Fierce Valor: The True Story of Ronald Speirs and his Band of Brothers

by Jared Frederick, Erik Dorr

Overview

Fans of Stephen E. Ambrose’s Band of Brothers will be drawn to this complex portrait of the controversial Ronald Speirs, an iconic commander of Easy Company during World War II, whose ferocious courage in three foreign conflicts was matched by his devotion to duty and the bittersweet passions of wartime romance.

Fight Like You Mean to Win

His comrades called him “Killer.” Of the elite paratroopers who served in the venerated “Band of Brothers” during the Second World War, none were more enigmatic than Ronald Speirs. Rumored to have gunned down enemy prisoners and even one of his own disobedient sergeants, Speirs became a foxhole legend among his troops. But who was the real Lieutenant Speirs?

In Fierce Valor, historians Jared Frederick and Erik Dorr unveil the fuller story of Easy Company’s longest-serving commander. Tested by trials of extreme training, military rivalry, and lost love, Speirs’s international odyssey begins as an immigrant child in Prohibition-era Boston and continues through the bloody campaigns of France, Holland, and Germany. But 1945 did not mark an end to Speirs’s military adventures. Uncovered by sharp scholarship, his lesser-known exploits in Korea, the Cold War, and embattled Laos also come to light for the first time.

Packed with groundbreaking research, Fierce Valor unveils a compelling portrait of an officer defined by boldness on the battlefield and the inherent costs of war. His story serves as a telling reminder that few soldiers escape the power of their own pasts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684514038
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	05/16/2023
Series:	World War II Collection
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	82,076
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jared Frederick is the author of numerous books, including Dispatches of D-Day and Hang Tough (with Erik Dorr). He has appeared on PBS, C-SPAN, and Turner Classic Movies. A former park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park, Frederick is the host of Reel History on YouTube and an instructor of history at Penn State Altoona.

Erik Dorr is the owner of the Gettysburg Museum of History, which houses the largest collection of Easy Company WWII artifacts in the world. The co-author of Hang Tough, Dorr has appeared on the History Channel, Syfy, the Travel Channel, C-SPAN, the Smithsonian Channel, and YouTube’s The History Underground.

Table of Contents

Foreword Captain Dale Dye, United States Marine Corps (Retired) xi

Prologue xv

Introduction xix

Chapter 1 Over Here 1

Chapter 2 Over There 27

Chapter 3 Days of Destiny 41

Chapter 4 Killer 61

Chapter 5 Never Give Up 75

Chapter 6 Embattled Platoon 89

Chapter 7 Lucky Lieutenant 117

Chapter 8 Unholy Nights 147

Chapter 9 Roads to the Reich 179

Chapter 10 The Mountaintop 199

Chapter 11 Cold Warrior 227

Chapter 12 Sparky 269

Acknowledgements 295

Bibliography 297

Notes 305

Index 339