“The normal folks in Normandy, etc, were much happier that we
did save them.”
A friend that spent a summer criss-crossing France after college
(late 1980s) said that in rural areas, once he made accquaintance
with French folks...they wouldn’t let him buy his own meal.
Being American seemed to buy him a hero’s welcome.
His fluency in French probably helped a bit.
The farmers in rural France under the Germans knew that their only hope was America. They followed our progress very carefully.