Caddick-Adams said the Americans have always been better at martial myth-making than the British.
“During the Normandy campaign, there were about 10 American photographers for every British one,” he said. “So most of the footage of the campaign features American soldiers, rarely British.”
Historian Antony Beevor, author of D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, said the conflicting views began while the war was still raging.
“There have been misunderstandings,” he said. “One was that [British commander] Field Marshal [Bernard] Montgomery’s attempts to take so much of the credit exasperated the Americans. As a result the Americans tended to downplay the British contribution.”
The differing views also reflected a shifting global balance of power. The war all but bankrupted the UK, hastening the breakup of its empire and its decline as a world force.
“The British were very sensitive at the time,” Beevor said. “They knew their power was diminishing very rapidly, while American power was increasing rapidly.”
As for who won the war, many historians think it was neither Britain nor the US, but the Soviet Union, who played the decisive role.
“The British and the Americans only killed one in five Germans that were killed on the battlefield,” said Andrew Roberts, author of the World War II history The Storm of War. “Four out of every five German deaths took place on the eastern front. Us arguing among ourselves over the glories of D-Day is squabbling over the scraps.”
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