On Saturday, Agence France-Presse published testimonies of French women who were raped by American soldiers during the Normandy landings in 1944.
The Allied landing on Normandy Beach in France occurred on June 6, 1944, and 156,000 American, British, and French soldiers participated.
In the details of the report that conveyed the victims’ testimonies, AFP says: “Aime Dupree chose to remain silent for 80 years about the rape of her mother in 1944, but as the celebrations commemorating the landing of the Allied forces in France approached, she revealed that two American soldiers had committed the crime of rape.”
Aimee was 19 years old at the time and lived in her small village in Montour in the Brotany region. Like all her neighbors, she expressed her joy that day at the arrival of these “liberators” to announce the end of the German occupation, but she quickly became disappointed.
Aimee (99 years old) told Agence France-Presse that on the evening of August 10, 1944, two American soldiers entered the family farm. They were drunk and wanted a woman.
Aimee pulled out a letter from an old piece of furniture that her mother, Aimee Elodis Honoré, had written to her, and the daughter read its lines with emotion, despite the passage of 80 years since what happened. The farmer mother wrote, “The two soldiers shot my husband and the bullets penetrated his hat, then they headed towards my daughter... I went out to protect her and they took me.” They went to the fields and raped me, each one of them four times in turn.”
The victim's daughter continued, saying, "My mother sacrificed herself to protect me. While they were raping her, we were waiting at night without knowing whether she would come back alive or whether they would shoot her."
"Second certificate"
Near Plabinec in the Brest region in the far west of Brotany, 89-year-old Jean Bingham remembers “as if it were yesterday” the rape of her older sister Catherine and the killing of her father at the hands of American soldiers.
She says, "An American wanted to rape my older sister. My father intervened and the soldier shot him. The man was able to smash the door and enter the house."
Jean, then 9 years old, ran to inform an American military squad stationed a few kilometers away.
She recounts, "I said he was German and I was wrong at the time. When they saw the bullets the next day, they immediately understood that he was American."
Janine Blassar, one of Catherine's daughters, says that her mother kept to herself "this secret that poisoned her life until her last days."
She continued, "She told me while she was on her hospital bed that she had been raped during the war...during liberation." So I asked her: Were you able to tell anyone? She said to me: Tell someone? It was liberation and everyone was happy. I didn't want to say something like that, I couldn't say anything, no one would have believed it!"
"Trials!"
Writer Louie Guillou recounts in his book "Oki Go!" Published in 1976, his experience when he was working as a translator for the American forces after the landing operation.
Philip Barron, the author of a documentary about this novel and another book entitled “The Dark Side of Liberation,” explains that Guillot was assigned the task of translating during rape trials in American military courts, and he pointed out that “almost all of those on death row are black.”
After the verdicts were issued, these soldiers were hanged in public squares in French villages, including the rapists Aimee Elodis and Catherine Tournolec.
Baron believes that "behind the taboo subject of rape by editors, there is a shameful secret represented by the existence of a racist American army, sometimes supported by racist local authorities."
He added, "After being brought before a military court, an American soldier's chances of being acquitted were almost non-existent. This issue is still horribly timely, because black men today are still viewed as guilty as soon as they appear before the court."
In October 1944, at the end of the decisive Battle of Normandy, the American military authorities tried 152 soldiers on charges of raping French women.
Statistics revealed that of the 29 soldiers sentenced to death for rape between 1944 and 1945, 25 were black.
"Easy women"
In this regard, Mary Louise Roberts, one of the rare historians who has researched this largely taboo subject of World War II, says that it is a number that is “far underestimated.”
She explains, "Many women preferred to remain silent... In addition to the shame associated with rape, the atmosphere was full of joy and celebration of the liberators."
The American historian reports that to motivate and encourage soldiers to fight outside their homeland, “the army promised them a France full of easy-to-access women.”
The Stars and Stripes newspaper, which was published by the American armed forces and was eagerly read by thousands of soldiers deployed in Europe, published pictures of French women kissing liberated soldiers. The newspaper headline dated September 9, 1944: “French women are obsessed with the Yankees (a name given to the Americans), and this is what we are fighting for.” ".
The historian explains, "Sex motivated American soldiers to fight, and this was especially through prostitution and rape, as a way to control France and control French men who were unable to protect their country and their women from the Germans."
She adds, "It can be estimated that hundreds, if not thousands, of other rape cases committed by American soldiers were not reported in the period between 1944 and the departure of the American soldiers in April 1946."
Roberts says that when the US Army realized that “the situation had become out of control,” it would choose black soldiers as scapegoats in order to turn rape into a “black crime” and protect the reputation of white Americans.
Roberts explains, "The black soldiers were often assigned to logistical units permanently stationed in the same place, which enhanced their direct contact with the local population, including women. As for the white soldiers, they were in mobile units that were able to rape a French woman in the evening and leave in the morning from Without them being arrested, this would not have also contributed to casting doubt on the victim’s testimony, if it occurred.”
"A lie to no end"
Historian Mary Louise Roberts was placed under security surveillance in 2013 following the publication of her book “American Women and Soldiers.”
Today, she believes that 80 years after the landing, “the legend of American soldiers still exists.”
The historian recalls, "World War II was a 'war for a noble goal' because all the wars our government has led since then have been moral defeats, such as the Vietnam War or the Afghanistan War."
She added, "No one wants to lose this American hero who makes us proud, the brave and honorable American soldier, the protector of women, even if that means the lie continues endlessly."
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