It’s one of the greatest films ever made, but despite being lauded for historical accuracy, Saving Private Ryan didn’t get everything right.
In a new video, World War II historian John McManus pointed out the inaccuracies at the end of the film, presumably made for the sake of effective storytelling.
Speaking about the Battle of Normandy post-D-Day, he started off by saying how much he respects and loves the Oscar-winning Steven Spielberg epic.
Speaking with Inverse, McManus said: “I want to say this respectfully because I think this is one of the most brilliant movies ever made. I think these parts are beneath a movie of this brilliance. We also see the Captain [Miller, played by Tom Hanks], certainly groggy and out of it because of acoustic trauma, snapping off shots at a tank, apparently a Tiger tank, with a pistol. Again, a little too Hollywood for me. I remember the first time I saw this, I thought, ‘They’re not going to say that the pistol did that. That would be absurd.’ So fortunately, it’s a plane that does it.
“And when you look at German accounts of the Battle of Normandy, usually one of the first things they’re mentioning is how suffocating Allied air could be. The planes that are portrayed though are probably not the ones you would’ve used for this purpose. I think these are P-51s, and Brian even says a little later in the clip that they’re tank-busters. Actually, the major tank-busters were P-47 Thunderbolts that tended to be better at this kind of job.”
McManus added: “So I like that they showed the aircraft having a key role in the outcome of the battle, but I think the way it’s done is not all that realistic. A ground unit comes to save the day and that’s a little bit Hollywood too. But, you know what, that’s not terribly unrealistic for what did happen sometimes in Normandy where you have some embattled formations, especially airborne guys, and they’re going to have amphibious landed infantry units or armoured units link up with them at a pretty good time.
“This part only I’ll give it a seven out of 10 because of the things I’ve mentioned and the sort of cheap Hollywood-isms of shooting a pistol at a tank and all that. Overall, though, the Ramelle battle scenes I’ll give a nine out of 10. I often say, I like these scenes, the town fighting scenes, better even than the famous Omaha Beach scenes because I think they’re very true to the Battle of Normandy, exactly the way it would have looked.”
