page_title: Rape during the liberation of France
section_title: French complaints
hierarchical_section_title: Rape during the liberation of France / French complaints
caption_attribution_description: Español: Normandía, territorio histórico.
context_page_description: U.S. soldiers were reported committing rape against French women during and after the liberation of France in the later stages of World War II. The sociologist J. Robert Lilly of Northern Kentucky University estimates that U.S. servicemen committed around 3,500 rapes in France between June 1944 and the end of the war.
context_section_description: By the late summer of 1944, soon after the invasion of Normandy, women in Normandy began to report rapes by American soldiers. Hundreds of cases were reported.
  In 1945, after the end of the war in Europe, Le Havre was filled with American servicemen awaiting return to the States. A Le Havre citizen wrote to the mayor that the people of Le Havre were "attacked, robbed, run over both on the street and in our houses" and "This is a regime of terror, imposed by bandits in uniform." A coffeehouse owner from Le Havre testified "We expected friends who would not make us ashamed of our defeat. Instead, there came only incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors." Such behavior also was common in Cherbourg. One resident stated that "With the Germans, the men had to camouflage themselves—but with the Americans, we had to hide the women."
  U.S. troops committed 208 rapes and about 30 murders in the department of Manche.
caption: Normandy region
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