Thomas Peacock (United States Army officer)

First Lieutenant Thomas Peacock (February 18, 1920 - June 27, 1948 ) was a United States army officer during the Second World War. He was famous for his service for the 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 a 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 the first platoon. Peacock participated in Operation Market Garden with Easy Company, and took charge of the first platoon when Lieutenant Hudson, the platoon leader, got hit. 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-furlough to the States in a lottery, but he did not want to go. Peacock, who came in second, got the furlough. Peacock was generally considered by the men serving under him a big by-the-book officer and an incompetent combat leader. David Kenyon Webster had written a lot about his dissatisfaction towards Peacock in his book Parachute Infrantry. Floyd Talbert in his letter to Richard Winters described Peacock as 'a sincere and by the book officer, but not a soldier'. In his biography Silver Eagle, Clancy Lyall called Peacock one of the idiot officers. So the men was 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 college. He had taken his law degree at the University of Michigan, and had planned to practice law in Spokane and Pullman. However, Peacock died in an automobile accident happened on a country road a few miles west of Palouse along with his mother. His father and wife were injured in the same accident.