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Lance had a family holiday in the South of France in 2007 and this is his account of "Operation Dragoon". I took advantage to look at the area surrounding the less well known second invasion of France codenamed “Operation Dragoon” Churchill argued that Operation Dragoon diverted resourses that would have been put to better use in an invasion of the Oil producing regions of the Balkens and possibly to other Eastern European Countries. In addition to further limit Germany's access to much needed oil, it would also better positioned the west for peace following WWII, by liberating these areas and forestalling the Russian Red Army. Churchill was thinking what was going to happen after the war, not just stopping and ending it. The Area for "Dragoon" was Provence and was carried out on the 15th August 1944, over two Months after D-Day in Normandy. In the First Days, 250,000 men and thousands of tonnes of equipment, were landed on the beaches between Toulon and Cannes. The Overall armada consisted of 2000 ships, 3 American Divisions (36th 45th and 3rd) and the 1st French Army of General de Lattre de Tassigny, all under the command of General Alexander Patch of the 7th Allied Army. The 6th American Marine Corps of Major General Lucian Truscott landed the same day. |
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Below shows a picture of an American landing on the Coast near Saint Raphael on the coast as an memorial to all those who landed. You can clearly see the 1944 date on this memorial. The American Troop landed on 15th August 1944 and the French a day later. |
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Below Picture of a memorial to Colonel Parker and his troops and I am assuming a private memorial to William Ketchens from the 1st Ranger Battalion who landed at 8.30am on 15/08/1944. This lies at the front of the landing craft. Unfortunately the inside of craft was not accessible so I could not get a feel of what was probably awful waiting to get ashore. |
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THE AIRBORNE DROP In order to protect the allied landings on the coast of the South of France and to capture the key roads leading north, an impressive airborne drop was made on the night of the 14th to the 15th August 1944, 25 km behind the German lines, in three zones around Le Muy. This mission was entrusted to the first Airborne Army, under the command of the American General Robert T. Frederick. 10,000 Parachutists, mostly Americans, but also the British Second Parachutist Brigade, and a group of French pathfinders from the First Storm Battalion, jumped into enemy-held territory To reinforce the paratroopers, close to 500 gliders, both American WACO type and English HORSA, left from Italy towed by C 47 transport planes and brought in heavy equipment, jeeps and supplies, to help the paratroopers hold the strategic and vital town of Le Muy. In essence this was the important crossroads for all roads north. The landing zones were relatively clear in 1944 but are (now like most non-built up area’s) covered in vines producing the excellent local wines or have been replanted with trees. The first town to be liberated in Southern France was La Motte which is a very small and quiet town, but its holds its place in history proudly. The British, French & American Paratroopers moved on to capture the key crossroads at “Le Muy”. There is an excellent free museum dedicated to the operation here. |
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There is an excellent letter written by one of the British Officers who tried to get the Germans to surrender in the museum—worth the visit just in itself. There are the usual exhibits but it was still excellent because it was about the liberation of the town itself rather than the overall operation. It was also just about the paratroopers. Every year on 15th August (liberation day) they have a festival and the guest of honour is one of the surviving paratroopers. Put up at the towns expense. It was really nice to hear they take it so seriously and are still extremely grateful to those young lads who fought and died here so many years ago. The historic town of Draguignan was liberated by American paratroopers in conjunction with the local French resistance group who captured the German general in charge of their defences in Southern France. |
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The American Rhone Military cemetery is there as well. As usual they brought a lot of their dead from far and wide to be buried here. There lots of airmen who had been shot down here from 1943 onwards plus some of the lads who fought here. They are not all here because American families have the right to bring their dead sons home to be buried locally. One other thing though, is that they have an excellent collection of books in their office, which gave a lot of background information to and of the invasion itself. So much so that copies of the actual field reports written by soldiers are bound in volumes-excellent reading for those wanting to know more. There is also a copper type plaque which gives the movement of troops from the invasion to the link up with the rest of the allies up north |
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The British and Commonwealth war dead are buried at Mazargues War Cemetery in Marseilles. As is the case with the CWGC there is a mixture of First and Second war graves. But unusually there are a lot of Chinese, Indian and Egyptian troops buried here as well. |
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The operation was a phenomenal success. Within two weeks the Allies had captured 57,000 prisoners and opened the major ports of Toulon and Marseille at a cost of less than 7,000 casualties. Patch's Seventh Army DRAGOON forces then advanced nearly 400 miles north up the Rhone River Valley toward Lyon and Dijon, capturing Lyon on 3 September. In less than one month, on 11 September, they linked up with Patton's Third Army west of Dijon, creating a solid wall of Allied forces stretching from Antwerp, Holland to the Swiss border. Four days later, DRAGOON forces were reorganized into the 6th Army Group, under the command of Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, reinforcing Eisenhower's force in Europe to three full army groups. Aftermath and Analysis of DRAGOON Measured against its military objectives, Operation DRAGOON was an outstanding success. Gen. Patch's Seventh U.S. Army annihilated Hitler’s 19th Army, captured over 100,000 German prisoners, liberated the southern two thirds of France and linked up with the Normandy invasion forces, all within thirty days. Until the port of Antwerp was opened in November 1944, the ports of southern France were the source of more than one-third of Allied supplies in Europe. But Allied resources earmarked for Italian operations, already considered of secondary importance, steadily diminished after DRAGOON. The 15 August operation stripped seven first-class divisions, three American and four French, from Italy, confirming that Italy was a holding action of little importance. Churchill always believed Operation DRAGOON was a blunder that shifted the Allied focus away from the Mediterranean, thereby setting the stage for Soviet post-war domination of Eastern Europe. |
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