Posted on 01/06/2021 11:34:52 AM PST by blueunicorn6
I think that it is time to do away with, on Free Republic, the idea that French Soldiers aren’t very brave. I am a retired American Soldier so I don’t owe the French anything.
I am currently reading a book about the Korean War (1950-1953). It is titled IN MORTAL COMBAT. I am at the point where China has entered the war. The Chinese have sent hundreds of thousands of Soldiers into Korea.
The UN forces have been rocked. The South Koreans are falling back. The US troops are falling back. The English are falling back. The Turks are falling back.
My Dad was in the Korean War. I asked him who the toughest Soldiers were during that war. He told me that he thought the Turkish Soldiers were the toughest.
The Turks were falling back in the face of the massive Chinese onslaught.
There is a French unit on the right flank of an American unit. The Americans are worried about the French. The French Commander is a little odd. The French record against the Germans wasn’t stellar.
The Chinese threw waves of Soldiers against the French. The French gunned them down until they were low on ammunition. It looked like the Chinese were going to overrun the French and wipe them out.
The French Commander ordered his troops to “Fix bayonets!” This is an order to attach a bayonet (a long knife) to the end of your rifle. He then led the French Soldiers in a charge against the attacking Chinese. The Chinese broke and retreated.
The French went back to their original defensive positions.
The Chinese rallied and tried another massed attack.
Once again, the French Commander ordered his troops to fix bayonets and charge.
The Chinese broke again and retreated.
In Korea, during the Korean War, while the other UN forces were falling back in the face of a tremendous attack by hundreds of thousands of Chinese, a French Army unit, not once, but twice, fixed bayonets and ran the Chinese off.
I salute them.
So should you.
Nuthin’ wrong with French troops.
French leaders on the other hand...
That's what my father always said.
I too get tired of the French Army joke how many troops does it take to defend Paris? About 80,000 dead at the Marne.and they are all over central Africa today. They had crappy high command and politicians in the 30s and 40s.
The French Foreign Legion was the toughest IMHO.
I agree with you 100%. The French got their poor reputation only because the were so quickly beaten by the Germans in 1940. But the French lost not because they were cowardly soldiers. They lost because they were simply outmaneuvered.
And it’s worth noting that the British were able to evacuate their army at Dunkirk only because the French put up an heroic rear-guard action.
From Wikipedia:
The desperate resistance of Allied forces, especially the French forces, including the French 12th Motorised Infantry Division from the Fort des Dunes, had bought time for the evacuation of the bulk of the troops. The Wehrmacht captured some 35,000 soldiers, almost all of them French. These men had protected the evacuation until the last moment and were unable to embark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dunkirk#Retreat_to_Dunkirk
Yep. In WW2 the French general staff were out of touch.
While I don’t remember the exact numbers any longer, in the roughly six weeks of 1940 between the German invasion and the surrender, the French lost something like 90,000 troops.
Great book.
Read it if you get the chance.
I always learn something new.
The North Koreans took European civilians captive. This included several elderly Catholic Nuns. One Nun was even blind.
The North Koreans made them March north in the cold.
Some of the elderly Nuns just couldn’t go on.
The North Koreans shot them..............
It has been a long time since I have been this sickened/angry.
And our youth think that socialism/communism is OK.
> In WW2 the French general staff were out of touch. <
Very true. In 1940 the French actually had more tanks than the Germans did. But the French scattered their tanks among their infantry units. On the other hand, the Germans concentrated their tanks in hard-hitting panzer divisions,
I will never understand why Truman didn’t Nuke China. It was okay to do it to Japan, but destroying Mao and the Communist Chinese NO?
At the start of WW2, the French had the best tank in Europe, the Souma 35, but they didn’t have the doctrine to use them.
So the Germans with Panzer 2s, Panzer 38ts and a few Panzer 3s destroyed them piecemeal.
When they got a chance, though, the French tanks gave good account of themselves.
Read “The Last Valley”; the French Foreign Legion were some brave boys. Also shows the real story of Dien Bien Phu (heroic performance by FFL)
I believe I did.
I also read HELL IN A VERY SMALL PLACE (?) about Dien Bien Phu.
> I will never understand why Truman didn’t Nuke China. <
At that time China and the Soviet Union were allies. And the Soviets had the bomb. So I’m guessing the Soviets said something like “If you hit China, we’ll hit you.” And maybe Truman (and later Ike) didn’t want to take the risk of a nuclear exchange.
To this day the FFL still uses some slightly modified Nazi marching songs.
They put a hurting on the Germans as well. The Germans had 30,000 killed and twice that many wounded and missing. There were French fortifications that held out against heavy odds until the surrender, even as the Germans swept around them.
Thats where the Germans figured that the 88MM AA gun worked great as a anti tank gun. The French staged a breakthru and Rommel ordered his AA gunners to deploy as anti tank. It was the only way the attack was stopped.
Yeah. The Char B1, the Matilda, and the Soviet KV tanks all required 88 FLAK to stop them.
On Char B1 destroyed 13 Panzers before it retreated.
Another one is the Frozen Chozen.
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