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August 23, 2006
Our Finest Day
So I was reading a reproduced abridged War Department pamphlet from WWII about the French people the other day during lunch and I found this funny paragraph about how hard working the French are. (The pamphlet came with Mark Bowden's book Our Finest Day, which is about D-day):
'Pocket Guide to France' Sep 1944 Page 10
(4) The French of all classes have respect for the traditionally important values in the life of civilized an. They have respect for religion and for artistic ideas. They have an extreme respect for property, whether public or private. To them property represents the result of work. To destroy property means to belittle work. Respect for work is a profound principle in France. The Frenchman's woodpile is just as sacred to him as the Banque de France.
I doubt the pamphlet's author could have foreseen that the French would riot and destroy much property over getting fired when under age 26 and still demand 36 hour work weeks with two month vacations.
The book Our Finest Day was decent and creatively made. I did not learn that much from it since it does not go into much overall detail of the battle as it is only about 45 pages long with many pictures, but it had lots of good primary source material. Some of this was in reproduced form like the aforementioned pamphlet and reproductions of after action reports by paratrooper officers and others were in first person accounts of the battle. These were actual physical reproductions inseterd into pockets in the book. It was a good primer on D-Day.
Posted by Pete at August 23, 2006 09:50 AM
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