World History

...hung this huge banner, in preparation for a visit by Chirac, to celebrate France's single handed victory in World War 2.

The banner depicted a bomber squadron, B24s if I recall correctly.

I had a fun mock hostile joshing wonderful relationship with my French friends, and so I mused, "I wonder if any of those planes are French?"

It's funny because just last night I was reading from Nigel Hamilton's FDR trilogy on FDRs strategic thinking in WW2, an account of his very unpleasant meeting with Charles de Gaulle at the casablanca conference. De Gaulle was arguing about French sovereignty over It's empire while his whole country was a German puppet state. FDR was not amused.

Stalin could not understand at Yalta why the hell the Americans and Brits wanted to give a zone of occupation of Germany to France. FDR had his reasons.