Britons secretly kept in postwar (WWII) French camps

[2RHPZ]

Britons secretly kept in postwar French camps

After the liberation De Gaulle's government held on to internees from many countries in officially closed centres to hide collaboration

Jon Henley in Paris
Monday October 4, 2004
The Guardian

The government of Charles de Gaulle held hundreds of foreigners, including at least three Britons, in an internment camp near Toulouse for up to four years after the second world war, according to secret documents.

The papers, part of a cache of 12,000 photocopied illegally by an Austrian-born Jew, reveal the extent to which French officials collaborated with their fleeing Nazi occupiers even as their country was being liberated. They also show that, when the war was over, France went to extraordinary lengths to hide as much evidence of that collaboration as possible.

The documents are in a mass of registers, telegrams and manifests which Kurt Werner Schaechter, an 84-year-old retired businessman, copied from the Toulouse office of France's national archives in 1991. They are uniquely precious: under a 1979 law most of France's wartime archives are sealed for between 60 and 150 years after they were written.

"This is an untold story of the dark side of France's liberation 60 years ago," Mr Schaechter, a former musical instruments salesman, said at his home in Alfortville, a Paris suburb. "French functionaries were involved in a national scandal that continued until 1949: the despicable treatment of allied and neutral civilians interned during the war."

Mr Schaechter's activities - last year he used some of the papers to try to force the French railway SNCF to admit its responsibility in shipping 76,000 Jews to Nazi death camps - have infuriated some French historians, who say their privileged access to classified archives has been compromised. But others have backed the campaign for freer access to documents relating to a part of France's past that it has long preferred to ignore.

By far the most awkward of his recently unearthed documents are those that appear to show that Noé camp, 25 miles south of Toulouse, continued to function secretly for several years after the war. Noé was one of 300 camps set up after 1939 to hold Jews, communists and other "anti-French" militants, Gypsies, common criminals and enemy aliens.

Many of its inmates were quickly shipped out as France was progressively liberated in the summer of 1944. But, said Mr Schaechter, not everyone could be got out in time: "Allied bombing of the railway lines, and intensified fighting on the ground, meant many simply could not be moved."

Officially, the only camps still open after 1945 were a handful housing Romanies, stateless persons and French collaborators. But Mr Schaechter says his documents indicate that a "special section" of Noé was active until at least 1947.

Among the papers is a letter dated February 23 1946 from the camp's director to the prefect in Toulouse. It seeks to "draw urgent attention" to Noé's "increasingly delicate financial situation", adding that sums seized from those "sheltered" in the camp "are no longer adequate to meet the costs of maintaining it, or of feeding [the inmates]". The camp's accounts show that inmates were still being forced to pay for their "lodging" in September 1947.

There are also letters between the interior ministry's inspectorate of internment camps and the prefecture querying the number of "administrative internees" held in the département's camps. They are dated March 5 and March 29 1949 - three years after the last internment camp in mainland France was officially closed.

Photocopies of the camp's registers from 1945, 1946 and 1947 show that Noé's postwar inmates, along with citizens of Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Brazil, included three Britons: Abdul Hussan, born in 1901 in Port Louis, Mauritius; Leonard Wynne, born in London in 1891; and Alfred Smith, born in Manchester in 1888.

Mr Schaechter believes they were not released at the end of the war because it would have been too embarrassing.

"The last thing De Gaulle wanted, when he was trying to build up France's image as victor and hero," he said, "was to reveal the true extent of its collaboration by freeing neutral and allied internees held in French camps by French guards."

The papers also show that officials continued to deport inmates of all nationalities to a near-certain death in Germany even as France was being liberated.

A neat register shows that, in March 1944, Noé contained inmates of 25 nationalities, including three Americans and 13 Britons aged between 21 and 55, and one other Briton aged over 55.

On June 24 1944, two weeks after the allies landed on the beaches of Normandy, the camp commandant wrote to the Toulouse prefecture. "I have the honour to inform you," he said, "that on the 22nd of this month nine British citizens were transferred to this camp." Their names include William Rogerson, born in Manchester in 1874; Edward Josephs, London, 1898; and Walter Slack, Hull, 1891.

On June 26 the commandant informed the prefecture that he had four American "guests": Moore Sumner Kirby, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1895; Herbert Lespinasse, Stamford, 1884; Gerald McLanghin, Detroit, 1898; and James Smith, Los Angeles, 1904.

Some of these Britons and Americans "regrouped" in Noé on the eve of the liberation were wealthy residents of the Côte d'Azur; Sumner Kirby had married Leonida, Princess Bagration-Muhranskaja - later the wife of Vladimir, a grand duke of the Romanovs - in Nice in 1934. Others, such as Joseph Edwards and Thomas Berridge, were farmers or agricultural labourers.

Many, without doubt, were on the last transport of aliens to leave Noé-Longages station on July 30 1944. This "transfer" is referred to in a telegram from the camp commandant on August 28 - two days after a million cheering French men and women thronged the Champs-Elysées in Paris for Charles de Gaulle's victory parade. Mr Schaechter believes most of them ended up in Dachau; Sumner Kirby is known to have died in the Leau concentration camp near Bernberg, Germany, on April 7 1945.

But what happened to those, many elderly and infirm, who stayed? Some are marked "transferred". Others were moved in 1947 to Pithiviers or Rivesaltes camps, both officially closed. Some are marked: "Agreed with Mr Casse - to be lost". And what that means, no one knows.

Link (http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1318972,00.html)

[Loco]

Very interesting. It´s a sad irony that in this Toulouse´s camp were kept spanish prisioners wich very probably were former republican soldiers, since were mainly republican spanish the ones that liberated Toulouse and the backbone of "french" resistance in that zone.

[fantassin]

Austrian-born Jew


Funny that. Always the same crap from the same sort of source proving rock all.

What about British collaborators on the Channel Islands occupied by Germany ? there were many of those but they are rarely mentioned.

France is used to that sort of smear being produced year in year out for always the same purpose.

I only know two things; France lost twice amount of killed during WW2 compared to the UK or USA and it is part of the UN SC. The rest.....like i give a flying hoot.

[Loco]

Yep. It´d be interesting testing behaviour of britis people in the case Britain had been full occupied by nazis, I wonder if we would have a british resistance, I mean a true resistance like the one of Yugoslavia, Poland or Russia, or a west resistance, at the France, Denmark or dutch style. Btw, I wouldn´t unqualify a single testimony because the one who does it is an austrian-born jew, better said a foreigner. There´s a fact, that most of spanish prisionners in Matthausen camp(circa 8.000) were detained in France, mostly by gendarmes.

[Red]

Austrian-born Jew


Funny that. Always the same crap from the same sort of source proving rock all.

What about British collaborators on the Channel Islands occupied by Germany ? there were many of those but they are rarely mentioned.

France is used to that sort of smear being produced year in year out for always the same purpose.

I only know two things; France lost twice amount of killed during WW2 compared to the UK or USA and it is part of the UN SC. The rest.....like i give a flying hoot.
So because he is an Austrian Jew he is lying right?what if it is true?can you hold out on the possibility of it being true?

[fantassin]

There isn't anything new in this; I don't see what is so surprising that in nazi occupied France the brits and US citizen should be in jail as they were representatives of countries that were enemies of Germany.

And since the reasons for having been left in jail after WW2 for the handful of others are not stated, I find this article very dubious at the very least.

What is implied is that for a brit or US citizen, being in jail in France after WW2 was abnormal. What if they had comited a crime there ?

This article mixes everything in an attempt to spread the very useful germs of hatred towards France and it makes a lot of generalizations; for example, it does not say some places in France were not liberated before VE day, that is the 8 th of May 1945, almost a year after the Normandy landing; so it's not surprizing the German still could deport whoever they wanted from those still occupied area.

Loco: the Spaniards who were in prison in the West of france were mostly Republicans and/or communists who had been locked as security measure against a possible communist "fifth column" by the French Gvt when they had evacuated Franco's Spain, before the German invasion. The two things are not linked.

[Loco]

Fantassin, I´ve read what you wrote about ETA in other post. I understand you feel injured because the tunning of this forum lets say isn´t pro-french. And you are jumping over 18 months, that is the time between the fall of all french border(january of 1939) under Franco´s soldiers and the german invassion. When Franco sealed the french border, the Republic still was alive, it controlled 1/3 of Spain, but France recognized oficially Franco´s regime and sent to Spain Petain as french ambassador, still the Marechal was a french hero. Since january of 1939 hundreds of thousands of spanish republicans were concentrated naked and without shelter in the southeast beaches of France, and if they all were seen as communist by frenchs it´s because frenchs in that time weren´t so progressist and democrats as they always thought they were, and that´s why you impeded that spanish republic could survive, the danger of an spanish communist republic dissappeared before the defeat of spanish republic, just as soon as Stalin stopped to sold to Spain planes and tanks. Thousand of republicans, not communist nor anarchists but simply democrats and even catholics as my paternal grandfather were sent to concentration camps. It´s time to break the shameful myth of a France loving of freedom and Spain always leaned to tyranny. Facts are facts, even if you don´t like.

[fantassin]

I know all about that, one of my uncles was a camp guard in Argelès-sur-Mer during his military service.

You view of things is tainted by your family ties to that history.

But if you insist, I can tell you about the way the thousands of Free French who escaped through the Pyrenees and were caught by the Guardia Civil were left to rot and sometimes die in the spanish concentration camp of Miranda del Ebro while all they wanted to do was to reach Northern Africa or the British embassy in Madrid to join the Fighting French....

Always depends on memory span and on what you want to remember or not.

[Loco]

Miranda de Ebro, as I know, was a delivering camp, from there you were let free(not probably) or sent to penals, prisions or true concentration camps for working as an slave. Sure that many frenchs were detained by Guardia Civil, but this is the problem you have: You and many frenchs like to consider the Franco´s regime as representative of all spanish, and he only representated the half of Spain that supported him, Franco fusilated more than 70.000 spanish since the end of Civil War(1939) circa 1944; while you considere yourselves as genuine antifascist fighters, and you aren´t, only a minory of frenchs resisted. They were many frenchs like Petain and others who supported Franco time before Germany invaded France and were those considered the frenchs of Brigadas Internacionales as criminals and the same people who considered people who fought against germanies as terrorists or communists, in fact it had the same meaning for them. And well, I finish with that. Viva Francia!

[fantassin]

You obviously know something the supreme Cdr did not as far as the fact that "only a minory of frenchs resisted":

General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote: "Throughout France the Resistance had been of inestimable value in the campaign. Without their great assistance the liberation of France would have consumed a much longer time and meant greater losses to ourselves."

;)

[Loco]

Let´s stay the things like are now, although I´ll never let the facts and datas are forgotten, because you can get angry with me and if someday I want to ask you something about Larteguy or the true characters of Raspeguy and Esclavier you won´t answer me and I still like reading his novels. And I don´t want to badmouth of France as a whole because I don´t feel that. ;)

[fantassin]

....and I like a Cruzcampo or a Mahou with my jabugo de pata negra....

;)

[Mamon]

Ole viva Cruzcampo y Sevilla, y un montadito ahora porfa...

[fantassin]

una ensaladilla russa, una miga y un bocadillo de jamon y queso !

[LazyLob]

Yep. It´d be interesting testing behaviour of britis people in the case Britain had been full occupied by nazis, I wonder if we would have a british resistance,

You have got a major chip on your shoulder. From reading your crap you seem to be a total left wing tosser from santander.

the brritis pipol fite nasis frrom beginin, wi niid no rresistans makis.

[Loco]

Yep. It´d be interesting testing behaviour of britis people in the case Britain had been full occupied by nazis, I wonder if we would have a british resistance,

You have got a major chip on your shoulder. From reading your crap you seem to be a total left wing tosser from santander.

the brritis pipol fite nasis frrom beginin, wi niid no rresistans makis.
Wrong, what´s a crap is subjective, si prefieres continúo escribiendo en castellano y tú en pitinglis, vale? But were spanish people who fought nazis from begining, mai frenz. Maquis weren´t a joke, usually killed more enemies per head than any of your tommies, the question with maquis or guerrilleros is that when your army is defeated in spite of all you can follow fighting with every resource you have, it only depends of the willing of your society, so that´s why I compared the french resistance(or the dane, belgium and norwege resistance) with the polish, yugoslavian and russian resistance, the slavs weren´t resistants but true fighters, that´s what I mean. GB was resolute fighting nazis, the same that France, there´s that little detail that GB is and island and nazis hadn´t a strong navy, but we can see through history that british have an unparaleled pragmatic sense: Spanish or frenchs have had incredible and heroic victories, british too, spanish and frenchs have had shameful or disastrous defeats and british too, and frenchs and spanish have had desperate and heroic defeats fighting until the last man, british haven´t, may be because this pragmatic sense that permit surrendering you in past wars without moving a muscle of the face. Since british could fight without interruption until 1945 because any german soldier stepped a british beach all we can do is history-fiction. Would be british resistants in the case of being invaded at the western style or ruthless and desperates maquis like those of east europe or would be only civilizated oppositors? Gud bai.

[LazyLob]

may be because this pragmatic sense that permit surrendering you in past wars without moving a muscle of the face.

What u mean, like you lot and the moores? Sh!te you must really hate us.

[fantassin]

They did move more than a few muscles when Singapore fell with the loss of 128,000 POWs on the 15th of February, 1942 against the loss of only 1,714 japanese KIAs.

[LazyLob]

They did move more than a few muscles when Singapore fell with the loss of 128,000 POWs on the 15th of February, 1942 against the loss of only 1,714 japanese KIAs.

**** happens. You lot were such pussies the Germans didn't even take you as POW's. :lol: Mass cop-out

[fantassin]

Killing 27,000 Germans in the process....while protecting the British evacuation in Dunkirk.

Yes, **** happens.

[David Lehmann]

Closer to 45,000 in fact ... 27,000 was the first German count but at the end of the western campaign the MIA were listed as KIA by most of the historians.

During WW2 France lost about 253,000 KIA (92,000 alone during the 45 days of the 1940 campaign) and 390,000 civilians killed and of course numerous mutilated people.

AXIS LOSSES during western campaign of 1940 :
- 156,492 German losses (27,074 KIA, 111,034 WIA, 18,384 MIA). This first figure established on June 25, 1940 has been corrected later to 45,218 German KIA (with the MIAs).
- About 6000 Italian losses in few days (642 KIAs, 2691 WIAs, 2151 frozen men and 616 POWs obviously liberated end of June)
- 1236 planes + 323 damaged (about 500-600 victories for the French air force alone).
- 839 tanks definitively destroyed (33% of the engaged tanks) according to Thomas Jentz.

ALLIES LOSSES in 1940 :
Belgian losses in 19 days : 7,500 KIA, 15,850 WIA
Luxembourg : no resistance
Dutch losses in 6 days : 2,890 KIA, 6,889 WIA
British losses in 26 days : 3,457 KIA, 13,602 WIA, 3,267 MIA
French losses in 45 days : 92,000 KIA and about 200,000 WIA (other sources give the figure of about 120,000 "fallen for France", including civilian losses and POWs dead in German camps).

The Swiss historian Eddy Bauer says also that the Germans lost much more men in the second part of the western campaign, in France the resistance was harder in June.
156,492 German losses (KIA, MIA, WIA) in 45 days, that's 3477 losses per day but in fact the French resistance was all days harder : 2499 losses per day between the 10th May and the 3rd June but 4762 losses per day between the 5th and the 24th June. You can compare that to the 4506 losses/day during operation Barbarossa from 22nd June to 10th December 1941. The Western campaign was more deadly than the common myth admits it.

David

[fantassin]

Thanks for the hard data but unfortunately I don't think he is interested in reality, just in perpetuating myths.

[LazyLob]

[quote="David Lehmann"]Closer to 45,000 in fact ... 27,000 was the first German count but at the end of the western campaign the MIA were listed as KIA by most of the historians./quote]

Just attributed to the French? Yeah right! Coz thats what you are trying to portray. The British expeditionary force was on a picnic. Where was the French airforce? They had as many planes as the Germans. Why did they only operate at less than a fifth when they were all battle ready with the vast majority of French aircraft less than 18 months old?

Next what we are going to hear is that the French won the war by themselves

[LazyLob]

Austrian-born Jew


Funny that. Always the same crap from the same sort of source proving rock all.

What about British collaborators on the Channel Islands occupied by Germany ? there were many of those but they are rarely mentioned.

These channel islands are and were a Bristish protectorate. They have and had their own passports and legal system. Jews and British citizens were deported from the islands when the Germans arrived. Only the native islanders were left alone to collaborate. Now here is your problem, the ethnicity of these islanders, French or English? They speak patois and do not like the British much.

[Loco]

may be because this pragmatic sense that permit surrendering you in past wars without moving a muscle of the face.

What u mean, like you lot and the moores? Sh!te you must really hate us.
But I adore you! I love your pragmatic sense, it´s something it lacks frequently in our society, you know, D.Quixote winning the main role to Sancho Panza, we´d like to lose battles or doing the fastest evacuations of history and them acting as it never happened, but we can´t. And please, don´t mention moors to me any more, they´re trully bad enemys, uff, you ruined my day, I know I gonna have nightmares.
I don´t know if it´s funny, but yesterday I was called something like anti-español and anti-american by a young spanish member, and now I´m acused of hating british in the same thread where I strongly critized french policy towards refugees in IIWW, :roll: Just know I´ll try to write a list of countries I like.

[David Lehmann]

As you can read I indicated the German losses "during western campaign of 1940" ... that includes all the allied forces.
The French army fought also largely in Belgium, do you remember Gembloux for example ? I would suggest you to read some books from colonel Karl-Heinz Frieser for example if you prefer a German source.

People always think that comparing crude number is a smart way to proceed but it is not.

The French aviation of 1940 was largely inferior to the German ones, especially the bombers fleet which was really small in comparison and except the too rare Dewoitine D.520 all the French fighters were inferior to the Me-109.

During the phoney war the Germans lost 176 aircrafts, the RAF 82 and the French air force 57. The RAF was more active.

Operational frontline aircrafts on 10th May 1940 on the western front at the outbrak of the war :
France : 879
UK : 384
Belgium : 118
Netherlands : 72
Germany : 2589

According to Karl Heinz Frieser and Patrick Facon, the Luftwaffe lost 1236 planes + 323 damaged ones during the Western campaign. About 850 were destroyed alone by the French Air Force (the fighter groups claim 996 victories, of those 733 "confirmed" in air combat, which is too high because sometimes several pilots share the same victory) and you have to add the bomber defensive fire and the AA fire. Modern studies indicates that the French fighters alone are responsible for about 500-600 victories against German aricrafts. The main fighters were MS.406, Bloch MB.151/152 and Curtiss H-75 and a few Dewoitine D.520s. France lost 892 planes (although only 306 in air combat which gives a positive ratio to the French fighters against the German aircrafts, and the remaining mainly due to the dense Flak but also a part of them destroyed on the ground. The 500-600 Luftwaffe aircrafts shot down by the French air force were later missing above London after the campaign in France, the Germans had to delay the action over Great Britain.

The French ace Marin-la-Meslé collected 21 victories (Mainly Me-109s) in 6 weeks with a Curtiss H-75 despite this plane was inferior to the Me-109. The German ace Werner Mölder had been shot down over France and made prisoner like about 700 other Luftwaffe crew members during the battle (on 17th June France had still about 400 Luftwaffe crew members kept prisoner).

On June 15, 1940, second-lieutenant Pierre Le Gloan (GC 3/6) shot down 5 Italian aircrafts (4 Fiat CR.42 and 1 BR.20) in 40 minutes with his Dewoitine D-520 over Saint-Raphaël. Le Gloan was in formation with captain Assolant when they saw 12 Fiat CR.42. Le Gloan destroyed 2 CR.42 and Assoulant returned to base with his guns jammed. Alone, Le Gloan continued his patrol. Over Hyères Le Gloan attacked 3 CR.42 and destroyed one plane, he broke the combat when 8 other Italian aircrafts arrived. The airbase at Luc called him back because it was attacked by Italian planes. Le Gloan destroyed his fourth CR.42 and one BR.20 from the 172nd strategic reconnaissance Squadriglia. It was one of the very first pilots of WW2 to destroy 5 planes in one sortie.

The French Farman 222.2, 223.3 and 223.4 heavy bombers (about 50 only) were really long range bombers and carried 4200 kg bombs. First they dropped leaflets over Germany and Czechoslovakia but they were also the first allied planes to bomb Berlin (Siemens factory) and other cities (Rostock - Heinkel factories -, Hamburg, Münich and Köln) They also bombed rail-road nests in Aix-La-Chappelle, Maastricht, Flessingue and Middelburg in order to delay the Germans. After Italy declared war against France these bombers dropped leaflets over Roma and bombed fuel refinery in Porto Maghera and Livourne. The Lioré & Olivier 451 also bombed Germany and Italy but France had so few bombers and very few attack planes that it didn't change the strategic outcome.

-------------

As for the tanks :

• More allied AFVs versus German AFVs (3946 vs 3746 / 4418 vs 3746 if the obsolete French FT17 and FCM-2C tanks are counted)

• Allied tanks had often better armor than the German tanks (all the French 'modern' tanks and the British Matillda II)

• But the Germans tanks had often a better AT capacity (except the French 47mm SA35 gun)

• All the French tanks have a power/weight ratio of 7-10 hp/ton ; the German tanks have about the double of that ratio, they have a better mobility

The crude comparison of tank numbers gives not a good representation of the reality on the battlefield. The allied used their tanks often spread among the infantry to provide support while the Germans concentrated all their tanks in schematically 10x270 tanks in 10 Panzerdivisionen. On the French side for example only about 960 tanks were included in big armored/mechanized units, all the other tanks were spread in various units and on the whole theatre of operation. Imagine yourself being attacked by hornets ; it is the same difference than between being attacked by 100x1 hornets or 1x100 hornets ... not really the same issue.


The German "superiority" was mainly due to :
• better tactical regulation, much more concentrated armor (usually 4vs1, sometimes 8-10vs1 odds)
• higher speed and mobility of the German tanks
• tracer and smoke shells available in the German tanks (not in the French ones)
• more radio sets allowing to better organize and control the maneuvers
• mostly always presence of observation planes (Hs126 and Fi156) to provide information about the allied position and direct artillery and aerial support
• mostly omnipresent close air support
• German tanks were spreading into the allied rears … difficult then to preserve a HQ or a fuel supply dump … leading to tanks being abandoned and scuttled due to lack of fuel
• better and faster German logistical organization (and far less hindered by aerial attacks or artillery fire)
• 1-man turret in most of the French tanks and several very recently constituted units lacking training
• …

Germany's victory occurred as a result of a combination of factors, including air superiority, strategic and tactical innovation (including concentration of their armor), and the failure of the allies to anticipate or respond effectively to German tactics (The French had the luck to have well armored tanks compared to the British small boxes, only the Matilda II tanks were well protected but there were only 23 of them in France). However, it occurred in spite rather than because of German tanks.

David

[LazyLob]

And please, don´t mention moors to me any more, they´re trully bad enemys, uff, you ruined my day, I know I gonna have nightmares.


I am truly sorry.

[fantassin]

Good post David, very interesting; probably won't be popular with some but then, who gives a hoot...?

[LazyLob]

David, it is estimated that by the 15th June the Germans and French both had 2400 aircraft each, total, not just on "the western front". This is the quandry: why didn't more Freanch aircraft join the fight?

[Kilgor]

The myth is somewhat reality too.

Quite often score of french troops would just walk towards german lines and surrender. Leadership was poor and very disorganised and moral very bad. Thats one reason they had no real intention to fight.

Its even said that one french general was captured unaware by a german field kitchen unit.

[fantassin]

AXIS LOSSES during western campaign of 1940 :
- 156,492 German losses (27,074 KIA, 111,034 WIA, 18,384 MIA). This first figure established on June 25, 1940 has been corrected later to 45,218 German KIA (with the MIAs).
- About 6000 Italian losses in few days (642 KIAs, 2691 WIAs, 2151 frozen men and 616 POWs obviously liberated end of June)
- 1236 planes + 323 damaged (about 500-600 victories for the French air force alone).
- 839 tanks definitively destroyed (33% of the engaged tanks) according to Thomas Jentz.

I'm sure the families of those 156,492 German losses and 6000 Italian losses would have loved to see that myth become a reality.

Want to tell me how thousands of US troops fled in a panic and thousands of others were captured during the beginning of battle of the Bulge or is it unfair ? Or maybe we could mention Corregidor ?

See, as always, it works both ways.

[David Lehmann]

Hi,

It is true that some units surrendered, it is true that some did better than others but it was not a sunday walk in the woods for the German troops.
In Abbeville the 4th DCR took 400 POWs, in the Rethel area the 14th DI took 800 POWs and the 2e DI 500 POWs in a short time. In huppy for example 3 German battalions fled in panic in front of the French tanks etc. Nothing anormal in a war, no side includes supermen.

History is not that caricatural. Yes, France was crushed rapidly by the talent of the German generals and bit luck sometimes. But no the caricature of the French soldier is not true, for some men yes, for the whole army. Such things are used by some people just pleased with such comments.

Several times the German troops saluted French soldiers who fought brillantlly like after the surrender of Lille for example.

As for the French troops being cowards, they are not worse than other soldiers. If not facing Germans or Italians, look for example at operation Exporter in Syria in 1941 and look at the losses of Vichy forces vs Allied losses ;

1) Allies :

• About 5140 KIA + WIA : 1740 Australians, 1800 Indians, 800 British, 800 Free French
• 41 aircrafts
• 1 counter-torpedo boat and 1 merchant ship sunk
• 3 destroyers and 2 tankers heavily damaged, out of use for a long time
• After the cease-fire 1300 British POWs are liberated on 21st July 1941

--> The N°11 Special Service Battalion (Scottish Commando, 500 men + 30 officers). Its landing was totally defeated and the unit is completely destroyed or captured in a few hours.

--> The 1st Bn, Royal Fusiliers surrendered for the first time of its history (470 POWs). It was cut off by a Vichy counterattack and the entire battalion was lost.

--> The 5th Indian Brigade is totally destroyed in 4 days

--> In Palmyra, the Habforce and the mechanized regiment of the Transjordan Frontier Force are blocked during 15 days by the Commandant Ghérardi from the Foreign Legion with :
- 1st desert light company (meharist)
- 15th company of the Foreign Legion
In total less than 500 men to defend Palmyra against the whole Habforce. When they finally surrendered only 165 were still alive.

British losses suffered in Operation Battleaxe conducted against Rommel totalized only 969 officers and men. At a time in the war when Britain was deploying only very small forces overseas, Exporter was one of her bloodier fights.

The Australians lost about 1740 killed and wounded during the month of combat (as opposed to about 3000 killed and wounded during the much longer siege of Tobruk).


2) Vichy forces :

• 1036 KIA and about 4000 WIA
• about 100 aircrafts (most of them destroyed on the ground)
• 1 destroyer sunk
• 1 merchant ship sunk
• possibly 1 submarine sunk
• 3 torpedo boats lightly damaged

Would you say than French troops on both sides were cowards ? Or that the Commonwealth soldiers who surrendered were cowards ? Me not.
Regards,

David

[LazyLob]

See, as always, it works both ways.

Yes it does. But France was fighting for its own existence on its own territory, a defensive campaign with fresh troops, brand new aircraft and allies to help. McArthur's plan orange had too few troops spread out too thinly and not on the U.S. mainland. Bad comparison. Then the logistics of D-day and all subsequent battles were incredible.

[fantassin]

Yes, of course, everything about the USA is incredible.

Read David Lehman posts, I would not have said it better myself.

[Knutsen]

Yes it does. But France was fighting for its own existence on its own territory, a defensive campaign with fresh troops, brand new aircraft and allies to help
And why was the UK fighting? Just a sunday walk in the forest killing some germans for pleasure?? Come on, they fought for the same reason, the same reason why the US entered the war.
If you read the newspapers of the time, for the US the war was just an european thing, they had to be attacked to enter the war, so this "we fight for the freedom and to free our friends the french" the US and the UK are trying to sell is plain propaganda. They fought for their OWN survival which for some circumstances was the same reason and the same enemy the french were fighting.

[LazyLob]

Yes it does. But France was fighting for its own existence on its own territory, a defensive campaign with fresh troops, brand new aircraft and allies to help
And why was the UK fighting? Just a sunday walk in the forest killing some germans for pleasure?? Come on, they fought for the same reason, the same reason why the US entered the war.
If you read the newspapers of the time, for the US the war was just an european thing, they had to be attacked to enter the war, so this "we fight for the freedom and to free our friends the french" the US and the UK are trying to sell is plain propaganda. They fought for their OWN survival which for some circumstances was the same reason and the same enemy the french were fighting.

That went right past you.