Warning/Guarantee
I've done my best to faithfully chart out who was where at what time, but inconsistencies can and do appear in 70 year-old reference materials. Additionally, it would be ridiculous to assume that what is listed on the maps are all-inclusive in terms of fully illustrating the amount of defensive positions and enemy units that were in place in the area. The same applies for the movements and engagements of the 36th Infantry Division during this period of time: Company-level skirmishes weren't always recorded in the Journals, and quite a bit of gaps do exist in both my own reference material, and even in the holdings of the National Archives. Consequently, there are cases where "G" Company doesn't have any information on their whereabouts for a period of hours at a time, yet the next journal entry places them 1/4 mile away from their last location while having moved through enemy-occupied territory. Obviously, this is not uncommon in reconstructing a timeline using 70-year old Army records. In such cases, one can only speculate as to what befell the men by reviewing the location of enemy units, and the terrain for the area in question.
The coordinate translation utility used to translate the (outdated) Modified British Cassini coordinates to a Latitude & Longitude claims accuracy with a variance between 150-1000 meters. This being said, it's accuracy and consistency are pretty impressive in the case of the Saint Raphael and Frejus coordinate locations, which map up very closely with geographic landmarks, and structures that survived the war. In cases where coordinate translations are dodgy, or ill-defined, unit positions on the maps presented here are denoted accordingly.
Web Sources
Print Sources
- Atkinson, Rick. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945. New York: Henry Holt, 2013. Print.
- Breuer, William B. Operation Dragoon: The Allied Invasion of the South of France. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1987. Print.
- Bull, Stephen, and Peter Dennis. World War II Infantry Tactics: Company and Battalion. Oxford: Osprey, 2005. Print.
- Clarke, Jeffrey J., and Robert Ross Smith. Riviera to the Rhine: The European Theater of Operations. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1993. Print.
- Connole, Dennis A. A "Yankee" in the "Texas Army" Lanham: Hamilton, 2008. Print.
- Glass, Charles. The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II. Harper Press, 2013. Print.
- Griesbach, Marc F. Combat History of the Eighth Infantry Division in World War II. Nashville, Tenn.: Battery, 1988. Print.
- Lockhart, Vincent M. T-patch to Victory: The 36th Infantry Division from the Landing in Southern France to the End of World War II. Canyon, Tex.: Staked Plains, 1981. Print.
- National Archives:
- 143rd INF G Company Morning Reports dated July 8th, August 14-16 1944 (unknown microfilm Identifiers)
- Report of Operations - 336th INF(143)-0.3 JUN to AUG 1944-336th INF(143)-0.3 AUG 1944: RG 407, Box 8573, Entry 427:
- 8/14/44-9/30/44: 143rd INF UNIT JOURNAL
- 8/15/1944: S-2 Combat Report 1/143rd
- (16:45) 8/15/1944: Combat Report 2/143rd
- 8/15/1944: S-2 Combat Report #1 2/143rd
- 8/15/1944: G-3 Report #342
- 8/15/1944: G/143rd Morning Reports
- (17:00) 8/15/1944: 36th Infantry Division Operations Instructions
- 8/16/1944: S-2 Periodic Report #1
- 8/16/1944: 2/143rd Infantry Regiment Unit Reports #1, #2
- 8/15/44 (11:53) - GC 36th INF Div. Message
- Report of Operations -336 INF(143)-0.3 JUL-AUG 1944- RG 407 Box 8574-Vol III
- 7/24/44: TENTATIVE OUTLINE PLAN FOR OPERATION ANVIL and INCL #1
- 7/14/44: ANNEX 3b TO FO #53 - LANDING DIAGRAM BEACH 264A AND B
- 8/1/44: FO #24
- 8/1/44: APPENDIX #2 TO ANNEX #3 TO FO #53
- 8/1/44: Intel Annex 2 to FO #24
- 8/2/44: FO #25
- 8/4/44: ANNEX 7 TO FO 24 and 25 - INTEL SUMMARY
- 8/4/44: Appendix 1 and 2 to FO 25
- 8/8/44: Amendment 1 TO FO 24
- Orfalea, Gregory. Messengers of the Lost Battalion: The Heroic 551st and the Turning of the Tide at the Battle of the Bulge. New York: Free, 1997. Print.
- Reddick, Homer. History of the 121st Infantry Regiment through 1946 and "Gray Bonnet" Macon, Ga.: Infantry, 1990. Print.
- Rottman, Gordon L., and Peter Dennis. World War II Infantry Assault Tactics. Oxford, UK: Osprey Pub., 2008. Print.
- Truscott, Lucian King. Command Missions, a Personal Story. Revised/Expanded ed. New York: Dutton, 1954. Print.
- Wilt, Alan F. The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1981. Print.
- Zaloga, Steve, and John White. Operation Dragoon 1944: France's Other D-Day. Oxford: Osprey, 2009. Print.
- A Pictorial History of the 36th "Texas" Infantry Division. Revised/Expanded ed. Austin, Tex.: Turner, 1995. Print.
- The Fighting 36th Historical Quarterly. Fort Worth, Tex: Historical & Records Committee, 36th Division Association, 1981. Print.
Picture Sources
Video Links
Other Resource Links
Dan Henry and Operation Dragoon
1 - Italy 2 - Operation Dragoon 3 - Invasion Plans 4 - German Defenses 5 - Cote D'Azur D-Day 6 - Aftermath 7 - Sources