After picking flowers and putting them around his hat Kinnian is killed. As his helmet rolls off the flowers are already wilted, yet when Lt Benson gives the helmet to another soldier they are fresh again.
In the first two minutes, one of the soldiers is laying on the field talking on the short wave radio, attempting to get in touch with the unit known as "Sunrise 6". He keeps repeating his call "Sunrise 6, come in." The camera cuts to a shot of a distant mountain. When the camera comes back to him, we see him put the handheld portion of the radio back in his shirt. The camera cuts to another shot and the soldier is still heard calling for Sunrise 6. The camera comes back to the soldier and there is still no evidence of a handheld portion of the radio in his hand.
During the climactic battle, a group of American soldiers rush the foot of the hill an you can see a batch of enemy grenades rolling down the hill almost right upon them. When they cut to a close up the enemy at the top of the hill, they are just now taking the batch of grenades out for the first time and letting them roll down the hill toward the Americans.
When Lt Benson and his platoon reach a spot that is under heavy enemy artillery fire, Benson halts his men. He then takes out a pocket notebook and, over an extended period of time, calls out the names of his men alphabetically and instructs them to run through the shelled area to the other side during shelling pauses. In actual combat, a leader would never take the time to consult a name list for such a maneuver. In addition, Benson should have known the names of his men by heart without having to use the book.
Although the G.I.'s in the film are soldiers of the U.S. Army's 24th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions, many wear Marine Corps cloth camouflage covers and World War II-type camouflage nets on their helmets.
Montana identifies himself to Lieutenant Benson as Sergeant First Class, but the insignia on his helmet and sleeves are those of a Staff Sergeant, one rank lower than SFC. Sergeant Lewis (Nehemiah Persoff) is wearing SFC insignia on his uniform.
The jeep is shown with a keyed ignition. Jeeps in service never had keys, the steering wheels were secured with chain and padlocks.
At the beginning, when Aldo Ray points the Thompson Submachine Gun at Ryan the bolt is in the forward position. Since the Thompson fires from an open bolt, that means it was not cocked so it would not have fired. Ryan was in no danger.
Lt Benson asks one of his troops to wake him at 0500 (5:00 a.m.). But when Benson arises at that time, the sun is shining brightly. The shallow shadows indicate the actual time is probably mid-morning or mid-afternoon.
Robert Ryan (Lt Benson) was 47 years old when this film was made, at least twice as old as a real Army lieutenant would have been.
When Sgt. Killian is knifed to death, the enemy escapes by crawling through the tall grass, but you can see it's a sack attached to a rope, being pulled along, to simulate movement through the grass.
After Lt. Benson opens the gas valves for the flame thrower on Montana's back and taps him on the shoulder, Montana fires the flame thrower, but the person firing the weapon has darker, curlier hair than Aldo Ray, so it must have been a stunt man or stand-in actually firing the flame thrower.
Through the entire movie, all the soldiers had bayonets attached. Bayonets,, if not in close combat vicinity of the enemy, would not be attached as they hinder a good site picture and would certainly be in the way and dangerous to all around.
The sergeant with the machine gun never seems to take his finger off the trigger, even when not in combat.
During the piecemeal movement of the platoon and jeep through the gauntlet of artillery fire, the shadow of the camera is visible on the hood of the jeep.