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'We were at Dunkirk, too' say French furious at being written out of film epic
ibtimes.co.uk ^ | July 22, 2017 13:11 BST | Isabelle Gerretsen

Posted on 07/22/2017 9:06:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin

Around 30,000 French troops held back Nazi divisions near the city of Lille to protect their allies during the evacuation code-named Operation Dynamo.

Renowned French film critic Jacques Mandelbaum called Nolan "witheringly impolite" and slammed the director's "deplorable indifference" towards his country's contribution to the epic evacuation.

"Where in the film are the 120,000 French soldiers who were also evacuated from Dunkirk? Where are the 40,000 who sacrificed themselves to defend the city against a superior enemy in weaponry and numbers?" he asked in his review in French newspaper Le Monde.

(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Military/Veterans; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: dunkirk; france; frenchtroops; hollywood; militaryhistory; moviereview
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To: Snickering Hound

Montgomery would never have won at El Alamein if the boys at Bletchley Park had not broken the Enigma code. Rommel was not even there when the battle started and as far as I am concerned, Rommel’s successful withdrawal was a masterful one that made Montgomery’s pursuit look like a coward’s chase of a superior force. Montgomery was an overstuffed toad and never was blamed for the failures he had which cost thousands of lives, including Market Garden and Dieppe.


121 posted on 07/22/2017 11:26:59 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: Snickering Hound

This Brit agrees with you.


122 posted on 07/22/2017 11:27:20 AM PDT by Churchillspirit (9/11/2001 and 9/11/2012: NEVER FORGET.)
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To: BenLurkin

Classic - Surrender Cologne:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFix1OV6qY8


123 posted on 07/22/2017 11:29:59 AM PDT by PLMerite ("Government should be done to cattle and not human beings." - John Milius)
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To: dfwgator

agreed and not only Hollywood!


124 posted on 07/22/2017 11:32:27 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: dfwgator

Operation Barbarossa stripped Rommel of his support in North Africa. He lost his aircover, replacement troops, and supplies to Barbarossa and the British navy.


125 posted on 07/22/2017 11:35:57 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: Mollypitcher1
Montgomery would never have won at El Alamein if the boys at Bletchley Park had not broken the Enigma code.

You mean the Poles.

126 posted on 07/22/2017 11:36:14 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: GraceG

IIRC, that photo of the crying man was taken when the city of Tunis was liberated from the Nazis by the western Allies.

Those are tears of joy. Notice the woman next to him applauding. They are not seeing an army of occupation.


127 posted on 07/22/2017 11:38:21 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam. Buy ammo.")
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To: Mollypitcher1
General Patton gave the French credit for enabling his successful advances in France and Eisenhower gave the French credit for the Allies successful invasion of Normandy. But of course Eisenhower and Patton didn’t know what they were talking about according to most on this board!!!

“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind.”
— Jed Babbin, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense

128 posted on 07/22/2017 11:38:47 AM PDT by COBOL2Java (RuPaul and Yertle - our illustrious Republican leaders up the Hill - God help us!)
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To: JohnyBoy
The reason that Stalingrad wasn’t nearly as bad for Germany as Tunisian was the relative lack of tanks/guns/planes lost at Stalingrad. Most of the weapons lost were older ones.

Tunisia (Torch) and Algeria were far more important than El Alamein mostly because of Hitler.

He freaked over the invasion and proceeded to occupy Vichy France and send hundreds of tanks including dozens of new Tigers into Tunisia that were never seen again.

All at the time (Nov 42') when Stalingrad really could have used the vehicles. Panzer divisions in Russia were starved of replacements so there was a reason that comparatively few tanks were lost.

Those tanks quite likely could have relieved the encircled 6th Army.

Then to make things worse, shortly afterward Hitler and Himmler decide to turn the Waffen SS divisions into armored formations and further starve Panzer divisions of replacements.

They were motorized infantry before. Experienced tankers were taken from the panzer divisions for this and more tanks were withheld.

Americans got a well needed scrimmage against the German forces and incompetent officers like Fredendall were weeded out.

They ran out of tanks attacking El Alamein, not before. El Alamein had port where the Italians could have landed fuel supplies if it had been captured and there was nothing to stop Rommel from rolling all the way to Ciro if he’d won.

Alamein wasn't much of a port. It was the end of a rail line running all the way to Alexandria though.

Germany never had manpower problems but they had huge production problems because their socialist production system was awful.

Germans had massive manpower issues thanks to catastrophes like Stalingrad.

That's how you get formations like the Volksturm (Old folks and kids) . And all army formations shrunk as the war went on.

129 posted on 07/22/2017 11:39:10 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: COBOL2Java

Patton was referring to the French Generals more than the Soldiers. He always thought the French were fighting the ‘previous war.’


130 posted on 07/22/2017 11:40:40 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: JohnyBoy

The only French port Rommels 7th Panzer took, that I know of, was St. Valery, where the British were unable to evacuate. The 51st Highland Division was surrounded and forced to surrender.

Perhaps you are thinking of Boulogne, where the British 20th Guards Brigade was indeed (mostly) successfully withrawn, leaving the French garrison behind (those fighting were remnants of the 21st Division d’Infanterie, which certainly wasnt locked into cellars). There were besides some 7000 mostly unarmed raw recruits, mostly Belgians, left behind. The attackers were the 2nd Panzer Division, not Rommels 7th.


131 posted on 07/22/2017 11:43:48 AM PDT by buwaya
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To: mass55th

George III was Britain’s ruler when we declared INDEPENDENCE. LaFayette, Admiral de Grasse, Rochambau and thousands of Frenchmen fought for American sovereignty. France was the first country to acknowledge America’s independence.


132 posted on 07/22/2017 11:44:25 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: Bob434
They had hired french actors, but as soon as they heard the first shot they threw down their prop guns and ran away

Kinda like why EuroDisney failed. First night, as soon as the fireworks started, the whole country surrendered. (H/T to Johnny Carson)

133 posted on 07/22/2017 11:44:44 AM PDT by Roccus ((When you talk to a politician...ANY politician...always say, "Remember Ceausescu"))
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To: Mollypitcher1

Yes, that’s very true. The most recent episodes of “Turn: American Spies” includes them. It’s the last season for the show. Victory will be ours!!


134 posted on 07/22/2017 11:47:18 AM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: Snickering Hound

The Germans were out of tanks and out of gas by the time they got to El Alamein. It still took Montgomery months to clear them out. German losses in the battle were 1,100 killed, 3,900 wounded and 7,900 prisoners and Italian losses as 1,200 killed, 1,600 wounded and 20,000 prisoners.

Germans lost 400,000 at Stalingrad, Italians 114,000, Romanians 109,000, Hungarians 105,000.

A catastrophe like that isn’t propaganda.


Exactly. El Alamain was nothing compared to Stalingrad.

After El Alamain the Germans could still go on the offensive. After Stalingrad, the war was basically lost.


135 posted on 07/22/2017 11:53:30 AM PDT by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
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To: KC_Lion

They surrendered because they love their buildings more than their culture. It almost cost them their buildings.


136 posted on 07/22/2017 12:05:26 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell (Progressivism is 2 year olds in a poop fight.)
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To: DFG

Ever nation in Europe, except Denmark, collaborated with the German in removing the Jews from their territory.


137 posted on 07/22/2017 12:10:16 PM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: laplata
After El Alamain the Germans could still go on the offensive. After Stalingrad, the war was basically lost.

Kursk made it official.

138 posted on 07/22/2017 12:10:19 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Snickering Hound

>Germans had massive manpower issues thanks to catastrophes like Stalingrad.

That’s another Stalinistic myth that was widely pushed in the press. The German death to kill ratio with the Russians was 3/1 during the war.

>That’s how you get formations like the Volksturm (Old folks and kids) . And all army formations shrunk as the war went on.

The Germany army actually swelled in size in the last 2 years of the war thanks to the Volksturm divisions, but those divisions had very limited amounts of armament. They were effectively under-armed militia though many Vokstrum divisions fought quite well in the east. It was a last ditch attempt to build a military large enough to fight a 3 front war. Of course without enough weapons those divisions didn’t fight well.

Germany reduced their numbers of the eastern front not because they didn’t have enough men, but because they were fighting a 2 front war, then a 3 front war with a very large defensive force in the Balkans to stop any allied landings there. This require stripping units out of the east to fight in North Africa, Italy, and France.

However, the biggest problem for the Germans was the lack weapons. Army Group Centre in Byelorussia was utterly destroyed by the Russians in 1944 not because it didn’t have enough men(644,396) but because it had almost no tanks, guns, or airplanes. German war production was unable to fully equip the existing German army for combat on one front and when it went from 1 front to 2, then 3 + mass allied bombing things really got bad for German armies.

The reason we think that Germany ran out of manpower is Russian propaganda about bleeding the German army white in the east. In reality the German army kept right turning Russian offensives into disasters for the Red army right up until Operation torch opened up a second front with Germany. This weakened the Germany army in Russia to the point where offensive operations became quite difficult and getting replacement gear close to impossible. Even the battle of Kursk was well on it’s way to being a Germany victory before Hitler halted it due to the invasion of Italy and troops were stripped from the eastern front to protect Italy and the Balkans.


139 posted on 07/22/2017 12:10:27 PM PDT by JohnyBoy
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To: Louis Foxwell
They surrendered because they love their buildings more than their culture. It almost cost them their buildings.

Paris was declared an open city in 40'

Hitler wanted Paris fought for in 44' instead his military governor Choltitz doesn't comply and Hitler has another of his famous meltdowns after asking "Is Paris burning?"

140 posted on 07/22/2017 12:11:42 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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