Shooting Arrows at Ghosts

After consolidating the landing areas around Frejus and St Raphael, the 141st regiment sped northwest in the wake of Task Force Butler . Their goal was to cut off the Nineteenth Army, who were retreating up the Rhone Valley. The …

1944-08-26

E7

After consolidating the landing areas around Frejus and St Raphael, the 141st regiment sped northwest in the wake of Task Force Butler . Their goal was to cut off the Nineteenth Army, who were retreating up the Rhone Valley. The race was won, and American artillery positioned itself on high ground east of the Valley and raked the retreating convoys. While the 142nd and 143rd rushed over to form a defensive line in front of the hills, Task Force Butler and the mist tried to block Route N7 on the east bank of the Rhone. On the 25th August the first battalion of the mist succeeded in cutting the road at La Coucorde, but they were thrown out by a German counterattack that night. Next day Task Force Butler and the third battalion of the 141 st emerged from the Condillac Pass to attack La Coucorde again. After initial success they butted into the 11th Panzer Division’s Kampfgruppe Wilde, which was moving up from the south. Following several more days of see-saw battle around Montelimar, thousands of German prisoners were pocketed at La Coucourde and Livron.

Condillac, France

Operation Dragoon was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence on 15 August 1944. The operation was initially planned to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, the Allied landing in Normandy, but the lack of available resources led to a cancellation of the second landing. By July 1944 the landing was reconsidered, as the clogged-up ports in Normandy did not have the capacity to adequately supply the Allied forces. Concurrently, the French High Command pushed for a revival of the operation that would include large numbers of French troops. As a result, the operation was finally approved in July to be executed in August.

Wikipedia: Operation Dragoon

German

American