left untreated you will die, but if you have access to medical supplies and a good doctor you might survive. There have actually been men shot through the heart who have lived thanks to absurd amounts of blood transfusions, oxygen therapy, and an ungodly amount of surgery under a medically induced coma.

Spiers was one of the best career soldiers, he knows whats up

LET EM HAVE IT, BLITHE! And the cartridge spins and spins. Its one of my favorite scenes of all time, any production. Brilliant visual.

You are over thinking it no need to confuse everyone he was a coward

@@danielduffy3489 oof

@@danielduffy3489 it's a physical manifestation of fear. It's easy for couch captain to call him a coward.

@@danielduffy3489 Don't be an idiot.

@@danielduffy3489 Temporary blindness is a PTSD side effect from prolonged fear, being shell shocked causes neurological damage and will lead troops to feeling fear all the time even long after the war is over which is why many veterans commit suicide because they just want the fear to end

Kerry Tipper is also a politician in the Colorado House of Representatives

i thought it said he died in 1948

@@thesnazzycomet The show does say he died in 1948 for some inexplicable reason. As far as we know the reason the producers messed this up is that after Normandy the men of Easy Company lost contact with Blithe and just figured he must've died of his wounds, and since the show is based on Steven E. Ambrose's work on compiling war stories from the soldiers of Easy, this is the information that was used. Very strange that no one looked up his service record to verify though.

@@Bottle-OBill was gonna say because you made him see like quite the icon so weird they just missed it altogether

There is a Dick Winters interview on RU-vid where he talks a little about Blithe and his Korean War service.

@@thesnazzycomet A lot of the guys would've lost contact with him due to the fact that they left the Army at the end of the war, and, Blithe stayed in.

Hot take, Pacific is better than BoB (both excellent by the way)

She must watch that series...Its something she will need to work up the courage for! 😉

Kinda the point. Isn't it?

this series will probably set off a few nightmares by itself. But after she finishes, the documentary clip 'we stand alone together' is a great one to watch.

@@alexsingh1429 No way, Band Of Brothers is better.

Admiral King once said of General Patton, "Whenever you're in trouble, you call the SOBs." They're the ones who can be counted on to get you out of a jam.

Civilians are baffled by Speirs. Veterans love him.

@@timroebuck3458 Haha, I just watched Midway today, and they had Admiral King say that to Nimitz when he turns over command.

More like natural born self-disregard which is a credit to them as warfighters, anyone can kill if they're under no threat.

Yes, the western front was about as civilized as war gets. Which is not that much, but as not as bad as it could. There were actual rules that were mostly followed.

Some people are just extremely naive to the evils of men. They can’t seem to fathom that people do cruel things, like her thinking the Germans wouldn’t shoot priests or medics, I actually let out a laugh when she said that. I guess some just don’t want to think about it and hide from it.

Also, good luck making that kind of fine visual distinction in that kind of combat situation. You stick your head out from cover as little as possible, see a human-shaped figure in an enemy uniform, then stick your rifle out, shoot as fast as you can, then duck back. The camera work tries to capture this in this show and does a pretty good job, but there's no way to really portray the effects of all the fear/rage/stress hormones going through those involved.

Yes….generally speaking firing on medics is not condone however there are some instances where Germans as well as Americans have fired on a medic…..however in combat….stray bullets can hit anyone

Imagine her reacting to The Pacific. All that blood and gore...

Bless her, she should have some tissues ready for episodes 6 & 7.

@@Zurvan101 she’s gonna need an entire box for episode 9

@@Leviathan_117 Episode 9 is going to hit her really hard. That was the most difficult episode for me.

@@ShadowMoon878 forget the blood and gore. What about the brutality?

Amen.

even the war crimes?

@@bhimbonggames3206 no war crimes, they had orders not to take PW's during the 1st few days as they wouldn't have any were to hold or man power to guard them. and the shooting of his own man was justified as he was drunk refusing a direct order & pulled his weapon 1st and their were witnesses

@@bhimbonggames3206 paratroopers weren’t in a position to take prisoners. By definition they were supposed to be surrounded by the enemy, dropped in way behind the lines. If they took prisoners, they wouldn’t be able to do their job and could put the success of entire operations at risk. If they let them go, they’d just join back up with their forces and come back to attack them again.

@@bhimbonggames3206 Killing POWs wasn’t a war crime then.

Lots of soldiers did that. They even collected parachutes from other soldiers who either died or did not want them and mailed them back as soon as they could so the fiances got them before they died.

"M1 Finger" well that's my first time hearing it, always heard of Garand Thumb but not M1 Finger LMAO

The Geneva Convention fads away, the closer to the sharp end you get. On D-Day, the 12th SS captured 20 Canadians, they were taken the HQ, then executed. It is estimated that they executed up to 164 Canadian prisoners during the Normandy phase. The Canadians didn't take SS prisoners after that.

@@demonlordoftheroundtable2456 Garand Thumb gave himself Garand Thumb on his channel Garand Thumb. It's not nearly as bad as you'd think. More of a pinch than any actual injury.

The germans did not try to keep to the geneva convention. Not at all. They killed off millions of PoWs. They executed civilians. I mean, really, thats just a very wrong claim. I am not sure about medics, but i doubt they cared about them, at least in the east.

@@IIBloodXLustII uhhhhhh.... thanks?

Oh shit, had no idea haha. That's sick.

On my first training exercise I thought about my dad facing possibly the last moment of his life day after day from when the BEF went to France until VE Day, by that time he was one of a small group to survive physically unharmed in his battalion, I couldn’t do any less and face him after.

I understand man. Speirs was like trying to drum this into Blithe's head: If you think you are already dead, you will not be scared anymore and do things more efficiently and hey, your chances of survival actually gets higher.

Which is why Smith said he "looked like a Kraut."

read 1:00

Is that why? Damn that’s the equivalent of when Tom Hanks meets the wrong Pvt. Ryan in Saving Private Ryan.

Temporary blindness is a PTSD side effect from prolonged fear, being shell shocked causes neurological damage and will lead troops to feeling fear all the time even long after the war is over which is why many veterans commit suicide because they just want the fear to end

Flight instead of fight. Sorta the opposite of blind rage where your body can still see and fight but you wont be there in the moment and it will come back as a memory. Like a quick jump of hitting Fast forward on your life.

@@jayeisenhardt1337 read my first comment

IOW, no, the Germans did not spare medics or priests in the field...

Sabaton did a amazing song and music on the topic -ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HPdHkHslFIU.html

And then Mustache Man reported it to his higher ups (on his stretch of the Trenches), man really hated love/fun

Recovered by the end of the war, ended up staying, then fighting in Korea. High honors and all. Then stayed again and was stationed in Germany during the Cold War. Developed a drinking problem and nervous issues. Felt unwell after a Bastonge reunion/travel, ended up going to the hospital and died of a perforated ulcer during surgery. Think he was 45 or something like that. Buried in Arlington.

read 1:00

@@Zenon0K thank you for the info. Appreciate it 🙏 💯

@@flobb91 the one thing I missed in the video cause I didn't pause the video when I went to the bathroom. Great. Thanks for telling me

@@flobb91 Dah. Saw something while packing a pipe. Saw "disclaimer" and figured it was the fair use warning everyone has to put up now a days.

I have some pre decimalisation coins somewhere, they would have been a nightmare for anyone unfamiliar with them.

Stephen Ambrose, who wrote the book that the mini series was written from, could have looked through army records, and found out what happened to him, but he didn't bother.

I have no idea why they didn't go back and correct it. It's an east editing correction considering it's simply a screen with text.

"Shell shock" was what it was called at the time, though I think, by WWII, it was starting to be called "combat fatigue" or "battle fatigue", now it's called PTSD.

@@StarkRG you forgot, operational exhaustion

"Johathan Tey-ah-tah-me. At your service." "You mean...like around four o'clock in the afternoon?"

The spot on the ground was actually hollowed out with a crash pad underneath, so the stuntman who got "run over" was pressed into the hole on the pad, resulting in a shot that made it look like he got squished by the tank.

@@AdderTude ya I know that. I've own the special edition DVD box set since it came out around 2001 or 2002. Plus I've seen all documentaries on Easy company and the making of Band of Brothers.

War is worse than hell. Everyone in hell deserves to be there. In war it's mainly the innocent who suffer

Actually, regarding Speirs, I was able to find this info in an article about the book that this mini-series was based on **possible spoilers** "The air of mystery surrounding Speirs caused a few headaches during the fact-checking process for Ambrose's book. The stories about Speirs include him shooting one of his own men for being drunk, and handing out cigarettes to 20 German prisoners of war before shooting them all dead. Simon and Schuster's legal team was concerned that these stories, if published, could open them up to a libel lawsuit. To allay those fears, Major Dick Winters personally got in contact with Speirs to explain that the tales were going to be included in the book and ask if he had any objections. Speirs was unconcerned, and freely admitted they were true (or at least, some version of them was). As he said to his stepson when Bethea expressed concern that the stories might reflect badly on him: "I'm eighty-one years old, what can they do to me now?" "Some of the stories about Ronald Speirs were indeed exaggerated. The German prisoners, for example, were shot not out of sadism but simply because on D-Day the US troops were ordered not to take any prisoners; there wasn't yet any established infrastructure within which to hold them, and letting them go would have meant letting them carry strategic information back to the German army. According to a letter that Winters wrote to Ambrose, the story about Speirs shooting his subordinate was also "glamorized." He shot the sergeant not for being drunk, but for twice disobeying an order to halt his men's advance into a town that was about to be hit with artillery shelling. When the sergeant tried again to push his men forward, "Speirs shot him," Winters wrote. "[And] in doing so he probably saved the lives of the rest of the squad."

No, medics were not primary targets. According to the Geneva Convention(1929), intentionally shooting at medics is a war crime. Depending on circumstances it did happen, but it wasn't common among Western armies. The Japanese, however, always shot at medics.

@@richardstephens5570 The germans didn't care about the Geneva Convention so yes they did target medics too.

Yeah, It's sad but understandable that most people who never remotely read up on WW2 believe "Oh all germans were na*is and hated j*ws!" which is the furthest from the truth.

This is true and that made it an effective weapon in a defensive action. However the fast rate of fire made it an inaccurate weapon. This was down to Hitler's orders for the fastest machine gun in the world. A strategic genius he was not! The British bren gun had a much slower rate of fire but could put rounds down on a target consistently. A much better weapon for an assault action and chewed through far less ammo making resupply less of an issue.

@@Zurvan101 I agree. I should have put in a caveate that it was better as a defensive weapon.

Its a great topic for analysis really. The "Lions of Carentan"(6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment) were the first german unit to engage and defeat US forces on D Day, tenaciously defended the Carentan Causeway aka "Purple Hearth Lane" , held the town in a desperate rearguard action and in the battle of the bloody gulch they routed the 101st Airborne and retook the trainyard while the 17th SS Division was destroyed. They were a pain in the allied plans as was its parent Division at Festung Brest and the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division in the British AO. The 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne proved themselfs worthy opponents and had mutual respect for each other with chivalrous acts happening between both forces. The book by Volker Griesser "Lions of Carentan " is a must read amongts others depicting both sides. Paratrooper vs Paratrooper clashes are rare in history but they are unique.

Clean Wehrmachtis a myth, however it is also a myth that the majority helped in/did SS operations, yes if they were close and the SS needed help, they were FORCED to help. But mostly the Wehrmacht did in fact NOT commit atrocities and just fought on the fronts. But thanks for great clarification for other people, I just hate that "Clean Wehrmacht" makes it sound like a Black and White decision even tho it was just part of WW2, every nations army wasn't "Clean" so the myth being total BS makes it sound like the Wehr was dirty/evil compared to others.

That always bothered me about Private Ryan. German tanks had exposed air intakes just behind the turret, and they had the high ground and molotovs. They didn't need to blow the treads off, they just needed to drop some fire into the engine and they'd stop them cold. Or hot. Whatever.

I imagine perspectives are kind of on a spectrum between idealistic "We will all get through this together" to the more pessimistic like how Speirs thinks right?

In guessing it's your brains response to seeing traumatic things but idk I'm no expert lol