I believe that most of the students have seen Spielberg's World War II action blockbuster "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), which is the most realistic film to date that restores the tragic situation of the Allied landing in Normandy. However, in addition to watching the movie, some more serious students will question whether the story of the AMERICAN army soldier Ryan who was sent home because of the death of three brothers in the film is true and credible.
Hollywood superstar Matt Munda plays Private Ryan
It is true that the screenwriters have done a lot of artistic processing in telling this story, such as the team struggling to cross the enemy behind enemy lines to find Ryan, and Ryan's forced request to stay behind to defend a bridge, but the image of this "Normandy soldier who died three brothers" is indeed adapted from a real story, which is based on Frederick Fritz Nylander born in 1920 in 1920. Fritz· Sergeant Niland, hereinafter referred to as Fritz.
As set out in the film, Fritz has three elder brothers who live in Tonawanda, New York, and interestingly, they are all descendants of The Germans. Fritz's three older brothers were Edward Niland, born in 1912, Preston Niland, born in 1915, and Robert Niland, born in 1919. Bob· Niland), a family of four brothers during World War II, all volunteered to serve the army.
Four brothers of the Dutch family (Edward on the right)
The eldest brother Edward joined the U.S. Army Aviation corps as a technical sergeant on a B-25 bomber in the U.S. Southeast Asia Theater, and on May 16, 1944, the bomber was shot down by a Japanese aircraft over Burma, Edward and his comrades parachuted into the jungle, unfortunately captured by the Japanese, and imprisoned in an Allied prisoner-of-war camp in Burma. Having not reached the designated rendezvous point after the parachute, his other comrades thought he had been killed and reported this inference to their superiors.
Edward Nederland
Bob, the third brother, also joined the airborne unit as a sergeant in D Company, 505th Parachute Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, and on june 6, 1944, on the day of the Normandy landings, when Bob's company was forced to retreat from Neuville-Oplain, he and two other comrades volunteered to stay behind to block the German counterattack. Bob personally operated a machine gun to strafe the Germans, so he became the target of the opposing fire and eventually lost his life, and under Bob's cover, the other two comrades managed to escape.
Bob (left) with comrades-in-arms
Preston became a lieutenant in the 22nd Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, and on the day of the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, the 4th Infantry Division took part in the landing operation on Utah Beach as the main landing force, and although the entire division suffered minor casualties during the landing, Preston was seriously wounded the next day in an attempt to seize chris Baker's Battery, which threatened the Allied fleet, and died soon after the rescue was ineffective.
Fritz himself parachuted on the first day of the landing to the southwestern region of Culentin in La Foveville in northern France, where he managed to find his company and, after several days of fighting, was able to successfully rendezvous with the 82nd Airborne Division. Fritz wanted to talk to his third brother, but was told that he had died. At this time, the retinue of the 501st Parachute Regiment, Francis M. Father L. Sampson was also looking for Fritz, as the well-informed priest had learned that all three of the Dutch brothers had been killed.
Fritz (first from left)
Contrary to what is depicted in the film, Father Sampson easily found Fritz, who obediently withdrew from the front line and was transported back to England after learning the bad news, after all, no normal person would like a battlefield where he could lose his life at any time. In the rear, the Dutch mother also quickly received three heartbreaking death notices, the only reassuring thing was that she also received a handwritten letter from Fritz in the British newspaper, in which the latter bragged about her war experience in just a few days.
After returning to the United States, Fritz served a year as a member of the New York State Congress. After the war, Fritz became an oral surgeon and was awarded a Bronze Star Medal despite only a few days of fighting. Then came the good news that the eldest brother Edward, who was found still alive in an Allied prisoner-of-war camp in Burma, was released on May 4, 1945, and soon returned home, and the two brothers lived in Tonawanda for nearly 30 years, until their deaths in 1983 and 1984 (neither very long-lived).
The second brother Preston and the third brother Bob, who have been sacrificed, are buried in the Normandy American Cemetery in the coastal city of Collerville in northern France, Bob is buried in the 15th row of the F plot, the 11th tomb, and the Preston is buried in the 15th row of the F plot 12th tomb. Edward's son, Pete Niland, on a trip to Normandy, France, in 1974, laid wreaths on the tombstones of his two uncles at his father's request.
Preston with Bob's tombstone
At first, the story of the four Dutch brothers was buried in the vast sea of world war-II little people stories, but in 1994, the wife of Robert Rodat, the screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan, handed him a best-selling historical book written by Stephen Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II）。
Ambrose and his writings
While reading the book, Rodat once passed by a small village in New Hampshire and stumbled upon a war memorial inscribed with the names of a pair of brothers who died in battle. Rodat suddenly remembered that Ambrose's book also described a similar story of four brothers in the Netherlands, two of whom were killed and one captured, and the youngest brother was sent home. Rodat quickly used this story as a blueprint to create the script for this classic World War II film.
Fritz (left) with comrades-in-arms in Normandy, France
When the 1998 movie "Saving Private Ryan" was released, the Pitt family was invited to the premiere, and he recalled: "I was like a Hollywood star. Tom Hanks, Sylvester Stallone and other Hollywood film and television superstars shook hands with Pete, and because the film had some inappropriate elements, Pitt left his 10-year-old daughter Brianna in the hotel room when he watched the film, and the latter did not care about it until she learned that her idol, Scary Spice, had also attended the premiere.
Finally, two characters from Spielberg's other classic World War II miniseries, Band of Brothers (2001), Warren Muck and Donald Malarkey of the 506th Parachute Regiment E Company of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, are very good friends, an anecdote that has been mentioned in Stephen Ambrose's other book, Company of Brothers.