An Actor Played My Father In “Band of Brothers”
In Memory of PFC John Derrick Halls
John Derrick Halls, a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne, was killed by Nazi gunfire on D-Day, June 6, 1944. And actor played his part in Steven Spielberg’s HBO Series “Band of Brothers.”
A few days after Sept. 2, 1945, the day World War 2 ended in Europe, the Denver Rocky Mountain News published the names of the Colorado men who had died in service to their country. Died in service to the European nations battered by Hitler.
Many years later, I would look at a front page from the Rocky Mountain News that my Mother had carefully saved. One name had a check mark next to it. The entry was Pvt. John Derrick Halls, Mancos, Colorado, died June 6, 1944. That man was my birth father, known at home as Dickie or Dick and as Cowboy by his Army buddies.
I was adopted as an infant. I read the name over and over. I felt like I’d been abandoned by him and tried to imagine what he looked like.
Of course, my logic brain said, “That’s silly. He died, and he was already in the Army when you were born. Get over it.” But that tiny, little baby voice in me still felt sad and abandoned, a not unusual response from a woman who is adopted.
My birth-mother Fern adored him although their relationship had been little more than a one-night fling. He told her he wasn’t coming home, wouldn’t marry her. Yet, home on leave, he would go to Denver to the Salvation Army Hospital to pay the $50 maternity charge for my birth.
He was tall, just-under 6 ft, and good-looking. Dick was charismatic and fun. Unknown to her, she was not his only girl-friend. They met at Mesa Verde National Park where he was a park ranger. She probably worked in food service or housekeeping. On nights off, they went dancing in the small town of Cortez.
He’s in the Army Now
Then came the opportunity to enlist as a paratrooper. An opportunity more exciting than just a being a regular infantry man. And it paid more. He drove to Pueblo, Colorado on Sept. 1, 1942, signed the papers, and named his Mother as beneficiary. She would have four sons in the service, three of whom survived the War. The remaining 12 children stayed home.
After training at Fort Benning and then Fort Bragg, Dick would train for nine more months in Aldebourne, England with the 101st Airborne.
He learned to jump from a C47 with 15 other paratroopers, how to read maps, operate radios, use his weapon, blow up bridges, march all day, and sleep in a foxhole.
He’d master how to strap himself into his parachute and attach more than 80 pounds of gear to himself. (Some say as much as 150 lbs.)
The Jump
With jump training complete, at 8:30 pm on June 5, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower would speak to the troops before they boarded the planes. The C47s would take them across the English Channel to Normandy, close to Omaha Beach where the American Allies would be storming.
After talking about fly-fishing which he always did with his troops, Eisenhower would tell the men “Full victory. Nothing less.”
The night was cloudy. It had been cloudy for several nights, but General Eisenhower could wait no longer. 13,100 men jumped. 182 from the 101st Airborne would die on D-Day. 501 were missing. Because of the weather, few men landed in their pre-arranged drop zone. Most were lost. Those whose planes weren’t shot down would land in farmers’ fields, in hedgerows, in the forest, even on a church.
John Steele of the 82nd Airborne landed on the pinnacle of the tower of Notre Dame Church in the village of Sainte-Mère-Église. He untangled himself from his parachute and fell to the ground. The Germans ignored the body. They thought he was dead. Steele lived to tell his tale many times over. He died in 1969
Dick would land in a forest with no idea where the other men in his unit were. Wandering around lost and dazed, he ran into Lt. Frederick Heyliger whom they called “Moose.” Since Heyliger didn’t know the location of Dick’s company, he instructed him to join E Company, known as Easy Company.
Easy Company, was under the command of Major Dick Winters, who remembered Dick. They’d play basketball during their training days in England where they’d played basketball together. Dick had been a star basketball player at Mancos High School.
Band of Brothers: The Book
In 1992, the historian Stephen Ambrose published Band of Brothers: From Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. In this story of Easy Company, Ambrose writes about Easy Company’s first battle, the Battle at Brecourt Manor:
“With the second gun in his possession, and running low on ammunition, Winters sent back word for the four machine-gunners to come forward.
Pvt. John D. Hall(s) of A company joined the group. Winters ordered a charge on the 3rd gun. Hall(s) led the way, and got killed but the gun was taken.”
Band of Brothers: The HBO Series
Steven Spielberg read Ambrose’s book and suggested to Tom Hanks that they make a movie about Easy Company based on the book. Band of Brothers was soon a wildly popular HBO series and available in a boxed-set of DVDs.
My husband Eric and I rented the series from Block Buster. Watched the first disc. Found the description of the training the men went through fascinating. The second disc? Way too gory. We returned the series without watching the remaining discs.
A few years later, I met one of Dick’s younger sisters. Joyce was just a little girl when her brother went off to war and remembered little more than that he had carried her about on his shoulders. She asked if I knew that Dick was in Spielberg’s HBO series Band of Brothers.
We rented the movie again. I cried as the Irish actor Andrew Scott, playing my Father, died from Nazi gun fire. We got a copy of the movie for ourselves. Everyone in the family had to watch. I cried every time.
I watched as Lt. Winters walked down a cobbled street in a bombed-out French Village after the battle of Brecourt Manor. He says to the soldier next to him, “I lost a good man today. His name was Hall(s).” (Winters mentions Dick in his memoir, Beyond Band of Brothers.)
One summer the youngest grandson, Andrew, was visiting. “Grandma, I want to see that movie where your Father is killed. Be sure and tell me exactly who he is when he comes on the screen. Dad said he was a hero. Is that true?”
“Yes, Andrew, your great-grandfather was a hero.” I inserted the disc. Andrew and I watched. I wept again for the Father I never knew.
I cry every time I see my Dad die on TV. And once more I’m that little baby in an orphanage, abandoned, not yet adopted.
Is the Story True?
Is the movie totally accurate? Most would say “no.” Lt. Winters himself, even though he had been a consultant for Spielberg and Hanks, had quibbles with it. After all, it’s Hollywood. But the general outline is close to the truth as we know it.
We know that Dick died at the Battle of Brecourt Manor on June 6, 1944 in the late morning or early afternoon. Dick’s Mother received a letter from Lt. Heyliger confirming her son’s death. That he received a Purple Star. That he was under the command of Lt. Richard Winters at the time of his death. That he is buried in a marked grave in the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer in France.
Honoring The Sacrifice
522,116 other soldiers lost their lives in the European theater during the World War 2.
This figure doesn’t count the deaths of those who were missing. Doesn’t count the nurses, the WACS, the WAVES, the journalists, the photographers, the spies and infiltrators.
Let us always remember with gratitude these brave men and women of World War 2.
I knew little about The War until I discovered my birth-father. Later I’d discover why I and many others of my generation and younger knew little about this major event of the 20th century. Read that story below:
