Thoughts on Herb Sobel. I think that although he proved to be an incompetent combat leader, his excellence of leadership in Easy Company's formative stages helped dramatically to shape their bonds, and loyalty. Suggestions most welcome...
G'day Certainly Panzerknacker, the Band did have a "enemy"in Sobel in which they could share their grieve. It showed how not to work on your men to other officers and NCO's. But in my own military carreer the Sergeant was always a bastard. The soldiers in WW2 I think learned to fear their NCO more than their enemy". A sentence by a sergeant in a ww2 movie I saw was "If Hitler can't have your hide I certainly will". Popski
And honestly-his later service in the 1st Allied Airborne Division as liasion officer and training officer was of immense importance to teh war effort.
That´s the part in the army that is hated the most I guess: Instead of being individuals we are taught to act by the command in one group and not ask any questions.No brains just doing what you´re told even how stupid it is... Sounds comical but can save and probably did save lives in the war. And on the other hand stupid commands can kill thousands of soldiers..the commander has the responsibility as well. I did not know Sobel was a real person,actually. I did expect the films to be based on the conversations by the veterans but ..ok, you learn a lot every day. I just hope they did credit to the man´s memory as I think he was labeled a bit " heavily" in the movie, I think. Was the messing with the compass based on the real thing? ". Our captain at this time was Herb Sobel hated by all the men in the company, for his chicken-shit ways, but must give him his credit, he trained us harder than ever while there, and this training paid off in combat, which came on D-Day —6th June 1944, when we jumped and help secure a beach head for the allies. This story has to be told. As I mentioned our Captain Sobel, well all things came to a final climax, when just before D-Day 6.44, we all of us in the company turned in our stripes, all non-coms from Co E 506- would not want to go to combat under Captain Sobel. End result of this was Captain Sobel was relieved of his command of Co E, Captain Meehan was put in command of Co E 506. Tragedy was to strike on D-Day-44 on the jump into France, Normandy, the plane that was to have Sobel on, was shot down, killing all 16 men on board. In reality we saved Captain Sobel's life, he was sent to training in England, a job he was suited for. " http://www.wildbillguarnere.com/aboutbill.php http://www.101airborneww2.com/bandofbrothers3.html
