506th Infantry Regiment

For, again, people who are fans of Band of Brothers, they come away with the idea that it was easy company of the 101st Airborne Division.

from 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment that get to the Eagle's Nest first.

Not quite true.

I hate to burst that bubble.

... appeal to you?

Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, because the commander of that company, Dick Winters, was almost a Merriweather Lewis.

He was so good.

And if Dick told me then or tells me now to do something, I don't say, "Wait, don't you think?" or, "Well, we should..." I just do it.

As well as housing British soldiers, these sites were home to thousands of Canadian and American troops.

Our next dig comes from Salisbury, where a team of British ex-military personnel are hoping to find the remains of a barracks used by the second battalion of the U.S. Army's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as Easy Company.

The men of this elite American parachute unit also came to be known as the Band of Brothers.

They came to Britain in September 1943, and remained here for nine months preparing alongside other Allied troops for the D-Day invasion.

all of those bits i just mentioned everything has to work if one bit fails then the whole thing will fail the airborne troops can't simply capture the bridges and sit there indefinitely they're lightly equipped and surrounded by the enemy the british ground forces have to reach them quickly so the plan effectively is drop the airborne troops capture the bridges keep the corridor open get the tanks and inventory through cross the rhine arnhem then we're into germany done It's an extraordinary gamble.

And Easy Company, as part of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, is right bang in the middle.

That's bonkers when you think about it.

It is.