I'll preface my post with two things;

1. First post, please go easy.

2. Thread on /r/videos here.

Now onto the good stuff. He starts his video with a general overview of Europe before the landings, all pretty generalized and hard to pin down specific elements of bad history. He quips "Hitler himself was convinced, or more appropriately convinced himself, that it would happen in at the Pas de Calais." Hitler certainly wasn't alone in this, seeing as both Von Runstedt and Rommel (Rommel spent most of his time inspecting at the Pas de Calais) expected it more to the east at the least. This, as well as the general military advantage of landing closer to England (easier to supply, maintain air support) combined with the allied efforts of deception leads me to believe that it is difficult to say that Hitler "convinced himself." Hitler might not go down as a great military mind but even I find it hard to blame him for this.

In fact, Hitler saw through somewhat of the Fortitude deception:

You can't take shipping concentrations at face value for some kind of clue that their choice fallen on any particular sector of our long western front from Norway down to the Bay of Biscay, such concentrations can always be moved or transferred at any time, under cover of bad visibility, and they will obviously be used to dupe us.

Moreover, if that one doesn't convince you, the allied practicing at Slapton Sands convinced the Führer that Normandy was a real possibility for allied landings because the areas were geographically similar. Indeed, this is why the Americans were practicing there. German troop movement to the Normandy areas further worried Allied command that the Germans knew the actual location of the landings.

Enough about that one quote, but this explanation busts some of his assertions he makes after this too. Lets move on.

However, the one thing the Allies couldn't control was who among the German military leadership was given the task of overseeing the Atlantic Wall, and unfortunately it was one of their most capable commanders; Erwin Rommel.

Anyone subscribed to /r/shitwehraboossay will have had an eye twitch by now. I think most of the visitors on this sub can link five posts to /r/askhistorians explaining Rommel wasn't actually the most super-duper commander the Nazis could bring forward. To provide those of you who are unfortunately unable to provide posts like this I've gone ahead and pulled up some threads myself.

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Some criticisms on Rommel are that in the Battle of France he outran his supply and communication lines and that he was a very micromanaging general, often interfering with the chain of command, but also that due to his personal relationship with Hitler he didn't need to obey all orders or play nicely.

Onward again, or else we'll never get through this video.

The first inaccuracy that he points out (almost 8 minutes into the bloody thing) is that the crewman on the landing craft carrying the troops should not be American but British, which is confirmed by all sources I have found including a letter written to the Royal Navy commending them and their LCA crewmen on the superb job they did in the landing. But the sub isn't called /r/goodhistory so we continue.

With the obstruction ahead obliterated, the soldiers were finally able to charge up the hill. [...] And when word starting reaching the navy that some of the men had successfully broken through the German lines the order was given to provide artillery support.

Don't you usually have the bombardment BEFORE you assault a position as opposed to when you've broken through? Now I am very sure that the beaches were coated with shells before the troops landed, but according to Wikipedia some destroyers provided fire support on Omaha after the landings stagnated. I've found nothing on the troops breaking through prompting more bombardement though.

After two American GI's shoot two supposedly Czech soldiers he remarks:

It shows that Allies committed atrocities the same way Germans did.

Although he is right that no side had clean hands and not all Americans were good and not all Germans were evil, does this mean that we can compare the scale of atrocities between Nazi-"raping and pillaging their way through Eastern Europe"-Germany and some individual American GI's? I am not defending the GI's here, the MP's should court martial them for murdering men who had surrendered, but the Germans barely did anything of the sort to limit the terrible behavior of their soldiers in the East. So no, "the same way Germans did" is not accurate.

The other thing he mentions is that he loves the fact that this tiny detail of the Ostlegionen was included in the film. However, I have been unable to find any evidence that there were any Ostlegionen units stationed at Omaha, only Utah, Juno, and Sword. Thus making this detail inaccurate. He also does not mention that these men could have joined the Ostlegionen voluntarily but does mention drafting POW's forcibly. (I'm not actually sure if that is accurate, can you forcibly draft POW's? Wasn't that on volunteering basis too? I guess you could argue that getting a choice between being held captive or not is not really a choice.) I personally will not assume anything about how these men got to serving the Germans but I think it's important to tell a complete story instead of making up one yourself.

Then we're somehow at the end already and he says:

As a movie Saving Private Ryan is not without its historical inaccuracies. In fact, it's guilty of having many.

¿QUE? You mentioned like ONE historical inaccuracy and then you close your video with a conclusion like this? YOU DIDN'T PROVE SHIT! Your video has more historical inaccuracies then you brought to light! Thus the video ends with barely any material left for me to comment on, now en doubting me that the video was even worth trying to write a post on. I hope that my post was better than his video.

I'd also like to end with some personal wisdom I have attained over the last few years, which is that someone who describes/introduces themselves as a "history buff" is not to be taken seriously. Ever.

Also, sources (duh):

• Various Wikipedia pages for some small fact checking.

• http://www.fifthrangers.org/

• D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose

• Links provided within the post.