Dr. Cameron Zinsou: “Operation Dragoon: The Allied Invasion of Southern France in World War II”

foreign [Music] Davis and I am a member of this Dole Institute student Advisory Board the official student group of The Institute the student Advisory Board is a bipartisan group whose members have access to exciting opportunities through their involvement with the Institute this includes volunteering for evening programs and networking with our special guests if you are a student and would like to join please contact us by emailing Dole Sab ku.edu welcome to the Dole Institute of politics and thank you for attending today's program presented by the department of military history at the command and general staff college at Fort Leavenworth after the program we will have some time for the audience to ask questions if you have a question please raise your hand and a student worker with a microphone will come to you please stand if you are able and ask just one brief question the Dole institute's mission is to Foster civil and respectful discussion around important and often difficult topics please phrase your questions with this in mind before we begin I'd like to remind you to turn off your cell phones and now please join me in welcoming Dr Mark gergis deputy director of dmh all right well I'm very happy to be here my job is to introduce uh Cameron but I am going to take just a few moments to do a little Shameless plugging for the Department of military history um one it's our last day of classes and so all our grades have to be in so Cameron's probably feeling very very good for himself today uh and second the department of military history just joined the 21st century we now have a web page so if you were interested in finding out about our faculty for example um and uh and also our presentation is going to go on uh in the future uh Cameron's one of our newer faculty members joining us uh two years ago now uh he's a historian of the second world war in France uh he received his PhD in history from the Mississippi from Mississippi State University and he studies uh the occupation of France and particularly French daily life occupation requisitions and civil military relations in Vichy France so operation Dragoon is one of his areas of of fashion study he's got a manuscript under contract with the University of Kansas entitled occupied requisitions meeting and citizenship in France during World War II and you may have also seen him he's a frequent podcast he's been on the television show World War II uh battles in color he's also published in New York Times and War on the rocks and many other podcasts so no further Ado Cameron [Applause] uh so good afternoon it's a pleasure to be here I'd like to thank the Dole Institute and and everyone associated with it for giving me the opportunity to speak about a topic that I've been studying for a very long time actually over a decade in some form or fashion and one day I will publish a magnum opus all right this will be my the chief crowning contribution to the historical field through my work but if we take a look here at operation Anvil we'll see that there's an anvil a swastika and a hammer and that Hammer's beating down Mighty heart on that swastika and and this comes from the third infantry division's official uh order and plans for operation anvilder Dragoon which was the Allied invasion of Southern France in August 1944. and I I just love the imagery of this because it really does represent what the operation was supposed to be you're supposed to occur simultaneously with Operation Overlord the Allied invasion through Normandy and if you think about it right this the scale of that original conception a simultaneous amphibious landing on opposite sides of a country really represents a very bold kind of attempt to liberate France from not to Germany and and today I'll be talking about kind of the plans The Invasion and generally the course of the invasion and I'll be happy to answer any questions that anyone has at the end in a six-hour conversation with Dwight Eisenhower at 10 Downing Street on August 9 1944 at the climax of the conversation or debate or conference or however you want to frame it Winston Churchill told Eisenhower that he would be willing to lay down the mantle of my high office and you might think that he was talking about some far-flung political objective or some post-war settlement or about how Bernard Montgomery has once again you know gotten under Eisenhower's skin and Eisenhower's threatened to retaliate in some way after the conversation church or excuse me Eisenhower waited a day and he then wrote back to the Prime Minister saying to say that I was disturbed by our conference does not nearly Express the depth of my distress over your interpretation of recent events in the Mediterranean and this huge conflagration between the two of them was over operation Anvil Dragoon and in many ways the debate over this operation represents the nadir of anglo-american relations in the Second World War so the basics it comprised two Allied armies seventh Army led by General Alexander patch in the first originally called French army B but later the first French army under General Jean de la it occurred on 15 August 1944 and it was as the screen shows designed to help liberate southern France capture the port cities of Marseille in Tulane to provide another Avenue of access by which the Allies could import supplies as some or many of you may know supplies and getting supplies to the front were critical issues that General Eisenhower faced as the others were racing across France throughout 1944. and eventually these two armies would connect with Eisenhower's Advance across northern France and create one continuous line of Allied soldiers that stretch from the North Sea all the way to the franco-swiss Border so how did Anvil come to fruition how did it come to be well initially it was floated as kind of one of many possible ideas and kind of the spring of 1943 at that time the Allies were finishing up their campaign in North Africa and we're looking to the Mediterranean for various other avenues of Advance one could be going to Sicily you could go into the Balkans or the Aegean or you could hit Italy or you could hit Sardinian Corsica or possibly could hit southern France now at the Trident conference where this first came up in May 1943 it didn't an idea of an invasion of Southern France didn't progress Beyond kind of just spitballing throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks in August 1943 or however at the quadrant conference the idea for Anvil as a supplementing Invasion to the Normandy invasion really came to the fore and this is when it was christened Operation anvil in November and December 1943 the Allies met with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin for the first time in Tehran it's crazy right we think of Tehran today right this is an American adversary and yet in 1943 the president of the United States and the prime minister of of Great Britain are flying there to to engage in a conference with Stalin I always think it's really interesting kind of just moment when we contrast 1943 with 2023. at the sexting Eureka conferences Allied planning underwent kind of not a revolution a kind of evolution how were the Allies going to put Nazi Germany under the most pressure possible Stalin was pushing for an Allied invasion of France and the combined Chiefs of Staff the kind of joint planning committee of Great Britain in the United States uh put forward that by May 1 1944 the Allies would land in Northwest France and Stalin and the Soviets would undertake an offensive in on the Eastern Front to augment this and prior to this conference there was some jostling back and forth between the Americans and the British about where should additional forces in the Mediterranean be deployed by this time the Allies were bogged down in Italy undergoing a grinding offensive up the Italian peninsula The Americans chiefly led by President Roosevelt and general Eisenhower advocated for an invasion of Southern France under the code name anvil the British on the other hand who had a substantial amount of combat fighting Power in Italy rejected this idea they wanted to keep their options open they wanted to keep Allied options open maybe right we can land go up the Adriatic and land in the Balkans and help supplement the partisan fight that was underway against Nazi occupation Stalin intervened decisively in favor of The Americans saying that going to the Balkans is a strategic dead end and that to fully use all these forces you have to commit them at the decisive point the decisive point being France and at the conclusion of the conference the combined Chiefs of Staff released this statement and it's this one you see here that Overlord and Anvil Arthur's Supreme operations of 1944. they must be carried out during May 1944. nothing must be undertaken in any other part of the world which hazards the success of these two operations right this is the official Allied planning statement and declaration at the conclusion of this first you know kind of joint conference with Stalin that Stalin explicitly supported and this came to governing Dominic kind of Allied plans and planning for the remainder of 1944. and yet almost as soon as this agreement came problems emerged as I previously mentioned the Allies were kind of stalemated in Italy and they're trying to figure out a way how do we you know break you know this this Wharf position and turn it into a war of movement and the eyes came up with this idea what if we tried an amphibious operation behind German lines and we'll do it with like three weeks planning it'll be fine this comes to be known as operation shingle and it's the Allied Landings at anzio that occur on 22 January 1944. very soon the Allies are bogged down as Germans Rush reinforcements to the beach head and it begins to take up a lot of Allied supplies and a lot of Allied landing craft being that operations Overlord in Anvil were these chief operations and that given that they're going to be very large in nature that means you have to plan ahead you have to set supplies ahead all right you have to create schedules and timetables to release men and materiel where you have to build these things up so that you give your operation the greatest chance of success and amphibious operations being the most complex military operations one can undergo you really got to make sure you've got nail on the head and sorry to get so technical but there are these types of ships called Landing ship tanks and essentially what they allow an army to do is to offload Min material vehicles and tanks directly onto a beachhead directly on the land without needing a port there was a worldwide shortage in 1943 and 1944 and they were temporarily the ones assigned to Anvil were temporarily taken from Anvil to support this invasion in Italy at anzio well given that the beachhead was surrounded and they were cut off from other Allied lines the only way to supply the beachhead was from the sea and over the course of January February March April and into May of 1944 the beachhead was still just that a beachhead that had to be supplied from sea and this severely disrupted Anvil's timetable the British never enthusiastic about the operation were very quick to seize on this and Advocate reasons why Anvil should be canceled completely and entirely and that the resources set aside for Anvil should be devoted to other operations the Americans and Eisenhower specifically very much still wanted this operation he very much saw this as integral to the success of Allied efforts in France however by March late March April in into April 1944 it was clear that due to the landing craft shortage due to the soldiers earmarked for Anvil still fighting in Italy that the operation was getting squeezed Overlord itself required more supplies and more men than originally envisioned and so by the end of March and into April the alleys formally decided to cancel operation anvil and we see kind of a couple quotes here that that kind of really emphasize and highlight the degree of tension and disagreement that occurred among the Allies for instance this count Lord Allenbrook chief of the British Imperial general staff says that the Americans are being damned fools by going forward with Anvil but rather than disrupt the unity of the Allied effort the British will be damned fools along with the Americans and general Eisenhower writing to Chief of Staff General George C Marshall frequently laments the kinds of issues that he's having to Grapple with with regards to Anvil fighting for this operation that now he doesn't believe we'll be going forward by June 1944 some of you may know this date June 6th the Allies land in Normandy and the great liberation of France begins around the same time on June 5th actually the allies managed to capture Rome right the first axis Capital to fall the beachhead due to an offensive that the Allies began in May 1944 breaks German lines and allows the main Allied line to to meet with this beachhead at angio and now those landing craft that had been taken out of circulation to only support the beachhead we're now free and available Allied planners recognize that there's now enough Seaport there are enough ships available to support another amphibious operation somewhere either in the Mediterranean or somewhere in Europe and immediately the Americans say well you know that one operation that we kind of had in the pipeline that we told Stalin we would do that we've been planning for for months operation Anvil why don't we just like dust off those plans and you know resurrect it and because planning had been Advanced right it had been in the works for months prior to its cancellation there were supplies available it comes back onto the Allied docket now it will be happening over excuse me it'll be happening after the overlord Landings so the original conception that Anvil would be supporting amphibious operation to Overlord we now see the reverse happening German forces in southern France are being taken out of Southern France just sent to Normandy thereby weakening German defenses in southern France making a possible Invasion all the more likely to succeed for the allies there are a few main players in terms of the Allied command we have at the time Supreme Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of the Mediterranean and later he will become the sixth Army group Commander General Jake Deavers the Allied Army that will initially be landing in southern France will be the seventh Army and it will be commanded by General Alexander patch who had previously seen service in Guadalcanal earlier in the war so he's one of uh the generals who sees combat in both theaters of the war and the first French army will be commanded by General Jean de la supplementing Allied Forces will be the free French forces of the interior all right these are French Resistance who provide the allies with valuable information disrupt German forces as they move about and generally harass and attempt to disrupt what's happening and and they will become a critical player as the Allies land in advance up the Rhone Valley contesting them are the evil evil Nazis Army Group G commanded by a field Marshal Johann blaskovitz is is responsible for defending southern France the 19th Army will be LED under uh blaskowitz by General Frederick Visa and the most powerful unit within 19th Army is the 11th Panzer Division commanded by General van Von weitersheim now as I previously mentioned forces in southern France had been depleted in order to contain the Allied advance in Normandy and many of these divisions 13 in fact are all under strength short of supplies unable to really maneuver freely during the day because of superior Allied air cover right they would interdict and attack German convoys as they travel and they're being harassed by French Resistance members blaskowitz doesn't have by August 1944 as The Invasion years laskovitz has very little confidence that he'll be able to successfully hold southern France at the beach head where the alleys will be landing are usually you know you want top-rate soldiers who can contest right and function uh well this wasn't the case for Army group Chi they had what's called OST Legion and these were forced conscripts and they were mainly from Poland Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union impressed in disservice into the Vermont and they weren't well trained and they didn't necessarily have you know a lot of motivation to fight for the Germans and so what we will see happen is that they're quick to surrender because they're being impressed into a fight they never wanted to be a part of for The Invasion itself we have three main beaches and we have the third the 36th and the 45th infantry divisions that will be landing this is all under six core under General Lucian trusket and they fall under patch Who falls under divers unlike other Army groups or a lot of other armies in Europe there's one core under one Army under one Army group for the Americans and it's because Anvil was seen as a supporting effort and therefore wasn't given nearly as much combat strength as perhaps other units were like for instance General Bradley's Army group the Germans for their part again a lot of host Legion uh that will be contesting and their uh called Static because there they could only shoot in place essentially they didn't have enough unit cohesion necessarily to go back and forth to maneuvert to outflank or or produce any serious threat and on 15 August 1944 The Invasion begins Winston Churchill the vehement you know opponent of anvil is actually on board a British ship on D-Day he says you know I didn't get my way but now that this is going ahead I'm going to you know support it with everything I have and you know he's pleasantly surprised when The Landings go quite smoothly the Allies land about 95 000 troops on 15 August at the cost of 394 casualties a far cry from say Omaha Beach or The Landings at Salerno or anzio part of the reason why these casualties were so light is due to the experienced nature of these three divisions they all had previous amphibious Landing experience whether it be in Italy or I mean it was in Italy either whether it be at Salerno or or at angio they had experienced soldiers experienced commanders who had been working together for a long time too and coordination between the Navy the British Navy and American forces was exceptional in addition to the soldiers Landing we have one kind of the equivalent of a brigade size parachute element the first Airborne task force which is which was to land by lemur and designed to capture local objectives and tie down German forces while the Allies Advanced the objective for 15 August by 17 August was for Allied Forces to reach what they call the Blue Line this kind of line seen up there and then to begin you know movement northward and Westward to the West they would hopefully liberate Marseille and Toulon two very important port cities that were vital for Allied supplies their cap their capture would fall to the first French army and Allied planners estimated it would take about D plus 40. so 40 days after the initial invasion for Allied Forces to capture Marseille in about 20 days to capture tunnel well given that German forces were so under strength given that they had difficulty maneuvering and given that the experienced nature of the Allies in terms of what they had done before very quickly able to surround marsantoulomb and they're captured on 27 and 28 August respectively weeks in advance of when they were supposed to fall with the ports vitally largely intact due to this rapid progress allies especially trusket and Patch see an opportunity to advance quickly and deeply into the Rome Valley and cut off the Germans who by 17 August had been ordered by Hitler to withdraw from the Rhone Valley and up northward toward the German border happening at the same time operation dragoons happening is the Allied breakout from Normandy right operation cover as it well that began on 25 July by you know the second week of August we have you know the famous uh fillets pocket where allied forces are attempting to surround and capture large portions of the German Army in northern France and due to that the rapid Allied Advance if German forces didn't extricate themselves from Southern France they wrist being cut off from Retreat all German forces in Southern and Southwest France and so in order to save those Hitler orders the 19th the German 19th Army to withdraw the Run Valley and of course trust could impach so what they do is Truscott orders the creation of about a brigade equivalent sized element called task force Butler and it was um some battalions taken from various regiments and also armored components from six arm or from six core and they were to advance rapidly up their own Valley and interdict the major road along their own Valley there's a national highway seven that essentially goes north south and is one of the vital arteries of this region and if the Allies could cut off that road and prevent the Germans from retreating they could bag tens of thousands of German soldiers delivering a crippling blow to the German effort and so by 19 and 20 August we see task force Butler up in this area of southern France and kind of near kranob Valance and montelimar in the Jerome in addition the commander of the 36th Infantry Division John dalquist is is advancing northward uh just behind task force Butler and he receives orders to interdict the retreating Germans north of the town of montelimar whereby they would you know cut off the road hold their position and prevent German attempts to retreat northward and by 21 August Allied Forces do emerge near the town of montellimar task force Butler makes an initial advance and we have here along National Route Seven a series of Hills that run very close to the Rhone river and the road kind of sits between the river and these Hills and it's extremely narrow and it it serves as a bottleneck so if the Allies if the American if American forces can capture and hold these Hills right next to the river the Germans are going to have a very difficult time moving their armor their trucks and their infantry past it and right as other Allied elements move up hopefully right stuck across stuck against the river all right we could trap and Destroy German forces however the Allies didn't actually plan for this rapid success so as ships are loaded with supplies they're initially loaded with lots of ammunition designed for you know sharp fire fights and support so there's less fuel available than might otherwise be neither might otherwise be and so even by August 20th we're seeing complaints from commanders American commanders saying uh yeah it's great that you want me to go as fast as I can but we're running out of gas we're short on fuel we can only make limited advances and so behind the scenes General patch is scrambling to get emergency truck shipments of fuel up to the front lines to enable you know quicker advances the Germans are quite surprised when all of a sudden showing up on Hills above them American artillery begins to rain down on National route seven and general Visa the night German 19th Army Commander very quickly summons all available reinforcements to the area and this begins what we know as the battle of montellimar the 11th Panzer Division the best trained best equipped unit that the German 19th Army had to offer was called from reserve and ordered to push the Americans back and over the course of the next several days they attempt the 11th Panther division attempts to make an end run around task force Butler in elements of the 45th Infantry Division which had also been advancing northward it kind of seesaws back and forth in the Battle of montelimar is a quite confusing affair not just because of of the various positions that both sides will take up over the course of of this eight or nine day battle but that it's really a hodgepodge of axis and Allied units that get thrown together and sent toward local objectives for instance a task force Butler's tasked with interdicting the German retreat at La cucured and so you have you know a platoon or two platoons or a company that will get onto the road and hold it and attempt to block entire Italians of German soldiers attempting to retreat and the Germans for their parade are also attempting to seize High Ground run to to interdict Allied advance and we have seesaw battles that happen back and forth over the course of of the battle gradually though right the German offensive isn't to win a decisive Battlefield Victory it's to maintain this critical road to keep it open so that elements of the 19th Army can escape northward to fight another day whereas the Americans are very much attempting to surround and and destroy the German army and so it represents this you know a kind of fascinating look at how operations can play out right how you don't necessarily have the same objective as your adversary for the Germans it's survival for the Allies it's annihilation we have the third infantry division making its way up directly from the south it begins to add pressure on the Germans as they continue to retreat they're in constant engagement with rear guard elements of the 19th Army and you know we can see here by 2627 August as more and more reinforcements show up that you know at various points the Allies are attempting to to cut off access to to the road eventually by the 29th and 30th August the Allies are able to trap around 6 000 German soldiers um in a near multilimar uh in MultiLing Mar itself they have a plaque that's dedicated to the third infantry division thanking them for Liberation liberating the city third ID doesn't show up to the very end of the battle but they're actually the ones who liberate this city because most of the action of the battle montalimar happens North of the city from there as 11 Pander in the 19th Army continue to retreat the Allies in American forces continue their Pursuit eventually with the goal of uniting with uh other allied forces that are making their way going from west to east toward the franco-german border and on September 11 1944 elements of George Patton's third Army make contact with seventh Army thereby creating this continuous front that we see from the North Sea to the Franco Swiss border the battle in its aftermath are quite horrific not only for the soldiers involved but also importantly for the civilians right It's always important to remember that these places on maps the land that armies Traverse are places where people live sometimes for Generations or for hundreds of years and that they too are participants in the battle unwilling participants but participants nonetheless and we see after you know and we see this happening you know time and again across all of Europe and across all of France as it's being liberated that homes get destroyed and damaged people die and there's also a lot of just stuff that exists from Battle Roy burned out trucks and tanks lots of horses that that perish also and it's particularly bad on National route seven because as the Germans are attempting to retreat they're getting you know bombarded by Allied artillery by Allied planes and so the Germans lose over 2 000 vehicles throughout the course of the battle and and that that wreckage has strewn across this narrow corridor and so it the civilians behind and now have to undergo months and months of clearing operations to restore the places where they live and call home we often forget about our sites of battle as the campaign moves forward right units have objectives they have to meet and so they continue the advance but in the wake of that Advance is frequently human tragedy operation Dragoon was a tremendously successful Allied operation and in many ways the most successful Allied amphibious operation of the second World War the advanced far exceeded expectation casualties were comparatively speaking negligible for the Allies on D-Day over the course of the next month there are about 25 000 Allied casualties but there are about 160 000 German casualties most of whom do get captured Army Group G retreats to the franco-german Border in disarray but they're able to reconstitute themselves the rapid restoration of marsantoulon allow for Allied supplies to start being funneled up their own Valley to supply not just the sixth Army group but the rest of General Eisenhower's Force and by the end of the second world war so from say about September 1944 to May 1945 25 of all Allied supplies that go to the front come through the ports of marsantoul where they otherwise would have had to have been shipped over either the Normandy beaches or eventually when you know Antwerp opens up through there it's a ringing and shining example of successful Coalition Warfare although the debates about the operation could be quite acrimonious between the Americans and the British the planning and the execution of the operation went really well and it's a testament to the working relationships between you know the captains and majors who you know are stuck in these planting cells and really make you know these operations run smoothly operation Anvil Dragoon and you know right this is my home gonna die on is one of those operations that gets overlooked and unfairly so part of the reason is there's so much else happening simultaneously when the operation occurs as I mentioned earlier the face Pockets happening right and you know there are countless and countless books on the face pocket you know dude was it the Canadian's fault or the Americans fault that you know the pocket didn't get closed what was Montgomery doing Patton you know running free across France all right these are all the typical tales that were all closely and intimately familiar with with regards to what's happening in the summer 1944. we don't hear a lot about the seventh army or general Patrick General Divas some of us might know Audie Murphy right America's most decorated soldier in the second world war he was a participant in operation Dragoon and I'll leave and finish my presentation with this that you can't understand Operation Overlord you can't understand Allied plans of 1944. without first understanding that operation Anvil was a critical missing component of that initial operation General Eisenhower's frequently characterizes someone who wanted a slow broad front Advance through France and yet the Allies agree in December 1943 that they're going to undertake simultaneous amphibious operations on opposite sides of a country that's about as ambitious as you can get and and so the story of Francis liberation is incomplete without incorporating operation Anvil Dragoon and so I encourage everyone to please read more about it all the time forever and when my book comes out in about five years read that too for future reading over the operation here are some uh some works you could consult my favorite work on on kind of operation for Dragoon is still the US Army's official history and the kind of the first 200 pages of that uh Riviera to the Rhine as a testament to how you know historically speaking Angel dragons forgotten they're about what 87 volumes in the US Army's green book series the volume that talks about the sixth Army group was the very last one published in 1993. we also have a from the German perspective Joachim Ludwig's rooksug intimate detail about German planning about the defense of of France an excellent biography of General Deavers here he and Mark Stout first to the Rhine they talk far more about the first French army so if you're looking for more information on that this work is worth Consulting and then you know some guy talking about the other Supreme Allied operation of 1944 at War on the Rocks kind of brief summation uh I I released for them back in the day I would also ask everyone to please show up on 6th July my good friend and colleague Dr Martin klemis will be talking about Invasion and counter Invasion Vietnam 1976-1979. well he'll be discussing kind of the Vietnamese Cambodian conflict there with that um take your questions and thank you for your time [Applause] two uh first of all let me say I enjoyed your presentation very much thank you in the in the overlord operation The Landings at Normandy several commanders acquired reputations as as extremely talented commanders Eisenhower Bradley Patton Etc and my question is uh looking at this front at Anvil Dragoon uh do you feel that there are some commanders there at uh uh uh at any level uh who deserve this reputation as uh talented commanders but are overlooked sure yeah thank you so much for the question uh yeah I can three immediately spring to mind for me uh and I guess I'll start off at the highest level and work my way down first and foremost I'd like to mention General Jacob Devers who was the Supreme the deputy Supreme Allied Commander of the Mediterranean and later would become the sixth Army group Commander he was intimately involved in developing U.S army tank Doctrine in 1941 1942. in 1943 he's sent by General Marshall to England and he helps you know organize the soldiers who are being sent there for training uh supplies of material and helping to prepare for the overlord Invasion that will eventually occur in 1944 and at the turn of the Year from 1943 to 1944 essentially divas and Eisenhower switch places Eisenhower goes from being a Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean to England where he will prepare and ultimately execute Operation Overlord where diverse essentially takes his place becomes Deputy Supreme Allied Commander under uh uh Field Marshal Harry Met Wilson uh so Divas is seen as a peer and contemporary of Eisenhower and Eisenhower in many ways sees him as a rival and and as a kind of darling of General Marshall and so there's definitely some kind of professional friction between the two of them the other the next person I'll mention is General Sandy patch he commanded the americol division in Guadalcanal throughout that campaign and it's you know sent to the Mediterranean theater took man seventh Army for for for Dragoon and you know he's very much also able to along with divas uh you know plan and kind of create the conditions where when Anvil was resurrected in June 1944 it was done so without much delay uh throughout the course of this debate over on whether or not the operation would happen both divas and Patch actively worked to siphon resources into uh guard resources they had earmarked for Anvil to make sure they didn't get sent elsewhere because otherwise the operation would have been much more difficult to execute and lastly I'll mention uh the six core Commander Lucian truskett he's seen as a hard charging Commander he won lots of plaudits for his work in Italy and as six core Commander it was very um very active in in pushing American forces forward to the North in an attempt to cut off German forces and he's actually promoted to Lieutenant General in September 1944 as a result of his exploits over time and so those are three commanders I would say definitely deserve credit for being very capable commanders and in this operations execution was this the operation that Senator Dole was injured no uh Senator Doles is injured in Italy um and so yeah not in uh Anvil dragon uh don Connolly could you uh amplify a little more on the French army and particularly uh what they're composed of when they land and then how they try to reinforce uh reinforce themselves as they move up into France yeah sure great question thanks so much for asking it uh so the first French army is primarily composed of French Colonial soldiers so you see this really interesting dichotomy emerge where soldiers of France fighting to liberate France are these people are fighting to liberate their colonizers they can continue to be colonized and see it in many ways balls of mind the the first French army is also primarily supplied by the United States Army so the first French army looks you know in superficial appearance a lot like American forces because they're primarily supplied by Americans um and as the First Financial Army you know captures Marseille too long in in record time they're they're fighting record up the Rome Valley is is exceptional um and as uh the line kind of settles down and we enter kind of stalemate in the fall of 1944. the first French army and kind of French policy under uh free French leader Charles de Gaulle uh they enter what's called The Blanche malt literally translating to the whitening and so what was happening is that they would withdraw combat units of French Colonial soldiers off the front line and then put in their place former French Resistance fighters who have been you know been organized and drafted into this new free French army and be trained and being replaced to fight in combat uh positions and the colonial soldiers would be relegated to Garrison Duty somewhere far in the rear uh and and so another reason why I think Anvil Dragoon might not get the recognition that it deserves is a non-english speaking Allied force is helping you know along with the invasion and concurrently with that not just regular French soldiers but French Colonial soldiers at that um and so you know you can it can prove a daunting task right to try and understand incorporate that especially especially if you don't speak French for instance but thanks so much for the question have time for about one more question uh Gary bjorgi um I don't know if this is the best last question or not but anyway um you mentioned the efforts uh to supply the uh unit that was sent up to try to cut the road uh and you talked about the trucks um in the breakout from Normandy you have a tremendous effort logistically to through this gigantic truck system of uh supplying the troops at the front and uh and that's become a very important part of army Logistics history how about the what is the place in Army Logistics history of this effort to uh you know Supply and units advancing rapidly with trucks in operation Anvil sure yeah thanks so much for the question so yeah you're referring to the red ball Express the kind of ad hoc system that that Eisenhower develops or that the Allies developed to supply forces at the front uh so what's interesting about kind of this effort to supply The Invasion forces is that divas and patch and trusted are all aware that they're running against the clock because the more time that they waste and delay the more German units are going to be able to escape the Trap they're trying to set and live to fight another day the problem is as I mentioned earlier they didn't expect The Landings to be as successful as they were days ahead of schedule by the end of the first day and and so because they weren't anticipating this rapid exploitation of the situation are having to scramble to find kind of fuel that's you know in the back of ships because they're supposed to come out much much later and so there isn't actually all that much there aren't all that many kind of trucks available to even get fuel to wear to where it's needed there are actually only emergency runs right kind of cobbled together from trucks that are unloaded and then load over fuel instant to task force Butler such as the urgency of the situation so there's no real kind of systematic deployment of of logistics resources in a way that are able to supplement allied Allied Forces is very much a case of you know the situation merits this this kind of ad hoc response and you know because that the operation goes so much quicker that it's it's much more case in kind of Emergency Management in terms of supplies than than kind of this model for how do you you know develop a system of logistics when you don't necessarily have the capacity to to handle all of it uh and and with that I'd love to thank everyone for coming out again I really enjoyed uh speaking with all of you [Applause] [Music] foreign

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Published: Fri Jun 02 2023