Widely regarded by Easy company as an ineffective leader in Band of Brothers, Norman Dike was still a war hero who went on to have a successful life.
HBO's Band of Brothers is an epic re-telling of the 101st Airborne's "Easy" company's heroic activities during WW2, which casts Lieutenant Norman Dike as an incompetent character - whose real life was surprisingly at odds with the portrayal. Many of the other surviving members of Easy Company, including Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon, would go on to lead successful lives. That Norman Dike could be counted among their number shows he was an exemplary man in his own right.
It's Band of Brothers episode 7, "Breaking Point", which introduces Dike as a cringe-worthy commanding officer transferred from Division HQ to gain combat experience. Played by actor Peter O'Meara, he is shown constantly yawning, being inattentive, and having to "take a call." Both in action and out of it, Dike is nowhere to be found, and Easy nicknames him "Foxhole Norman." Things come to a conclusive head when E company is tasked with capturing Foy, Belgium, and Lieutenant Dike disastrously stalls the offensive by ordering his troops to halt in exposed conditions under enemy fire. Carwood Lipton, Easy's first sergeant, recounts Dike having "fallen apart" in an interview. Soldier Clancy Lyall, however, remembers Lieutenant Dike having been wounded. Whether or not Band of Brothers details this event accurately is subjective to the remembrances of Easy Company.
Many watching Band of Brothers would conclude Norman Dike wasn't fit for active field command, but the real story is a different matter. According to historical documents (via People Pill) on peoplepill.com, Dike had “organized and led scattered groups of parachutists in the successful defense of an important road... while completely surrounded" in September of 1944 at Uden, Holland, actions meriting him a Bronze Star. A second was awarded for actions at Bastogne when "he personally removed from an exposed position, in full enemy view, three wounded members of his company, while under intense small arms fire" on January 3, 1945. Lt. Dike's actions at Foy seem to have been a personal breaking point for him. It must also be remembered that the majority of E company had been together since training under Cpt. Herbert Sobel (David Schwimmer), leaving Dike estranged from the group by his absence and status as an officer. Notwithstanding Easy's rejection, Norman Dike went on to make notable professional achievements after the war, not the least of which was raising a family that remembers him to this day.
Like many of his officer peers, the real Norman Dike was an educated individual, born to a family precluded towards scholarship. Norman Staunton Dike Sr., a New York State Supreme Court judge, and Evelyn M. Biddie had him on May 19, 1918. With their guidance, Dike completed his education up to studying at Yale Law School in 1942. At this time he became a commissioned officer with the army and volunteered for the Airborne. Afterward, Dike remained with the US Army Reserve and served during the Korean War, becoming a lieutenant colonel until resigning in 1957.
Only after his European tour ended did the real-life Band of Brothers character Norman Dike finish his law degree at Yale in 1947. Between the period of 1949-1959 he would: become a member of the N.Y. and D.C. Law Bars, be a U.S. Commissioner in Japan, work for the CIA, and finally act as vice president and comptroller of the United Western Minerals Company. He married Catherine Pochon in March 1957 and decided to relocate his family to Switzerland in 1959, where he would practice law until his death on June 23, 1989. Norman Dike's highly successful career after the war suggests "Foxhole Norman" was an effective leader, just not under machine gun fire. That he chose to move his family to Switzerland, a traditionally neutral country, shows the man understood the terrible realities of war - and was done fighting.
