D-Day as seen in Saving Private Ryan.
- 4 June 2011 06:50108822We are just a day or two away from the anniversary of D-Day ( 6th June) and last night as a reminder, lest we forget, Channel Four showed Speilberg's film of the D-Day landings and beyond, called Saving Private Ryan. More on the film itself later but the landings themselves, as indeed depicted in the film, were a pretty grisly affair as we all know. The horror of these full frontal beach landings was brought home to bear in no uncertain terms.
We were of course in a total war situation at the time and the D-Day beach landings were on a massive scale, with some beach-heads being more horrific than others in that they were met with the fiercest of resistance. This resulted in a massive amount of casualties. Landing on an exposed beach in such a way allowed the invaders to be cut down easily by the well oiled, well equipped, and battle hardened German machine.
One hopes that lessons have been learned from all this, as families will be reflecting over the next few days on their losses. No longer do we want this kind of thing, this kind of war, where the ordinary Joe was/is seen as expendable. The philosophy being that you if you hurl enough men at the beach some of them at least will get through. This kind of thinking isnt acceptable anymore, either from generals or from politicians.
But I think we are seeing a more cautious approach to our wars these days..I hope we are anyway..where we let technology save us, at least partially, from fodderising our manpower.
As for the film...well the film was much hailed at the time of its release. it clearly emphasises the anti-war message, showing the misery and pointlessness of war. Yet it glorifies to some extent in the gore, it focuses almost entirely on the death and destruction. It saturates itself in the sheer mire of it all. The anti-war message is delivered with a sledge hammer but the viewer is numbed by the message long before the film ends. There are too many shoot 'em up gung ho scenes, despite efforts not to do so in the earlier part of the film. The Germans in the later scenes are shot down like fish in a barrel, without it seems managing to fire back.
The English contribution to D-Day wasnt referred to at all, save for one brief moment, when it was said that General Montgomery was "over-rated".email: dover7@msn.com - 4 June 2011 07:28108825On June 6th. 1995, the first one after Jean and I moved to Dover (November 1994), we only had one guest stay with us that night and it was a solitary German man. He sat in with us that evening and we shared a few (German) beers and toasted peace.
He stayed with us many times over the next few years.
I'm sure every guest house owner has some good stories to tell.
Roger - 4 June 2011 07:37108826Saving Private Ryan was not of course actually about D Day though some of the action was centred around that day so they can be forgiven for not mention much of Britain's (or Canada's or France's roles).
A good film actually about D Day, the best one, is The Longest Day. This does give a broader more balanced overview of events. - 4 June 2011 10:56108841I seem to recall a news item when the film was first released, that when they had a preview showing for d day veterans many were very upset by the reality of the beach assault scenes. Barry the strangest thing about the film the longest was the number of actors in it that had actually landed on the day for real.beer the food of the gods
- 4 June 2011 22:17108912The first soldiers to actually land on the other side of the sea were the air-born units, who went in by glider and parachute on the night before the beach-landings.
They used thae same landing tactics as the German army employed to invade Crete in 1941, namely gliders and parachutes.
The air-born units probably prevented much higher casualties among those who landed by sea.
Although the British and Allied High Command used massive numbers of tanks and artillery in France from D-Day onwards, tanks were knocked out like nine-pins, and tank crews took on very high casualties.
As the larger part of the German army was in Russia and later in Poland in combat against the Soviet forces, the western allies were spared much higher casualties.Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
Rule Britannia!
Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 5 June 2011 06:44108926Guzzler yes it would be an inappropriate film to show to very sensitive veterans...guys who have been through that awful beach landing do not want to wallow in sensationalised gore. Could be very disturbing for them. In a documentary on the same subject of D-Day last night on BBC2, one American veteran who landed in his assault craft that day, said that there were 37 members in his landing craft and only 9 made it off the beach. The attrition rate was too high, as mentioned earlier.
Alex yes the American and British tanks were knocked out like ninepins as you say, they were no match for the German Tiger tank which smashed through them with ease with superior firepower. The allied tank crews became quite frightened of the possibility of dying so easily in unmatched equipment..as some experts on the documentary said..it was a horrible way to die, frying in a tank.
However all round superior numbers of men and airpower eventually won through. But I now understand more fully about the disparaging reference to Motgomery in the movie...the Americans under Eisenhower were grossly miffed with Monty that he didnt take Caen. Eventually massive amounts of bombers did the job that Montgomery couldnt do...but this is what they left it like.
But all and all the loss of life was pretty grim... as so many died on all sides.
But back to Saving Private Ryan for a moment: There is one utterly laughable scene in it. When they eventually find the right Private Ryan to save, there is one of the worst performances imagineable by Matt Damon. Here he is on the war torn frontline of Europe. He is dishevelled, dirty, his hair is matted, he lies up to his neck in rubble and bullets, and as he reminisces with smiles and tears about his four dead brothers...you cannot help but notice his very Hollywood $50,000 dollar set of ultra white piano key teeth.. in amongst all the rubble mud muck and carnage, they stick out like totally bizarre shiney-white beacons. Reminds one of that doggy chew advert where the mutts featured all have false teeth. He does a lot of laughing as he reminisces and all you see is $50,000 dollar teeth...nothing like the teeth of an Ohio farmboy. If I was the director I would choke on my artistic integrity.email: dover7@msn.com - 5 June 2011 07:39108927Everyone thinks of the Tiger tank as the biggest most powerfully armed tank in the war. It was but is was also unreliable, over engineered it could not be made in the kind of numbers needed for it to be a war winner unlike the mass produced and simpler American Sherman tanks and Russian T34's.
The best German tank, however, was not the Tiger despite its powerful gun and thick armour, it was the Panther which had a far better balance of firepower/armour/speed. - 5 June 2011 08:48108930when one considers that most of the protagonists on both sides were conscripts it adds to the horror of those pictures.
would be nice to think that such battles would never be repeated but human nature suggests differently. - 5 June 2011 12:01108942Sadly, Howard, I agree with you and such recent events as in Rwanda and/or Srebrenica show that we have learned so little from our pasts. I recently visited the Lochnagar Crater near Thiepval where a mine was exploded under the German lines. The scale of this hole in the Earth, a hundred years on, is terrifying and it is unimaginable what it must have been like to be near when it was detonated. We are more 'sophisticated' now in that we can send missiles through letter boxes in front doors but all the time military might is seen as an answer to problems we are doomed to repeat our mistakes.
"The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations". ~David Friedman - 5 June 2011 14:40108955The worst German armoured vehicle was the Ferdinand: 800 were employed for the first time at the battle of Kirsk in Russia, in 1943, and over half were knocked out in the first 3 days.
It had no machine-gun for close commbat against infantry.
However, one of the major insruments used against allied tanks, western and Russian, was the bazooka, or rocket-propelled grenade.
Mark, you are right about Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina, it came so unexpected and shocked people around the world, as populations speaking the same language and of similar/identical ethnic appartenence, and living in the same streets for centuries, were suddenly rushing at each other.
I suppose it would be fair to say that on all three sides in the Bosnian war, people were srebrenified, expelled or obliged to leave their home town or village.
None of the commanders on the three sides excelled in tollerance, although many individual people on all sides did behave decently towards their neighbours of different religion.
Also many Muslims from Bosnia went as refugees both to Croatia and to Serbia, and were treated equally by these two countries in the same way as Croatian/Serbian refugees.Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
Rule Britannia!
Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ
