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Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest is a focused analysis of one of the most prolific war units the United States of America has ever produced, the legendary Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR). Taken from the detailed accounts of campaigns assembled by U.S. Armed Forces historians and first-person accounts, the nonfiction book retells the journey of Easy Company through the eyes of the men who served. From their early days training stateside through to their ultimate victory over the German fighting forces, the book traces the influence Easy Company of the 506th Airborne Division had in shaping the outcome of World War II.

The story starts with the selection of the men for Easy Company. At the time, the PIR is a new type of fighting unit, paratroopers. It is all volunteer because of the extreme training required for the danger the men would be facing. The soldiers who survive the try-out process are profiled as a group of street-savvy pragmatists who figure their best chance to survive the war would be in the company of the best-trained men. The role of leadership in shaping them into efficient soldiers falls to officers with various strengths and weaknesses, both of which contribute to the men’s development. Basic training turns these soldiers into fit infantrymen, and jump school challenges the men to overcome their instincts for safety and learn to love jumping out of airplanes.

After rigorous training, Easy Company leaves the States for England, where the men participate in simulations for D-Day. There they learn that the reality of combat includes the unexpected and the unknown, and their training in flexible response to combat conditions comes to the fore on their first jump on D-Day. Normandy presents on-the-job training in “kill-or-be-killed,” and Lt. Dick Winters begins his career in Easy Company as a brilliant strategist. The bloody battles of Carentan follow as Easy Company learns to capture and hold a town. The men experience failures of nerve and must force themselves into bravery. Their bravado has had a reality check in France, and they must rely on their past training to mentally push through their fears and self-doubts.

Easy Company next deploys to Holland on an ill-conceived operation to secure “hell’s highway,” a road needed for strategic Allied troop movements into Germany. They are met with overwhelming force in the form of fifty-tank German Panzer units and infantry. Although they were at first welcomed by the Dutch civilians as liberators, the Allied soldiers must later watch the people withdraw into silent despair as they fail to hold the towns from German occupation. Easy Company and other Allied soldiers receive orders to travel to “the island,” a five-kilometer-wide area between the Rhine River on the north and the Waal River to the south, captured three weeks earlier. Easy Company’s task is to defend the position from counterattacks, support the British artillery by turning back any German infantry assaults, and serve as forward artillery observers. They push back a 100-man German SS unit, but they lose fifty men to artillery fire before they are relieved by a Canadian division.

In Mourmelon, France, Easy Company’s rest and recovery come to an abrupt end when U.S. Commander Eisenhower sends them to meet Hitler’s surprise offensive in the Ardennes area in Belgium. This event goes down in history as the Battle of the Bulge. In the hasty deployment, the Allied soldiers go to Bastogne to face subzero temperatures and snowy conditions without adequate winter clothing or ammunition. They scrounge bullets from the traumatized retreating American troops they are replacing. The Germans surround Bastogne and pound their position with artillery that inflicts horrible casualties. The siege cuts off Allied soldiers from food and ammunition resupply until General Patton’s tank division breaks the blockade. Easy Company captures Bastogne, Noville, and Rachamps, cutting off the German advance. The bloody campaign brings on combat fatigue, and many soldiers reach their psychological breaking point. The American troops lose half their men.

The Germans launch an operation in Alsace, 160 miles southeast of Bastogne, to draw American troops from the Ardennes area. Easy Company deploys to hold the line in the town of Haguenau on the Moder River and serve as forward artillery observers. They conduct a covert patrol and capture two Germans to use as informants on the enemy’s plan, position, and resources.

Easy Company returns to Mourmelon to rest and resupply and finds that many of their personal items stored there during the campaign in Bastogne have been stolen by other soldiers. Recruits from the States replace their comrades who had fallen in battle, and the veterans train with the enthusiastic replacements to bring them to battle readiness. The division prepares for Operation Eclipse, a drop on and around Berlin, planned for after the Allied armies have crossed the Rhine. To support their advance, the British-American Operation Varsity drops three airborne divisions into the Ruhr area of Germany, where they encounter stiff German resistance. As support, Commander Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne by truck to Remagen to eliminate this resistance. Easy Company, for the first time, operates in Germany and gets to know the citizens. As the war winds down, they see thousands of survivors living amid hundreds of skeletal corpses left where they fell at the Dachau forced labor camp.

When the Germans formally surrender to Commander Eisenhower, Easy Company is busy securing the Nazi high command’s homes in Berchtesgaden. After learning about their victory, the men celebrate with German fighter pilot Hermann Goering’s champagne. The men next go to Austria to supervise the surrender and processing of German troops before finally making their way home to the United States. The book ends with the stories of their lives after their return.

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