"Airbrushed out of history" Topic

The French supermarket chain Carrefour has issued a shopping bag showing the D Day landings in which the British contributions at Gold and Sword beaches have been left out. The small French contribution of 760 British trained and equipped French commandos has been over inflated and inserted at Sword beach though. The French company have obviously not wanted a single Union Jack to appear on their map as even the wartime Canadian flag has been changed to its post war version. Well done Carrefour, you have lost at least one holiday customer , I will go out of my way not to use you on future trips.

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After the comments coming from English politicians and Brexit supporters about France and Europe over the last few years I am amazed there has not been more of a pushback.

The French are the French, and I refuse to do Brexit on TMP.

But as for the Canadian flag, am I the only one to remember the climax of Captain Blood, where Errol Flynn, hearing of the Glorious Revolution, hauls down a (tricolor) French flag, and hoists the Union Jack--both more than a century premature?

Hmm. We also need to consider what they'll replace the US flags with in the next printing. (Divisional symbols and state flags are cheating, and anyway insufficiently Euro.) I remember a Polish destroyer off the coast. Were there any Czechs?

Well, completely removing the British from Sword and Gold seems ridiculous, but to be honest, the current Canadian flag is much more recognizable than its historically accurate predecessor. I suspect most Canadian school children nowadays would not even recognize the old flag as Canada! I can understand that bit.

But changing a flag to be more recognizable is one thing; completely and totally ignoring 25,000 or so British that landed to help liberate your country – unforgivable!

57,000 Brits landed on the Gold and Sword (plus 8,000 Airborne) on D-Day

Canadians landed 21,500 (inluding approx. 1,000 British commandos and 79th Armoured crews)

US landed 73,000 including Airbourne

France – 177 commandos and 32 Airbourne landed on D-Day

Have you ever seen any French Comics about the D-day landings. Thank goodness the Resistance cleared the Beaches before we landed, it could have been a really blood bath without there epic victory.

I love France and the French and that's why I have been going there for holidays twice a year for the last 30 years. This is not about the French people, its about the insensitivity of this company. My late uncle landed on Gold beach on June 6th with the only Welsh battalion that took part in the invasion, he was a thoughtful and sensitive man who was traumatized by the horror of what he witnessed that day and never spoke of it. The 75th centenary that Carrefour was hoping to cash in on has been cheapened by this callous omission and so has my Uncle's memory.

Yes the shopping bags are dumb but let's also have some respect for the thousands of French civilians who lost their lives while being liberated.

Maybe a price worth paying and I have heard French people who survived say so but too easily forgotten in our studies of the Normandy campaign and while rightly remembering the UK, US and Canadian sacrifices.

Also they may have not got to Normandy until the end of July but the 2nd Armoured Division did more than just march into Paris between then and the end of the War.

A few years ago I visited the Peace Museum in Caen. Excellent modern museum, and they did not pull any punches when they talked about collaborateurs, French fascist auxiliary troops, round-ups of Jews, etc. But what amazed me was – there was absolutely NO mention of the US war in the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Midway, Hiroshima – NONE
How do you tell the story of WWII without at least a mention of the Pacific War?

Wait … are some saying that there could be a bit of "revisionist history" going on ?

"I'm shocked … !"

I am very pleased that I don´t have to go to France to not go to Carrefour. I will be in Caorle, Italy in two weeks and google has revealed they do indeed have an outlet there, so not going there will be very high on my list of holiday activities.

Not the 1st time Carrefour gets itself into trouble, but this blunder is the most insulting they ever done.
That said, i'm a bit surprised and shocked by some comments here:
"French are the French" ??? Should i understand, that i'm a chauvinist/revisionist guy just like 63 million people just because we are sharing the same passport?
"Have you ever seen any French Comics about D_Day landings." Well, yes, quite a few, but no one telling that the Résistance did all the job, allowing the boys to land on parade order on the beaches. Any serious reference would be more than welcome. On another side, i know some movies giving the US credit for British masterstrokes, U 571 anyone?
The Mémorial de Caen has a dedicated room for the Pacific war, do not know why it wasn't seeable. A quick visit on their website: link

"Being French", i have an odd taste for lost causes (fighting prejudices on Internet), but i least i tried. Good day to everyone.

Way back when, UK supermarkets started to offer optician services following a review of regulations. My Mum gave the local one a go when she needed new glasses as they were cheaper. Regrettably, they were not very good and I eventually persuaded her to go to a grown up optician as she'd done before. I think the joke that persuaded her was when I said along the lines of you don't necessarily want to get your glasses from the same place that will sell you a cabbage.

Seems the same might be said of where you learn your history from…

Gary

I have a suspicion that the bag was produced in China. At least that´s what I would say if I were Carrefour.

Yes it doesn't really seem that the 'bag' represents the entire peoples of France but interesting to see the sensitivities at play and the timeless Anglo-Franco friction at play in both the subject and the motivation for posting this discussion in the first place.

Might I suggest that every culture involved in WWII tells tall tales to itself and omits what it wants to shape a more palatable memory of events? Europe quite logically continues to remember the European theatre but prefers to ignore the Pacific. I'd suggest it's because of the fact that none of the European empires made a come back there – they never got to save face.

In the Southern hemisphere we only get a briefing over the D-Day commemoration but nothing I've seen talked about the deaths of French civilians through the 'liberation' of their country or the destruction of their towns – Caen for example. Liberation was (I imagine) a bitter sweet story and ever will be.

Ouch! But what else could they be? I'm sorry, Fanch. I was not intentionally insulting, but meaning that expecting a nation or culture to violate their own norms is a waste of indignation. It's not just France. Anyone who expects Americans, as a body, to understand the variety of cultures or the span of history is probably still expecting us to learn a foreign language. And we can no more run a secure espionage ring than the Russians can build a decent transmission.
(And yes, the first rules I ever played had national characteristics. Why do you ask?)

Why no Soviet/Russian flag, since I've read that they're really the ones who won WWII, and that the D-Day invasions by the West were just a sideshow?

Seems like a major omission and slap at them, if true. ;-)

If the behavior of a few idiots in any crowd is sufficient to indict the entire group, then EVERY nation is in desperate straits.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

wargamer6.

Perhaps you should visit Carrefour on your holiday visits carrying a rather large bag emblazoned with a Union Jack for all to see.

wargamer6.

Perhaps you should visit Carrefour on your future Holiday visits carrying a bag emblazoned with a Union Flag for all to see.

I watched a French documentary on Netflix about the history of tanks and armoured warfare. There was no mention of Winston Churchill in the entire movie. IIRC there wasn't any mention of British tanks at all. I don't think it mentioned Liddell Hart either.

Kind of hard to do a film on the history of tanks and not mention them. They talked about some Austrian Officer inventing the tank. Oddly enough the Panther wasn't mentioned. The Panzer 4 and Tiger were in it, but not the Panther, strange.

Hi OC,
That French tank documentary seems even stranger, given that the French army maintained an armored unit of Panther tanks in the immediate post-WW2 years.

Weird stuff.

B

To borrow a French expression: "Mais, c'est n'importe quoi!"

I wonder if this is just a well-meant gesture parceled out to somebody's nephew, who happens to be a graphic artist, but zero understanding of history and dumbly followed some napkin notes without so much as looking at historic references …

A bit like the film U371………

And what was the film with Errol Flynn in Burma? Or the Americans in The Great Escape? Yeah. We've done our share, and been berated for it. No reason Carrefour should escape.

Or like Veterans Affairs here in Canada that released a video clip for VE-day that depicted marching "Nazi" soldiers (Luftwaffe ground troops, actually) while a voice-over speaks about the "service and sacrifice of those who fought for peace and freedom during the Second World War". Oops

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Errol Flynn in Burma

IIRC "Operation Burma" …

The French, on the whole, have a deep seated dislike of the British, with good reason. We were their national 'bete noir' for centuries following the likes of Poitiers, Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo. They have a huge national ego, and completely resent the assistance given during the first and second world wars. It affronts their ego that they had to rely on foreigners for their freedom., and so they try to ignore that it happened. I think the Normans and French are two different nationalities. The Normans share a direct ancestry with the British, and with our Scandinavian forbears. This abomination by Carrefours is easier to understand thus; they don't want to give the British any credit, for anything, because to do so, would diminish their own, imagined, credibility.

One small point:
This story appeared originally in the Daily Express. This pretty much automatically relegates it to the status of utter garbage. For those TMPers not familiar with the lower end of the British Gutter press, think "National Enquirer aimed at a KKK readership"
The Express has a long and proud history of basically making stuff up in order to satisfy the idiosyncrasies of its dwindling readership. It's a leader in the press of stirring up xenophobia and (very) thinly-veiled racism, and currently adopts a rabid (and I mean rabid) anti European message, a stance it has had, to be fair, for many many many years.
A little bit more digging reveals the truth of the story was a little different to that reported.
Carrefour did indeed put the item on sale in one (out of hundreds) of its stores, it had been produced by a third party (not French). Carrefour immediately realised its mistake, withdrew said item the same day and apologised immediately.
Garbage non-news story, which in fact, wasn't about a falsely perceived slight towards the Allies, but actually was a genuine attack against the French. Express newspapers at their best.

Thanks a lot Keith. That clarifies the issue nicely.

As for the bag, it's wise to follow Arthur C Clarke phrase: "Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence"

The bag has a Canadian modern flag and no british flags, Carentan written in capital letters and a couple of photos unrelated to Carentan. Not what any historian or even an amateur would choose.

What's more probable?:

- Carrefour and and unknown retailer being anglophobic and wanting to annoy thousands of clients

- An unfinished job or the wrong file sent to the printer and selling them as it's much cheaper than reprinting all the batch