If the roles were reversed, would our liberators get such a reception? (From Gazette)

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'My View' is an irreverent, controversial column by Assistant Daily Editor, James Wills, expressing his opinions on local issues in Colchester.

The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Gazette or Newsquest.

If the roles were reversed, would our liberators get such a reception?

1:10pm Friday 12th June 2009

By Gareth Palmer »

READER, lend me your imagination as we throw a spanner in the works of history.

It’s 1944 and a joint Franco-German Army has landed on the beaches near Frinton, to begin the successful liberation of Britain from its American and Canadian occupiers.

Fast forward 65 years, and what reception would tens of thousands of French and German veterans, their families, tourists and military re-enactors visiting for the anniversary, get in Britain?

Back in the real world, I went to Normandy last week with Colchester-based 3 Para for the anniversary of D-Day. I was humbled by how the French celebrated the anniversary of the landings that began their liberation after four years of German occupation.

Veterans were treated as honoured guests, while crowds at memorial services and parades paid silent respect or cheered and waved flags at the appropriate moments.

Every village laid on a vin d’honneur, a reception with seemingly endless bottles of Champagne opened to toast the veterans and current soldiers, not to mention any visitor or villager who wanted to join in.

The cynic would say people were doing what was expected of them while enjoying the pomp of a military parade and the thrills of the Red Devils dropping in, then having a free drink.

Or, that the French are giving an inch of respect and hospitality to take a mile of hotel and restaurant bills from the battlefield tourist – and prices do rise with every footstep closer to key sites like Pegasus Bridge.

But the horrors of occupation and the joys of liberation seem to have been passed down the generations in France, a point emphasised by the sight of wide-eyed children queuing patiently to get the signatures of veterans.

I am a proud Englishman, but I couldn’t help but ponder what would happen if the roles were reversed.

Britain has never experienced a similar occupation and in current political and military circumstances is never likely to, but I can’t see that British people would welcome French liberators with the same warmth and generosity.

A cynical “whatever” culture prevails in Britain towards the past. While an open-to-all, free drinks reception would end up with several people in both the cells and A&E, assuming that a council would be willing to spend the money, or take the risk of causing offence by hosting it.

But it is not just veterans and their achievements that deserve respect, it is serving soldiers too. They have acted with bravery and professionalism in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

The military have been publicly abused for what they have done in our names – in Luton, extremists harangued soldiers parading on their return from Iraq and in Peterborough, RAF personnel were told not to wear uniform for fear of trouble.

Compare this to the USA, where soldiers are proud to wear their uniform and receive discounts and applause in the streets.

A similar, if not as strong, spirit reigns in Colchester and other garrison towns. You only need to think back to the thousands who lined the High Street to welcome back our troops from Afghanistan last year, or the crowds who paid their respects when two funeral corteges passed through town.

Veterans Day, due to be celebrated on June 27, has been held since 2006 to honour the country’s old soldiers, sailors and airmen, and this year Armed Forces Day is taking place on the same day to celebrate those currently in uniform.

It’s a start, but surely making the date a national holiday would demonstrate the esteem our military personnel are, or at least should be, held in. Because they are the one group you can guarantee would not let the country down, whatever is asked of them.

It was a privilege to be invited to join 3 Para in Normandy and the paratroopers let their guard down and helped us in any way they could.

Touring the battlefields, they listened attentively to the history and spoke with genuine respect and interest to the veterans they encountered.

Brits abroad have a bad name, but our troops set the right example, and as a nation we should honour that.

Comments(9)

Wat Tyler says...
1:55pm Fri 12 Jun 09

I have read and re-read the second paragraph of this article, and can only come to the conclusion that the author was playing truant during history lessons at school, and hasn’t bothered to read a book about WW2.

If a Franco-German army had landed in Frinton in 1944, it would have been led to a puppet dictatorship in this country subservient to Berlin, and huge numbers of people would have been marched off to concentration camps (politicians, jews, socialists, academics, trades-unionists etc etc.). The remaining population would most likely have been subject to curfews, restrictions on liberty, and possible deportation to forced labour camps in other occupied countries. I very much doubt that the indigenous population would have celebrated this event 65 years on, unless it was at the barrel of a gun.

We were not ‘occupied’ by the US and Canadian armed forces, they were here to defend our freedom, many thousands of miles from home, having suffered the deprivations of the convoy routes across the North Atlantic. They were only indirectly fighting for their country, and faced the very real possibility of death and injury, many of them being in their teens and early twenties.

The French are rightly grateful for the liberation that became possible after d-day, and the veterans who took part in that great event should be justifiably proud.

The analogy that Gareth Palmer uses is fundamentally flawed, I am sure that even this ‘cynical’ country would be grateful for liberation if it were to endure a similar 4 year period of occupation.