Saving Private Ryan: History V. Hollywood

The movie expects pre-knowledge but to tie all of the facts together one must look at all the facts. The invasion gave prominence to land forces but provided major

roles for air and sea components. Allied air forces carried three airborne divisions into battle. These divisions attacked targets throughout the invasion area before and

after the landing to support the main assault forces. More than 5,000 ships ranging from battleships to landing crafts carried, escorted and landed the invasion force along the Normandy coast. Once the force was landed, naval gunfire provided support for

rs as they fought their way up the beaches.

In the film’s Omaha Beach sequence American forces fight through a withering crossfire as they leave their landing crafts in rough seas. The soldiers crawl through the German obstacles to the seawall and open an exit off the beach. Attacking heavily fortified positions, the Americans suffered about 2,400 casualties at Omaha on June 6, and Spielberg is unsparing in his depiction of the destruction on the battlefield. The honest treatment of death on the battlefield in Saving Private Ryan is radically different from other films in the World War II genre. In earlier films soldiers died quick, never knowing what hit them. In reality that happened about one percent of the time. The Omaha Beach sequence is deafening and chaotic, in sharp contrast to the earlier World War II films. According to historians the battlefield in the earlier films was too good to be true.

The movie its self is fiction, however the plot is based off of a true story. Fritz Niland was one of four brothers from New York state who saw action during the war.Two Niland brothers were killed on D-Day. Another went missing in action in Burma and was presumed dead, although he actually survived. Fritz was located in Normandy by an Army chaplain, Reverend Francis Sampson, and taken out of the combat zone. The story of Private Ryan comes from a what if. What if Father Sampson hadn’t found Niland right away? What would the Army have done?

The film also shows t

Some topics in this essay:
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