The images of the D-Day landings are well known. The liberating forces of the Allies, the French welcoming those come to save them from the Germans, etc. etc.
But, it may not be exactly that way at all. A new book by a well known British historian has lit on a number of facts that caste a different light on the whole D Day venture and what followed thereafter.
BBC News reports in "Revisionists challenge D-Day story":
"A revisionist theme seems to have settled on this year's 65th anniversary commemoration of the Normandy landings.
The tone was set in Antony's Beevor's new book, D-Day, which tries to debunk certain received ideas about the Allied campaign.
Far from being an unmitigated success, Mr Beevor found, the landings came very close to going horribly wrong.
And far from being universally welcomed as liberators, many troops had a distinctly surly reception from the people of Normandy.
The reason for this was simple. Many Normandy towns and villages had been literally obliterated by Allied bombing.
The bombardment of Caen, Mr Beevor said, could almost be considered a war-crime (though he later retracted the comment).
Many historians will retort that there is nothing new in Mr Beevor's account.
Some 20,000 French civilians were killed in the two-and-a-half months from D-Day, 3,000 of them during the actual landings.
In some areas - like the Falaise pocket where the Germans were pounded into oblivion at the end of the campaign - barely a building was left standing and soldiers had to walk over banks of human corpses."
But, it may not be exactly that way at all. A new book by a well known British historian has lit on a number of facts that caste a different light on the whole D Day venture and what followed thereafter.
BBC News reports in "Revisionists challenge D-Day story":
"A revisionist theme seems to have settled on this year's 65th anniversary commemoration of the Normandy landings.
The tone was set in Antony's Beevor's new book, D-Day, which tries to debunk certain received ideas about the Allied campaign.
Far from being an unmitigated success, Mr Beevor found, the landings came very close to going horribly wrong.
And far from being universally welcomed as liberators, many troops had a distinctly surly reception from the people of Normandy.
The reason for this was simple. Many Normandy towns and villages had been literally obliterated by Allied bombing.
The bombardment of Caen, Mr Beevor said, could almost be considered a war-crime (though he later retracted the comment).
Many historians will retort that there is nothing new in Mr Beevor's account.
Some 20,000 French civilians were killed in the two-and-a-half months from D-Day, 3,000 of them during the actual landings.
In some areas - like the Falaise pocket where the Germans were pounded into oblivion at the end of the campaign - barely a building was left standing and soldiers had to walk over banks of human corpses."
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