Have I gotten into the Christmas eggnog too heavily and too early? The title of this piece might well make you think so. But no, I’m completely sober as I write these words. I have scant use for Jimmy Fallon as a talk show host, or as a comedian, and I rarely even think of him as an actor — I rarely even think of him at all.
Then into their midst, a jeep pulls up, laden with ammunition of every sort, driven by George Rice.
But there’s one shining moment in Jimmy Fallon’s body of work, one worth noting less for his acting job and more for the real-life hero he portrays. In the “Crossroads” episode of the epic war series Band of Brothers, Fallon portrays, touchingly, 2nd Lieutenant George C. Rice, the battalion S-4, or supply officer of the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 10th Armored Division. As we mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect upon the understated heroism of George Rice and how it reminds us of countless other anonymous heroes of the greatest battle in the history of the U.S. Army.
Second Lieutenants are famously disregarded, and those who become supply officers are rarely chosen with heroism in mind. When the Germans launched their massive Ardennes offensive on December 16, 1944, 17 divisions spearheaded by some of the best tank divisions in the German army, many of them fanatical SS troopers, were met by only four American divisions, two totally inexperienced newcomers to the war, and two rebuilding after having been virtually destroyed in the Hurtgen Forest. Catastrophe loomed as American generals frantically cast their eyes across the entire front to find divisions that could quickly respond.
One such division was the 10th Armored, itself a relative newcomer to combat, having had only a few weeks of combat experience in the latter days of the just-concluded Lorraine campaign. But it was only about 100 miles to the south of the German breakthrough and was immediately turned north to help shore up the American defenses. Split up into its three constituent parts, it became a kind of band-aid force, helping to hold the line until other, more substantial, and more experienced forces, could arrive.
One of these constituent parts, a task force of tanks and infantry known as “Combat Command B,” was dispatched to the obscure Belgian town of Bastogne, significant as the location where seven major roads, critical to the German armored advance, all came together.
CCB arrived just as the Germans approached a row of three small villages to the east. Ordered to delay the German panzers until more help could arrive, the commander of CCB broke up his force into three smaller tank/infantry teams, assigning one to each of the outlying villages. Team Desobry, named for Major William Desobry, its commanding officer, was assigned to the village of Noville, squarely in the path of a strong German armored column.
And young Lieutenant George Rice was the supply officer for Team Desobry. For the better part of two days, Team Desobry held Noville, even though its commander had been severely wounded, withdrawing only as the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne famously arrived on the scene.
History doesn’t record what George Rice was doing during the Battle of Noville, but there was no safe rear area for his work — the entirety of Noville and its environs were pounded repeatedly. But he’d done his work conscientiously, and he’d identified every supply dump anywhere in the vicinity of the road leading back to Bastogne — the road along which the men of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment were now deploying.
Thus Jimmy Fallon’s brief star turn in Band of Brothers. The airborne had been thrown into the battle from its rest area in France, traveling at breakneck speed in open cattle trucks. Dismounting along the road leading out of Bastogne, with scarcely any ammunition for their weapons, they’re confronted by a seemingly endless series of retreating stragglers, the broken remnants of the 28th Infantry Division and other units, crushed under the weight of the German armored advance.
Soon the paratroopers are begging these men for whatever ammunition they carry, suddenly understanding how ill-prepared they are for the threat just down the road.
Then into their midst, a jeep pulls up, laden with ammunition of every sort, driven by George Rice. As Fallon portrays in the scene, Rice tells Damian Lewis’s Captain Dick Winters that the Germans are coming fast, but that he’s brought as much ammunition as possible. This is quickly distributed as Rice tells Winters that they’re about to be surrounded, which prompts Winter’s insouciant reply: “We’re paratroopers, lieutenant, we’re supposed to be surrounded.”
What the scene doesn’t capture is the fact that Rice made not just one, but seven ammunition runs, even as the Germans cut the road in several places. While some men might have simply taken their jeep and fled for the relative safety of Bastogne, Rice went back again and again, knowing that the ability of the airborne to blunt the German attack might well depend on his efforts. When the battle was over, George Rice’s quiet heroism was recognized with the Bronze Star Medal.
We rightly honor the paratroopers of the 101st for their vital role in defending Bastogne, a role notably captured in the title of the division history, Rendezvous with Destiny. But Jimmy Fallon’s brief moment in Band of Brothers should remind us of many less-remembered heroes. Those stragglers depicted as he pushes through with his jeep deserve our reflection.
The 28th Infantry Division was a Pennsylvania National Guard outfit that had fought its way from Normandy across France to the German border, only to be fed into the meat grinder battle of the Hurtgen Forest. When placed on the line in the Ardennes, it received thousands of green replacements, the vast majority of them draftees.
These ordinary young men, not elite volunteers like the paratroopers or the Marines in the Pacific, had taken the full surprise force of the German attack, fighting desperately to delay the German advance. Many died, many went missing, and many were captured, notably the wounded who couldn’t be evacuated as the German armored columns cut roads to the rear. In Band of Brothers, these survivors are viewed with incredulity by the arriving paratroopers, perhaps understandably. But we might do well to accord them respect for the fight they’d already put up against staggering odds.
The Battle of the Bulge, in the end, was won by such men, not comic book heroes, but more in the mold of Bill Mauldin’s famous footsloggers, Willie and Joe. It was won in thousands of small actions, by men who history has largely forgotten. It was won by the American GI at his very best.
So it’s only right and proper that a man like George C. Rice was given his moment in the cinematic sunlight, and regardless of what I might think of Jimmy Fallon, I appreciate how he gave a face to this otherwise faceless hero.
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James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A forthcoming sequel finds the Reprisal team fighting against terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges across the globe. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions and on Kindle Unlimited.
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