Chris Hasting and Julie Henry, in the Sunday Telegraph (London) (May 30, 2004):

IT IS 1899 and Denzel Washington, the American president, orders Anne Frank and her troops to storm the beaches of Nazi-occupied New Zealand.

This may not be how you remember D-Day but for a worrying number of Britain's children this is the confused scenario they associate with the events of June 6, 1944.

A survey of 1,309 pupils aged between 10 and 14 and from 24 different schools found alarming levels of ignorance about the invasion of Normandy 60 years ago.

Only 28 per cent of primary and secondary pupils who sat the Sunday Telegraph quiz last week were able to say that D-Day, involving the largest invasion force ever mounted, was the start of the Allied liberation of occupied western Europe.

Many of them could only say that it was something to do with the Second World War - though 26 per cent were flummoxed by even that fact. Some thought it took place in the First World War, or was the day war broke out, the Blitz and even Remembrance Sunday.

"It's a day when everyone remembers the dead who fought," said a 14-year-old girl at a north Devon secondary school. Only 16 per cent of 918 participating primary school children had the answer right. One 10-year-old in a Northamptonshire school thought it was the day the "Americans came to rescue the English". Another thought D-Day involved "the invasion of Portsmouth". Various dates for the assault were 1066, 1776, 1899 and 1948.

Children also had great difficulty in naming Britain's war-time prime minister. Less than half of the overall sample and only 39 per cent of primary school children correctly identified him as Winston Churchill; a significant number opted for Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair.

Seventeen per cent of the sample and only 38 per cent of secondary school children identified Franklin D Roosevelt as the then President of the United States. Other candidates offered by both age groups were Denzel Washington (the Oscar-winning actor), George Washington, John F Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln and George W Bush. Some said simply: "George Bush's dad."

Ignorance about the Allied leaders, however, contrasted sharply with knowledge about Adolf Hitler. Overall, 71 per cent of the sample and 64 per cent of primary school children were able correctly to name the Nazi leader. Only one in three could identify the broad location of D-Day, with a number saying that it happened in New Zealand, Skegness or Germany.

Thirteen per cent could name two of the beaches involved, and only 10 per cent of the sample knew that Dwight D Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander. Others thought that the invasion was led by Anne Frank or Private Ryan (the eponymous hero of the Steven Spielberg D-Day epic).

wait a miute .... denzel?? he went into acting??

wait a minute .. he looks so young! Whats his secret!

Btw, I don't mean to put down only Britain.


I meant to put everyone down. Americans, French, Canadians, etc. Shame on everyone who doesn't know it, but it doesn't really surprise me.


Thing is, I think that by the end of this century, most facts about WW2 will be hard to distinguish from fiction. Then you'll get things like: Where the Nazis reall all that bad? Wasn't Mussolini a great guy? Boy, didn't the French fight valiantly against the Nazis?? Wait, what do you mean there was a Holocaust? Isn't it great to know how the Americans did the most work in defeating the Nazis? -And other such lies*


*Yes, the Nazis were all that bad, and then some. Mussolini was a terrible man, and representative of a terrible ideology. Although the French did fight valiantly here and there, they also struck a deal with the Nazis (Vichy gov't, etc.). Yes, there indeed was a Holocaust. The Soviets, and not the Americans, did most of the work in defeating the Nazis. Russia, along with Germany, suffered the greatest number of casualties. Americans did not join until late into the war.



Btw, I believe Denmark, and maybe Sweden (iffy) to be the only country to have come off looking well from WW2.

Clearly a fabrication, every kid in the world knows the U.S. is too racist to have had a black president in 1940. They may be uninformed, but they have common sense. :wink:

Box, whats your rationale for not putting Britain and the United States on the list of countries that came off looking good? Dresden, Tokyo, and internment of Japanese, are these your reasons?

So do kids need to know every single bit of history?? Students have to learn in 12 years what it took people hundreds of years to find out and for history to happen.

But that is kinda funny how mixed up it really is...

Uh, I wouldn't exactly call D-Day *every single bit*.

Do I expect them to know about the Triangle Shirt-Waste Factory? Maybe in the U.S. because they study American history, and I wouldn't exactly freak if they got the details a bit confused as long as they had the vague sense it had to do with labor. I probably wouldn't expect French kids to know about it at all. But yes, every kid should at least be kind of aware of D-Day.

Triangle Shirt-Waste Factory? Is that the one where it went on fire killing all the people, and that caused tougher building codes.

Bingo! We have a winner. Its the women in the sowing factory who all jumped out of fifth floor windows to stay alive, and ended up dying anyways. One description said they hit the sidewalk like pennies. It brought labor conditions in the sowing industry to the forfront. BTTF, you're from New York. NYU university now owns the building where it happened, and converted it into part of their labor archives and library I believe.

I've never entered the building. I think it would be odd to stand in the place where women burned alive and jumped out of windows to their death a couple decades ago.

Anyways, thanks for killing the point! Haha, you just raised my expectations of what all other youths in the u.s. should know. kids in history clas throw junk at you everywhere.

I bet that if you asked my entire school, atleast 85% of them would not know what it was. Wow I can't believe I remembered that fact, especially with all of the Global knowledge that is stuffed into my brain right now.

My brother's friend goes to NYU. I didn't know that they actually owned that building. It would be sort of uncomfortable standing in the building.

I should have been more specific: I meant Europe. I would not put Britain, but I would certainly put the US. There is no doubt that America looked good in 1945, and for good reason. Granted, Hiroshima immediately plunged us into another situation, and the internment camps are an embarassment and tragic, but when has the US not shown hostility towards one minority or the other? The European settlers wiped out millions of Indians, and then there's slavery, etc. Anyways, I'm digressing.


Btw, I'm surprised that Dresden has become such a huge topic. I expect Nanking to become the next big topic. I don't see how China will bypass the opportunity to present it as their Auschwitz. Sorry if my comments seem cold, but we're talking politics, and China's got some scores to settle with Japan.


BTW

Holocaust deniers have failed in the West, but those who deny Nanking have succeeded rather well in Japan. Many people in Japan don't acknowledge it ever happened. 200-300,000 civilians brutally killed. How to ever live with it?