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36th Infantry Division: D+1 and Beyond
As midnight came, the landing of Infantry and tanks on Red Beach clearly was no longer a priority, Clearing the city took precedence, with the mopping-up of Red Beach being considered a secondary objective. Elements of the 2nd Battalion supported by tanks and two platoons of Chemical Mortars cleared out enemy positions that had been previously bypassed starting around 03:00 in the early morning hours of August 16th. After neutralizing pockets of defense holed up in the nearby hills, Boulouris was then cleared out by 06:20. The 143rd made their way into Saint Raphael shortly after, with George Company entering the resort area from the main highway into the city. The urban combat was markedly more intense on August 16th when compared with the previous day, as the remaining defenders were largely trapped, and very desperate.
Camel Red Beach and the fight for the Argens River Valley has been acknowledged as being one of the most crucial areas to seize in Operation Dragoon. Despite the surprise achieved by the landings at Dramont and Agay, the infrastructure of Wehrmacht defenses in the area were dauntingly elaborate. Given the geographic tactical benefits this area offered both to the defenders and the attackers, this was no surprise to anyone. This resulted in a rough day for infantry troops, and the 143rd Infantry Regiment was involved in an extraordinary amount of fierce combat on August 15th. In support of these infantry operations, organic Field Artillery units alone fired a whopping 11 1/2 tons of high-explosive ordinance into Saint Raphael and Frejus vicinity on D-Day.
Camel Red Beach Pillbox - Objective #3 can be seen in background
In the onslaught, many German soldiers conscripted for duty from Armenia and Russia eagerly surrendered when their German officers were killed (some killed by mutiny), but roadblocks, booby-traps, and booby-trapped roadblocks infesting the city thwarted an easy conquest. In the face of these difficulties, the 36th Infantry Division advance was relentless. Those German conscripts and regular Army soldiers reluctant to die for the Fatherland had surrendered in droves by mid-morning on August 16th. The traffic-blocking column of captured prisoners stretched from Saint Raphael all the way back to the Green beach landing zone. By noon, Saint Raphael was largely under Allied control, and the defenders on Red Beach had been almost completely wiped out except for a few pockets of die-hard zealots. All that remained was mop-up actions on Red Beach, and the final drive to wrest control of Frejus from the 19th German Army. The 142nd had the city of Frejus in a choke-hold from the North by the morning of the 16th, with elements of the 1st Battalion 143rd Infantry attempting to further squeeze the town from the southwest. They had already crossed the Argens and taken positions outside the bombed-out airfield shortly after 12:00. The final assault into Frejus kicked off at 15:00, and by the late evening Frejus was solidly in the hands of the Allied forces.
Army Engineers blast holes in the tank wall on Camel Red Beach.
The 36th Infantry Division landed just over 14,350 troops on D-Day,and despite Saint Raphael and Frejus were not being liberated immediately, the Camel Beach landings were considered to be an overwhelming success, as were the entirety of all Operation Dragoon landings. As a whole, only 198 soldiers were listed as killed, captured, or missing on D-Day, with 399 wounded in action, a relatively low number when compared to other amphibious operations in the European campaign. They had also netted 2,041 captured prisoners, and the day-late seizure of their primary objectives was not considered to be an overwhelming concern to Allied Command. While the intensity of the resistance, and the casualties taken by the IV Corps troops as a whole was deemed to be "comparatively light" by the news media and Army Command, any veteran of the campaign would object strenuously to the invasion of the French Riviera being a "pushover": The Epinal American Cemetery speaks mute testimony to the scores of soldiers that gave their lives on the shores of Saint Raphael, Cavalaire Sur-Mer, and Saint Maxime during the engagements. By the evening of August 16th, most German Army forces in Southern France were in full retreat to join up with "Army Group G" to form a new defensive line, this time from Sens through Djion, up to Swiss border. Stationary Divisions remained to be employed as needed to delay the Allied procession, with another two Divisions being sent all the way to defend from the French-Italian Alps.
19th German Army nearly annihilated on Highway 7 outside of Montelimar, France
American planners had foreseen the possibility of such a rout, and had planned for this contingency by pre-approving the creation of Task Force Butler on the 17th in Le Muy. "Butler" was an ad-hoc motorized task force comprised of elements from the 117th Cavalry Recon, tanks and destroyers from the 753rd and 636th, part of the 59th Field Artillery, and 2nd Battalion 143rd Infantry (including George Company). This task force was a highly-mobile combat command which raced north to try and cut off the German retreat. Task Force Butler was able to effectively bottleneck the 19th Army at the entrance to the Rhone river valley in Montelimar, inflicting such severe losses on the retreating enemy that the scene of the lengthy engagement became locally known as "The Avenue of Stenches". Butler was so effective in racing through Southern France in it's pursuit of the 19th that it outran it's supply chain, and the annihilation of the retreating German Army was stymied only by the lack of ammunition, and the gasoline to bring supporting troops forward to back up the Task Force.
Operation Dragoon had been nicknamed "The Champagne Campaign" by the press, and with good reason. Unlike the war-impoverished Italian territory and occupied Northern France, excellent wine excellent food abounded with joyous French citizens being all too-happy to welcome their liberators. Saint Raphael and Frejus teemed with celebrations as the Army convoys rolled through, starting a fairly consistent trend that was repeated throughout the next several months of the fight North towards Germany. These celebrations were counterpointed by the ugliness of public reprisals against collaborators. Summary executions of Vichy supporters were common-place, as was the public shaming of women who had slept with their German occupiers.
Kaufering Sub-camp
Leaving these celebrations behind, the 36th Infantry Division then fought through Vesoul, and hit point-blank resistance at the Vosges Mountains, where the retreating German Army had decided to make a stand. The 36th stoically held their ground in the Colmar Pocket in Alsace despite relentless attempts to push them out of the foothills, and fought with distinction at Hagenau, and Wissembourg at the French-German border. There, the 36th Infantry engaged Blaskowitz's Army Group G once again in bitter fighting during the ill-fated Wehrmacht offensive "Operation Northwind" in early 1945. By March, the 36th had broken through the fortress-like defenses of the Siegfried Line, and into Germany. In late April, the 36th liberated one of the Kaufering concentration camps, one of several Dachau subsidiary camps. Upon the arrival of US troops, the remaining SS-Totenkopfverbande ("Death's Head") guards at Kauferling were harshly dealt with, some by summary execution. And by May 1st the day of Adolf Hitler's suicide, the "Texas Army" had found itself in Austria, where it captured the Nazi General Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of the entire Western front. The 36th Infantry Division would only return to the United States some seven months later at the close of 1945.
Daniel Lee Henry after Operation Dragoon
Dan Henry left the 36th Infantry just before the fighting at the Vosges. In mid-September, shortly after the outfit had arrived at Luxeuil Les-Baines, Dan left the 36th Infantry for reassignment to another unit. In December 1944, he found himself Commanding Able Company for Georgia's 121st Infantry Regiment, part of the 8th Infantry Division.
He was sent out to fight in one of the coldest European winters on record to a place called the Huertgen Forest, on the fringes of the Siegfried line in Germany. The fighting in this area was medieval in it's violence. Horrible terrain, dreadful weather, and an overwhelmingly murderous amount of mines and pillboxes hidden in the thick forests of the Huertgen contributed to the slaughter of many soldiers. Allied airpower was useless in this conflict, as was it's artillery. The defending German Army didn't need air support to defend the forest, as it's native and man-made defenses were unparalleled in strength and complexity. The battle for Huertgen was (and is to this day) the longest single battle the United States Army has ever waged for a piece of ground, inflicting 33,000 United States casualties and nearly decimating the 28th Infantry Division before the town of Huertgen was finally taken by US Army forces. Many of the soldiers who experienced "The Green Hell" of the Huertgen battle speak of the conflict in almost mythical terms. The brutality of the battle contrasting with the Middle-Earthen spookiness of the forest itself made an indelible impression on those who walked out with their bodies and sanity intact.
Binsfeld, Germany - Photo dated February 26th, 1945
On February 25th 1945, the 121st crossed the Roer River into the bombed-out city of Duren on the way to ultimately secure the city of Cologne. Able company of the 121st Infantry Regiment marched out of the ruins of Duren to assault Binsfeld, a small hamlet in the middle of a wide expanse of farmland. Upon bringing the assault through coverless cultivated fields to take out a Mark IV tank, Able company boldly advanced into the village under extraordinary amounts of artillery and machinegun fire. Shortly upon entering the bourg, an artillery barrage from guns stationed in nearby Girbelsrath zeroed in on the open streets, and unleashed a heavy barrage of high-explosive shells upon the invaders. Dan earned his Purple Heart as he went down in a cloud of shrapnel, seriously wounded and unable to lead the company any further. He suffered numerous shrapnel wounds in his back, legs, and arm, and was sent immediately to the 44th Evacuation Hospital for treatment. After being stabilized at a nearby aid station, then sent first to Halloran General Hospital, then to Hammond General Hospital in California, where he ultimately made a full recovery. Dan returned to his family in May of 1945. Damage to his sciatic nerve, and lasting numbness in the leg remained with him for the rest of his life. Sadly, no pictures of him in uniform survived; any photos, medals and campaign ribbons he earned have been lost over the years. Any personal recollections of his service, he took with him to his grave.
Daniel Lee Henry shortly after returning to the States
Dan continued his Army Reserve service until the early 1970's, retiring as a Major. Between his return to the states from Europe and his retirement, he held several colorful assignments in the Army, including leveraging his scientific skills for the 3107th Research and Development Group in the 1950's. This organization appears to be a classified government "think-tank" outfit, and some kind of an early incarnation of DARPA: Information on this outfit and the projects it was involved in during the Korean War are pretty non-existent within the National Archives. He also served as Public Relations officer at a number of different army posts in Georgia, all the while running Law & Company with his brother. Dan died in 1984, several months after suffering from a stroke that drastically affected his speech and mobility. So far as I am aware, he never attended any Army reunions, and he never spoke of his wartime experiences in anything other than anecdotal terms. His daughter remembers him one time seeing a World War II movie on TV and wryly commenting "Heck, you can't drive a tank on a paved road". That sort of thing was about the full extent of what he would mention about his service in Europe. Like a lot of the men who served there, he was humbly "Just a guy doing a job that needed to be done", and had no use for self-aggrandizing once the job was done. To know him, you'd never guess that such a soft-spoken guy who could quite literally charm the birds from the trees would have been the same guy who led men into extraordinarily harsh front-line combat. He is a man that I admire greatly.
Daniel Lee Henry with tamed bluebird - 1981
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