1998’s Saving Private Ryan won five Oscars, and is widely seen as not just one of the best war epics ever filmed, but one of the best films of all time. The movie revolves US Army soldiers sent on a special mission during World War II’s Normandy Campaign. Their task: find Private Ryan of the 101^st Airborne Division, the last of four brothers, the rest of whom were recently killed in combat. The movie is fictional, but as seen below, it is based on a true WWII tragedy of four brothers, and the attempt to save one of them after the other three were reported dead or missing.

The Real Life Tragedy That Inspired Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan’s GIs make their way through war-torn Normandy, where they have to overcome and survive numerous hazards. They finally find the missing Ryan, only to end up having to face the movie’s greatest and climactic hazard. Ryan is understandably upset when told of his brothers’ fate. However, he refuses to abandon his comrades who are about to get attacked by the Nazis. His would-be-rescuers are all but wiped out in the resultant battle. The film is fictional, but its core is based on a real event: the tragic fate of the Niland Brothers.

Edward, Preston, Robert, and Frederick “Fritz” Niland, four sons of Michael and Augusta Niland of Tonawanda, New York, served in the US armed forces during WWII. Preston and Robert were already in the US Army when America entered the war in 1941, and the other two joined the military in 1942. That year had witnessed the Sullivan Brothers tragedy, when five US Navy siblings perished when the ship aboard which they all served, the USS Juneau, was sunk. To avoid a repeat, new rules prohibited immediate family members from serving together. So the Niland brothers ended up in different units.

The Niland Brothers in WWII

Three Niland brothers served in the US Army. Preston was in the 4^th Infantry Division, Robert got into the 82^nd Airborne Division, and Frederick joined the 101^st Airborne Division. Edward joined the US Army Air Forces. Things were normal for the Nilands – or as normal as they can be in middle of a world war – until 1944. In mid-May, 1944, Edward’s B-25 Mitchell medium bomber was shot down over Burma. Michael and Augusta Niland got a telegram informing them that their son was missing, presumed dead. A few weeks later, while still grieving over Edward, his parents received two more devastating blows in quick succession: Robert was killed in Normandy on D-Day, June 6^th, 1944, and Preston was killed nearby the next day, June 7^th.

News of the Niland family’s tragedy made the news and reached higher ups in the US military. The authorities determined that Mr. and Mrs. Niland should not lose their last son. Orders went out to find Frederick “Fritz” Niland, by then a sergeant in the 501^st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division, whose paratroopers had jumped into Normandy ahead of the amphibious landings. Fritz had fought nearly nonstop for more than a week, until he got a brief break nine days after D-Day. He decided to go see his brother Robert, only to find out when he stopped by the 82^nd Airborne Division that Robert had lost his life on D-Day.

Tragedy Multiplies for the Niland Family

Robert Niland had jumped on the night of June 5-6, 1944, with the 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82^nd Airborne Division, near St. Mere-Eglise. They captured the town in the early hours of June 6^th, then set up a defensive perimeter on the outskirts. A few hours later, the Nazis launched a powerful counterattack that threatened to overwhelm the paratroopers. Robert and two others volunteered to stay behind and man a machinegun to try and slow down the Germans, and buy their comrades time to retreat to St. Mere-Eglise. Robert Niland lost his life while covering his comrades’ withdrawal. That same day, Robert’s brother Preston, a lieutenant in the 4^th Infantry Division, led his men ashore on Utah Beach.

Compared to neighboring Omaha Beach, where attackers suffered horrific losses, casualties on Utah Beach were relatively light at first. Things got tougher when the Americans began to move inland, and came under heavy artillery fire from many enemy batteries. Lieutenant Preston Niland and his platoon were ordered to destroy a particularly troublesome artillery battery at Crisbeck, that had already sunk an American destroyer, the USS Corry. Lieutenant Niland led his men in an attack against the artillery position on June 7^th, 1944, and was fatally injured amidst heavy fighting.

Saving Sergeant Niland

In just three weeks, tragedy befell three Niland brothers, and their parents received the terrible news about three of their sons within a brief span of time. The only consolation for Mr. and Mrs. Niland amidst their grief was a letter from Frederick, sent before he had learned of his siblings’ fates, in which he wrote: “Dad’s Spanish-American war stories are going to have to take a backseat when I get home”. Meanwhile, orders went out from the War Department to find Frederick, and return him home to his mother and father. The task fell to Father Francis Sampson, chaplain of the 501^st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division.

Father Sampson tracked Fritz down – in less dramatic fashion than in the fictional Saving Private Ryan. By then, he had learned on his own that he had lost his brother Robert. His grief was multiplied when the chaplain delivered the heartbreaking news about his two other brothers. Father Sampson then got started on the paperwork to get Fritz out of the European Theater of Operations, and back to America. He did that, but as seen below, there was to be another twist to the story.

The Real Private Ryan After the War

Frederick “Fritz” Niland made it home healthy and hale, to his parents’ immense relief. He served out the rest of the war as a military policeman in New York. He and his parents received some good news in May, 1945, that lessened the burden of their tragedy somewhat. US Army Air Forces Technical Sergeant Edward Francis Niland, who had been shot down in Burma the preceding May and listed as missing, presumed dead, was actually very much alive. Edward had parachuted safely from his stricken B-25. He wandered the Burmese jungle for days, before he was captured on May 16^th, 1944.

Japanese prisoner of war camps were horrific sites of abuse, brutality, and misery, but Edward survived until liberated by British forces on May 4^th, 1945. By then, thanks to the starvation rations doled out by the Japanese to their prisoners, he was a walking skeleton. He returned to New York weighing a mere eighty pounds, but he returned, alive. Edward Niland lived in Tonawanda until his death in 1984, aged seventy one. As to Fritz, he studied at dentistry at Georgetown University after the war, graduated, and became a dentist. He passed away in San Francisco in 1983, at age sixty three. Stephen Ambrose wrote about the Niland brothers in Band of Brothers, and their story inspired the fictional Saving Private Ryan.

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Some Sources & Further Reading

Canisius College – The Niland Brothers

History Halls – WWII Hero Jack Lucas Joined the Marines at Age Fourteen, and Won a Medal of Honor at Seventeen

Military – These are the Real Brothers Behind ‘Saving Private Ryan’

We Are the Mighty – This World War II Soldier Was the Real Private Ryan