WASHINGTON—The image of American GI’s who landed in Normandy in June 1944 has long been choreographed as one of handsome young men liberating an occupied country. A new book, however, paints a darker picture.
Far removed from accounts of selfless derring-do, many US soldiers were viewed by the French as sex-obsessed thugs who had been promised an “erotic adventure”—a mission that was fulfilled, much to the chagrin of the locals.
That this happened is not a secret in the Normandy region, “but it’s a big surprise for the American audience,” Mary Louise Roberts, author of “What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France,” told AFP.
Roberts, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, wrote the book, which will be released next month, after extensive study of wartime archives in France and the United States.
Her research seeks to debunk the “old myth about the GI, a manly creature that always behaves well,” she says, noting that sexuality, prostitution and rape were all methods used by Americans to “assert their power on the French.”
While the US press described the liberation as a tale of romance—backed up by photographs of American soldiers kissing young French women—more often than not the reality was less giddy.
A local saying summed up the problem: “With the Germans, the men had to camouflage themselves—but with the Americans, we had to hide the women.”
“The GI’s were having sex anywhere and everywhere,” Roberts says.
But the sex was not always consensual, with hundreds of cases of rape being reported.
Le Havre’s then mayor, Pierre Voisin, complained to Col. Thomas Weed, commander of US troops in the region, about the GI’s behavior, according to documents cited by Roberts.
Roberts does not neglect the fact that US soldiers did act with bravery and much heroism, and mentions how such behavior attracted French gratitude.
The book also addresses disturbing claims of racism within the US military, with black soldiers facing a disproportionate number of rape charges.
Almost 70 years on, Roberts says she does not seek to rewrite history, but instead aims to put the French “back in the picture,” and recount the Normandy campaign “as a human experience, not just an empty ‘heroic’ story.” AFP