Hal Jespersen's Operation Dragoon Tour, August 2024

This is my (Hal’s) report on my trip to France for a tour from Marseille to Strasbourg in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France in August–September 1944. The tour was arranged by Valor Tours, a military history travel company based in Sausalito, California. This was preceded by four days in Burgundy for a walking tour of vineyards and tastings, which I arranged with a UK company called Grape Escapes. That separate report is here.

After I booked the Valor tour, the first time I have used this company, Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours announced their Riviera to the Rhine tour, covering essentially the same ground, hosted by one of my favorite historians, Chris Anderson, and with a slightly longer schedule and more luxe logistics. However, their completion date interfered with a trip I had planned in the US with my wife, so I did not consider changing plans (and I ended up very pleased with my choice).

Tuesday, August 13 — Marseille

I left my wine tour in Beaune on a regional train to Lyon and transferred to a TGV to Marseille, each leg taking about an hour and forty-five minutes. Our first hotel is an Ibis Style a block from the train station, where I met our leader, Frank de Planta, a British historian and retired army officer. We met at a brasserie across the street for dinner with the other two Americans participants and a Brummie (the slang name for someone from Birmingham, another historian who is prepping to take over this tour in future years). Over hamburgers we introduced ourselves and discussed the background to the campaigns in the Mediterranean. I have included two maps that I created for my study during the trip.

Wednesday, August 14 — Toulon and Saint Rafaël

Frank picked us up in a nine-passenger Renault van and we drove across Marseille to the area called Mazargues, where there is a commonwealth cemetery. Frank told us the history of the graves registration and commemorative cemetery movement in the UK, driven by a man named Fabian Ware, who started as an ambulance driver in World War I and rose to major general, founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission. We discussed the preparation for the invasion, a frantic process that only had about six weeks to complete, and its serious effect on the Italian campaign. (Frank normally does Italian campaign tours for Valor, but he is filling in for the man who usually does this one because of illness.)

We drove east and up a windy switchback road to the top of Mont Faron, where we had a stupendous panoramic view of the port and naval base of Toulon. It was interesting to see France’s only nuclear aircraft carrier, the Charles DeGaulle, docked there. We discussed the German dispositions on shore and the US landing plans. Also on the mountain was the Mémorial du Débarquement et de la Libération en Provence, but we did not stop to visit it.

On our way to the town of Cogolin, we stopped at a small food truck with outdoor tables and had some moderately good pizzas. In Cogolin we visited a monument that commemorated the 3rd Infantry Division, the French resistance, and French general Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. The latter was depicted as part of a heroic bas-relief that implied that the French troops stormed the beaches, which is not the case; they came in the second wave after the Americans had secured the beaches.

We passed through the town of Sainte Maxime and saw the Alpha beaches where the 3rd Infantry Division landed against little resistance. Then up the coast we visited the Plage La Nartelle, part of the Delta Red and Green beaches, where the 157th Infantry of the 45th Infantry Division landed, also with little resistance.

As we drove between the cities of Fréjus and San Rafaël, we talked about the Camel beaches designated for the 36th Infantry Division. Red Beach was supposed to be where the Argens River met the sea, but it was littered with thousands of mines, so the commander of the 141st Infantry demurred and fell in behind the regiments storming the Green Beach (much to the disgust of Gen. Truscott, the commander of the US VI Corps). This decision, although controversial, ended up saving a lot of lives.

Our final stop was at Antheor Cove, which was the Camel Blue Beach, where the 1st battalion, 141st Infantry landed. It really was quite tiny and packed with beach vacationers. The beach road was decked out in French and US flags. I had hoped to stop at Plage du Débarquement (Green Beach), where the remainder of the 141st and all of the 142nd and 143rd Infantry regiments landed, but they were setting up a large celebration stage infrastructure for the 80th anniversary tomorrow, so we simply drove by. I was told later that President Macron was expected to speak tomorrow. We drove to Fréjus and another Ibis Style hotel. Dinner at the hotel restaurant was modest but decent. I went to bed with the sound of what I thought were fireworks in the distance, but it turned out to be an enormous thunderstorm with thunder claps multiple times per second. I don’t think I have ever heard anything like it.

Thursday, August 15 — Montélimar

The thunderstorm continued this morning, although no actual rain marred our travels. But today is the 80th anniversary of the landings! It’s a good thing we are heading inland away from the circuses that will dominate the beaches. We drove up through the Argens Gap toward the airborne landing zones, passing through Le Muy and stopping at a monument in the middle of a traffic circle at La Maurette, on the Plane de la Motte. This was landing zone O, where Gen. Frederick’s HQ set up shop. He really did an outstanding job setting up this operation, receiving a new staff and many untrained troops coordinating everything within six weeks. The 9732 troops that dropped with him came in five phases or named operations, two airborne, three glider. Their mission was to seize and dominate the heights that led to the Argens Gap, protecting the landing beaches from German counterattack. Those heights were quite away in the distance from our vantage point and they looked quite impressively tall. Many of the men missed their drop zones by as many as dozens of miles, but overall the operation was a success. The German reaction was one of confusion.

In La Motte, we visited Esplanade Col. Buffy, a series of monuments commemorating the first village liberated in Provence, and dedicated to the French liaison officer to Gen. Frederick’s HQ. The modest plaque for the various airborne units had a whole host of fresh flower wreaths placed before them, one of which was from the United States ambassador. There was also an excellent statue of Gen. Frederick, a tough-looking dude.

We drove to the city of Draguignan, home to the French artillery school, and downtown, recent host to the infantry school as well. Our destination was the Rhône American Cemetery, where everything was being spruced up and set up for a big ceremony this evening, which we understand President Macron will attend. All 50 US state flags were being displayed. Something I found unusual, but very nice, was that some of the graves had photographs of the fallen soldiers. There are 863 graves (including quite a number of naval and aviation casualties) and 293 names listed as missing in action. One thing I was disappointed by is that they did not have one of the giant mural campaign maps that some other American cemeteries feature. There were three very small maps showing the entire war in Europe, rather poorly done in my opinion. Frank took this opportunity to tell us about the French advance west from the invasion beaches to seize Toulon and Marseille. There was also a lot of tension with the Free French forces, who were resented because they cooperated with the Vichy regime.

We drove due west to the town of Varages, starting to experience the windy roads that populate these foothills, and which restricted the movements and fuel consumption of the 45th Infantry Division. First we had lunch at a nice little typical French restaurant called Le Provence. I had a very interesting molten Camembert cheese that had chorizo sausage crumbled into it. We stopped at a monument to the 45th Infantry Division, in particular to two Americans who were killed during liberation of Varages. We had a discussion of Gen. Truscott’s decision (influenced by his reaction to the Anzio landings in which he participated under Gen. Lucas) to frontload ammunition and guns in the early landing vehicles, to the detriment of fuel supplies. He apparently had no idea how easy the landings would be and how quickly he would be called upon to start pursuing the Germans, so fuel was a big problem for the initial weeks of the campaign.

Frank discussed the composition of Task Force Butler and how it moved out in the direction of Sisteron and Grenoble ahead of the 36th Infantry Division. Truscott began to realize that the German coastal units were being withdrawn and were beginning to flee north up the Rhône Valley. What would be the best way to pursue and intercept them? We continue this discussion when we drove to the town of Bollène and visited the 3rd Infantry Division monument, in honor of them liberating the town on August 26. On August 20 there was a full day of confusion between the various levels of command. Butler was directed to "determine the practicability of defending the high ground north of Montélimar" and he did not know how to reconcile that with previous orders sending him to Grenoble. All of the back-and-forth was a relatively long discussion, but the VI Corps eventually sent him to Montélimar in force, which we will examine in detail tomorrow.

We checked into a “Logis” hotel in south Montélimar, which is like a 1950s California motel. A bit shabby, but comfortable, and we had an excellent dinner on the patio with a buffet for entrées and dessert. (Note in the photo that I'm the only one holding his wine glass stem.)

Friday, August 16 — Montélimar

We spent the day on the little remembered but critical battle of Montélimar. Just north of town is a steep ridge above the village of Savasse and we hoped to get up to the top where there are microwave relay towers, but the road was closed because of fire danger. So we got about a quarter of the way up and still had a good view of the Rhône and how tight a bottleneck the N7 road was subjected to. Butler needed to occupy it and the flat Roubion Valley below, but he had insufficient strength on August 21—the 141st of the 36th Infantry Division on this route Roubion valley—to do both. Truscott may have been reluctant to rush in additional troops because Ultra intercepts revealed that the 11th Panzer Division was crossing the Rhône and it was unclear whether they intended to attack the French troops approaching Marseille and Toulon or head north along the Rhône.

We drove southeast a short way through the Condillac Pass, through Marsanne, enjoying a dramatic view of the Alps in the distance. By August 22, the Germans were planning to bypass the Montélimar bottleneck by heading on this route through the Roubion Valley and then north to Crest. Concerned about slow progress by the 36th Infantry Division, Truscott flew to the 141st CP and then the 36th, where he jacked up the commander, Gen. Dahlquist.

Driving back thru the Condillac pass, Frank pointed out the first German attack of August 22 at the village of Sauzet. They had intercepted a copy of Dahlquist’s defensive plan and were preparing for a breakthrough. We reached the town hall of La Concourde on the N7, where we were disappointed to find no monument to the battle there, but one battalion was attempting to close the escape route. The Germans continued passing through by blasting the road ahead with artillery. Butler should have put all four of his available battalions here, but they were spread out.

Back again through Condillac pass, we reached Bonlieu-sur-Roubion, where on August 25, the 11th Panzer Division attacked the defensive line at its weakest point, Co. A of the 111th Engineers. Their breakthrough was short-lived as they ran into a battalion of the 143rd and massed fire from three Corps Artillery battalions.

Back on the N7, at Saulce-sur-Rhône we talked about a series of US attacks with artillery from the east side of N7 that harassed the Germans on August 25. Then it was lunchtime and we found an interesting modern restaurant called Aix&Terra that offered tasty ravioli (mine served with tapenade). Then we drove e north and east through the Drôme valley to the town of Crest. We stopped at the bridge over the Drôme with view of the Tour de Crest, originally a fortress build 900 years ago atop a steep hill overlooking the town; the current structure was a prison/dungeon in the middle ages. Here we discussed the situation of August 28: the gap north of Montélimar is still open, so by then the 142nd Infantry had arrived and was to drive west on the north side of the river and close off access to the bridge and any fording sites. In addition, the 45th Infantry Division was tasked to assign its 157th Infantry to follow. We drove back west to Livron-sur-Drôme, almost to the N7, and hiked up a long hill to stop at a crumbling stone structure called the Devil’s Tower. Here we had a panoramic view of the action area of August 27 and could see how observation posts could call in devastating artillery on the N7 bridge over the Drôme and all of the fords.

So Truscott had finally gotten all of the appropriate forces in place, but the multiple days of delay, fuel shortages, and indecision allowed a number of the German 19th Army units to slip past and head further north. Frank opined that this was not one of Truscott’s finest moments in command. He assigned the 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron from Butler’s task force to keep in contact with the retreating Germans and find a way to break through their defensive line. We had a drive north of about two hours to get to the vicinity of Lyon. Our hotel is the NH Lyon Airport, which is very comfortable and modern, quite a step up from the previous three hotels/motels. Decent buffet dinner.

Saturday, August 17 — Épinal

After a bountiful buffet breakfast (the largest I have seen outside of a Las Vegas casino) we hit the road heading north in pursuit of the 19th Army. Today will be our longest of driving. Along the way, we passed Meximieux where the 45th Division’s 179th and 157th Infantry Regiments stopped and held elements of the 11th Panzer Division.

In 90 minutes we reached Montrevel-en-Bresse near Malafretaz and the memorial to the 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. The Germans were in the process of settling up defensive lines along the Doubs River north of here as 11th Panzer covered their front. The small monument, all in French, memorializes the four soldiers killed in action against an accidental encounter with the 11th Panzer on September 3. Two troops of the 117th were engaged here, entirely outmanned and outgunned by the 11th. Troop A suffered 12 casualties, but Troop B lost all but 8 men.

We headed north toward Belfort and its famous gap, taking about three hours to reach Vesoul. There is a beautiful English garden in which a small monument to the 36th Infantry Division stands, remembering the fighting and liberation of September 12. Frank briefed us on how Patch’s Seventh Army started to rotate to the east to begin lining up with the right flank of Patton’s Third Army. On September 11 the armies met; it was actually two French divisions that were on the two flanks. Gen. Jacob Dever’s Sixth Army Group was activated and came under Eisenhower’s SHAEF command. There was also an impressive World War I monument remembering Vesoul losses.

Frank took us to the local McDonald’s for lunch as sort of a joke on us Americans. I thought it was OK and pretty comparable to the US version, but others didn’t appreciate the joke. It seems that most French McDonald’s have converted to automated kiosk ordering, which eliminates any language barrier. There was nothing Frenchified (McEscargots?) on the menu.

Then another 90 minute drive to the Épinal American Cemetery. The large gate building in front is decorated with two magnificent bas-reliefs, which I found quite striking. Inside is one of the large campaign maps that are common in these cemeteries and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of this one, which was all done in mosaics. Plus it was decorated with large mosaics of the Columbia lady and an angel. Very impressive work. We roamed among the graves for a while, where 5252 men are buried and 424 missing are acknowledged. Then we got together and discussed the change of command for Seventh Army on September 15 and how the divisions were moved around for the upcoming offensive, the French to the right in front of the Belfort Gap and the Americans to the left in front of the Vosges mountains. Both Truscott and Patch objected to wasting their exhausted men on the dense mountain forests, but to no avail. The attack on the Vosges began on September 20 with the 45th and 36th divisions attacking abreast and the 3rd coming up from behind and on the right flank. We will discuss the actions of this starting tomorrow.

Our hotel is nearby, a Best Western, and after quite a lot of driving today it seems pretty comfortable. Dinner in the hotel restaurant was excellent.

Sunday, August 18 — Vosges Mountains

While the weather throughout the trip had been sunny and hot, today we started with overcast and drizzle, turning eventually to intermittent rain. This was a good reminder to us of the miserable conditions in the Vosges that September–November. The forest is dense second-generation and the terrain is very hilly. (And we actually never went into the really mountainous areas of the Vosges.)

We stopped briefly in Gugnécourt to see a small monument to the 180th Infantry, 45th Infantry Division, which liberated the town on September 27–28. Then toward Bruyères, taking a rough dirt logging road to the high ground above town. Here is a woodsy small park with a few monuments to the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry of the 45th Infantry Division. This was the famous regiment manned by second generation Japanese Americans that we’ll hear more about at the next stop. We discussed the background of the 36th Infantry Division’s attack on Bruyères October 15–18.

We crossed along the high ground above Biffontaine toward La Houssiere, the Col des Huttes, to the Lost Battalion Memorial, atop a woody narrow ridge. The 1/141st of the 36th Infantry Division was advancing when they were cut off and surrounded by a German attack from La Houssiere and the north. A few attempts were made to rescue the “Lost Battalion”, but finally the 100/442nd broke through with an attack October 25–30, rescuing 211 men (out of 275), but at a cost of 800 casualties. Frank had little good to say about Gen. Dahlquist’s conduct of this operation.

In Saint Dié des Vosges on the River Meurthe we visited the 103rd Infantry Division memorial and discussed the 6th Army Group plan to break into the Alsace Plain in November and the progress of VI Corps in that plan.

We drove around the northern end of the Vosges, through the Savernes Gap, and visited the site of the Hochfelden US Military Cemetery, which was in use from December 4, 1944 through 1948. Established by the Seventh Army, the temporary cemetery contained 1,093 American dead, most of which were later moved to the Lorraine American cemetery in St. Avold, the largest in Europe (10,481 burials). One US burial remains in Hochfelden today, underneath the single memorial marker for the whole cemetery: John Rahill, commander of B/179th Infantry, whose family insisted that he remain interred there to satisfy his wishes. We discussed the XV Corps advance into the Alsace Plain November 15-23. XV Corps had been transferred from the Third Army to give Devers more troops.

An hour back up into the mountains, we visited Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp, a work camp where from May 1941 to March 1945, 22,000 of 52,000 prisoners died. This seemed a bit off topic, but I guess the visit was warranted. It is unusual to see a concentration camp in France, but this area was actually an annexed part of Germany during the war. It’s a rather dismal place, as you’d expect, yet there were scores of visitors. It was a Konzentration-Lager (work camp) that had sub-camps all around the Rhine. Unfortunately, almost all the exhibits are in French, so it was difficult to get a handle on things.

Our final stop was supposed to be the Germany Military Cemetery in Bergheim, but we were running behind schedule, so postponed it until tomorrow. Our hotel in Colmar, the Bristol, is next to the train station. It is a bit dated, but quite comfortable. Since we are in Alsace, I had choucroute for dinner with Gewürztraminer!

Monday, August 19 — Strasbourg

Nice weather has returned for our final day. Although I lived in Germany just an hour north of here, and visited Strasbourg once, we never ventured south into Alsace, as we’re doing today. Big mistake—the Alsace plain is spectacularly beautiful. The Vosges mountains are dramatically high and immaculate vineyards cover the lower slopes.

Our first stop was Sigolsheim National Cemetery and Hill 351 in Kaysersberg-Vignoble. Overlooking the plain is the Battle of Alsace memorial, which in itself isn’t too impressive, except for the wonderful view. In addition to division patch signs, there are some awards mentioned and our attention was drawn to LTC Keith Lincoln Ware, commanding 1/15th Infantry, who received the Medal of Honor for some unbelievable GI Joe actions; check his citation. (He later was killed in Vietnam commanding the 1st Infantry Division.)

We discussed the First French Army advance through the Belfort Gap on November 14-25 and the command controversies about what 6th Army Group should be doing. Devers wanted to clean up the Colmar Pocket and punch through the Rhine, but Eisenhower was more interested in Germany’s industrial north. Across the Rhine was the Black Forest, which would be just as problematic as the Vosges. Maj. Gen. Edward H. Brooks took command of VI Corps on October 25; Truscott was promoted to command Fifth Army back in Italy. The French were stalled at Belfort and Mulhouse at the end of November. Up the hill (351) is the French cemetery, the Nécropole Nationale, not maintained to US or UK standards, but with a killer view. The Christian and Jewish graves are in separate sections from the many Muslims.

Up a long hill to the Notre Dame du Schauenberg in Pfaffenheim, which was a station for pilgrims. Excellent views here as well. We discussed Germany’s Operation NORDWIND at the tail end of the Battle of the Bulge and the Seventh Army response, December 31-January 25. We also covered the First French Army attack on the Colmar Pocket January 20-February 5.

We drove to Riedwihr to see the Audie Murphy Battle Site, the spot where 2LT Audie Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic action on January 26 in the Bois de Riedwihr. The terrain from 1945 does not seem to have changed, a long narrow field in front of a dense wood (the Bois). Murphy’s monument depicts him in metal silhouette on top of the burning M10 tank destroyer he fired from for almost an hour. He held off 250 Germans and 6 tanks and even called in artillery on his position. It’s interesting to note that he was in the same battalion as the heroic LTC Ware.

Next was the Memorial La Croix du Moulin near Jebsheim, which is a modest, lightly maintained peace garden at the site of a windmill destroyed in the battle, January 24–February 2. There is a large monument in the form of a three-sided cross, dedicated to the US, France, and Germany.

Up another mountainside to the Germany Military Cemetery in Bergheim. Access is up a steep switchback walking path. It’s one of the prettiest German war cemeteries I’ve seen, nicely maintained with all new headstones, usually two or three bodies per grave, for a total of 5300. Yet another beautiful view. We had lunch in the town of Bergheim, which has signs that it has been designated one of the prettiest towns in France (and it is, with a decidedly German Middle Ages vibe).

Our final stop was the Military Museum (MM) Park in La Wantzenau, north of Strasbourg. They have a large collection of weapons and vehicles, although very few were unique as museums of this type go. As I usually do, I have included a number of armored fighting vehicles in my photos below, mostly tanks, but only ones that I found to be unusual or new to me. I got to see the only Sherman tank in two weeks in France, an M4A2, an unusual model because they were mostly shipped to the Soviet Union. They have the largest collection of uniforms on mannequins I have ever seen in one place, room after room. There is a large exhibit about Plan Sussex, which was a series of airdropped insertions of covert operators into France in 1944, but like most of the museum, virtually all of the text commentary was only in French.

Our last hotel is the Holiday Inn in North Strasbourg, which is very nice and modern and comfortable. Our farewell dinner was in the hotel restaurant. I have thoroughly enjoyed this excursion with Valor Tours and will be doing another one (to Germany) in October. Frank did an outstanding job of taking us through both the strategy and tactics of the campaign, making particularly good use of maps to explain details, something that is relatively rare in other tours of this type. There was certainly a lot of driving involved, but it was a campaign that covered the length of the country, so that’s the cost of admission.

Tuesday, August 20 — Flying home

I got up really early for a car service (Welcome Pickups, recommended) to the Strasbourg bus station, an outdoor area in a big park. I reserved with Flixbus and was pretty happy with their service. The company website and app were quite good and had realtime status. For a small extra fee I booked the seat next to me so I was able to stretch out a bit. We stopped in Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Mannheim, and ended after 3.5 hours at terminal 1, Frankfurt airport. (I would normally take a train for such a journey, but there was no early morning service.)

My arrivals at FRA was interesting. I was apparently too tall for their scanning machine, so I got the most thorough body search I have ever encountered, about two minutes, including open my belt and hand down the pants and then carefully feeling every inch of the belt. They even scolded me for having a handkerchief in my pocket and ran it through the luggage scanner. My iPad had an extra explosives chemical test. Whew! Maybe there’s a heightened terror watch for elderly white men. Well, eventually I got to the Lufthansa lounge for my flight.

The flight on Condor Airlines (a Lufthansa subsidiary) was decent, a little tight for my tall frame. They offered two prime seats in the front row with a little more lie-flat room, but I didn’t spring for the extra $240, nor did anyone else. I got some very nice photos of the Bay Area through the window. Reaching SFO, the immigration lines were WAY longer than normal, like a top attraction at Disneyland. The non-US-citizen line was about 200 meters backed up before the actual line-up room.