Band of Brothers premiered on HBO in 2001, to immediate critical and economic success. The show topped the ratings and won both the Golden Globe and the Emmy for Best Miniseries.
The sitcom, created by Hollywood powerhouses Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, included well-known performers such as Ron Livingston, Donnie Wahlberg, Dexter Fletcher, and David Schwimmer. However, it also helped launch the careers of other celebrities, including Damian Lewis, Colin Hanks, Simon Pegg, and Tom Hardy.
So, where did the inspiration for the show come from?
Is Band of Brothers based on a true story?
Yes, Band of Brothers is based on true events. It depicts the WWII experience of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, better known as Easy Company.
The 10-part series follows their trip from training in the United States to combat in Europe, with the DVD notes characterizing Easy Company as “parachuting into France early on D-Day morning, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, and capturing Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden.”
This means that almost everyone in the cast is playing a real-life character. Some of them appear in contemporary talking-head interviews.
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The show is based on talks with Easy Company survivors, as well as notebooks and letters written by the troops. Band of Brothers is also based on Stephen E. Ambrose's 1992 nonfiction book of the same title.
What is the Band of Brothers book about?
To commemorate the book's 25th anniversary, Tom Hanks has written a foreword. Here is the official description of the original material:
“In Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose honors the members of Easy Company, a crack rifle company in the US Army. From their hard training in Georgia in 1942 to the perilous parachute landings on D-Day and their heroic capture of Hitler's ‘Eagle's Nest' in Berchtesgaden, Ambrose tells the story of this exceptional unit.
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These gallant warriors were repeatedly dispatched on the most difficult missions, where they fought, went hungry, chilled, and died in the service of their country.”
The title is based on William Shakespeare's St. Crispin's Day speech in Henry V, which appears on the first page of the book and in the series, where it is spoken by Carwood Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg).
