By: Christina Colter – Daily Mail; dailymail.co.uk
- Col. Eddie Shames, 99, died peacefully in his home on Friday
- The World War II paratrooper in the Easy Company was played by Jonathan May in a 2001 in an HBO miniseries directed by Tom Hank and Steven Spielberg
- Shames parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, fought in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge
- He was one of the first Jewish American soldiers to be held in the Dachau concentration camp
- Famously, he and the members of the Easy Company raided Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest after Germany surrendered in 1945
- There, he stole bottles of cognac that he would later use to toast his oldest son’s bar mitzvah, according to his obituary
- With his death, there is only one surviving member of the Easy Company: 97-year-old Bradford Freeman.
Retired Colonel Edward Shames, the last surviving officer from the legendary Easy Company of World War II paratroopers whose exploits were featured in the award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers, died at age 99 on Friday.
Shames died ‘peacefully at home,’ according to an obituary posted by the Holloman-Brown Funeral Home & Crematory.
Born to Jewish parents, Shames forged his mother’s signature to enlist in the Army in 1942 at just 19, and was one of the officers in charge of the famed Easy Company, part of the US Army’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
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