On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:22:31 +0000, "Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Alan Minyard
writes
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 22:23:08 +0000, "Paul J. Adam" news@jrwly
nch.demon.co.uk wrote:
Perhaps French troops could be excused for a lack of conviction that US
troops were coming to bring liberation and freedom, given the US's
disinterest so recently before. They were wrong, but the US had done
nothing to earn their confidence.

And their German friends had?

Oddly enough, the German occupation of most of Vichy France wasn't
hideously onerous or oppressive as long as you weren't blatantly Jewish,
gypsy, gay or retarded.

That was Vichy, what about the rest of France? Or did the folks in
Vichy simply write off their countrymen? Incidentally, what if your best
friend were a Jew?

Why should young Frenchmen believe that the US was going to bring
anything better?

The US had seen the europeans
fight WWI, and we then realized that it was NOT a US problem.

Then why did the US fight?

Ever heard of Pearl Harbor? Or the Battle of the Atlantic?

And where do you get your fantasy about the number of French
vs US military casualties?

John Keegan, "The Second World War".

I was slightly off in one regard: the French lost 600,000 dead of whom
only 200,000 were military, as compared to 292,000 total US fatalities.
In terms of total deaths the French didn't shy from fighting: in terms
of relative casualties they put up far more of a fight than the US.
Trouble is, they didn't have any oceans to hide behind.

In terms of "total casualties" they hardly fought at all. Not that the above
figures are for the total war, hardly "before the US entered".

If not for the US, they would have ended up under either Hitler of
Stalin, yet they attacked the US. And they are still doing it.

Al Minyard