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Quotes

Brigadier General Norman Cota: I don't have to tell you the story. You all know it. Only two kinds of people are gonna stay on this beach: those that are already dead and those that are gonna die. Now get off your butts. You guys are the Fighting 29th.

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Mistakes

When Wodarczyk and Priller bombarde the Gold-Juno Beaches, the barren beach - devoid of men, vehicles, etc., is visible in the overhead shot, just past the small strip of beach used for the shoot. See more...

Trivia

Despite his portrayal as an American soldier in various movies, John Wayne actually never got to serve in the Armed Forces. Although he tried to enlist during WW2, he was not accepted due to his age (34 at that time), an old football injury, and his status as a family father. See more...

Mistake pictures

Movie Mistakes blog

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starring Bourvil, Eddie Albert, Hans Christian Blech, Jean-Louis Barrault, Paul Anka, Pauline Carton, Red Buttons, Richard Beymer, Richard Burton, Wolfgang Büttner (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, History, War

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
Quotes
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Beachmaster Colin Maude was, in fact, a Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander, but he was wearing the badges of rank of a Royal Navy Captain....two ranks higher. [Colin Maud was not a Lt Cdr. He was promoted to Cdr on 31 December 1942, and for the landings was an acting captain - thus making his 4 stripes in the film completely correct. For the evidence, see the SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 14 November 1944 (http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/36794/supplements/5214/page.pdf) which shows him as an acting captain for the bar to his DSO.]
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This is a general error in the film (and in Cornelius Ryan's book): no mention is made of Operation Fortitude, the plan to fool the Germans into thinking the invasion would be in the Pas-de-Calais and not in Normandy. In the whole film, it's implied that Germans aren't too bright and think that Normandy isn't the real objective - but it was Operation Fortitude that made them think so. Also, at one point, two allied commanders in the Ops room comment on the Normandy map, saying, "I cannot understand why Jerry hasn't brought his heavy armour into play yet." Allied commanders knew why - Operation Fortitude. [Making no reference to a particular part of the campaign is not a mistake. The focus of the film itself is the invasion, not the distractions taking place elsewhere and, even in a film of this length, not everything that took place on D-Day can be covered. The Germans had an armoured reserve within range of the beaches, which remained undeployed until late in the day, despite the pleas of their commanders; even allowing for the effects of Operation Fortitude, the continued absence of German armour as the day progressed was a source of considerable surprise among the Allied commanders.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
In the scene at the end of the movie, when the Rangers have stormed the bunkers at Omaha beach, a medic is attending to someone's wound. Suddenly, some Germans appear, with their hands up, shouting "bitte, bitte" (please, please) in German, which for an English speaking person sounds like "beatte, beatte". The medic shoots them, and says,"I wonder what 'bitte, bitte' means", PRONOUNCED in English. He should have said, "I wonder what 'beatte, beatte' means". The actor apparently just read the line from the script and spoke what he read, not what he heard. [You've missed the subtle brutality of the scene. The medic speaks German and understands the men are trying to surrender but kills them anyway - he is taking no prisoners. His accented pronounciation of 'bitte' shows that.]
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The part of Bill Millin, Lord Lovat's bag-piper, was played by the real-life Bill Millin himself, but his appearance has remained uncredited. [This is a common misconception. The piper was Pipe-Major Leslie de Laspee. See http://www.pegasusarchive.org/normandy/bill_millin.htm and http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=81509.]
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During the final scenes of the movie, when an American General is taken up "Omaha" Beach, it is actually Juno Beach, where the Canadians landed. [If you mean that there are Canadian troops about the place, by the time the General Staff came ashore the beaches had been secured and Canadian troops were stationed on Omaha. If you mean that is really Juno Beach being used as a location, you are wrong. The scenes on Omaha Beach were shot in Corsica.]
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In the movie, the paratrooper who was dangling from the cathedral tower in Ste. Mere Eglise ended up surviving the attack. Unfortunately, the real paratrooper who landed on the cathedral tower was caught by the Germans and was killed on top of the tower. [Wrong. Red Buttons plays Private John Steele, and what you see is almost exactly what happened. Steele was a paratrooper with the 82nd airborne and he DID end up dangling from the roof of St Mere Egliese cathedral when his parachute got hung up on the spire. He played dead for fourteen hours despite being shot in the foot and deafened by the cathedral bells - and both events are correctly depicted in the film. He survived his ordeal and was taken prisoner immediately afterwards rather than being reunited with his unit as the film shows. He escaped three days later, and survived the war.]
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In the scene where Ike and the other leaders are deciding to either invade the next day or postpone the invasion, a jet plane can be heard passing by through the open window. It is very loud and clear, I can't believe it was left in. [It is just possible, though admittedly unlikely, that a Gloster Meteor (the only jet fighter in Allied service in 1944) could have passed by.]
Edit Corrected by JEREMY BENJAMIN
One of the reasons why the Omaha landing turned out to be so disastrous was that the U.S. Army decided to use tanks modified for amphibian landings for the campaign. In the rough seas of D-Day Normandy, all but two tanks bogged down before they reached Omaha Beach, depriving the G.I.s of both protective armor and close-range artillery power. These tanks (even the two that made it) do not appear throughout the entire movie. [If they had included every incident which occurred on each of the five beaches film would be too long to sit through. Important though the loss of the amphibious tanks was, it was one of many, many incidents on D-Day that got dropped. ]
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Shortly before the landings take place, there is a shot of the massive Allied fleet approaching the Normandy beaches. A flight of fighter aircraft are seen flying overhead. The aircraft are Grumman Bearcats, a type that did not enter service until late 1945, more than a year after D-Day. [The aircrafts are Douglas Skyraiders, not Grumman Bearcats. They were also in service post-WW2]
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The shots that kill Pvt. Martini occur too quickly in succession to have been fired from the indicated bolt-action rifle. [Depending on the soldier, it is possible to fire a bolt-action rifle in rapid succession. During WWI, the British trained their riflemen to fire the SMLE bolt action rifle at a rate of forty rounds per minute (this includes reloading a 5 round clip, so firing 5 rounds with 5 moves of the bolt and reloading a clip would take altogether 8.5 seconds at most, given the rifle was loaded first, and the seven reloads) and woe behold any german company that faced such a trained squad. So great was the rate of fire from the British trenches that German troops believed they were facing massed machine guns. Perhaps the German was a veteran of one of these run-ins, and honed his skill like thus.]
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