As a Los Angeles deputy district attorney, Lynn D. "Buck" Compton was known for heading the three-man team that successfully prosecuted Sirhan B. Sirhan for the 1968 slaying of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

And after then-Gov. Ronald Reagan appointed him to the 2^nd 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 previously had been mentioned only in passing in newspaper articles about him: his World War II military 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 true-life characters who gained late-in-life renown when they were portrayed in "Band of Brothers," the 2001 HBO miniseries based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose's 1992 bestseller...