Thomas Peacock (United States Army officer)
| Thomas Arthur Peacock | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 18, 1920 |
| Died | June 27, 1948 (aged 28) |
| Buried at | Pullman City Cemetery |
| Allegiance |
 United States |
| Service/branch |
 United States Army |
| Rank |
 First Lieutenant |
| Unit |
 Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division |
| Battles/wars | |
| Relations |
-Moses B. Peacock (father) -Alma V. Peacock (mother) |
First Lieutenant Thomas Peacock (18 February 1920 - 27 June 1948[1]) was a United States army officer during the Second World War. He was famous for his service in Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division, United States Army during the Second World War. Peacock was portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers by David Nicolle.
Military Service
Peacock made the combat jump with the 101st Airborne unit into Normandy on D-Day. After the battle in France, he was transferred to Easy Company as the assistant leader of First Platoon. Peacock participated in Operation Market Garden with Easy Company and took charge of First Platoon when Lieutenant Hudson, the platoon leader, got hit.[2] He also fought to defend "The Island".
Peacock also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. During the battle, Captain Lewis Nixon won a thirty-day War-Bonds-tour furlough to the States in a lottery, but he did not want to go; instead, Peacock (who came in second) got the furlough. Peacock was generally considered by the men serving under him to be a big by-the-book officer and an incompetent combat leader. David Kenyon Webster had written much about his dissatisfaction towards Peacock in his book Parachute Infantry. Floyd Talbert, in his letter to Richard Winters, described Peacock as "a sincere and by-the-book officer, but not a soldier".[3] In his biography Silver Eagle, Clancy Lyall called Peacock one of the idiot officers,[4] so the men were happy to see him go and let someone else be in charge.
Peacock later returned to the Company to train the soldiers until the end of the war.
After the War
Thomas was a graduate of Washington State University. He had taken his law degree at the University of Michigan, and had planned to practice law in Spokane and Pullman.[1] However, Peacock was killed, along with his mother, in an automobile accident that happened on a country road a few miles west of Palouse. His father and wife, who were also in the car at the time, were injured.[1]
Bibliography
- Ambrose, Stephen E. (1992). Band of Brothers: Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7434-6411-6.
- Webster, David K. (1994 (posthumously)). Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich. Bantam Dell. ISBN 978-0-440-24090-7. Check date values in:
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- Ooms, Ronald. Silver Eagle - The Official Biography of 'Band of Brothers' Veteran Clancy Lyall.