D-Day landing celebrations

[ALB]

Just heard a hypocrtitical bishop on the news going on about the sacrifices made by those who took part. At least they were soldiers, trained to kill, even if conscripted. But what about the completely innocent French civilians who were killed?

This from the Times (4 June):

Quote:

Some 50,000 non-combatants are estimated to have died as British and American planes bombarded France in preparation for the invasion.(….) On July 9, 1944, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the top British general in the D-Day offensive, ordered 450 aircraft to begin a devastating bombing campaign on German positions in France as the Allies advanced. Henri Amouroux, a French academic, calculated that about 20,000 people died in Calvados alone as towns and some cities, including Lisieux and Le Havre, were all but wiped out. In his book on the landings, Antony Beevor, the British historian, condemned the air raids as "stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime".

In fact the  during the whole war US and British armed forces killed many more French civilians than did the German army and airforce. You don't hear much about that but, then, the victors get the right to write "history".

 

[alanjjohnstone]

If they read our blog they would have known.http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2009/06/remembering-d-day.htmlBut D-Day  was all a pointless unnecessary invasion that took a gamble and luckily avoided  a catastrophe …for no military or strategic reason …simply to court Uncle Joe's freindship and a bit of American prestige.see here http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-needless-d-day-to-remember.html

[jon brown]

in war winner have heros losers have war criminals. 

[SocialistPunk]

I wonder, could the hostility between the French and British, that is often jokingly referred to, stem from  this period of the second world war? 

[Brian]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I wonder, could the hostility between the French and British, that is often jokingly referred to, stem from  this period of the second world war? 

Could well be because the French decided that "liberation" was not worth the cost in casualties.  The resistance in Caen came from the civilian population and not the german army who had withdrawn most of their forces from the area.  By all accounts Montgomery was so angry with the resistance from the civilian population he not only ordered the bombing of Caen in the knowledge that the germans had withdrawn but also ordered the French Canadians to do the mopping up!

[alanjjohnstone]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I wonder, could the hostility between the French and British, that is often jokingly referred to, stem from  this period of the second world war?

I think it may go back to Agincourt! and later the Napoleonic Wars. Of course, the Scots exempt themselves from this anti French sentiment by referring to the "Auld Alliance" even though at times it was considered more an Occupation by French troops by the Presbyterian faction. Regards to the WW2, we also have history re-written by British historians about Dunkirk. While delegating the rear-guard action to protect the retreat on the beaches to the French army , the British commanders failed to inform the French that it was indeed an evacuation maintaining this pretence with a diversionary reinforcement of British troops i think at Cherbourg as a sacrifice (an earlier  Normandy Invasion readily forgotten), The British only belatedly agreed to take French troops in the Dunkirk rout when their real intentions were found out.For soldiers of the defeated BEF there were no special medal issued. To paraphrase Jon Brown,  in war winners are remembered, losers are forgotten.

[jon brown]

Losers are forgotten. Sometimes the "winners" are forgotten too.Remember Thatcher's victory parade after the Falklands when the wounded and invalided were not allowed to join in less the sight of them would be upsetting? Equally the American's building hospitals in Greenland, even more isolated then than it is now so that their WW II wounded and maimed would not upset morale at home.It would be churlist to deny that some soldiers from all conflicts have fought with great courage, but what if that had shown even more courage and refused to take part? Such courage might have a place in socialist society, gas and oil resources at present considered too inaccessible to be profitably tapped will no doubt require such pioneers to utilise.Sorry, I digress, my point was that several of the war criminal in Nuremberg had behaved no differently to their Allied counterparts, the Allies got in many cases medals and the losers were hanged.   

[jon brown]

And consider if you will the fate of John Amery, hanged for treason. In essence his behaviour differed little from that of the uncrowned and unelected Edward VIII.

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