Garand Picture of the day - Albert Blithe 101st 82nd

[paul1440]

Milsurp,

That isn't Dike laying on the ground but a Pvt. Webb. If you watch prior to those scenes someone runs up to Webb and says something like "Let's go, Webb" and then they grab his shoulder but he is already dead.

The dialog "Our month in Belgium cost us one good officer, Buck Compton, and one bad one, Norman Dike" means they lost Dike in a good way up to Division. That also explains the small mercies line. Dike got relieved of command by Maj. Winters.

I concur with what has been said about Blithe. Pretty poor to let that error go uncorrected, twice. But like others have said Amrbose while excellent at bringing history to the mainstream public was not so good at proof-reading his own work or double-checking facts. Mark Bando, arguably the most knowledgeable person on the 101st ABN in WW2, is much less kind in his views of Mr. Ambrose and his apparent inability to get the facts right. Read these pages from Bando's web site: Band of Brothers There was alot that isn't factually correct in BoB and wouldn't have been so hard to get right.