By Admin (Admin) (C629501-A - 24.21.234.167) on Thursday, June 28, 2001 - 12:47 am:| By Admin (Admin) (C629501-A - 24.21.234.167) on Thursday, June 28, 2001 - 12:47 am: |
Band of Brothers
HBO miniseries chronicling unit's exploits in World War II includes efforts of medic from BR
By GEORGE MORRIS
Advocate staff writer
Photo provided HBO/Cinemax
When HBO's miniseries Band of Brothers is aired this fall, its scenes of combat and camaraderie will include a depiction of former Baton Rouge resident Eugene Roe.
Eugene Roe didn't live long enough to see his days as a World War II medic immortalized in film. Soon, his family will.
When Band of Brothers, an HBO miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, premieres in France on June 6, a dozen of Roe's family will be in attendance. That includes a daughter, Maxine Tircuit of Baton Rouge, and son, Eugene Jr., of Beaumont, Texas.
Band of Brothers is based on a Stephen Ambrose book that chronicles Roe's unit, E Company of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Regiment in World War II. Book and movie follow this unit from its initial training to war's end. The miniseries' premiere will be on the 57th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy.
HBO is paying the expenses for each veteran and his wife to spend a week touring Paris, meeting the cast and seeing the premiere. Both Roe and his first wife, Vera, are dead, so HBO is sending Roe's second wife, Myrtle, and her grandson, Michael Edwards. Other family members are going on their own.
"They said we were all invited, but they couldn't afford to fly us all over there and house us," Tircuit said. "I'd go if I had to stay under a bridge."
That would have been better accommodations than their father often experienced in 1944 and 1945.
Roe was not an original member of Easy Company, but he joined the unit in paratrooper training in 1943 and stayed with it through D-Day, the invasion of Holland, the Battle of the Bulge, the capture of Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" and Germany's surrender.
One of the company's medics, Roe's duties constantly put him in harm's way. In Ambrose's book, his efforts received brief but high praise from one of the company's lieutenants.
"He was there when he was needed, and how he got 'there' you often wondered," Lt. Jack Foley was quoted as saying. "He never received recognition for his bravery, his heroic servicing of the wounded. I recommended him for a Silver Star after a devastating firefight when his exploits were typically outstanding. Maybe I didn't use the proper words and phrases, perhaps Lieutenant Dike didn't approve, or somewhere along the line it was cast aside. I don't know. I never knew except that if any man who struggled in the snow and the cold, in the many attacks through the open and through the woods, ever deserved such a medal, it was our medic, Gene Roe."
The book was published in 1992. Ambrose was a consultant to Spielberg's hit movie Saving Private Ryan, and Spielberg wanted to do something with Band of Brothers, which tells a true, intimate story of a single unit's experiences through the war.
Ambrose's book spotlights the bond that develops among men in battle.
"The friendships that they built and the trust that they had in one another, because that's what they had to survive on, thinking that one of their guys was going to come around that corner and take care of them, whether it was the medic or the other ones getting them out of a scrap," Tircuit said.
The HBO miniseries was filmed largely in England using a cast of little-known actors. Shane Taylor portrays Roe, whose character is featured in the sixth episode, according to information from an unofficial Band of Brothers Web site.
Taylor sent Tircuit an e-mail message saying he had spoken to her mother and some of Roe's wartime colleagues to get a sense of the man he was portraying.
"What was evident in their description of him seemed to be that he was (a) fine man, a good man, respected and loved," Taylor wrote. "As a member of E Company, his efforts, like many others in the field of battle, seem almost fantastical. Normal men amid abnormal surroundings.
"I remember reading a press cutting that quoted Eugene as saying something like, 'If a man got injured, it was my job to go out and get him... I was a medic; that's what I did.' Well, all I can say is that it's easier said, huh? My point is, though, it was that kind of attitude and spirit which made up these men. They were doing their duty and doing it well! You must be very proud."
Roe met his first wife, Vera, while in England. Wary of Americans, she said her name was Maxine. When Roe showed up at her house the first time and asked to see Maxine, no one knew who he was talking about.
They scheduled their wedding for spring in 1944, but when D-Day neared, the invasion forces were moved without advance notice.
"Daddy left Mama standing at the altar," said Marlene Langlois, Roe's other daughter. "He got shipped out and couldn't call and tell her he'd gotten shipped out. So mother had the white dress and the family, and they couldn't marry. Mother didn't know where Daddy was until the news came out. When they finally got married they had a taxicab driver and somebody else as witnesses."
They named their first daughter after the name Vera had made up.
Unlike many veterans, Roe had no trouble talking about his wartime experiences, Tircuit and Langlois said. He spoke about everything -- treating the wounded, the D-Day battles when the paratroopers landed far off course, the freezing weather at the Bulge, the hijinks the men enjoyed when they captured "Eagle's Nest."
"The big truckload of liquor that he drove out of there that they had emptied from Hitler's wine cellar," Langlois said.
"It wasn't constant, but every now and then you'd get him started and he had all kinds of tales," Tircuit said.
This will not be the family's first visit to Roe's wartime sites. In 1998, they visited Bastogne, Belgium, a town the 101st Airborne defended against vastly larger German forces during the Battle of the Bulge. Roe did not make the trip but told them things to look for.
"Daddy seemed particularly happy that we were retracing those steps," Langlois said. "Everything that he told you never really made any sense until you went there and saw everything. We were there and the grass was green and it was beautiful. Daddy described everything as being covered with snow.... You'd stop and think how terrible it had to be for them."
Roe attended several reunions of his colleagues, including one in 1992 in New Orleans celebrating Ambrose's book. He did not see Saving Private Ryan. By the time it was released in 1998, Roe had cancer and was too sick to go to a theater. He died on Jan. 2, 1999.
He knew, however, that Band of Brothers was being filmed.
"I just think the fact that everything they accomplished was being remembered finally and that they were being given credit for the terrible things they went through, that meant a lot to him," Langlois said.