Frank Perconte Recalls Days With Band Of Brothers
What really happened during his time with the 101st Airborne
One Memorial Day, a few years back, I had the opportunity to visit with Frank Perconte at his Joliet, Illinois home. For anyone who watched the HBO series, Band of Brothers, you will be familiar with Frank’s name because was a member of Easy Company in the 101st Airborne Division, the paratroopers the series was based on. I spent about an hour with Frank and here is his account about his time with the Band of Brothers.
Frank grew up in Joliet and attended St. Mary’s Catholic Grammar School and then Joliet Township High School. This was the time of the Great Depression and college was never a thought. Thanks to a connection to a fellow named Richie Gleason, Frank and his best friend, Herman Hanson, were able to land jobs at a steel company in Gary, Indiana in 1935. Jobs were hard to find and a 45-minute drive to Gary, before I-80 was built, was no inconvenience for the two 18 year-old high school graduates.
Frank was working as a crane operator in the spring of 1942, when the young Italian and his pal Herman were sitting in Joliet’s famed Rialto Theater watching a preview to the film which showed the new airborne division being formed called the paratroopers, which paid soldiers an extra $50 a month. “This was just before we knew we would get drafted, so that’s all we had to hear,” said Frank. “Herman and I both joined. It was good because we knew what branch of the service we would be going into.”
Frank and Herman became members of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, Easy Company under the leadership of another soldier from the Chicago area, the now infamous Captain Herbert Sobel. They reported to Camp Toccoa in Northeast Georgia in July of 1942. They were together for a short while, but when those in charge saw that the two Joliet soldiers were good friends and enjoyed goofing around, Herman was assigned to a different platoon in the 506. Frank continued under the strict and harsh Sobel, training for four months, running up and down Currahee Mountain, which led to the unit’s proud chant of “Currahee!”
Having lived in Atlanta for more than a decade, I drove to Currahee to see the famed mountain. Currahee was like many Georgia mountains. It was steep and slippery. I couldn’t imagine trying to run up and down that three-mile mountain three times a week. “It was nothing for us, we were young guys,” said Perconte. To the right of the mountain was an open field with three-foot high sunburnt straw-like grass, which is where the camp had been set up for the training. It was all taken down in 1945 and the only visual memory of the Band of Brothers was a few miles away in a small museum in the town of Toccoa. The artifacts, guns, helmets, medals, photos were all nicely presented in a small old dusty wooden building, covering the history of the 506th Regiment. It’s a great history lesson for anyone interested in World War II.
If you have read the Band of Brothers books, you know that Frank’s stories were not long. And, if Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg had not produced the HBO series, Frank would be an unknown old man sitting in his living room. But with the series came recognition, which Frank and anyone who has been in his position, will appreciate quietly.
“When I go into Louis’ restaurant now, they say, there’s Frank Perconte,” said the remarkably healthy-looking 95 year-old, whose life was nearly snuffed out 68 years earlier by a German machine gunner. They Nazi gunners missed him though. Frank landed safely in an open field near Ste. Mere du Mont, France in the early morning of June 6, 1944. He was lucky to land with a group of his Easy Company soldiers around him that included Carwood Lipton, Frank Luz, William Boyle, and Pat Christenson. It was pitch dark and they had never trained for a jump at night. During the training, the unit had to do five jumps in broad daylight before they got a nickel of pay. They had trained for two straight years from Toccoa to Ft. Benning, Georgia to England. So by the time they jumped on D-Day, one might surmise Frank was not afraid to jump.
“The hell I wasn’t!” he said laughing. “I remember we took off just after 1:20 and I sat in the back of the plane. They called it a stick. Well, I jumped out and landed in a field. I’m glad it wasn’t a road or that could have been rough.”
Frank’s closest call came during the Battle of the Bulge, just outside the town of Foy. He pulled himself up over a fence, which was a mound of dirt, to see if he could spot the enemy. They spotted him first and shot him in a place that drew the attention of his Easy Company buddies. “They all started yelling, Perconte got shot in the ass! Perconte got shot in the ass!” he said. The bullet passed right through his buttocks and out the front of his right thigh. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Frank. “I was a disabled veteran and got a pension.”
He was only in the aid station for a short time outside Foy before he was back on the front line with his pals.
Mr. Perconte greatly appreciated the HBO mini-series depicting the experiences and battles of Easy Company fairly accurately for the most part. “There were some exaggerations,” he said. Captain Ronald Speirs was presented as a cold-blooded killer in the Band of Brothers, shooting a group of captured German soldiers on D-Day. In the series, due to the reputation Speirs gained from that murderous event, the soldiers under his command looked somewhat fearful of their tough Captain. Was Frank afraid of Speirs? “Oh you mean the thing about him gunning down 20 guys,” he said with a rye smile. “No, that was all baloney. Never happened.”
There is another exaggerated scene in the series which involves Frank, who was portrayed by James Madio in 9 episodes of the 10-part series. The scene took place after the Haguenau river crossings, when the war is winding down and Easy Company was is in a town in Germany. Frank is ordered to go out with a group of four other members of Easy Company to scout the woods for German soldiers. As they are walking through the woods joking with each other, they hear something and start walking carefully looking for a German sniper. That’s when Frank spots a concentration camp. The next scene shows him sprinting through the woods and back to the headquarters to find Lieutenant Winters. He alerts Winters to the scouting group's finding and the Lieutenant leads a convoy of army trucks to the camp. A few members of Easy Company cut the lock off the gate and enter the camp. It's one of the most memorable scenes in the series.
What really happened? Frank’s company was marching along a path in the forest when they could smell something horrible. That’s when the men of Easy spotted a concentration camp. They viewed it from the outside but were told to keep marching. The outfit behind them would take care of it. “We didn’t go in there,” said Frank. “It smelled so bad, stinky.”
When asked about Captain Herbert Sobel, one of the few other Chicagoans in Easy Company, Frank never contacted him after the war, because like most, he had no love for Sobel. “Speirs took over the company after they got rid of Sobel,” he explained. “I don’t know how they got rid of him, but they got rid of him.”
David Webster was another memorable character in the series. He was a Harvard-educated writer, who was shown chronicling his war experience into a diary. After the war, Webster wrote for the Wall Street Journal and authored a memoir about his experience in World War II. He was unable to get his memoir published. In September of 1961, he sailed from Santa Monica, California to go shark fishing and was never seen again. It took the popularity of the Band of Brothers and historian Stephen Ambrose to get Webster’s memoir published in 2002. “He was an odd guy, David Webster,” said Frank, perhaps not realizing that a fellow like Webster with his background, upbringing and education wouldn’t really fit in with a group of regular Joes. “He never said much to anyone. Very quiet.”
Frank fought in most of the Easy Company battles and only had the one wound, which is remarkable, given the casualties of those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After that frigid fight, the Toccoa gang were lucky enough to visit Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden, enjoying the Fuhrer's finest liquor. “That’s where Hitler used to hang out,” said Frank. “He was an evil man, the most hated man in the world at that time.”
Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg won many awards for the Band of Brothers, all well deserved. But perhaps the greatest reward comes in the understanding that they have produced such a monumental and memorable series that has elevated the service and sacrifice of all the soldiers who fought in World War II, as well as the soldiers who fought in all of the other wars for America. It helps create a greater appreciation for those who make the ultimate commitment and the ultimate sacrifice.
I was glad I had the opportunity to visit with Frank Perconte. I went back a few times afterwards and enjoyed hearing his stories each time. He passed away on October 24, 2013. But his patriotic service to America will live forever on HBO.
Video Interview. Please wear headphones to hear it properly.