Rodney Cress, Vietnam Veteran
♦ There shall never be and hopefully, will never be, another WWII that put the world as we know it nearly to a stop. In all 104 countries were affected by the war. The axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan battled against the allied powers of the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet while Switzerland, Turkey, Portugal, Sweden and Spain remained as neutral countries.
Sixteen million Americans served in WWII which affected every state and their families. Seventy two million civilians world wide were killed. With numbers like these, many focuses were placed only on the big battles of the war but there were so many other battles where American soldiers died that got little recognition. Operation Dragoon was just one of those battles but will be remembered as the Allied invasion of southern France on August 15, 1944 and as one of the largest amphibious assaults of the entire war. It began with a parachute drop by the 1st Airborne Task Force and followed by the Seventh Army amphibious force. This massive attack forced the German army to leave southern France which crippled Hitler’s plans to use France as a staging area. Churchill was opposed to the plan and had remarked he was “dragooned” or forced into accepting it, hence the name Operation Dragoon. General Eisenhower saw an increasing need to use France for his supplying troops via the ports along the coastline. American commanders included Vice Admiral Henry Hewitt, Lt. General Jacob Devers of the 6th Army, General Alexander Patch of the Seventh Army, Lt. General Lucian Truscott commanded the 3rd Infantry, the 45th Infantry and the 36th Infantry.
The first of 1300 Allied bombers began the bombardment along with naval precision attacks which led the way for the assault troops of the three infantry divisions. German resistance ended quickly except for Carmel Beach where the Germans held their ground until 90 Allied B-24 bombers weakened their threat. French commandoes destroyed German artillery and provided coverage on both flanks but during the battle, 67 French commandoes were taken prisoners after stumbling into a minefield surrounded by Germans. American command had once again brilliantly covered all aspects of German opposition and forced the enemy to sway from Hitler’s “no step backwards” command. As the Germans started to withdraw toward the Alps, Allied forced led by the 45th and 3rd Division continued with a rapid movement and wiped out the German eastern flank. After the Germans retreated toward the Vosges Mountains, American command halted the pursuit, having liberated 3 valuable port cities vital for use to supply the US troops.
Although Operation Dragoon only lasted 4 weeks, 2.050 Americans were killed or captured along with 7,750 other casualties, while the French had 10,000 casualties and the Germans had 7,000 killed and 130,000 captured.
Each American soldier killed is a tragic loss and while the bigger battles will always overshadow the smaller ones, we must never forget all the brave soldiers who fought and died for freedom. This battle is just one of many that will never get much attention but had critical importance to the overall and final superiority of the American soldier over our enemy. We must always remember them and we must always keep the most powerful military force on earth to oppose our enemies from joining forces together to keep another world war from happening.
