American Military Cemetery, Normandy, France (Present Day)
On Omaha Beach, Normandy, June 6, 1944 -- 0630 Hours
At the Farm House
In the Countryside
In A Village
In the Town
 
 

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Comments on the Bell Tower

• When the German soldier came into the stairwell and saw Upham sitting there, but didn't kill him, that's a little strange. If that was a real battle I think the German would have killed Upham especially since he had belts of .30 caliber ammunition around his neck. Wouldn't the German suppose that Upham would use the machine gun once he had left? Seems kind of strange to me. Anonymous
• When Upham is going up the stairs where Mellish and a German are fighting, he appears to flip off a safety on top of the weapon... but the safety of an M-1 Gerand is on the front of the trigger guard. C Mendillo
• Mellish and another person move into a house with the .30 cal. As the Germans walk up the stairs, Mellish says that his gun is jammed. When one of the Germans sticks his SMG into the room, Mellish only gets off one round, but two holes appear in the wall. Majin211
• Why did they pull the .30 cal up the bell tower? Surely Jackson and Porker had to get up there somehow. They surely didn't climb up a rope, did they? There must've been a stairwell inside the building. If so, then they could have carried the .30 cal on their shoulder or something. Chris Ryan
• When JACKSON in the Bell tower was shooting, why didn't his partner looked around for danger? His bullets were out, so why sit there and do nothing? Kenneth 
• Why wouldn't the sniper (Jackson) try to escape the bell tower in the final battle scene when he saw the tank's turret turn towards the bell tower? He seemed to have plenty of time. Eric
• [Reply to Eric: He seemed to barely have 10 seconds. Given the size of shell fired at him and his position it is unlikely he could have escaped in time. Neil HOLMES]
• When Jackson signals the number of tanks - 2 Tigers, 1 Panzer - they destroy a Panzer with a Molotov Cocktail but then there's another Panzer that shoots the bell tower. L. Peterson
• [Reply to L Peterson: Actually you are wrong, if watch the film again Private Jackson clearly identifies two panzer tanks not one. The first (a marder tank) is destroyed by petrol bombs, the second by a bazooka after it had taken out the bell tower position. D. Pilford]
• [Reply To L. Peterson: That's wrong because the tanks are not Panzers anyway. they're Maurader 2 tanks. The reason why I know this is because I am a long time re-enactor and I was an extra on the film. The scene where you can see me is when Hanks and Peeper Burns and the rest are going through dog tags. Wade yells at them and I am one of the staring soldiers - the 5th one to be exact. There is an error right near my scene. They show the same solider walking by twice.  MP40stg44] 
• [Reply to MP40stg44: There are no such things as 'Marauder 2 tanks'. The AFV:s in question are called 'Marder II' ('Marten' in German) and those are not tanks in a strict sense but tank destroyers 'Jagdpanzer' or 'Panzerjäger'. The reason why Jackson signals the way he does is probably because Spielberg wanted to depict some typical features of the G.I’s relationship to German armour. In the mind of a grunt every tank encountered was a dreadful Tiger, otherwise it simply became a 'Panzertank' because his skills at identification were somewhat limited. (’Panzer’ only means ’tank’ in German, so the term is tautological (’tank-tank’), but is probably derived from the commonplace Panzerkampfwagen IV H, none of which are present in the scene, however). Then regarding the number of armored fighting viechles, couldn’t Jackson simply have missed one? Snafu]
• [Reply to L. Peterson: The one which gets destroyed by a Molotov cocktail is actually the best replica and is still being used by a British reenactment society. The other one has its main gun in a ball (the point where it enters the "turret" so to say) and the only German vehicle I know which used this system was the Brummbar and Sturmtiger. The bottom halves of these "marder III" vehicles are 38T (so probably former G-13 Swiss Hetzers). By the way, yes, indeed panzer means tank, he says panzers not panthers. Arie]
• When the US troops speak of the inventory displayed in a small room - they mention they have 2x 30 cal MGs.  In one of the next scenes of the movie they use a rope to pull one of the 30's up to the bell tower position, then they show the Cprl and Fish positioning their 30 on the "left" side of the road, THEN a guy walks by with a 30 over his shoulder!  That makes 3x 30 cals. EAE630
• This is more of a question: Doesn't the airborne Cprl and Fish kill at least two guys in the stairway?  One guy is killed by the Tommy gun through the wall.  The next guy is killed by fish as the German shoots his MP-40 around the door.  Later in the movie the German comes down the same stairs(?) and runs into Cprl Upman.  There doesn't seam to be any bodies in the way.  Was it the same stair way? EAE630
[Reply to EAE630: Yes, it's the same stairway. This really qualifies as a mess-up. J. McCarney]
• [Reply to EAE630: I saw the movie again for the millionth time today. One comment from above was the 2 Germans killed at the top of the stairwell. I saw them when the SS man stood at the top looking down on Upham. There they were dead as a dodo. Greg & Katy] 
• One really messed up error in the film, I recently thought of, was that whole situation with the bell tower. At first the surviving GI's say that they got "beaten the hell out of by 88's". What?? Then how come that rather ominous looking Bell Tower was still left standing? It seems highly unlikely (and downright impossible) that after a major German artillery attack, they would leave an 80-foot bell tower standing. Basic tactics would be to take out any point of observation that could be used by the enemy, the bell tower should've been the first to go. So after a big carpeting by 88's the French Bell Tower is still left magically standing, untouched. Call me crazy, but not bloody likely. And please, sending a Tiger Tank down and unescorted street, smelling of an ambush, and not even sending a Reconnaissance Vehicle down first???? These were pretty low grade SS men. Cyrus Clennon
  • [Reply to Cyrus Clennon: In WWI a entire church survived relatively unscathed constant shelling for weeks whilst the town around it was annhilated. How do you know how much ammunition the 88's had? Neil HOLMES]
• After the guys in the bell tower run out of ammo for the 30 cal they start using their regular weapons. When the tank starts lining up with the tower the sniper starts to go to town on the Germans. Put he shoots at least 10 times without reloading. That type of rifle only holds  5 rounds. Anonymous
• [Reply: The sniper rifle was a Springfield 30-06 model from 1903. Marksmenmd]