Other attacks by Ju-88 bombers caused no damage. They had been ordered to carry out a torpedo attack at San Raphael while II Gruppe was assigned a target just east of Cap Nègre, where French commandos had come ashore. Bombs were to be dropped only south of the road since German troops were to the north of it.
During the 16th the Luftwaffe’s main effort was simply reconnaissance. With airfields in the Rhône valley under continuous Allied attack, it was forced to withdraw assets to places of greater safety. Two days later Fliegerdivision 2 was subordinated with immediate effect to Luftflotte 2. The divisional operations staff were sent to Bergamo by the 20th, while a battle headquarters was established at Merate. Flying units were instructed to conduct the transfer flights either in the early morning or in the evening to avoid the attentions of Allied fighter-bombers.
The failure of the German Mortain counter-attack in Normandy and the developing Falaise Pocket meant that by the 16th it was imperative to save Army Group G before a more general collapse occurred in France. On the 17th Blaskowitz finally received his orders; abandoning Toulouse, he started withdrawing north. He had been instructed to move all his forces north-east except for the 148th Division in the Cannes-Nice area and a reserve mountain division at Grenoble, which were to move into Italy. The German High Command preferred to weaken the 19th Army rather than imperil the Italian front. Marseilles and Toulon were to remain German fortresses.
General Ferdinand Neuling at LXII Corps’ headquarters just outside Draguignan, a few kilometres north-west of Le Muy, was not so lucky and found himself surrounded by enemy paratroopers. His two infantry divisions were trapped at Marseilles and Toulon. Friedrich Wiese sent the 189th Infantry Division to clear Le Muy and relieve LXII Corps, but the Americans easily fended off the feeble counter-attacks by elements of both the 189th and 148th Divisions.
LXII Corps had expected an airborne operation in the Marseilles area, and the Le Muy drop severely disrupted their communications. In particular, Neuling could not figure out what the goal of the paratroops was and did not know how to react. His command was reduced to a state of ineffectual chaos, while district commander Generalmajor Ludwig Bieringer could only muster 750 men to defend Draguignan. He radioed for reinforcements from 40 km away, but they did not come. Nor was he able to contact Neuling, the cabling between their two headquarters having been cut. Fighting in the town was short-lived and the Americans quickly closed in on Bieringer’s command post, and had soon seized the commander. The resistance by his headquarters was half-hearted following an American night attack. Bieringer had tried to raise Neuling on the phone but could get no reply, and while he was doing so his garrison surrendered. Shortly after, Neuling refused to accept an initial offer to surrender brokered by a young German lieutenant.
In the meantime Major-General Robert Frederick drove Bieringer down to Patch for interrogation; the German refused to disguise himself and was soon being pelted by locals and had to endure the humiliation of travelling the rest of the journey under a tarpaulin. In total, the 1st Airborne Task Force took a thousand German prisoners.
At 2100 hours on the 17th the U-boat U-230 under Lieutenant Eberbach left Toulon and loitered near the Mandrier peninsula for two days before seizing an opportunity to attack the USS Augusta. The submarine tailed the battleship throughout the day on the 20th. Her captain claimed to have penetrated the Augusta’s destroyer screen and was about to launch four torpedoes when a shore battery opened up and bracketed the cruiser, which promptly beat a hasty retreat. The U-230 ran aground that night and was abandoned by her crew.
Also on 17 August the Germans ordered the Vichy government to relocate to Belfort in eastern France with assurances that it would not be required to leave French territory. Pétain refused to go unless it was to Paris and three days later he was arrested by German troops. Pétain, Laval and the others were eventually sent to Sigmaringen in Germany.
Great hopes
After all the acrimony, even Brooke allowed himself an air of optimism on the 16th, recording:
Operation Dragoon, 15–28 August 1944. (Dennis Andrews)
The landing near Toulon seems to be going well, whilst the operations in Normandy are working up towards a climax [at Falaise]. There are great hopes of delivering a smashing blow which might go a long way towards clearing the road for the rest of France.
Back in Naples the following day Churchill was soon distracted by events in the Aegean. Top secret German communication intercepts showed that a German withdrawal from Greece was imminent and Churchill was keen to get a military mission to Athens as soon as possible to prevent the Greek Communists seizing power. On the 17th Churchill visited the blasted remains of the monastery at Cassino and then flew to General Alexander’s headquarters at Siena. Bad weather prevented him visiting the front on the Arno river until the 20th, after which he returned to Naples. He could not help but lament a lost opportunity, writing that the Allies:
… could have broken into the Valley of the Po, with all the gleaming possibilities and prizes which lay open towards Vienna. That evening Alexander maintained his soldierly cheerfulness, but it was in a sombre mood that I went to bed. In these great matters, failing to gain one’s way is no escape from the responsibility for an inferior solution.
On the morning of 18 August the 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron of General Dahlquist’s 36th Infantry Division came ashore under Lieutenant-Colonel Charles J. Hodge. His armoured vehicles gathered near Le Muy and then drove through Draguignan heading for Salerns, Aups and Riez. They had only just got beyond the northwestern outskirts of Draguignan when they came under fire from a cave entrance on the nearby mountainside. A tank quickly loosed off several rounds of high explosive. A few German soldiers emerged from the cave, and then out staggered General Neuling, his corps headquarters having finally been captured. It now seemed only a matter of time before Army Group G suffered the same fate as Army Group B in northern France.
Chapter Eight
The ‘Champagne Campaign’
General de Lattre, accompanied by his son Bernard, landed back on French soil on 16 August with a sense of optimism and anticipation. Two days later de Gaulle caused the Combined Chiefs of Staff concern when he announced that he intended to fly direct from Africa to France in a Lockheed Lodestar, which could carry barely enough fuel for such a trip, plus it was unarmed. The Americans offered him a plane plus fighter escort from England, but de Gaulle was adamant, provoking a polite reminder pointing out that if he did not coordinate his efforts with the Allies, they could not guarantee his safety. Now that Dragoon was firmly under way, the last thing Eisenhower wanted was an incident involving de Gaulle. However, behind the scenes there must have been some private reflection that life would be easier without this single-minded Frenchman, who by sheer will-power alone had made himself master of the Free French.
Late on the 18th the Luftwaffe made one last-ditch attack on the Allied fleet with 5 Do 217s, 10 Junkers and up to 15 torpedo Ju 88 bombers. One Ju 88 attempted to torpedo Fighter Direction Tender (FDT) 13 in the Delta Beach area, but its weapon detonated 250 yards short. Another Ju 88 dropped anti-personnel bombs on the same beach from 6,000ft. HMS Colombo and other ships of CTF 87 engaged a Ju 88 through gaps in the smokescreen, but observed no hits despite blasting away. Eleven Ju 88s attacked around St Tropez, while five passed over Camel and Delta Beaches in the Gulf of Fréjus at 9,000ft. At 2105 hours one of these straddled the USS Catoctin, Hewitt’s flagship, with anti-personnel bombs. Two hit home, killing six men and wounding forty-two more, while others exploded near PT 208. Luckily General Patch had already gone ashore. After the attack three Ju 88s landed at Valence (two of them forced to belly-land after sustaining damage), another three at Montélimar and five at Orange-Plan de Dieu.
To the north in Normandy, meanwhile, by 18 August Army Group B’s escape route at Falaise was only 8 km wide, though it was not completely sealed until the 21st. When the last pocket was finally overrun the Allies captured 334 armoured ve
hicles, 2,447 other vehicles and 252 pieces of artillery. Hitler lost 50,000 men captured and 10,000 killed, but significantly between 20,000 and 50,000 escaped to fight another day, although many of them would be killed before they crossed the Seine.
‘Battle of Toulon Harbor’
With the weather remaining generally good carrier-based planes were able to conduct regular spotting missions and attack inshore targets, including gun emplacements and railway facilities, with impunity. Over the following week USS Tulagi’s aircraft flew a total of 68 missions with 276 sorties, inflicting considerable damage on the enemy. One squadron from the Tulagi alone reported a record of 487 motor vehicles ranging from staff cars to panzers destroyed and another 114 damaged. In the first week of Dragoon Blaskowitz lost 1,500 vehicles destroyed, mainly to air attack, as well as 200 vehicles captured and 1,500 horses killed. Losses in men comprised around 1,000 dead and 3,000 captured. During the fighting in the period 15–18 August the remnants of the 242nd Infantry withdrew into Toulon.
Brigadier-General Saville was full of praise for the air support effort from the carriers and wrote to Vice Admiral Hewitt to express his gratitude:
I would like to express my appreciation for the outstanding work they have done and for their perfect cooperation. I consider the relationship and cooperation of this force to be a model of perfection and a severe standard for future operations. Today, I personally counted 202 destroyed enemy vehicles from 4 miles west of St-Maxime to 2 miles east of LeDuc. Well done and thanks.
Phases III and IV of Operation Dragoon’s air war commenced on the 16th. The USAAF’s 17th Bomb Group was called on to destroy the heavy guns at Toulon. Understandably the crews were sceptical of their ability to score direct hits on such small targets in the face of concentrated anti-aircraft fire. Pilots recalled it as one of the toughest targets of the war. The group was also tasked to destroy a number of bridges over the Rhône and Durance rivers. It was to lose five aircraft shot down and numerous others damaged during this phase of the air campaign.
The 37th Bomb Squadron, commanded by Captain Rodney S. Wright, from Washington state and a former RAF pilot, was the lead formation attacking the flak guns and emplacements around Toulon. Wright’s number two on his right wing was Maurice Walton, piloting ‘Red 34’, a B-26 Marauder. The squadron was making its final approach when suddenly aluminium chaff (designed to distract enemy radar) began to flutter through the formation. This simply helped to highlight the exposed bombers as they made their run-in to the already fierce flak.
Red 34 had just released its bombs when the right engine was hit and caught fire. Luckily the co-pilot Don Hoover was able to feather it and this action, combined with a fire extinguisher, did the trick. Unfortunately tail-gunner Sergeant Jesse A. Ward was hit in the right arm. When he did not respond to the crew check, Staff Sergeant Brown, the waist gunner, went to assess Ward’s condition and found him bleeding profusely. Bombardier Tom Richardson then crawled back and gave him an injection of morphine. Staff Sergeant Chuck Zahn, top turret gunner, helped move Ward to the radio compartment where Richardson administered first aid. The stricken bomber was forced to fly for two hours on one engine and in a desperate effort to lighten the load Sergeants Brown and Zahn threw out guns, flak vests, ammunition and anything else that was excess weight. All the while Don Hoover held the aircraft on course at about 170mph over the Mediterranean. Red 34 had suffered so much damage that it had to belly-land upon its return to base, and luckily it did not nose over as sometimes happened. Tail-gunner Sergeant Ward, who survived his injuries and the war, gained the Purple Heart and a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Sergeant Delbert F. Kretschmar, flying with the 95th Bomber Squadron, 17th Bomb Group reported things rather differently on 16 August: ‘Mission was guns at south of Toulon. France. Mission was ok. Little flak and was inaccurate.’ However, on 18 August another B-26 went down and two days later the 37th, 95th and 432nd Squadrons each lost an aircraft. During these missions the 17th Bomb Group encountered the heaviest, most accurate flak it had ever seen. Of the twenty-eight raids that the 42nd Wing conducted against this complex, just five succeeded in making a dent in the batteries. The so-called ‘Battle of Toulon Harbor’ cost the 42nd eight B-26s lost and resulted in damage to 125 others.
Fighting withdrawal
It was not long before the US 7th Army and French forces were pushing up the Rhône valley towards Avignon, Montélimar and ultimately Lyons. Blaskowitz had to time his withdrawal carefully so that units did not get ahead of themselves or fall too far behind, while drawing in his right flank (the 716th, 198th and 186th Infantry Divisions respectively west of Montpellier) and fending off the Americans and French on his left (the 148th and 242nd Infantry Divisions east of Toulon).
Overseeing the retreat up the west bank of the Rhône was General Petersen’s IV Luftwaffe Field Corps, while Kniess’s LXXXV Corps was managing things on the east bank. The plan was to coordinate their march on Lyons with the LXIV Corps heading from the Atlantic Coast via central France with the remains of two infantry divisions. This combined force would then move north towards Dijon and make contact with the retreating Army Group B. Blaskowitz must have looked at his situation maps with an air of exasperation, as all this had to be achieved with Patton’s US 3rd Army on the verge of seizing Lyons or Dijon and the US 7th Army pushing up behind from the Riviera.
Both IV Luftwaffe Field Corps and LXXXV Corps had to protect vulnerable retreating headquarters staff, logistics and communications staff, field police units, Luftwaffe ground personnel and hospital staff. They numbered about 100,000, including 2,000 women, all of whom had little or no combat value. These forces had little more than rifles with which to protect themselves and were at risk from the vengeful Maquis. Indeed, the presence of the French Resistance ensured they could not flee north-east via the Massif Central, but had to detour via Poitiers and Bourges to Dijon. Giving the withdrawal order to the 19th Army was easy as it shared Blaskowitz’s Avignon headquarters, but LXIV Corps could not be raised on the radio. A liaison officer, General Edgar Theisen, was sent by car to Toulouse, from where radio and courier messages could be sent out. Just to be on the safe side a plane was also dispatched to Bordeaux. Despite all this, none of the messages from Blaskowitz got through, although by good fortune the naval station at Bordeaux received the order via Berlin.
Before its departure LXIV Corps was obliged to leave behind the better elements of the 16th Infantry Division and the 159th Reserve Division to hold the fortresses of Bordeaux-Gironde and La Rochelle. The 159th formed the vanguard and the southern flank of this retreating corps, while the 16th acted as rearguard and screened the northern flank. Once en route Generalmajor Erich Elster, commanding the LXIV Corps rearguard, found that his wireless van could reach no one.
By 22 August the Luftwaffe’s ability to influence the fighting in southern France was almost at an end. The evacuation of the airfields at Avignon and Lyons was ordered and Allied reconnaissance pilots reported that by the 23rd only 15 fighters and 10 tactical reconnaissance aircraft were occasionally observed north of Lyons. In places it became a ‘turkey shoot’ for the Allied fighter pilots.
The liberation of Toulon naval base
General de Lattre’s original plan had been for his 3rd Algerian Infantry Division to conduct the main attack on Toulon from the north on 24 August, followed up by the 9th Colonial Division. Their flank was to be screened by the 1st Combat Command Sudre from the 1st Armoured Division and the 3rd Algerian Light Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment. The Germans’ strong eastern defences were to be distracted by the 1st Free French Division. Once on the ground, though, accelerated landing schedules meant he needed to quickly rethink his timetable. Because the German coastal resistance was not as tough as expected, de Lattre had to decide whether to wait for his command to become fully assembled or risk a quick dash for Toulon. In light of the dogged German resistance in the Breton ports, de Lattre opted not to wait. National pride was also at stake, as if the Fren
ch forces could secure Toulon and Marseilles swiftly they would be able to keep up with the Americans as they pushed northwards.
On the evening of the 18th, two days ahead of schedule, the 9th Colonial Division began to arrive. The initial units were sent to attack down the Solliés-Pont-La Valette axis almost immediately. The 9th Division was instructed to open the French attack, supported by the African commando battalion (Groupe de Commandos d’Afrique) tasked with seizing the Coudon forts and silencing the artillery. In addition, shock commandos of the Bataillon de Choc were to take the defences on Faron.
General de Monsabert was ordered to traverse the inland heights and encircle Toulon, while General Brosset’s men tackled the heavily fortified coastal approaches. The unexpected early arrival of General de Vernejoul’s division meant that this was able to push along the San Raphael–Toulon road. On the afternoon of the following day de Monsabert launched his Algerians into the attack. The assault on the Redon was also opened and the next day French forces crossed the Gapeau river and captured it. The defences at Solliés-Ville and Solliés-Pont were likewise taken.
The German defenders were not given a minute’s peace by the Allied warships or air forces. On the night of 19/20 August A-20s attacked lights and motor transport from the battle line north-west to the Rhône river; B-26s, joined by fighter-bombers and fighters, also hit the coastal defences in the Toulon area, while B-25s bombed the Rhône valley bridges and airfields, achieving especially good results at the airfield near Valence.
On the 20th the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division reached Mont Faron on the outskirts of Toulon, where General de Lattre ordered de Monsabert’s forces to Ange Pass in preparation for an assault on Marseilles to the west. By the 21st Toulon was completely surrounded by de Monsabert’s men. In the evening elements of the 3rd Algerian Light Infantry Regiment moved from the suburbs into Toulon itself and street fighting broke out. Meanwhile, de Lattre instructed the 1st Combat Command to deploy just east of Marseilles at Aubagne. He knew he must not become bogged down while the battle for Toulon was at its height: the Americans needed help in the Aix area and the French 1st Armoured Division was needed for the push up the Rhône.
Operation Dragoon Page 15