WW2 Historian James Holland Breaks Down World War 2 Movies

The just total craziness of those final days,

of those who were determined to just keep fighting.

(upbeat music)

Hello, I'm James Holland

and I'm an author specialising in the Second World War.

And I'm here to break down

some iconic Second World War movies.

(upbeat music)

- Port side stick, starboard side stick.

Move fast and clear those murder holes.

- I wanna see plenty of beach between men.

Five men is a juicy opportunity, one man is a waste of ammo.

- So this is "Saving Private Ryan"

and it's one of the most iconic war movies ever made.

And that first 20 minutes has become so famous.

The kind of fizzing around of bullets,

the realistic violence of it, and so on.

For most people, that is D-day.

As a historian, you're absolutely delighted

that people are making movies about the Second World War,

about your subject matter,

but it's also just absolutely riddled with inaccuracies.

(gunshots firing)

Well, there's a massive load of problems here.

The beach is much too short, much too narrow.

The beach obstacles are facing the wrong way.

They're actually pointing the other way.

You can see these poles on the scene here,

and they're actually,

they should have been pointing towards the beach

rather than the other way around.

So the idea is that you're landing,

they're pointed this way,

your landing craft comes in and as it kind of swells back

it then falls onto spike,

rather than that way around.

(explosion blasting)

(men clamouring)

(water splashes)