American WWII GIs were dangerous sex-crazed rapists who the French feared as much as the Germans, explosive book claims
Mail, Foreign Service
- Book 'debunks myth that the GI were manly and always behaved well'
- By 1944 women in Normandy 'filed complaints about rapes by US soldiers'
- Debauchery, lawlessness and institutional racism are chronicled in book
- Penned by Mary Roberts, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin
- Veterans Affairs rep says there is 'no way' to reprimand the U.S. soldiers
- Comes just after Sexual Assault Prevention Month in the U.S., where the military is under fire for string of high-profile assault cases
- Japanese politician also just claimed that American soldiers used their women as 'sex slaves' during WWII
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Swapping stockings for kisses and teaching girls how to jive, American GIs were meant to be a welcome ray of sunshine in war-torn Europe.
But a new book has revealed the dark side of Europe’s liberation after the Second World War.
Professor Mary Louise Roberts, from the University of Wisconsin, said within months of D-Day ordinary French women came to fear their American ‘liberators’.
American soldiers seen here (who are not related to the book's content) disembarking from Coast Guard landing craft at the shores of Normandy. In an explosive book, Roberts claims that some soldiers terrified French citizens
The professor said previous historical research on the subject paid little attention to this 'dark side' of Europe's liberation. The people in this picture are not related to the book's content
She tells how, by the summer of 1944, large numbers of women in Normandy filed complaints about rapes by US soldiers.
And their arrival prompted a wave of crime all over France, with American soldiers caught committing robberies and petty thefts.
Professor Roberts said: ‘My book seeks to debunk an old myth about the GI, thought of as a manly creature that always behaved well. The GIs were having sex anywhere and everywhere.
‘In the cities of Le Havre and Cherbourg, bad behaviour was common.
‘Women, including those who were married, were openly solicited for sex. Parks, bombed-out buildings, cemeteries and railway tracks were carnal venues.
‘People could not go out for a walk without seeing somebody having sex.
‘But the sex was not always consensual, with hundreds of cases of rape being reported.’
The locals of Le Havre were shocked by the soldiers’ behaviour and wrote letters of protest to their mayor.