The Allies Aren't Angels

            On Monday morning I almost finished adding all the chords to the lyrics of “J’suis snob” by Boris Vian.

            I started posting “Les capotes anglaises” by Serge Gainsbourg on Christian’s Translations but had to eliminate some html language that prevented the text from appearing.

            Since I was wearing my last pair of clean underwear I had to do my laundry. I was done by 12:15.

            I had chickpeas with flaxseed oil and garlic for lunch and some cottage cheese.

            I took a two-hour siesta in the afternoon, which is half an hour longer than usual. I got up feeling groggy.

            I did some exercises and then I took a bike ride. Since I’d already ridden back and forth to the Laundromat three times I only rode to Bloor and Dovercourt. I stopped at Freshco on the way home because I was almost out of paper towels.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I made a new pot of chicken gravy. I boiled three little potatoes and sautéed a red pepper with an onion. I heated a pork chop.

            I had dinner while watching parts 22 and 23 of Victory at Sea.

            Part 22 was about the liberation of Russia and France and the final push of the seven Allied armies into Germany. Red planes bomb their own harbour to prepare the way for the Black Sea fleet to liberate Sevastopol. The French fleet returns to help free France. There is little resistance in the taking of the ports of southern France but inland the Germans put up a fight. France is liberated on August 25, 1944. In March 1945 the troops cross the Rhine into Germany. The Germans had a million troops but they were outnumbered for or five to one.
            The documentary doesn’t mention that it’s estimated that about 14,000 rapes were committed by US soldiers in England, France and Germany and 10,000 in Japan.
            At least 100,000 German women are believed to have been raped by Russian soldiers in Berlin with 10,000 of them dying as a result. 1.5 million may were raped by Russians in all of Germany with 240,000 dying.

            There were also rapes in Germany by British and Canadian troops.

            The French troops committed at least 1500 rapes in Germany.

            Part 23 was about the occupation of conquest of Iwo Jima from February to March 1945, which allowed the Allies to set up airstrips there from where they could fly their B-29s and begin firebombing Japan. The island of Iwo Jima was a fortress protected by 20,000 elite Japanese soldiers. For more than a month they held off the largest contingent of US marines ever assembled for a battle. After Iwo Jima Allied fighters and bombers destroyed half of Tokyo. The US marines say that the South Pacific is the only place where you can stand up to your waist in mud and have dust blow in your eyes. There’s footage of male soldiers swing dancing with one another. Three times as many Japanese (18.400) died than Allies but there were more Allied casualties. Only 216 Japanese were captured and some of those because they had been incapacitated. 3000 Japanese held out for weeks in caves before giving up. Two Japanese soldiers hid successfully until 1949.