Thank you very much.
It is most unfortunate, that such exaggerated stories still circulate on both sides of the Pacific. We were allies. My granddad still has warm memories of Americans he met at the shores of Elba river. Such things should not be forgotten. Pity, that there are a lot of such "fairy tales" on both sides. Like not so long ago, on a Russian boards I had to fight myths that were in the Cold War times perpetrated about American troops, which are still alive today - the "mass rapes" by US troops of Okinava civilians, which "were never punished", of course, and that the Himeyuri Corps girls were deliberately murdered and raped by marines, and another particularly funny one, about Omaha landing never in fact occuring - some people there stated that there were never any German resistance on Omaha, and that the landing battle was a myth. I hope I've managed to displel those quite effectively, at least among the communities of these boards. It was not easy though.
US is also producing some serious BS sometimes, like a year and a half ago I had to send an angry email to "US Naval Institute Proceedings" magazine, that published an article stating that Yuri Gagarin was not the first man in space. It was corrected, of course. Or this "Berlin mass rapes" tale. But I wonder, whether such incidents on both sides will ever end. Pity.
The practice is unlikely to end. In times of war (or high anxiety, (i.e., the Cold War)), it is convenient to turn the opposing side into "the Other" and attribute all sorts of really disgusting behavior to them AS A GROUP (as opposed to individualizing the real offenders). It makes it easier to convince the troops to fight hard and kill without limit if they have an image of their enemy as a race of subhuman fiends instead of say... a collection of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters with many of the same feelings, hopes, desires, and the same pride in their country that you have. That complicates things and you, above all, don't want soldiers to begin to dwell on such things and become confused about where their duty lies.