Airborne: The Combat Story of Ed Shames of Easy Co.

[Sailor]

I picked this book up based on an interview I heard on a local talk station. COL Shames joined the Army in 1941 right after Pearl Harbor and wound up in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division and is the last surviving officer of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. COL Shames is still with us and at 92 years young is still mentally sharp as a tack.

The on-air interview was originally only scheduled for 20 minutes but ended up taking the whole hour. He talked about not only his early life here in VA Beach but his training in Georgia (Currahee Mountain was prominently mentioned,) parachuting into France for D-Day (landing many miles off target, in the middle of a Panzer Division's area), Bastone during "The Bulge" and "liberating" a bottle of Hitler's brandy at Eagles Nest and cracking open that bottle during his son's Bar Mitzvah (that scream you hear is Hitler down in Hell.)

I've only just gotten started in the book but so far is just as interesting as listening to this old warrior. Needless to say I recommend it.

[101ABN]

Thanks for posting this, Sailor.

I hope he'll be at the Division Reunion in Nashville next month.

[Sailor]

A partial memory had been nagging at the back of my mind ever since I heard COL Shames mention Currahee Mountain and it finally came to me as I re-read my original posting here. As a kid I read an abridged version of "Currahee!" in one of the Readers Digest Condensed books that came to our house periodically, actually read it several times and did a book report on it (one of the few GOOD marks I got in that class IIRC.)

I looked, even though it came out in 1967 it's still available through Amazon and Barnes & Nobel. I think I'll try to pick it up for my Kindle if it's out in that format or paperback if not and perhaps the other 3 books in that series.