Good British men lost their lives on D-Day – they don’t deserve to be dismissed by “Generale de Gaulle” Sarkozy
Sorry I didn’t write about the D-Day celebrations in France during the weekend, but I was busy having my own little celebration, as the RNLI have been kind enough to award me their Silver Badge, and I was at the presentation ceremony in Cambridge.
I am very glad that the Prince of Wales was, in the end, invited to go to France to attend the D-Day celebrations, but the disgraceful lead up to the invitation is no credit to anyone. Two heads of state were there, the US President and the French President, but the speaker on behalf of Britain wasn’t a head of state, it was the Prime Minister. (Although I’m sure Brown thinks he’s much more important anyway.) And as has been pointed out, the Queen is the only one of them who actually served in World War II.
I don’t suppose we shall ever know whether it really was that Gordon Brown couldn’t bear the thought of being upstaged by the Queen. (Remember Blair hijacking the Queen’s walkabout?) Or whether Sarkozy wanted to prance about as Obama’s new best friend. (Well that didn’t work!) Or one of those things that just happens.
What we do know, though, is that the French government described the event to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings as being a French/US celebration.
How could they? The troops taking part in the landings crossed from Britain. They had all, of whatever nationality, trained and prepared in Britain. The ships that took them across the Channel were Royal Navy warships. The aircraft which gave overhead protection were from the RAF. Landings took place on five beaches:- on two beaches US troops were landed; on two beaches British troops were landed; on one beach Canadian troops were landed. So three out of five beaches, (60%), were NOT American troops. There were roughly the same number of British casualties from those landings as there were US casualties. Many good men of all three nationalities lost their lives in those first days after 6th June 1944, and many of those were British. They don’t deserve to be dismissed in this way as though they were never really there.
It’s always been an American trait to re-write history to pretend that they alone won all the victories of World War II - I’m sure you know that they captured the Enigma machine!!!! Now it seems the French government is saying the same thing.
At least in 1944 the French people were glad enough to welcome their British liberators. It seems Sarkozy is taking on the same attitudes now that de Gaulle did then!
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[...] Good British men lost their lives on D-Day – they don't deserve to … [...]
Sarkozy is merely trying to stir the shit between the England and the U.S.A.. What do you expect from someone like him?