The Real Story Behind Saving Private Ryan: The Niland Brothers

Saving Private Ryan set the standard for World War II movies since its release in 1998. However, very few know that the story of the Niland Brothers formed the base of Steven Spielberg's masterpiece. The Niland Brothers were four brothers that served in the US Army during World War II. Within a month, three of the four brothers were either killed or missing in action. The remaining brother, Frederick Niland, inspired the character of James F. Ryan played by Matt Damon in the movie Saving Private Ryan. In this video we dive into the stories of the Niland Brothers and walk in their footsteps on the Battlefields of Normandy. Many thanks to the Niland Family for correspondence as we worked on this video.
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RESEARCH YOUR VETERAN
This video was made possible with the services.of Footsteps Researchers, a company that I work for and that wanted to sponsor this video. Footsteps Researcher is a company that specializes in World War II archive material from the US National Archives. They were able to help us to get the personnel records for the Niland Brothers. Even though a fire at the archives in 1973 destroyed 80% of the army personnel records, the archives have been reconstructing files of the years and have preserved the ones with partial burn damage. The Niland Brother’s personnel records were burned in that fire, but there were still several documents in each personnel file for each soldier. Footsteps Researchers also helped us to build a timeline of the service of the Niland Brothers with documents such as the morning report and payrolls. Along with other archive material such After Action Reports, Unit Journals, Unit Histories and Map Overlays we were able to add more body to the timeline. That is how we were able to reconstruct an overview of the service for the Niland Brothers for this video and what we do when researching stories for our other videos. Contact Footsteps Researchers at http://www.footstepsresearchers.com for more information.
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CREW - http://www.snafu-docs.com
Produced & Edited by: Joey van Meesen
Co-Producer: Thulaï van Maanen, Florent Plana
Research: Joey van Meesen, Thulaï van Maanen
Camera: Joey van Meesen, Florent Plana
Archive Material: Myra Miller - Footsteps Researchers
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SOURCES USED:
Military documents, film footage and photographs from the US National Archives (NARA)
Houston, Robert J., D-Day to Bastogne (1980)
Sampson, Francis L., Look Out Below (1989)
The Niland Family: Correspondence between producer and Niland family.

PHOTOGRAPHS:
Photograph of the four Niland brothers with their father Michael Niland - Courtesty of the Niland Family.
Photograph of Frederick Niland used in video and thumbnail is believed to come from the family of Jack Breier, friend and fellow paratrooper in H Company, 501st, who served alongside with Frederick Niland. We were unable to contact the family to this day.

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