Danby - The day of the Panzer : a story of American heroism and sacrifice in Southern France

Especially those of Company L and Cannon Company,

15th Infantry Regiment,

Company B of the 756th Tank Battalion,

and Company B of the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion.

And particularly my grandfather, 1st Lt. Edgar R. Danby

1st Lt. Edgar R. Danby

C ONTENTS

M APS

I LLUSTRATIONS

Preface and Acknowledgments

The invasion of Southern France is the forgotten campaign of World War II. Nearly every other campaign and major battle in the European Theater has been well researched and describedespecially those that took place in Northern France. Extraordinary accounts of combat on Omaha Beach, in Holland during Operation Market Garden, and at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge have been told and retold in everything from best-selling books to blockbuster movies. Yet few books have been written about the operations in Southern France. Most general histories mention it only in passing if they mention it at all. Even World War II enthusiasts are surprised to learn that fighting took place there. Although overshadowed by larger events, the campaign has been unjustly ignoredmainly because of the erroneous perception that the effort met with little or no resistance.

On a general level, the Southern France campaign appears to offer little excitement. The operation unfolded in a relatively blunder-free manner, was concluded one month later, and extracted far fewer Allied lives than planners originally feared. As a general rule, campaigns such as this rarely send historians scrambling for a typewriter. Some writers have derisively dubbed the operation The Champaign Campaign, as if the massive operation during which many good men lost their lives was nothing more than a marching cocktail party. The moniker makes for a clever nickname, but it is also a most unjust characterization that dismisses the hardships and trials of thousands of men, many of whom were wounded or killed. The Southern France campaign does not offer historians something similar to those horrible initial hours on Omaha Beach or the desperate fighting waiting in the hedgerow countryside beyond, but it is a rich and moving drama that deserves much more scrutiny than it has received.

An entire American army stormed the French Riviera one hot summer day in August 1944. Accompanied by British paratroopers and supported by a vast air force, the army was augmented with French infantry and armored divisions. A sweeping armada of 885 ships (with some 1,375 additional boats carried on the decks) set them ashore151,000 troops and 21,400 vehicles. Up until that moment, it was the second largest amphibious landing of the war. A German army and battle-hardened panzer division, skillfully resisted the inland Allied thrust with a spirited and skillfully conducted fighting retreat up the Rhne River Valley. When the battle for Southern France ended on September 15, more than 2,000 Americans were listed among the killed, captured, or missing, with another 2,500 wounded. Regular Free French forces suffered similar losses, and many other French Resistance irregulars and civilians perished. Estimates of Germans losses run as high as 7,000 killed and 21,000 wounded. For all of these unfortunate souls, Southern France was no Champaign Campaign.

Despite the enormity of the operation, the landings were entirely upstaged by and sandwiched between two major events. That June, the critical landings at Normandy secured a solid foothold in Fortress Europe. Weeks of intense and bloody hedgerow fighting followed. The invasion of Southern France commenced after the Allies broke into the open and swept toward Paris. The news that the Allies had broken out of the Normandy region caught the attention of the worlds press. Just after the operation in Southern France ended, the ambitious but ill-fated Operation Market Garden assault into Holland got underway. With both ends of France secure, the Allied armies merged quickly that autumn along a massive front and pressed toward Germany. Winters arrival initiated larger and more pressing challenges in the Ardennes, the Hrtgen Forest, and Colmar. The memories and experiences in the south of France passed quickly off the stage against a backdrop of death and bad weather on an epic scale.

The war in Europe concluded the following spring. On its heels followed a spate of books on the war. To most observers, the Allied drive across Northern France provided a more appropriate and compelling framework for explaining the war on the Western Front. The more modest operation farther south was always intended to supplement the massive Normandy invasion. When measured against Omaha Beach and its immediate aftermath, the relative ease with which the American and French divisions achieved their objectives lessened the campaigns appeal. This unfortunate oversight continues to this day.

No one involved in the Southern France operation expected the grand success that resulted. Winston Churchill feared another Anzio-like stalemate and had lobbied long and hard against the effort. The combat veterans of the Italian campaign prepared for the worst and fully expected their leaders were about to deposit them into another corner of Hell. How could they have thought otherwise? The entire push up the boot of Italy had been one long grueling and bloody struggle against an imaginative, resourceful, and competent enemy whose steely defensive resolve frustrated the Allies at nearly every turn. Every Italian town, hill, and field wrested from their German adversaries, thinned Allied rosters.

Although Churchills fears of another Anzio failed to materialize, the German defenders managed stiff resistance in many places. These deadly clashes took place mostly at small unit levels. World War II has often been called a Lieutenants War, and for good reason. The battle orders originated with men sporting crisp star-pinned collars, but it fell on the unwashed and sleep-deprived captains, lieutenants, and sergeants to inspire their teenage recruits and execute the plans under rapidly unfolding and often chaotic circumstances. The character and improvisational ability of men in front line companies, platoons, and squads led to the success or failure of the larger operational plans and always involved on-the-spot life or death decisions. Each of these men were flesh and blood individuals with names, personalities, and unique hopes and dreams. Some made the ultimate sacrifice and left behind families, friends, and unrealized aspirations. Others hurled themselves into situations of extreme danger and inexplicably survived. Like every campaign in every war, the true drama of the campaign that unfolded across the south of France Campaign unfolded at the small unit level. By retracing the footsteps of the infantryman and the tanker one discovers the campaign was not as easy and effortless as those who have so long ignored it would lead us to believe.