Saving Private Ryan Historical Accuracy

Over the years there has been a numerous amount of Hollywood films produced that were roughly based on historical settings. Sometimes the stories are accurate, but often times the stories are changed to fit the needs of entertainment and profit. In 1998, a film named Saving Private Ryan was produced in an attempt to retell the story of Sergeant Frederick Niland. However, the film is not as accurate as many assumed it to be. Personally, not knowing the true story of the film I too thought it was a lot similar to the actual events than it truly is.
Saving Private Ryan is film based on the story of World War II soldiers that are on a mission to find another soldier in Europe. The soldier they are looking for is Private James Francis Ryan. Private

Ryan’s three brothers were killed all over the world and an immediate search was put out for the last brother. Captain John Miller is sent to Europe with his squadron to find Private Ryan. Once located, Private Ryan refused to leave his team because he is loyal to them and the war. Instead of forcing Private Ryan to leave, Miller and his squadron stay in Europe and join the fight against Germany. During this battle, a large number of Miller’s crew died including Captain Miller.
Oddly enough, Private Ryan survives and eventually returned back to the United States where he later learns that his eldest brother survived and was captured by the Japanese (History in Film).
However, an overview of the official event is rather different.

Sergeant Frederick “Fritz” Niland was a member of the 101st Airborne's 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. Sadly, he was one of the few from his squadron that made it into Normandy on June 6, 1944. Fritz’ three brothers served as well. Robert Niland was also a Paratrooper, Preston Niland was in an Infantry Regiment and Edward Niland was a pilot in the Army Air Force. Both Robert and Preston were killed in Normandy. Unlike the movie, Fritz was already aware that his brothers were killed and that he needed to go home. In comparison, Fritz did not want to return to America but unlike the movie he had no choice. The third brother, Edward was reported missing in the Pacific Theater after bring shot down and was pronounced dead. Later on it was found that he was taken by the Japanese and held as a prisoner of war. British forces later rescued him (Combat

Engineers)
Unlike the movie, a rescue mission was not sent out to find Sergeant Niland.

He was contacted at his camp and once his paperwork cleared he was on his way back to the United States. His return to America was necessary at the time due to a new war law at the time. During the Guadalcanal Campaign, two Japanese Submarines attacked USS Juno. When the ship sunk over 600 Sailors were killed, including the Sullivan brothers. The brothers all wanted to be together during war, but after their death the United States government promised an event like that would never occur again and the Sole Survivor Rule was emplaced. The policy made sure that siblings would not be able to be killed in the same battle at the same time. In Saving Private Ryan and the true story, this occurs and the sole survivor is sent home to his

family.
Oddly enough, in the movie they do not know where Ryan is and send out a squadron to find him, and what makes this even more odd is that the Army General Chief of Staff looked into the situation personally. It is the middle of War II; surely he would have had bigger issues to tend to. Additionally, they do not really have a plan on how to find him; one of the members even made the comment that “it is like finding a needle in a stack of needles”. If they did not run into the soldier who heard them yelling, “Ryan”, the squadron could have been searching forever. If this event happened in real life, I find it incredibly hard to believe that the United States Army would risk a whole team to find a man who they do not even know is alive. On another note, if this were to happen it would not be tolerate if the squadron argued with their captain over the necessity of the mission. Fortunately for the Niland family, Fritz returned home as soon as his paperwork went through.
Aside from the comparisons of Private Ryan and Sergeant Niland, there is a large amount of similarities and differences between the movie and the Invasion of Normandy.
From beginning to end, the film slowly looses historical accuracy. In the beginning, Captain Miller and his squadron were aboard the boats into Omaha Beach. Numerous G.Is were extremely seasick. Once they get in close approximation to the beach, they under go numerous rounds of gun fire, many soldiers jump off the boats to escape but their heavy gear acts like a weight and sends them to the bottom. Many drowned before reaching shore.
In the next scene, soldiers are being shot under water, which doesn’t defy history, but it definitely defies physics in every aspect. Newton’s First Law of Motion states: “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it”. Therefore once the bullet hits the water it looses all of its momentum; however, the scene would bot be as exciting. Newton’s First Law of Motion comes up again later on in the film when Jackson shoots an enemy soldier from 450 yards. This would be possible; however, Jackson shoots the soldier through his scope, right into his eye. Due to the gravitational force on the bullet, the bullet path has a downward curvature. To hit him in the eye, Jackson would have to shoot high, due to the angle of the bullet it would not be able to pass straight through the scope. Additionally, The mines, traps, boat obstacle and tanks that were set up by enemies were historically accurate. Commander Rommel made sure to visit all the fortifications in person to assure the Atlantic Wall was strong (D-Day).
The next few scenes are historically accurate and truly show the brutality of war. Captain Miller’s squadron had to use torpedoes and blow up the barbed wire fences, men got wounded and killed, and eventually the beach was taken. This is roughly accurate except Captain Miller did not exist. Also, the movie does not show the actuality of how long the battle lasted before opposing forces surrendered. During the surrender, a small inaccuracy occurred. The two men that confronted the Americans with their hands up were said to be German, but were actually Czech. Sadly, they did not intentionally want to fight for Germany but they had to because German forces took over their country.
The majority of the soldiers were American in the film, but in real life Normandy there were amounts of allied soldiers. We fought along side a large number of men, and it should have been better perceived in the movie. An easy way this could have been done is to have a realistic aspect of the Landing crafts. In real life they were all crewed by British service men, while in the movie the LCA driver is American (History Buffs).
After the invasion is where parts of the scenes became a little more unrealistic. Once safe of enemy fire, Captain Miller and his squadron exchange questions and a lot of conversation. In real life battle this would not be allowed due to the possibility of moving into enemy territory. Furthermore, it seems incredibly unlikely that the squadron would be traveling in the middle of the day. This makes them incredibly vulnerable to the enemy.
Instead of returning home, Private Ryan decides to stay with his fellow brothers and fights off the Germans and Miller’s squadron joins in. By this part of the movie, the story is almost completely fictional. Miller and his squadron have to take down a MG42 nest from underneath the radio tower, during the scene the Germans shoot numerous rounds at the G.Is in a matter of seconds. From extra research, I came to the conclusion that the Germans would not do this because the weapon overheats quickly, causing every shot to be less accurate (Military Factory). In the continuing battles against the enemy soldiers, German tanks destroy the French village. From accounts in D-Day it is shown that soldiers clear the villages before the armored tanks enter. This account in Saving Private Ryan points that the tanks alone are easy targets when there are no soldiers present to stand their ground.
The last issue that I saw in the battle scene is when Private Jackson was in the Bell Tower that was being used as a sniper tower. In World War II battle pictures, the towns are always flattened. Before the enemy forces acted, vantage points such as the Bell Tower would have been neutralized. In realistic battles, the enemy would be sure to take down an easy target such as a Bell Tower in the beginning of the battle and not leave it for the opposing side to use as a sniper tower like the Germans did in the film.
In conclusion, there have been numerous attempts to compare Saving Private Ryan with the story of Sergeant Fritz Niland. From studying the two topics, I have learned that the movie is lightly based on Niland and it is not meant to be an accurate representation. Overall, Saving Private Ryan does include a large number of factual information about Sergeant Niland and the Invasion of Normandy and gives a more realistic portrayal than other war movies have in regards to World War II.