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Biggest Brother: The Story of Major Dick Winters by Larry Alexander
Review written by Weasel [Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:00 pm]
![http://www.theblitz.org/new_blitz/uploads/users/5554daab72bookreviewaug_06_2[1].jpg](http://www.theblitz.org/new_blitz/uploads/users/5554daab72bookreviewaug_06_2[1].jpg)
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Biggest Brother is the story of Major Richard Winters, who became famous from the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers”. This book dispels a few myths that were created in the series, while also providing a glimpse into the pre and post war years of Richard Winters. There were two areas in the book that stood out the most against the HBO series. The first is when the scattered troops of Easy Company ambush two horse drawn wagons on June 6th. In the series Lieutenant Winters leads this small group of men and initiates the ambush. In fact Lt. Winters met up with LCol Cole shortly after the drop and followed him and about fifty of his men to causeway 3. It is LCol Cole that set the ambush and it was one of Cole’s men that started firing before the signal was given. Winters and Guarnere each lost their rifle in the jump and sat back until the fighting was over. Also what the group actually ambushed were four wagons and about 100 German soldiers, of which two wagons were destroyed and a few soldiers killed. All the rest managed to escape the ambush. The second fact that stood out had to deal with private Blithe. Blithe did in fact suffer from hysterical blindness, and did recover and rejoin his comrades. However in the scene where Blithe is shot in the neck the story departs fact. Blithe did not volunteer to scout but was selected by Winters, along with Guarnere and another soldier. As Blithe approached the farm house he spotted a German sniper, stood up and shouted “SNIPER, BANG BANG” just as he had been taught to do in training. As Winters states, “he did everything he was taught to do in training, unfortunately this wasn’t training”. Blithe ended up shot in the neck and was sent to hospital. At the end of the HBO episode they state Blithe never recovered from his wounds, this is incorrect. Blithe recovered, served in Korea and died in 1967. However, with these and a few other “errors” the book tells the story of a small town farm boy growing up and going to school. Being lazy he did the least possible to make his way through school. This was also going to be his method of moving through the army when he volunteered in 1941 until his civilian boss grabbed him by the shirt and told him that the army was a job and he should do the best he can as he would at any other job. Winters credits his civilian boss for “lighting the fire” and thus making possible his rise from private to major in four years. Another point that Winters brings up is concerning Sobel. As he states, “I wonder if Sobel realized that if he had not been replaced as Easy Company commander it would have been he that died in the plane crash instead of Lieutenant Meehan.”, interesting point. The nice part about this book is that each chapter was read and approved by Dick Winters before it was published. If he didn’t like any part of the chapter it was returned to the author (who grew up a few houses down from Winters) and it was re-written. The book was originally written in the first person view but Winters thought that was too pompous and had it changed to third person. The book finally ends in 2002 with the death of Ambrose, the original author of Band of Brothers. All in all the book is an insightful read into a US Army legend and provides rounded out details of his life, and to others represented in the HBO series. While it runs along closely with “Band of Brothers” it does show a different side to the man. |
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