Rape during the liberation of France

U.S. soldiers committed acts of 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 4,500 instances of sexual assault had been transgressed by U.S servicemen in France from June 1944 to the end of the war in May 1945.

The Liberation of Paris followed on 25 August and the majority of German troops had been pushed back to the Siegfried Line by the end of 1944.

[5] In 1945, after the end of the war in Europe, Le Havre was filled with American servicemen awaiting return to the States.

[7] A brothel, the "Blue and Gray Corral", was set up near the village of St. Renan in September 1944 by Major General Charles H. Gerhardt, commander of the 29th Infantry Division, partly to counter a wave of rape accusations against American soldiers.

It was shut down after a mere five hours in order to prevent civilians in the United States from finding out about a military-run brothel.