David Kenyon Webster Private First Class David Kenyon Webster ( June 2 , 1922 - September 9 , 1961 ) was an American soldier , journalist and author . During World War II he was a private with Easy Company , 2nd Battalion , 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment , in the 101st Airborne Division . Webster was portrayed in the HBO miniseries " Band of Brothers " by Eion Bailey . Youth . Webster was born in New York and educated at The Taft School , Watertown , Connecticut . He was of English and Scottish descent . In 1943 , he volunteered for the elite paratrooper s before having a chance to finish his studies as an English literature major at Harvard University . Military service . Webster originally trained with Fox Company , jumped on D - Day with Headquarters Company of the 2nd Battalion , then requested a transfer to Easy Company and served in the Company until discharged in 1945 . From a wealthy and influential family , Webster could have arranged an officer ' s commission stateside , but he wanted to be a " grunt " and thus be able to see and document the war from a foxhole . By most accounts , he did not like what he saw and had great disdain for Germany ' s audacity in creating the war . On D - Day , Webster landed nearly alone and off - course in flooded fields behind Utah Beach , and was wounded a few days later . He also jumped into the Netherlands in Operation Market Garden . Later in this campaign , he was wounded in the leg by machine gun fire during an attack in the no - man ' s land called " the Island " , near Arnhem , where the company was relocated after Operation Market Garden ended . Webster was fighting with Lt . Nicholas Fazio at the time , and witnessed Fazio ' s death shortly before he himself was wounded . Fazio had been of Italian descent and more importantly , of royal descent , and Webster never trusted him . While recuperating back in England , Webster missed the Battle of the Bulge fighting and rejoined his unit in February 1945 after being formally released by the hospital . What he found was a decimated regiment , exhausted , weary and bitter over the loss of friends . Soon thereafter , Easy Company discovered their first concentration camp , witnessing firsthand the walking and also the unburied dead of the Memmingen Concentration Camp . Author Steven Ambrose had this to say about Webster : " He had long ago made it a rule of his Army life never to do anything voluntarily . He was an intellectual , as much an observer and chronicler of the phenomenon of soldiering as a practitioner . He was almost the only original Toccoa man who never became an NCO . Various officers wanted to make him a squad leader , but he refused . He was there to do his duty , and he did it - he never let a buddy down in combat , in France , Holland , or Germany - but he never volunteered for anything and he spurned promotion " . Awards and decorations . His list of authorized medals and decorations are : Later years . He was the last of the surviving Toccoa veterans who had fought in Normandy to be sent home . He returned to work as a reporter for the " Wall Street Journal " and the " Los Angeles Daily News " and found great enjoyment sailing , studying oceanography and sea life . During those years he worked on his wartime memoirs and occasionally approached magazines with an article but deferred any wholesale treatment of the war , perhaps in favor of reflecting and trying to make sense of it . He had a wife ( Barbara ) , whom he married in 1951 , and had three children . His interest in sharks led him to write a book on the subject entitled " Myth and Maneater : The Story of the Shark " . However , Webster ' s interest in aquatics eventually may have led to his demise , as he was lost at sea off the coast of Santa Monica in 1961 . Webster ' s wartime diary and thoughts remained unpublished except for a few short stories in magazines such as the " Saturday Evening Post " . Unable to see a salient theme for his greater wartime experience , publishers showed little interest in another memoir . However , Stephen Ambrose , a tenured University of Louisiana System professor of history ( specifically , at the University of New Orleans ) who had studied Webster ' s writings , was so impressed by the historical value of Webster ' s unpublished papers that the professor encouraged Webster ' s widow to submit the writing package to LSU Press . This she did and with Ambrose ' s foreword ; a book was published by LSU in 1994 . Titled " Parachute Infantry : An American Paratrooper ' s Memoir of D - Day and the Fall of the Third Reich " , it presented Webster ' s first - hand account of life as an Airborne infantryman . His trained eye , honesty and writing skills helped give the book as well as the miniseries a color and tone not available in other G . I . diaries . On September 9 , 1961 , David was lost at sea off the coast of Santa Monica , California . As his body was never recovered , it is generally assumed that Webster may have drowned .