Operation Dragoon by Robin Cross

Author:Robin Cross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2019-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

THE ISLANDS

“What else could I do? You engage, you fight, you win. That is the reputation of our Navy, then and in the future.”

—Commander John Bulkeley, U.S. Navy

One of the essential preliminaries to Dragoon was the seizure by Sitka Force of the two small offshore Îles d’Hyères, Le Levant and Port-Cros, situated on the southern side of the landing zones, and the silencing of the 164mm batteries thought to be positioned on Le Levant. The guns posed a considerable threat to the main divisional landings. In the interwar years, the island of Port-Cros had been the haunt of literary luminaries André Malraux, André Gide, and Paul Valéry. (Today some 90 percent of Le Levant is now given over to a French weapons testing establishment and the remainder has a thriving tourist industry, much of it devoted to nudism.) Both islands are rocky and pine-covered, with sandy beaches on the landward side and fifty-foot cliffs on the seaward shore. The decision was taken to attack from the seaward side of the islands as it was anticipated that the Germans had discounted the possibility of an assault from this quarter.

The mission was entrusted to Rear Admiral Lyal A. Davidson’s Task Force 86 and its associated Special Forces formations. The task of Sitka Force, consisting of the First Special Service Force (FSSF) commanded by Colonel Edwin A. Walker, and the Naval Task Unit 86.3, was the elimination of the threat to the Alpha assault area posed by the German guns and the opening of the approach to the Rade (Roads) d’Hyères, which was to be used by warships supporting the westward drive on Toulon. The men of the FSSF, all hardened veterans, had spent several days preparing for the mission at Propriano Bay in Corsica, where there was “little to do but swim and fish.” The “Black Devils,” as they were known, were unfazed by their new assignment, and many of them relaxed by sleeping or jitterbugging to the dance band music played over the loudspeaker systems.

The man in operational charge of the Sitka operation was Rear Admiral T. E. Chandler, flying his flag in Prince Henry, a converted Canadian vessel similar to a US destroyer transport, plus the Royal Navy landing ship HMS Prince Baudouin, five more destroyer transports, and gunfire support vessels. Just before midnight on August 14, Chandler’s squadron anchored five miles off the islands, and shortly afterward the first of Sitka Force’s boats were in the water. Low-profile LCAs (Landing Craft, Assault) towed the rubber boats of First Special Service Force to within 1,000 yards of Le Levant and Port-Cros before casting them off. Ahead of the first wave were scouts paddling in one-man kayaks or lying prone on surfboards to check the target beaches and guide the first wave in with hooded lights. It was, to the very hour, the first anniversary of the Allied occupation of Kiska, in the Aleutians, in which FSSF had played a part. True to their first commander, Robert Frederick, the men of FSSF were as contrarian as ever.

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