D-Day: Allies and the Turnaround of WWII - Complete Film History Research Paper by Yahir Beltran - English 110

Yahir Beltran
English 110
Mr.Lewenstein
21 Feb.2022

 

 

Allied Soldiers landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944. “D-Day” by History.com, October 27, 2009. '

 

D-Day: Allies and the Turn-around of WWII

 

    The movie Saving Private Ryan is based on an event during  time the German forces were on the coast of Normandy France defending this major state for Germany.  The most important part of the war in my opinion was the invasion of Normandy. This meant the loss of supplies for the Germans and a way for the Allies to strike against German forces located in nearby countries. The attack in Normandy was something really difficult, the plan consisted of several elements such as a “ghost army”, fake radios, and more, we get to see how soldiers felt during and after the war. Most of this trauma happens due to seeing a friend die or comrade next to them or even in their arms. “The noise of war does more than deafen you,” War is something that soldiers will remember. Soldiers may get a trauma from the idea of war; this will change the way they live from day to day. We as civilians see a war victory as an achievement but soldiers see war as hell -  it stays with them forever.

 

    During the war the Allies were searching for ways to deceive the German forces so that they could attack other countries such as Normandy. The United States came up with a great plan called Quicksilver I, which was the first U.S. army group called the FUSAG, they were stationed in south-east England and commanded by Gen. George Patton. General Patton was the worst fear for the Germans, they saw him as someone who knew what he was doing and seeing him do this plan was their biggest concern. Formerly, Patton was asked what he believed when they introduced the last-minute plan, this is what he had to say, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week” (Patton 1945). This made sense in many ways, the
group and plan Quicksilver were something used to deceive the German Forces and help the Allies attack Normandy. This plan contributed to the victory of D-Day. The way Patton and his soldiers were able to get into character and fool the Germans was something amazing. The plan, Quicksilver created a fake army which the Germans will begin to observe in detail, making Hitler believe that the Allies were going to attack from Belgium instead of Normandy. Overall general Patton was able to fool the Germans and help the Allies win the war.

 

    The beginning of the movie introduces the attack of Normandy. The soldiers are transported by boat while there are planes flying by and attacking the beach before the boats land. As the soldiers are getting closer, we can see how the German forces are found and how they will defend this part of the beach. As soldiers arrive, they are being shot by German forces found on the beach, we get to see how the attack began before the Allied soldiers were able to reach the beach. Some soldiers were forced to jump out of the boats they were being transported to, then the attack began. Many soldiers were killed before they could get off the boat, the beach was full of holes, there were Czech hedgehogs, mines all over the beach. It seemed like a nightmare to be there, some soldiers were helping others who were injured, this was what it felt to be in Normandy when D-Day started, chaos everywhere you looked. This was one of the most historically exact scenes we get to see during the whole movie. One of the few survivors had said that he does not see beaches the same, we can see how he feels when he says, “Where tourists and vacationers see pleasant waves, I see the faces of drowning men,”. Soldiers had to go through hell and can see how Lambert feels about war when he wrote, “The noise of war does more than deafen you it’s worse than shock, more physical than something thumping against your chest. It pounds your bones, rumbling through your organs, counter-beating your heart. Your skull vibrates. You feel the noise as if it’s inside you, a demonic parasite pushing at every inch of skin to get out.”

 

      The article “What Made D-Day an Unsurpassed Masterpiece of Planning" introduces  how D-Day became a masterpiece of a plan. The author starts to give us many examples of how this plan was made. All through the article the author is making the D-Day plan seem as something advanced and a masterpiece as we can see when he says, “American and British military planners accomplished all this almost from scratch. They had very little prior experience in amphibious operations. World War I had provided a testing ground for unified command, artillery techniques, aerial warfare and reconnaissance, combined arms and defense in depth tactics, naval convoy and anti-submarine operations, and communications and coordination across complex battlefields between Armies speaking different languages (Sansone 7).

 

    In another article “D-Day Deception: Operation Fortitude South,"  Paul Pattison describes the The Allies opportunity to move in and make a major change in their favor when they decided to make a ghost army.  Overall, this plan was made to win the war and remove German forces from Europe and end the German Dictatorship. When WWII started, many young adults were persuaded to join the army. Leaving many mothers to pray for their son’s lives. In this case Ryan and his three brothers went to war. WWII began due to the rise of the Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy, Germany decided to remove the humiliation that they faced in WWI due to the Treaty of Versailles. In response the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and

France created the Allies. Sending soldiers to the battlefield for the Axis powers. This war lasted six years of pure fighting from both sides ending on September 2, 1945. 

 

   On June 6, 1944, the plan D-Day was put into place, on this day Captain Miller was sent with a platoon of soldiers to save Private Ryan who was captured by the German   forces.  The Czech hedgehogs (the big metal thing on the beach) capture my attention first, yet multiple soldiers charging in.  For me the most important part of this poster is the two soldiers struggle maybe because one was shot and is injured, for the other soldier we can see he is helping him giving us the idea of “no men left behind". This poster seems to be laid out with the intent of making the viewer think of the saying, “No man left behind”. This poster has a combination of small, big, and medium objects, some examples would be the Czech hedgehogs that seem to be the bigger. On the medium side of things, we can see the soldiers all over the shoreline. I believe that some things are bigger than others to get more attention but at the same time not removing our attention from the main subject. From what I learned in my art class, most of the time the medium objects are on one of the focus points, in this case the soldiers working together. From what I can see on this poster the words being shown are not trying to remove the main goal from the viewers.

These words don’t have vibrant colors such as red, yellow, and others. For the description there is not as much, we get the title and the purpose of this movie while still having space for more details. Lastly the colors used on this poster seem to be dull, most of them having a tone of gray to represent the time these events happened and how nothing was joyful which is mostly represented by bright colors.

    All in all, The Allies already had some type of experience with attacking overseas and this was a major advantage when creating this plan. From the movie, Saving Private Ryan, we get to see many examples of WWII and I believe that this movie has been inspirational because it really seems to show all of us that war is something that we do not want to live through. This movie is interesting, we can all enjoy it and get an idea of WWII. I chose this movie because I really like war movies, I find this history interesting, I also like action movies and having both story and action in the same movie is cool. Overall, I learned that war movies tend to make viewers see only one side of a two-sided war. Through the research we can learn new things about D-Day such as how this masterpiece of a plan also had some complex maneuvers that were used by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Finally, we should all try to learn more about the people behind war operations, they make a change not just for their country and soldiers but for everyone in the world.

Work Cited

 Katz, Jamie. “One of the Few Surviving Heroes of D-Day Shares His Story.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 3 June 2019,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/one-few-surviving-heroes-d-day-shares-his-st ory-180972323/.

Sansome, Derek. “D-Day and the Normandy Campaign: The National WWII Museum: New Orleans.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans,
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/d-day-and-normandy-campaign.

Pattison, Paul. “D-Day Deception: Operation Fortitude South.” English Heritage, https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/dover-castle/history-and-stories/d-day-deception/.

Kelly, Matt. “Historians: The Full Story of D-day Is More Complex than the Myth.” UVA Today, 6 June 2019,
https://news.virginia.edu/content/historians-full-story-d-day-more-complex-myth

 

 

Cowell, Alan. “D-Day in Photos: Heroes of a More Certain Time.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 June 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/world/europe/d-day-photos-anniversary-pictures.ht ml

Roos, Dave. “How Many Were Killed on D-Day?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 3 June 2019, https://www.history.com/news/d-day-casualties-deaths-allies.