Another Normandy invasion

Oh, dear, oh, dear—British noses are bent out of shape over ceremonies at the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-mer to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-day landings.

Seems HM Queen Elizabeth II’s invitation to attend got lost in the mail and Brits are waxing wroth.

Only it turns out that this particular ceremony is a “Franco-American” gathering, at a US military cemetery, and the Queen, being neither, just isn’t on the A-List. A fact that seems to have escaped the huff-and-puff crowd.

What’s interesting is the compensation issues underlying the affront: Brits believe they don’t get enough credit for their efforts in defeating the Nazis. They think the Americans got all the press, and there they are, scuffing their toes in the dirt and muttering that they were too part of the team—it was the Allies, you know.

Of course, during the actual, you know, war, Bill Mauldin noted that whenever a joint effort in Italy resulted in an advance it was reported in the British press as a British victory; whenever an American army scored, it was reported as an Allied victory.

(Also, keep in mind that one of Britain's most vaunted contributions to the war effort was Montgomery; and if we'd followed his idea of strategy we'd still be there "tidying up" after each brilliant victory that never actually parlayed to actual advances. Don't even get me started on that.)

And during all the hoo-haw of 1999 on the 55th anniversary of the landings, if you watched any British TV or read any British papers, you wouldn’t have known there were any forces involved besides the Brits, Canadians and Germans. So all this whining is a little small-minded.

Whatever. But note that the particular ceremony in question is being held at Colleville-sur-mer, an American military cemetery. Not the one down the road in Bayeux, which is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery. I’m sure that if the Brits wanted to commemorate their war dead, the French would be happy to hold a service there, with all the royals who can cram in between the headstones.

And then they can all troop over to the German military cemetery just outside Bayeux and remember that a whole generation of 19- and 20-year-olds from the old world and the new lie in their little enclaves just a few kilometers apart in that département.

But I suppose it would be expecting too much to ask that the Brits just get over themselves and grow the hell up.