Certainly, Spielberg admitted that the opening scenes of SPR were done for dramatic impact. He wanted the audience to understand that the Normandy landings weren't the nice, clean walk in the park that other films, such as "The Longest Day" tried to portray.

I spoke to a British vet along our street who landed with the Americans at Utah beach on June 6 1944. He was seventeen. He went to see SPR and said that Speilberg's rendition was so accurate that the fear and the confusion came back to him and he ended up curled up in his seat crying. His daughter, whom he had gone to see it with was, he said, most embarrassed.