Band of Brothers stars go skydiving on D-Day

The cast of HBO’s Band of Brothers took part in a skydive to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Alex Sabga-Brady, who played Cpl Frank Mellet, and Christian Black, who played Walter Hendrix, wanted to raise money for veterans.

Their first jump took place in Normandy on Thursday after the pair attended a “tough” boot camp at the RAF regiment in Brize Norton. They will parachute from a plane again this weekend over France’s Cotentin Peninsula.

Sabga-Brady and Black said the idea came from “a few conversations” with cast members.

The popular TV series focused on soldiers in an American regiment who educated at Aldbourne in Wiltshire before the Normandy landings.

Although the actors can be seen jumping out of planes in the show, they have only been trained to parachute in recent months.

Mister. Sabga-Brady and Mr Black said the group felt it would be amazing to do what they “haven’t done” in the series and “static line jump” like Easy Company did, while raising money for veterans.

To prepare for the jumps, the cast completed boot camp with the RAF regiment in Brize Norton in Oxfordshire before heading to the United States for paratrooper training.

Both Sabga-Brady and Black described training camp as “pretty tough” as they had to endure “11 days of sleep deprivation”.

It included hand-to-hand combat, assault courses and firing a range of weapons.

Mr Sabga-Brady said the training takes actors and “turns them into a unit of soldiers”.

He said: “We went from a bunch of guys who didn’t know each other to a credible airborne unit.

“We still consider ourselves brothers today. I mean, one of them is even my daughter’s godfather.”

A documentary, titled The Jump: Currahee to Normandy, follows the cast throughout their training.