Edward Shames, last surviving officer from ‘Band of Brothers,’ dies at age 99
Edward Shames, the last surviving officer from Easy Company, the World War II unit featured in “Band of Brothers,” died Friday at 99.
Shames died at home in Norfolk, Va., according to a local funeral home.
He was only 19 when he enlisted in 1942, forging his mom’s signature so he could fight in the war. He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and was one of the men who helped make it famous. The division’s E Company was famously chronicled in “Band of Brothers,” which was based on a bestselling book.
But first Shames had to go through grueling training in Georgia.
“A 25-mile march for us was just like a Sunday stroll,” he said in 2012. “We had to walk 10 to 12 miles to get to our training area at Toccoa and then train all day and walk back 10 or 12 miles back to camp every day.”
Shames’ first combat experience came on June 6, 1944 as part of the D-Day invasion at Normandy.
“You could hear the shrapnel hitting against the side of the plane and when we jumped out, you could hear the bullets coming through the parachutes,” Shames said.
He went on to join Easy Company and fought in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. Shames, who was Jewish, was one of the first Americans to enter Dachau concentration camp.
After Germany’s surrender, Shames and Easy Company raided Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest,” where he acquired a couple of bottles of cognac that were “for the Fuhrer’s use only.”
“He would use the cognac to toast his oldest son’s bar mitzvah,” according to his obituary.
After the war, Shames worked for the NSA and the Army reserve. He retired as a colonel.
With Shames’ death, there is now only one surviving member of Easy Company: enlisted man Bradford Freeman, who turned 97 in September.
