Interesting....another taboo flies out of the window!
"The suffering of civilians was for many years masked by the over-riding image - that of the French welcoming the liberators with open arms"
Christophe Prime
Historian
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8084210.stm
...
"It was rather a shock to find we were not welcomed ecstatically as liberators by the local people, as we were told we should be... They saw us as bringers of destruction and pain," Mr Roker wrote in his diary.
Another soldier, Ivor Astley of the 43rd Wessex Infantry, described the locals as "sullen and silent... If we expected a welcome, we certainly failed to find it."
...
"The theft and looting of Normandy households and farmsteads by liberating soldiers began on June 6 and never stopped during the entire summer," he writes.
One woman - from the town of Colombieres - is quoted as saying that "the enthusiasm for the liberators is diminishing. They are looting... everything, and going into houses everywhere on the pretext of looking for Germans."
Time for a more realistic Pr.Ryan or BoB???