Spread out in front of me on the wooden desk was a collection of angry letters, dated , written by citizens of this French port to their mayor. The target of their rage were the thousands of American soldiers stationed north of town. A local police blotter in the file provided the reason for this fury: It listed one crime after another committed by the GIs. On June 11, , for example, there were six incidents of breaking and entering, two with assault and two with theft, as well as four other assaults and two other thefts β all at the hands of the Americans.
From one end of Le Havre to another, the GIs were wielding their guns and fists to get what they wanted, whether it was cognac, money or women. Why had I never heard this story about Normandy? As a college professor, I had lectured for years on the achievements of the Allied army in the European theater, from its liberation of France to its victory in Berlin. I thought I knew a lot about the Allied presence in Europe.
But I had never heard anything like this. Worse still, the violence was not confined to Le Havre. In the following months, I would look at similarly angry letters in Caen, Reims, and Paris. And in Cherbourg and St. In regions where GIs were stationed, crimes such as theft and rape were widespread, not incidental. The answer lies in how we have heard the story of Normandy.
American historians of the European theater have focused mostly on the day-to-day heroics of the GI. Such an approach is, of course, laudable: American soldiers fought bravely in Normandy and made enormous sacrifices. But such narratives almost completely leave the French out of the picture. The French people form a mere landscape against which the GIs fight for freedom.
In part, the problem is practical. French law stipulates that government documents cannot be opened to the public for 60 years. Many documents from the war years only opened in January In Le Havre, I was the first American to read them.
