August 15, 1944
The " forgotten " unloading of Provence

navettes de débarquement
Shuttle of boats towards a range of Provence

The Allies launch the Dragon operation, the unloading to Provence of 500.000 men in order to release the South of France and to make the junction with the troops unloaded in Normandy. In the night from the 14 to August 15, parachutists are released in the sector of Muy, in the solid mass of Maures. Then the Patch General unloads his troops in five points, Cavalaire, Pampelone, Sainte-Maxime, Fréjus and Drammont. The French troops follow in the second vagueness.
2 200 ships and barges 1 261 ships (1 850 000 T) including 6 % French: 500 warships including 34 French, the battleship Lorraine and 8 cruisers (Georges-Leygues, Émile-Bertin, Gloire, Jeanne-d'Arc, Malin, Fantasque and Terrible, 3 transformed destroyers, in 1943 in the USA, the light cruisers) which ensure between 16 and 25 % of the support fire; on the sky, 2 000 aircraft approximately (against 230 German); VIIe armed (Gal Alexander Patch, 23-11-1889/21-11-1945) includes/understands 3 American divisions, 1 div. airborne Anglo-American, 7 div. Frenchwomen under the commands De Lattre de Tassigny.

Le Georges-Leygues (to increase)

There Jeanne d'Arc
Vessel-school of the Naval college of 1930 to 1964

The Terrible


It is held under conditions much less difficult than the "operation Overlord" of June 6, 1944 in Normandy: the Germans have, in fact, moved many troops towards north to go to reinforce their army, among which division SS " Das Reich ". Dice on August 19 the German troops of the South start their fold, Toulon fall on August 27 to the hands from the troops from the General De Lattre de Tassigny. Marseilles falls the following day. Then, the army of unloading goes up the valley of the Rhone and, September 12, the Generals of Lattre de Tassigny and Leclerc, operate their junction with Nod, close to Dijon. The relative facility with which the 325 000 men composing the Franco-American troop unload and progress in August 1944 marks, on behalf of the German command, the final renouncement of the defense of the south of Europe: its army driven out of most of Italy, of Yugoslavia after having been it of North Africa, *IIIème *Reich cannot any more but be folded up on the German borders of 1940, than it defends with a eagerness despaired until May 1945.

To know some more about this unloading.