Band Of Brothers Episode 3: Carentan

The Strange Case of Private Albert Blithe

Band of Brothers, the totemic miniseries by HBO that follows the members of Easy Company, Second Battalion of the 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, US 101st Airborne from 1943 to 1945, is an epic ensemble that shows how the unit transformed from a bunch of green recruits from small town America to an elite unit that ended the war in Hitler’s Eagle Nest.

However many episodes focus on individual soldiers point of view and in episode 3, Carentan, we are introduced to Private Albert Blithe.

The episode begins with Blithe standing alone in a field where he is found by other members of Easy Company. Though Blithe claims he got lost after the drop of D-Day, he later admits he didn't try to find his company right away.

Blithe then tries to make himself a part of the company, but during a battle, he buries his head and cries out in fear. Following another firefight, Blithe suddenly loses his vision. After talking to Winters who assures Blithe they'll transport him back to England, Blithe's sight returns.

He finds more courage in battle, taking part in a fight in which he kills a German soldier. However, after volunteering for a patrol, Blithe is shot through the neck.

He is later seen in a hospital bed where the on-screen text reveals he died of his wounds in the years that followed.

However both the Band of Brothers miniseries, and the non fiction book of the same title written by Stephen A. Ambrose make a major mistake with Albert Blithe: he did not in fact die until 1967.

Ambrose interviewed veterans of Easy Company like Bill Guarnere and Edward "Babe" Heffron, and put together the story of Albert Blithe from their accounts. Some of Blithe's story in "Carentan" is accurate; he really did experience an episode of hysterical blindness.

However, Blithe's fatal demise is depicted inaccurately, with Band of Brothers unintentionally omitting the truth about the cause and date of his death.

Guarnere and Heffron were both certain that they had attended Blithe's funeral in 1948, which may have been either a mistake on their part or a mix-up with another Albert Blithe. Blithe's family didn't realize the mistake until Band of Brothers aired on HBO, at which point his son worked to set the record straight.

It does however seem that Dick Winters was aware of Blithe’s true story after World War Two, as he spoke about him in an interview after the airing of the Band of Brothers series.

“It’s a true story, no question about it. But the way it’s presented is unfair to the man…He had this problem that he was that frightened, he was that scared that he blanked out. And in the Aid Station—I had gone in there because I had been hit—and I took the opportunity to go down the line, along the wall…and check with each man to see how many I had wounded, and how they were doing…and I talked to him. It seemed to snap him out of it, and he was all right. Later on…he volunteered for a patrol outside of Carentan [Normandy, France] and he was wounded, and he was gone.

The story on Blithe since then is very, very interesting. After World War II he came home, and he volunteered for the Korean War. He went in the Korean War, he went in the Airborne…He was in the 187th Airborne Regiment in Korea. They had the mission of jumping over the line…they jumped right in the middle of a division of Chinese.…and in that action, Blithe was given a Silver Star. Later on he got the Bronze Star. So, it ends up, he has the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Silver Star—not too shabby. It speaks for itself.”

Blithe was one of the originals in Easy Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which was as we know part of the 101st Airborne Division. He trained in Camp Toccoa in Georgia in 1942 under the now infamous Captain Sobel.

Parachuting into Normandy with the rest of Easy Company in June 1944, Blithe, like many of his compatriots, found himself lost. In the episode of Band of Brothers he joins up with other paratroopers who had also been mis dropped.

Later he was reunited with Easy Company in the town of St. Marcouf. The picture below of paratroopers holding a captured German flag, was taken in St. Marcouf, Albert is the paratrooper on the far right.

Again as portrayed in Band of Brothers, Blithe was struck by a temporary case of hysterical blindness following the intense firefight to capture Carentan. He later recovered but a few days later, while part of a patrol investigating a farmhouse, he was shot in the collarbone by a German sniper.

Blithe was awarded a Purple Heart on June 25, 1944 and later in October 1944 he was returned to the United States and did not return to the European theatre of operations. Blithe was released from the Army hospital on October 8th 1945, as confirmed by his temporary discharge papers issued to him at the end of World War Two.

Blithe also served with the US Airborne forces in the Korean War. As part of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team he parachuted behind enemy lines and was surrounded by a Chinese battalion. Blithe was awarded a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for his actions in Korea.

Blithe was later assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Taiwan.

Master Sergeant Blithe remained in the military after Korea and Taiwan and was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany with the 8th Supply and Transport Battalion of the 8th Infantry Division.

In December 1967, he had just returned from ceremonies in Bastogne, Belgium commemorating Easy Company’s participation in the Battle of the Bulge when he fell ill.

Diagnosed with a perforated ulcer, Blithe went into emergency surgery at the Air Force Hospital in Wiesbaden. Complications after surgery caused kidney failure, and MSgt. Albert Blithe died on December 17, 1967, at the age of 44.

Blithe was buried with full military honors on December 28, 1967, at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. in Section 31, Site 7672.

Master Sergeant Albert Blithe was awarded the following medals which as Major Winters said, is not too shabby.