Nearly 65,000 to 75,000 dead, 74,000 wounded, 300,000 houses destroyed: from 13 June 1940 in Dunkirk to 15 April 1945 in Royan, Allied bombers dumped 518,000 tons of bombs on France to destroy the German military apparatus.
Before D DAY…
From 1940 to 1945, France was subjected to considerable bombing by the Allied aviation. With nearly 550 000 tonnes of bombs spilled on its territory (total of 2.7 million dropped on the European continent during the same period.
Bases of Kriegsmarine submarines on the French coast Lorient, Brest, St Nazaire, German weapons and vehicle factories, marshaling yards: B17 and Lancaster flying fortresses aimed at these strategic objectives for Break the armies of the Third Reich. Almost a quarter of the bombs then dropped by the Allies on the continent struck France.
In early 1944, the Allies launched the “Transportation Plan” to ensure the success of the planned landing in Normandy in June. The aim of this plan is to delay the movement of the German armored divisions to the west by intensive bombing of railway yards and other railway infrastructure and major road crossroads in the city at the time.
From London, the French service of the BBC tries, in a program of April 26, 1944, to justify them: This necessity is horrible. No doubt never in history did any ally have inflict injuries as Bloody and so painful to another ally and friend . However, during the Occupation, 3,000 Allied airmen shot down over France were collected, hidden and exfiltrated by these Frenchmen whom they had just bombed.
“The French have hastened to forget all this after the war”.