CANADIANS

[Gil Boyd]

See Ovidio,
I told you those Canadians were all the same, here is a young Dutch girl being told about how wonderful Canada is by lads from the South Alberta Tank Regiment in Bergen Op Zoom Netherlands on the 29th October 1944.
Just look at their drooling faces, not one looking out for Germans, all fixed on one thing!!

Information

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[Ovidio]

Would you blame them, Gil?
That is also very Italian, if I'm allowed to comment

[Surpmil]

If you read Barry Broadfoot you'll see that quite a few of those girls didn't wait to be asked, they stated quite frankly that they wouldn't mind living in Canada...and I suspect the fellows that took them up on it generally had few regrets.

[Ovidio]

Might well be!

[Lee Enfield]

See Ovidio,
I told you those Canadians were all the same, here is a young Dutch girl being told about how wonderful Canada is by lads from the South Alberta Tank Regiment in Bergen Op Zoom Netherlands on the 29th October 1944.
Just look at their drooling faces, not one looking out for Germans, all fixed on one thing!!

My Great Uncle brought back his little Dutch girl...to Alberta...

[JerryEAL]

I can tell you that not all interactions in a liberated country were on the level. Sorry to burst your romantic bubbles! These people were desperate and had nothing to offer. The reality of Holland was that many were taken advantage of and in fact it was no better than their German oppressor. Do your research before you romanticize war.

[Flying10uk]

I'm not entirely sure quite what you are getting at.

The people of Holland were staving at the end of WW2 and that is why RAF aircrews risked their lives to drop food for the civilian population while the country was still occupied by the enemy.

During WW2 a relative of my mother visited Holland, in September 1944, by parachute, at a place called Arnhem. When the order came to pull-out he had to swim the Rhine while being shot at which he avoided by swimming underwater some of the way. I don't think his visit to Holland, during WW2, could have been a particularly pleasant visit because he didn't want to talk about what had happened at Arnhem and he wouldn't go anywhere near an aeroplane for a long time after the war, until he had to for his work, despite being a founder member of the Parachute Regiment.

The picture in post 1 is just 5 young men chatting to a young lady, just being pleasant to her, nothing more, nothing less.

[Atticus Thraxx]

I have no useful comment on all that, but did you notice how they wrapped spare track around their turret? Battlefield ingenuity.

[Lee Enfield]

I have no useful comment on all that, but did you notice how they wrapped spare track around their turret? Battlefield ingenuity.

Largely battlefield despiration.

An attempt at up armouring Shermans.

[lawrence_n]

There have always been good and bad soldiers. They were soldiers, not boy scouts or candidates for sainthood! Sure, some took advantage of the misery of the people and extorted sex or valuables for food and/or cigarettes, but the vast majority were earnest, helpful, compassionate men who freely shared rations and medical supplies to those in need. A lot of women willingly engaged in sex out of gratitude. Why do you think the Dutch people hold Canada and Canadians in such high regard? Why does parliament hill get flooded with tulips every year? Where did the Dutch royal family spend their exile?