Yanks deserve our thanks
From Mr Peter Macfarlane Sir: Those who are swift to denigrate Americans (Letters, 29 July) display an all too British condescension.
We forget so quickly our continuing dependence on the military and economic might of the United States. The American troops who landed in Northern Ireland in January 1942 were the beginning of an American military involvement in Europe, decisive in its effect, that persists to this day.
At the height of the build-up to D-Day there were some 1.7 million Americans in Britain. Sir John Keegan has written elo- quently of the impact the Americans made on his childhood in the West Country, where they frequently outnumbered the local inhabitants. For him, and so many others, the coming of the GIs was the start of the great alliance and the start of a life- long love affair with America.
In St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast there hangs a Stars and Stripes to commemorate those first GIs who fought for the liberation of Europe. It was presented by my grandfa- ther, Robert T. Erskine, who recognised the debt his generation owed to the United States. We would do well to remember that today.
Peter Macfarlane
Devizes, Wiltshire
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