France remembers 'forgotten D-day'

Tourists soaking up the sun on the beaches of the glittering French Riviera this weekend will have to make room for hundreds of ageing war veterans commemorating one of the Second World War’s least-remembered battles – Operation Dragoon.

They are veterans of what some historians call the forgotten D-day, the near-flawless landings of 350,000 Allied soldiers in southern France 10 weeks after their comrades waded into Normandy.

“The Normandy landings were a spectacular operation that everyone knows about, and we commemorate it with enormous fanfare,” said French historian Andre Kaspi. “Then, there are the Provence landings that are more or less forgotten.”

Compared to the D-Day anniversary hoopla in June – attended by US President George Bush, the Queen of England and others – the commemorations of the Provence landings on Saturday and Sunday will be distinctly low key.

As part of 60th anniversary celebrations that started in June, France is paying official thanks to the southern invasion with a weekend of ceremonies. President Jacques Chirac caps the tributes on Sunday aboard an aircraft carrier with leaders of African nations whose soldiers fought for the Allies.

Former US staff sergeant John Shirley, who stormed ashore the Cote d’Azur on August 15, 1944, will be among veterans invited aboard the Charles de Gaulle battleship.

“Maybe it was a sideline to the big fights up north, but it was a very important invasion,” said Shirley, 79, of Livermore, California.

French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie will pin nine American veterans with the Legion of Honour, France’s most prestigious decoration, on Saturday in a ceremony at the Rhone American Cemetery in Draguignan, overlooking the graves of 861 soldiers who fell during the landings and in the weeks that followed.

La Motte, north of St Tropez, was the first village liberated in Provence and will host the weekend’s first ceremony on Saturday. Nine British veterans will receive the Legion of Honour.

History books and many veterans recall thin German resistance to the invasion, but the chaos of battle has prevented a definitive Allied death toll. The French defence ministry says more than 350,000 soldiers participated and 1,300 Allied soldiers died in the operation’s first two days.

They overcame mines and gunfire, pushing north more rapidly than expected. The invasion’s success was measured in concrete terms. Hitler ordered German forces to retreat from the south on August 17 – two days after Operation Dragoon started.

Allied troops liberated the important port cities of Toulon and Marseille in late August, and took France’s second-largest city of Lyon on September 3.

Winston Churchill had resisted Operation Dragoon to the last, preferring to focus Allied strength in the north. The Americans prevailed, arguing that a pincer movement would overwhelm Hitler’s defences.

Charles de Gaulle also pushed for Operation Dragoon, eager for French troops to play a major role in liberating Toulon and Marseille after having been all but absent from the Normandy invasion.