Salute to the French People on Bastille Day

Once again I salute, on Bastille Day, the heroic people of France.

July 14 this year is different, for we hope that it is the last fourteenth of July that France will suffer under German occupation. With full confidence, I look forward that the French people on July 14, 1945, will celebrate their great national fete on French soil, liberated alike from the invader and from the puppets of Vichy.

For the great battle of liberation is now engaged. It is a battle resolutely waged by the American, British, and Canadian forces, together with the valiant fighters of the home French, who have already contributed so greatly to the success of the operations. At the same time gallant French fighting forces are carrying on the victorious struggle in Italy, joined in traditional unity with their comrades of the American Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army.

Here, on this side o.[ the Atlantic, the fourteenth of July, 1944, offers an equally great spectacle of the indissoluble unity and the deep friendship of the American and French peoples.

Together, the French and American peoples stand today, united as they have always been when the cause of freedom was endangered.

Together, we shall win, and France shall be free!