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Bradford Freeman, last surviving member of the US army unit immortalised as the Band of Brothers – obituary

Bradford Freeman in 2020 - Columbus Air Force Base Mississippi
Bradford Freeman in 2020 - Columbus Air Force Base Mississippi

Bradford Freeman, who has died aged 97, was the last surviving member of Company E (Easy Company) in the US 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the “Screaming Eagles” 101st Airborne Division, an outfit whose exploits became known when Stephen Ambrose’s book Band of Brothers (1992), and the subsequent Emmy-winning HBO miniseries of the same name (2001), turned them into one of the most famous fighting units of the Second World War.

Freeman, a country boy from Mississippi known to his comrades as “Hickory Nut” because he was “just that tough”, enlisted aged 18 in 1942 and was one of the first men to volunteer to become a US Army paratrooper, undergoing rigorous training before crossing the Atlantic to England in February 1944.

He was assigned to E Company, Second Battalion mortar squad, led by Donald Malarkey, and between 0048 and 0140 hours on D-Day, June 6 1944, he took part in the unit’s jump behind Utah Beach with an 18lb mortar plate strapped to his chest.

He landed in a pasture full of cows and helped a fellow soldier who had broken his leg to hide before joining the rest of his company.

Bradford Freeman, the young GI - History Underground Facebook page
Bradford Freeman, the young GI - History Underground Facebook page

He was soon involved in the famous assault on a German artillery battery at Brécourt Manor, three miles south-west of Utah Beach, which had been firing on Causeway 2, a pre-selected route from the beach, disrupting landing from forces of the US 4th Infantry Division.

Led by First Lieutenant Richard Winters, the paratroopers overcame the defenders and four heavy guns after several other units had been repulsed, then rapidly set up a protective perimeter around the site.

The Brécourt Manor assault is often cited as a classic example of small-unit tactics and leadership in overcoming a larger enemy force.

“We had to take the place and get the big guns so [the enemy] couldn’t interfere with the soldiers who were coming ashore,” Freeman told Janis Allen of the Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas in 2021. “We happened to be fortunate enough to do it right, I reckon. We secured the area and let the Army go through. They had come ashore and now they got on with their business.”

Tasked with launching explosives from just behind the front line during battles, Freeman fought with E Company in France, including the capture of Carentan, which they held against a German counterattack.

During the ultimately unsuccessful Operation Market Garden, Freeman was dropped by parachute into the German-occupied Netherlands, where E Company had been assigned to support British forces around Eindhoven by defending the roads and bridges that would allow British armoured divisions to advance into Arnhem.

Damian Lewis in the HBO series Band of Brothers - Alamy
Damian Lewis in the HBO series Band of Brothers - Alamy

Later they successfully defended the towns of Veghel and Uden, relieved the British 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division in Zetten and were involved in Operation Pegasus – the rescue of more than 100 British troops trapped in German-occupied territory outside Arnhem, where they been in hiding since the disastrous Battle of Arnhem.

During the bitterly cold winter of 1944-45 E Company and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division fought in Belgium in the Battle of the Bulge. After taking part in the siege of the strategic town of Bastogne in December, Freeman was wounded by shrapnel in the right knee at nearby Noville in mid-January 1945.

“They said I got shot by a ‘Screaming Mimi’ [the GIs’ nickname for the German Nebelwerfer artillery rocket],’ ” he told Janis Allen. “You could hear it coming, but you can’t get out of the way. They said it was a little boy who did the shooting.”

Freeman returned to E Company in April 1945 and participated in its occupation of Berchtesgaden, home to Adolf Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” mountain retreat near the Austrian border.

After VE day, May 8 1945, Freeman opted to return home.

One of eight children, Bradford Clark Freeman was born on September 4 1924, in Artesia, Mississippi, and was studying at Mississippi State University when the US entered the war.

After the war he moved to Caledonia, Mississippi, and in 1947, he married Willie Louise Gurley – “a girl I used to play with when we were five years old” – and worked as a postman for 32 years.

Freeman rarely spoke about his wartime experiences: “My folks didn’t seem much interested in what we did in the war,” he told a local Mississippi newspaper in 2016, “so we didn’t talk about it too much.”

Nor did he discuss the war much at E Company reunions, and though he agreed to contribute to Stephen Ambrose’s book, he claimed that he had “had little to say” and that “there was a lot in the book that I knew nothing about.”

He was more closely involved in advising Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg on the making of their TV miniseries, in which he featured as a non-speaking character played by James Farmer, helping the filmmakers to make the battle scenes as authentic as possible.

Bradford Freeman following the publication in 2020 of Hang Tough: The WWII Letters and Artifacts of Major Dick Winters. Winters led the 'Band of Brothers' - History Underground facebook page
Bradford Freeman following the publication in 2020 of Hang Tough: The WWII Letters and Artifacts of Major Dick Winters. Winters led the 'Band of Brothers' - History Underground facebook page

He said that interest in his wartime service increased dramatically after 2009, when he and three other surviving members of E Company travelled to England courtesy of Valor magazine, a history publication dedicated to honouring American veterans. There, they were guests of honour at a ceremony marking the military history of Stansted Airport, from where aircraft from the 344th Bomb Group had taken off to support the D-Day landings.

Bradford Freeman (second from right) with fellow Band of Brothers veterans (Donald Malarkey, his superior WW2 officer, is on the far right) in 2009 at the formal unveiling of a memorial plaque at Stansted Airport commemorating those who served from the airport during the war - Alamy
Bradford Freeman (second from right) with fellow Band of Brothers veterans (Donald Malarkey, his superior WW2 officer, is on the far right) in 2009 at the formal unveiling of a memorial plaque at Stansted Airport commemorating those who served from the airport during the war - Alamy

Later they travelled to Buckingham Palace for a private audience with the Prince of Wales, whom they presented with a signed military art print depicting the 101st Airborne Division. “We didn’t think too much about it,” Freeman said later. “He was just another paratrooper... He told us he once jumped out of a balloon.”

“I don’t much like towns,” Freeman said. “But I was glad to see London with the lights. The last time I saw it, there were no lights. Everybody had dark cloth over their windows.”

His wartime injury earnt Freeman a Purple Heart, and in 2016 he was awarded the French Légion d’honneur. In 2019 he returned to Normandy as a guest for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

In May 2021 in a ceremony on his lawn, he was presented with a framed, autographed photograph and a coin honouring his service by General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I don’t know how to tell you how I appreciate it,” Freeman said, “but I didn’t do anything that I wasn’t expected to do. I just listened to my officer and did what he said.”

Bradford Freeman’s wife died in 2008 and he is survived by two daughters.

Bradford Freeman, born September 4 1924, died July 3 2022