Steven Spielberg’s movie Saving Private Ryan paid tribute to a famous, if not the most famous, battle in history: D-Day in France on June 6, 1944.
The movie depicts the landing of the Allied forces at the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. The movie shows the landing, soldiers jumping into the water, the battle, and soldiers dying from German machine-gun fire. This is the most impressive and even shocking scene.
I fully understand the scene, because one summer I stood on those hills where the German machine-gun bunkers were located. I looked down to the sea and saw the steep rock walls. I concluded that to climb up to the hills from the sea was a mission impossible, even without the machine-gun fire.
The weather did not favor the Allies. The landing was planned for the fifth of June. But the waters of the English Channel were stormy, so the landing had to be postponed for 24 hours. Even on the sixth of June, the weather was far from perfect. That resulted in a delay. The ships that were supposed to arrive at the Normandy beaches at early dawn, when visibility was limited, to carry out a surprise attack, instead arrived in full daylight that morning.
Still, there were some things that helped the Allied troops. The Allies fooled the Germans about the location of the assault. The Germans were certain that the fight would be at Calais. It was remarkable that—even though there were so many people involved in the planning and execution of the landing, and it was postponed—this secret remained a secret.
Also, the troops on the hills were not the German elite troops.
But the most important and deciding factors in that battle were the bravery, determination, and heroism of the Allied soldiers.
At Normandy we learned that the US Army Rangers were behind enemy lines 25 minutes after landing. That is mind-boggling, especially if you have seen the terrain, as I have.
Saving Private Ryan is a great example of the ways cinematography can show history and leave such a great impression on viewers.
There was much confusion and chaos on D-Day and thousands of soldiers died.
I always wondered why the US Air Force did not bomb those hills before the landing. I saw another movie, Fighting Squadron, that showed that the Allies had superiority in the skies. So I looked it up and found that there were bombardments at Normandy, but that they missed their targets.
How could that have happened? That is difficult to answer, but despite the failures, D-Day was a great military success against Nazi Germany and turned the page of history.
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