As a Los Angeles deputy district attorney, Lynn D. "Buck" Compton was known for heading the team that successfully prosecuted Sirhan B. Sirhan for the 1968 slaying of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
After Ronald Reagan, then governor, appointed him to the 2nd District Court of Appeal in 1970, he was known as one of its most conservative jurists.
But it was long after he retired from the bench in 1990 that Compton became known for something that had been mentioned only in passing in newspaper articles about him: his World War II service.
Compton was a first lieutenant in Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the Army's 101st Airborne Division - one of the men who gained late-in-life renown when they were portrayed in "Band of Brothers," the 2001 HBO miniseries based on Stephen Ambrose's bestseller.
People are also reading…
Compton, 90, suffered a heart attack Jan. 11 and died Saturday at daughter Tracy's home in Burlington, Wash., said his family.
After parachuting into Normandy early on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Compton was part of the assault group that destroyed German artillery during the battle at Brecourt Manor. He fought at Carentan, participated in Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands and fought in the Battle of Bastogne. Before the war was over, he received a Silver Star and Purple Heart.
As Tracy's sister Syndee put it: "His career as a prosecutor and a judge overrode his military career until 'Band of Brothers' came out, and then it just went crazy. Then it became more about him being in the military rather than his being a judge or a prosecutor."
