Chapter 11: Supporting the Campaign
Military support operations were vital to the campaign in southern France, strongly influencing both the operational course of the Allied armies and their rate of advance. Of the many aspects of military support, logistics was by far the most critical to the ground combat forces. Like most contemporary land armies, the Seventh Army needed to provide an almost continuous supply of fuel and ammunition to its various fighting, or tactical, components in order to be successful on the battlefield. The availability of such supplies often determined whether the army would conduct defensive or offensive operations as well as the nature and duration of these operations. This supply capability, in turn, depended on the establishment and maintenance of a land and sea logistical pipeline that began in the American industrial heartland and wound its way through many intermediate bases as well as through various transport modes to ports in Europe, and from there to the users in the field. At each of the many way stations along the route to the front lines, such supplies might encounter administrative or physical difficulties, or bottlenecks, which could threaten the operation of the entire pipeline, whether on the production line, at sea, or during the complex transferral of cargoes from ocean-going to ground depots and land transportation facilities at one of the European ports. With the battle of the Atlantic won by 1944, the next logistical campaign took place on the beachheads and in the ports of Europe, with Allied military success on the Continent heavily dependent on the transfer of men, matériel, and supplies from ship to shore as quickly as possible.
At this stage, the availability of amphibious vessels was critical for the initial deployment of Allied ground tactical units in Europe, and the acquisition of continental ports was crucial for maintaining these forces logistically. Early in the war Germany’s logistical difficulties in North Africa and on the Russian front demonstrated the folly of giving such matters inadequate attention. The American and British high commands, more familiar with the difficulties in supporting overseas campaigns, were better prepared, although their own logistical problems often seemed to belie their greater experience.
Tactical air support was less critical given the weakness of the Luftwaffe at
this stage of the war, but certainly the absence of support would have retarded the Allied advance, especially if German air capabilities had been greater. But, to be effective, the tactical air arm—that is, those air units dedicated to providing direct support to ground combat forces—also required an elaborate system of bases and depots, especially as the front lines moved deeper inland, and this network, in turn, was dependent on the overall Allied logistical effort.1
Logistical Problems
With unhappy memories of Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio in mind, ANVIL planners had expected strong German resistance and, consequently, had loaded the assault and early follow-up convoys heavily in favor of combat units and munitions. As a result, the early cargo and personnel landings included far less vehicles, POL stocks, troop rations, cargo-handling equipment, and service units and personnel than an army would normally need to support a mobile offensive. However, the relatively ineffective German resistance, the accelerated arrival of First French Army units, and the unexpectedly rapid penetration northward by all Allied forces quickly led to a serious shortage of vehicles and fuel. After Montelimar, the continued acceleration of the Seventh Army’s operational timetable—caused primarily by its aggressive pursuit of retreating German forces—made it nearly impossible for the army’s logisticians to solve the Allied supply problems satisfactorily. On 14 September, D plus 30, the Seventh Army’s French and American units had reached an operational situation that most ANVIL planners had not expected until around D plus 120.
On the assault beaches, good weather, low tidal differentials, weak surf, and the absence of strong German resistance combined to minimize unloading problems. Although the delay in seizing the 36th Division’s CAMEL RED beach postponed the discharge of some assault shipping for about thirty-six hours, the unexpected usefulness of CAMEL GREEN, together with the other favorable conditions, easily overcame this handicap. CAMEL GREEN not only substituted for CAMEL RED for three days, but also took much of the discharge traffic scheduled for Agay Roadstead. After some bulk cargo went ashore over the Agay beach, Agay was closed on 19 August, and its operations were transferred to CAMEL RED, which had opened the evening of 17 August.
Although some of the 45th Division’s Delta beaches did not have good exits to the interior, they proved generally adequate on D-day. Late on the 16th, unloading began over new beaches at the head of the St. Tropez gulf, which allowed the Delta beach group to close out some less desirable strands. The Seventh Army had planned to make some use of minor harbor facilities at St. Tropez and Ste. Maxime, but the two ports were employed mainly by naval and air force units; Seventh Army cargo there was limited largely to medical supplies.
Only over the 3rd Division’s ALPHA beaches, especially ALPHA RED on Cavalaire Bay, were there serious discharge problems. At ALPHA RED, beach and underwater mines forced a shutdown for a considerable period, delaying the landing of some artillery and armored units for over eight hours before paths could be cleared. At ALPHA YELLOW on Pampelone Bay, offshore sandbars made for wet landings, causing a number of vehicles to drown on the shoreward side of the bars and requiring the construction of long pontoon causeways for LST discharge. In addition, lateral movement across the soft sand was impossible for vehicles, and the few good beach exits quickly became jammed. Finally, using logs left behind by the Germans, the beach group was able to put together makeshift roadbeds and continue unloading; but the beach was closed on 17 August in favor of a new site a mile or so to the east. Had there been strong resistance at these beaches, the delays might have proved serious.
On D-day, approximately 60,150 Allied troops and 6,735 vehicles went ashore over ALPHA, DELTA, and CAMEL beaches, as opposed to a preassault schedule of 84,000 troops and 12,000 vehicles.2 The beaches also handled about 50,000 long tons of supplies (excluding cargo aboard vehicles) on D-day. The shortfall from the original schedule was more than made up by 17 August, when discharge operations became centralized under the Beach Control Group, a subordinate agency of Seventh Army G-4. Established a day earlier than planned, the centralized control permitted tighter organization of discharge operations, as well as the more expeditious transfer of landing ships and landing craft among beaches as the need arose. Coastal Base Section took over both beach operations and the Beach Control Group from the Seventh Army on 9 September, about a week earlier than planned, and continued the centralized control.
The early capture of Toulon and Marseille made it possible to close out beach operations sooner than expected—namely, except for one unseasonable storm, before the mistral weather began. The ALPHA beaches stopped handling cargo on 9 September; the DELTA beaches closed out on the 16th; the last CAMEL beach shut down on the 28th. Planners had estimated that the beaches could take in 277,700 tons of cargo through D plus
30. Actually, they accepted over 280,000 tons (excluding POL, vehicles, and cargo aboard vehicles) through 14 September and more than 20,000 additional tons through the 28th.
The high rate of discharge over the beaches created its own problems. From the beginning the capabilities of landing ships, landing craft, and DUKWs to put cargo ashore outstripped the ability of the Beach Group to handle the material and clear the beaches. The principal reasons were inadequate transportation, lack of service troops and units, shortage of beach matting, and insufficient heavy equipment such as cranes, tractors, and bulldozers—deficiencies that resulted from the planners’ decision to load the early convoys heavily for combat. By D plus 5 the beach clearance and supply forwarding problems had reached a critical stage. Seventh Army and NATOUSA had already begun to seek ways to speed the arrival of service units and their equipment, especially truck units. But it proved difficult to change the schedule or the cargo of convoys and ships already loaded or partially loaded, and the decision to accelerate the arrival of French troops temporarily diverted shipping that might have brought service units from Africa, Italy, and Corsica. Moreover, what benefits were derived from hurrying forward service units were soon outstripped by the Seventh Army’s continued rapid and deep penetration. These problems, especially in regard to transportation, were by no means solved by D plus 30, 14 September, nor even by the end of the month.
Hiring civilian labor did little to alleviate the service troop shortage in the assault area. Many able-bodied men in the region had been deported to labor camps or prisons elsewhere, while others had joined the FFI or fled to North Africa. By D plus 5 Seventh Army agencies had hired only 1,000 Frenchmen, mostly old men and teenagers; by mid-September only 7,000 French civilians were working directly for the U.S. Army on the Mediterranean coast.
The Seventh Army made an effort to use German POWs (mainly Ost troops) in the beach area, but this practice was limited by the rules of land warfare, local antipathy to German uniforms, and language and security problems. Of even more importance was the urgent need to evacuate most German prisoners from southern France in order to forestall further complications of supply activities, especially concerning rations.3 Some relief came in the general labor category when, late in August, three company-sized Italian service units reached the beach area, and by the end of September about 7,000 Italians were at work under U.S. Army supervision in southern France. Nevertheless, shortages of U.S. Army service troops and indigenous French labor continued to create difficulties, while the Seventh Army’s rapid advance increased the problems of resupply, not only from the beaches but also from the ports as they were rehabilitated.
French civilians restoring railway in Seventh Army area, Nevers, France, September 1944.
Base Development
Viewed from the Allied preassault estimate that Toulon would not fall until D plus 20 and Marseille no earlier than D plus 45, the collapse of German resistance at both port cities on 28 August, D plus 13, represented an acceleration of about four weeks in the expected progress of the campaign in southern France. This early success was as important logistically as it was operationally, for port and base development could begin much sooner than planners had thought possible.
Initially, planners had envisaged that Coastal Base Section (CBS) and its French affiliate, Base 901, would set up an interim headquarters and facilities at Toulon, which would be used for most port and base operations until Marseille became available. But the unexpectedly early seizure of Marseille prompted a broad change in plans. Toulon was basically a naval base, and most of its facilities were ill-suited to the discharge of commercial-type shipping. On the other hand, Marseille, the foremost port and second city of France, had much better facilities for handling commercial vessels, provided better access to highways and railroads, and was better located to support the advance northward. In the end, Western Naval Task Force took over responsibility for the rehabilitation of the port
of Toulon, which remained primarily a naval base, and was turned over to French control in October 1944.
For the ground and air forces, Toulon’s major contribution was the employment of improvised docks for unloading vehicles that had been deck-loaded on cargo ships. This procedure allowed such vessels to move on to Marseille with hatches open and ready to discharge general cargo, thereby saving considerable time in the final unloading. Ultimately, Toulon became the principal discharge point for Civil Affairs cargo coming into southern France. The first quayside ship unloading at Toulon began on 5 September, and commercial unloading—as opposed to naval base activities—was fully under way by 20 September.
At Marseille, an advance party of CBS entered the city on 24 August, while German demolitions were still in progress. The destruction was extensive: jetties, quays, cranes, and related discharge facilities and equipment were destroyed or severely damaged; all port and channel entrances were blocked by sunken ships; both the inner and outer harbors were sown with mines; explosive demolitions, including booby traps and time bombs, had been planted throughout the onshore port area; railroad tracks had been ripped up; and warehouses, transient sheds, and other buildings along the waterfront were badly damaged. Minesweepers, mostly U.S. Navy vessels, cleared some 5,000 mines of various sizes and types from the main harbor and contiguous waters, while U.S. Army engineers removed well over thirty tons of explosives from the dock areas.
The day after Marseille fell, the 36th Engineer Combat Regiment began moving over from the beach area to start land-mine removal and other cleanup projects. On 1 September the U.S. Army’s 6th Port (a terminal service command) and the 1051st Engineer Port Construction and Repair Group came ashore aboard lighters from three Liberty ships anchored offshore to assist the effort. Later in the month the 335th Engineer General Service Regiment took over many of the repair tasks, while Army engineers and U.S. Navy salvage units began clearing shipping lanes into the inner harbor. On 15 September the first Liberty ship came into the port of Marseille for direct ship-to-shore discharge; and by the end of the month eighteen quayside unloading berths were in use.
During September the port of Marseille took in approximately 113,500 long tons of general cargo, 32,800 vehicles, and 10,000 barrels of POL. In contrast Toulon, in the same month, handled about 3,440 long tons of general cargo, 19,000 tons of Civil Affairs supplies, 23,630 vehicles, and 80,000 barrels of POL.
Port-de-Bouc, a satellite port about twenty-two miles west of Marseille, served primarily for the discharge of POL products. The FFI had secured Port-de-Bouc and three nearby oil refineries, which the Germans had not destroyed. Part of the 335th Engineer General Service Regiment moved over from Marseille to undertake the repair of port facilities, aided by local French contractors, while elements of the 697th and 1379th Engineer Petroleum Distribution Companies (EPDs) rehabilitated the lightly damaged refineries,
aided by oil company employees. On 10 September U.S. Army engineers began constructing a pipeline for 80-octane gasoline from the Port-de-Bouc area, but it was early November before the line was working as far as Lyon.
An unplanned, bonus supply base, Port-de-Bouc came to handle about 70 percent of the Allied POL requirements as well as a substantial amount of general cargo. By the end of September it had discharged approximately 36,840 long tons of general supplies and 240,000 barrels of POL from twenty-three ships. Total discharge for the beaches and ports through September came to about 500,000 long tons of general cargo, over 25,000 tons of Civil Affairs supplies, 325,000 troops, 69,000 vehicles, and 331,600 barrels of POL.
On 8 September Coastal Base Section formally opened its headquarters and became operational at Marseille. The command was redesignated Continental Base Section (also abbreviated CBS) on 10 September. Already the press of events had made it necessary for CBS to start assuming logistical responsibilities from the Seventh Army G-4 logistics staff on 1 September, two weeks earlier than planned. At the same time that the CBS headquarters opened at Marseille, CBS became administratively responsible for noncombat activities from the coast north to the Seventh Army’s moving rear boundary, initially defined as the area south of Lyon.
Meanwhile, the Seventh Army’s rapid drive northward also made it imperative for supply agencies to send representatives forward to maintain close liaison with the army G-4 staff. On 5 September a small advance office of CBS opened at Grenoble, and then moved on to Dijon by 18 September. SOS NATOUSA sent an advanced echelon of its headquarters to Marseille on 12 September, which continued on to Lyon on the 14th. During the same period Seventh Army, VI Corps, and CBS were making every possible effort to move supplies, dumps, depots, and supply points northward. On 10 September the Seventh Army opened its main supply station at Amberieu. Engineer and Signal Corps depots were set up near Bourg-en-Bresse, and a major medical supply depot was moved up to a point near Besancon on 13 September. The forward movement of depots and supply points continued throughout the month.
Fuel and Transportation
Whatever other logistical difficulties Seventh Army and CBS faced, all were overshadowed by the transportation problem. This developed not only because of combat-heavy loading of the assault convoy, but also because of a theater-wide shortage of truck and railway units as well as Seventh Army’s unexpectedly rapid and deep penetration and, finally, POL shortages. Truck requirements escalated at an alarming rate as combat units drove farther north and west, forcing trucks to make time-consuming, long round trips to beach dumps, which simultaneously increased gasoline consumption. The rate of consumption immediately surpassed planning estimates. The 3rd Division began to develop severe shortages as early as noon of 16 August, D plus 1;
the rest of VI Corps started to feel the pinch the next day; and by dark on 19 August the gasoline supply situation had become critical.
To assist, beach officials diverted LCTs and DUKWs from general unloading to bring ashore about 50,000 gallons of packaged gasoline from a ship in an early convoy. This measure proved only a temporary expedient, however, as the VI Corps’ three divisions alone were consuming about 100,000 gallons of gas per day, and as of 21 August only 11,000 gallons were left in beach dumps. Captured German POL dumps at Draguignan, Le Muy, and Digne helped, as did gasoline found at damaged French refineries in the Marseille and Port-de- Bouc areas. But the immediate, critical shortage was not alleviated until a six-million-gallon tanker arrived on 27 August. The 697th EPD Company, which had landed on D-day, unloaded this fuel at St. Raphael, where the unit had already constructed storage tanks, emplaced tanker discharge equipment, and organized fuel canning facilities. More help for the forward area came on 9 September when the VI Corps captured another German POL dump near Besancon containing about 183,000 gallons of high-octane gasoline and 36,500 gallons of diesel fuel. The gasoline had to be cut with 80-octane fuel before it could be used in American vehicles, but the cutting process boosted the total amount of fuel available.
Obtaining POL, however, did not mean that such products could be delivered to the right units at the right time and place. The same held true for rations, ammunition, and other supplies. There still remained the problems of truck shortages, time, and distance. To help alleviate the general transportation problem, the Seventh Army G-4 assumed centralized control over all separate truck units as soon as possible and, on occasion, took charge of transportation organic to the infantry divisions (which hardly pleased the tactical commanders). The Seventh Army also found it necessary to impose rigid movement and traffic controls, which CBS continued to exercise after taking over traffic responsibility from the Seventh Army on 9 September.
Other expedients became necessary as well. For example, by the end of August all units coming into France over the beaches were required to reload their organic vehicles with supplies for the forward combat units and make one round trip to the forward area. On the other hand, trucks and drivers organic to service units scheduled to move northward were sometimes retained in the port and beach areas for general supply operations, thereby slowing forward movement. At one point during the battle of Montelimar the Seventh Army G-4 formed a thirty-truck ammunition convoy from organic 3rd Division vehicles to haul ammunition to the 36th Division—an action that, however necessary, retarded the 3rd Division’s own progress northward. In addition, the G-4 imposed restrictions on the consumption and shipment of some items of supply in order to gain transportation to move others that were more sorely needed by units in the north. Thus, during one period of the battle, the combat troops were put on two-thirds rations so that vehicles normally used to haul food could be
diverted to bring up fuel and ammunition.
Truck shortages forced logisticians to undertake railroad rehabilitation much earlier and on a grander scale than had been contemplated during ANVIL planning. Sections of the narrow-gauge coastal railroad in the beachhead area were operational—with French civilian crews—as early as 17 August and contributed significantly to beach clearance operations. The main line, standard-gauge railroad opened from Frejus west to Ste. Maxime on 23 August, and was extended to the west and north as tactical circumstances permitted.
Although the Germans and MAAF had destroyed many railroad bridges, damage to railbeds and rolling stock was more limited, and sufficient rolling stock and French trainmen were soon rounded up to allow sections of railroad to become operational.4 Sometimes rail movements required truck assistance. For example, breaks in the main easterly railroad line between Meyrargues and Sisteron made it necessary to transfer cargo from trains to trucks at Meyrargues and then shift the cargo again to trains at Sisteron. By mid-September temporary bridges were in place at major breaks, and the eastern line was open as far as Bourg-en-Bresse, 220 miles from the assault beaches. Before the end of the month, the line had been extended to Besancon with an initial capacity of 1,500 tons of cargo per day. By 25 September the double-track line up the east bank of the Rhone was open from Marseille to Lyon, with a capacity of 3,000 tons a day. Before the end of September the repaired western line was pushed out to Dijon, Vesoul, and Besancon, and the easterly line, which passed through more rugged terrain, was stretched to the First French Army area opposite the Belfort Gap.
The urgent need for early rehabilitation of the railroads prompted changes in the arrival schedules of U.S. Army railroad units. The 703rd Railway Grand Division (originally scheduled for 25 September) and the 713th Railway Operating Battalion (set for 5 September) began unloading at Marseille on 29 August. The parent headquarters of these two units, the 1st Military Railway Service, also arrived early and opened an advanced echelon at Lyon on 14 September.
The accelerated railroad rehabilitation program in this area progressed faster than a similar effort in Normandy, where German demolitions had been more thorough. Nevertheless, the railroads were unable to carry their full share of the supply burden for many weeks, and French and American units had to continue to depend largely on highway transportation. The supply statistics for September tell the story: during the month trucks moved some 220,000 tons of general cargo northward from the beaches and ports, while the railroads hauled slightly more than 63,000 tons. One inhibiting factor in railroad operations was a general shortage of high-grade locomotive coal in southern France; another was a lack of sufficient rolling stock to
meet all demands, and it was well into October before any new rolling stock came into Marseille.
One potential transportation problem was less troublesome than expected. Until bad weather began about mid-September, the roads in southern France, especially the main highways, proved to be adequate for military traffic. Moreover, in the assault area, the combat units found intact bridges or easy fords; and again, until the autumn rains began, forces were able to cross most streams with little difficulty as far north as Vesoul. On the other hand, Seventh Army’s rapid penetration created an early bridging problem for logistical support operations. Not anticipating such a quick breakout from the beachhead line, the Seventh Army had initially brought only one treadway bridge company and had scheduled no more such units until after 5 September. But as early as 19 August urgent requirements for heavy bridging arose, and the demand steadily increased as the Allied advance reached the Durance, Rhone, Drome, Doubs, and Saone rivers. Again the problem of rescheduling the arrival of support units—this time, engineer bridge units and equipment—proved difficult, necessitating the use of field expedients and the exploitation of local resources by engineer units to solve the more pressing bridging problems. By the end of September, U.S. Army engineers had constructed eighty-eight highway bridges, largely from locally available material, and had also erected twenty-eight Bailey bridges. Since Bailey bridge material was in short supply, these spans were replaced as soon as possible by heavy timber structures.
Another solution to the bridging problem involved curtailing air strikes. By the end of the battle of Montelimar, as VI Corps was starting north toward Lyon, Seventh Army planners estimated that the MATAF-XII Tactical Air Force bridge destruction program, if continued, would do more to slow the Allied advance than to impede the German withdrawal. Accordingly, XII Tactical Air Force and Seventh Army agreed that after 28 August bridge strikes would cease along the Rhone and Saone river valleys as well as on the streams to the east. Thereafter the tactical air command conducted only limited operations against bridges, directing most of its strikes west of the Rhone–Saone line along the main routes of withdrawal of the LXIV Corps from western France into the Dijon salient.5
Rations
While no American or French troops suffered from malnutrition during the drive north, supplying full rations to the forward units became an occasional problem that first developed early in the over-the-beach supply phase. Again the general transportation shortage was the main culprit, although the fact that ammunition and defensive materials had been loaded on top of rations on many cargo vessels of the assault convoys also impeded the timely discharge of food. In fact, such loading, undertaken in accordance with the combat-heavy concept, served to complicate
beach operations, because ammunition and defensive material had to be hurried ashore in order to obtain rations. This practice led to some helter-skelter stockpiling at the beaches and further slowed beach clearance, especially when it became necessary to hand-sort ammunition and other supplies. In the end, many units, as during the battle of Montelimar, had to exist on short rations from time to time—two K-rations per day as opposed to the normal three—while other packaged rations were often unavailable.
Through the first month and a half of the campaign, both the Seventh Army and the First French Army had to depend primarily on packaged rations. Local procurement could do nothing to ease the problem, for most of the area to the north as far as Lyon was not self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs. In fact, a general food shortage existed in southern France, and what little local surplus could be rounded up was urgently needed for civilian consumption. German “requisitioning” during the withdrawal further complicated the problem, and, until transportation links could be set up with major food-producing areas, a shortage of fresh food persisted in southern France. To remedy the situation, the entire schedule of shipments of civilian relief supplies was moved up, but little could be done immediately to improve distribution on the mainland. Meanwhile, a few lucky soldiers occasionally received donations of fresh eggs or other food from French farmers; other troops illegally purchased fresh food either from farmers or from a rapidly developing black market.
From their own supply system, American combat troops received no fresh bread until 26 September. By the end of September only 5,000 tons of cold storage space was available in southern France. No reefer trucks or railroad cars had yet arrived, and by the month’s end legal fresh meat was still unavailable.
At least one unit—the headquarters of the 55th Ordnance Group stationed at Bourgoin, some twenty miles southeast of Lyon—solved its fresh food problem in a highly questionable manner. Somehow, during the week following the capture of Lyon on 3 September, the 55th Ordnance Group slipped two trucks loaded with war souvenirs across the Rhone and headed north through no-man’s-land (some German troops, mostly stragglers, were still trying to reach Dijon) to make trading contacts with elements of the U.S. Third Army. After a risky three-day trip, the two trucks returned to Bourgoin loaded with fresh beef and pork, candy, tobacco products, and packaged rations of types not yet available to most Seventh Army’s forward units.6
Manpower
U.S. Army replacement activities in southern France were the responsibility of Col. Wilbur G. Dockum, commanding the 2nd Replacement Depot, which had previously operated in
“The Long and the Short and the Tall”: 70th Quartermaster Base Depot stocks.
Italy.7 The first components of the depot—one replacement company for each of VI Corps’ three divisions—began landing on D-day and were ashore with 1,800 replacements by 18 August. By 9 September the 2nd Replacement Depot had brought into southern France approximately 13,900 replacements of all specialties, including troops designated as RTUs (returned to unit), personnel being returned to their previous units.
Like most other units, the 2nd Replacement Depot suffered from an acute lack of transportation. For example, two of the first three replacement companies ashore had to leave their vehicles and most of their equipment behind in Italy. These two units (with a total of 1,200 replacements) had to march on foot, mostly at night, northward behind the divisions they supported. When the companies reached forward divisional supply dumps, they sent replacements onward aboard divisional trucks carrying rations to the front. Ultimately, Colonel Dockum was able to secure fifty trucks from stationary antiaircraft units, and he used the railroads as much as possible; but his transportation problem was by no means solved as of mid-September.
By mid-September the 2nd Replacement Depot had in France twelve replacement companies under four replacement battalion headquarters. The depot headquarters itself set up near Grenoble; and, except for one battalion headquarters and four replacement companies left in the beach and port area, all components of the depot were well forward. By the end of September only one replacement company, at Marseille, was left in the rear area.
Since the casualty rate in southern France was lower than expected, no critical replacement problems arose, although a shortage of infantry replacements had begun to affect VI Corps by mid-September. The absence of any major replacement problem is demonstrated by the fact that 1,800 replacements due in on D plus 30 were not urgently needed, and the group was combined with another arriving on D plus 35.
Of the 13,900 replacements and
RTUs that had reached southern France by mid-September, less than 4,000 were assigned to the Seventh Army, leaving a balance of about 9,500 troops available in the replacement system. The 13,900 total did not include about 500 RTUs sent directly to their units without being accounted for in the replacement flow, nor approximately 5,100 rotational replacements, that is, troops replacing men rotated to the United States on leave or on temporary duty elsewhere (most of whom never returned to the theater). Thus, by mid-September some 19,500 U.S. Army replacements from all categories had landed in southern France. Most of these troops were not needed to replace casualties, but were employed to flesh out units—such as the 45th Division and many service organizations—that had arrived in France understrength.
The French had their own replacement system, but relatively few of their replacements came from North Africa or Italy. Instead, French Army units absorbed FFI personnel by the thousands, either individually or by unit. The result complicated logistical problems, for French commanders were soon submitting requisitions for rations and equipment that far outstripped their authorized requirements. In addition, the politico-military character of the resistance made the incorporation of some FFI organizations into the armed forces a political as well as a military matter for the French command.
Medical Support
The story of medical support in southern France was like that of other support activities, with the Seventh Army’s rapid drive north upsetting carefully laid plans and schedules.8 During D-day, three separate medical battalions began coming ashore, and each one supplied a collecting company and a clearing platoon to reinforce the organic medical battalions of VI Corps’ three divisions. Three 400-bed evacuation hospitals, each supporting a division, were operational by 19 August, the same day that the first U.S. Army nurses arrived in southern France.
Moving the evacuation hospitals forward behind the supported divisions proved difficult, for frequent changes of location created the inevitable transportation problems. Having arrived in France without all their authorized transportation, medical units had to borrow trucks and use ambulances to move their equipment, and even then they found it difficult to keep up with the combat units. For example, the evacuation hospital supporting the 3rd Division closed down near Avignon on 7 September, but then had to wait ten days to obtain enough transportation to move north to the Besancon area. Likewise, part of the 2nd Convalescent Hospital reached Besancon on 17 September, but the rest of the unit had to remain at Marseille, where its organic transportation was diverted to general supply operations. Meanwhile, the lengthy lines of communication caused forward area hospitals to become overcrowded and evacuation
hospitals to hold patients for extended periods of time.
Fixed-bed hospitals, totaling 14,250 beds, were not scheduled to begin arriving until 25 September. When deployed ahead of schedule, they also faced the familiar transportation problems. The 36th General Hospital, for example, started unloading on 9 September, but could not open at Aix-en-Provence until the 17th. Similarly, the 46th General Hospital reached France on 8 September, but was not operational at Besancon until the 20th.
On D-day, casualties were evacuated by LST to Corsica, from where serious cases were flown to Naples. Hospital ships arrived on D plus 1, and through 21 August transported all patients to Naples. Thereafter, hospital ships carrying predominantly French patients sailed to Oran in North Africa. But after the fall of Toulon and Marseille, French casualties remained in the metropole. This change, together with the initiation of air evacuation to Italy on 22 August, the low combat casualty rate, and the accelerated buildup of medical facilities in France, made it unnecessary to employ hospital ships after 30 August. As more medical facilities became available and as weather conditions worsened in mid-September, air evacuation steadily diminished.
Through the end of September, U.S. Army hospitals in southern France admitted roughly 20,775 American troops. Of this total, 160 men died in hospitals, 8,380 were evacuated to Italy or North Africa, 8,525 were returned to duty, and, at month’s end, 3,710 were still in various hospitals in France.
During the first month or so of the campaign no unusual medical problems arose. Neuropsychiatric (combat fatigue) cases were of little moment during the first month ashore, but by mid-September bad weather, stiffening resistance, and tiring troops combined to begin a marked increase in the rate of such cases among combat units. By the end of September trench foot was beginning to develop as a significant problem, one largely brought about by increasingly wet and cold weather as well as by some shortages of suitable clothing and equipment.
Signal Support
Like the Medical Corps, the Signal Corps had its problems with transportation and in supporting the Seventh Army’s rapid advance.9 The general truck shortage forced signal units to overload communications vehicles with their own supplies, but they still found that moving wire, batteries, and radio tubes forward to support combat forces was difficult.
The pace of Seventh Army’s progress also made it futile to employ even the most advanced techniques of rapid pole setting and wire stringing. Instead, until mid-September, the Signal Corps devoted its efforts to rehabilitating about 1,715 miles of French wire, while stringing no more than 150 miles of its own. Fortunately, most of the area over which the Seventh
Army traveled after Montelimar was well-suited to radio communications. However, as the combat units moved into more rugged terrain during the latter part of September, radio communications had to yield to wire for both telephone and teletype circuits. By the end of the month no critical wire shortages had yet developed, but the demands for wire were beginning to exceed expectations. As was the case for almost all other commodities, forward shipment of Signal Corps supplies had already been rescheduled.
Another shortage that stemmed from the Seventh Army’s rapid penetration concerned maps. As early as D plus 5, many units of the VI Corps had begun to advance beyond the area covered by the large-scale (1:25,000 and 1:50,000) tactical maps they had brought ashore. By 19 August Task Force Butler was operating mainly with 1:200,000 tourist guide maps, while during the battle of Montelimar most units had to maneuver on the basis of 1:100,000 U.S. Army maps. Before the end of August enough 1:100,000 maps were available, but as of late September the supply of the more desirable 1:50,000 maps was still inadequate.
Air Support
General Saville’s XII Tactical Air Command (TAC), which was responsible for supporting Allied ground operations in southern France, initially had under its command 38 squadrons of aircraft, all based on Corsica, including 19 fighter-bomber (P-47), 4 light bomber (A-20), and 4 reconnaissance squadrons.10 Until 20 August the XII TAC also had under its control 6 A-20 light bomber squadrons from the Fifteenth Air Force, while 7 British and 2 American escort carriers (CVEs) provided reinforcement with 72 more combat aircraft. The British CVEs withdrew on 27 August; the American carriers on the 29th. Heavy bombers of the Mediterranean Allied Strategic Air Force, which had played a major role in preassault bombardment, flew their last missions over southern France on 16 August, D plus 1. Mediterranean Allied Tactical Air Force (MATAF) medium bombers—two wings of B-25s and B-26s supported by two groups of P-38 fighters—from Sardinia and Corsica were available through 29 August to support the XII TAC, but they normally operated outside the XII TAC’s area of responsibility. This area initially ran from the Rhone River east to the Alpine divide and from the coast north to the Isere River, flowing into the Rhone from the northeast near Valence.
The Seventh Army’s rapid penetration also had a serious impact on Allied air support. By 28 August, coincident with the decision to halt the MATAF and XII TAC bridge-destruction program, few lucrative targets could be found in southern France within range of MATAFs medium
bombers, and the mediums ceased operations over the area after the 28th. The XII TAC, taking over responsibility for all air support in southern France, faced its own range problems. The command moved three P-47 groups and a reconnaissance squadron to France during the period 23–29 August, but by the 28th one group was already complaining that its airfield in the coastal sector was out of range of the forward combat zone. By the same date virtually all targets in France, except for a few German troop columns west of the Rhone, were beyond the range of XII TAC air bases on Corsica. As of 3 September the XII TAC had airfields operational as far north as Valence, and during the period 6–15 September the command’s units in France moved up to fields in the Lyon area, within range of the Seventh Army’s front lines. But this force still represented less than half of the XII TAC’s original strength.
The demands of the Italian campaign also reduced the availability of air support in southern France. For example, on 20 August MATAF had to divert two P-38 fighter groups (used over France primarily for bomber escort duties) to operations in Italy, while on 21 and 22 August all MATAF medium bombers allocated to support ground operations in France were diverted to Italy. Requirements in Italy, range problems, and weather further limited the XII TAC’s operations over France. During the week of 23–29 August XII TAC’s interdiction sorties were split almost evenly between France and Italy, and during the period 1–14 September the XII TAC flew 1,045 interdiction sorties over Italy, as opposed to 946 over France. The sorties over Italy included some flown by XII TAC planes based in the coastal sector of southern France, out of range of the Seventh Army’s front.
The tactical air units in France faced supply and transportation problems similar to those of the ground forces, with transportation shortages again creating the most difficulties. The supply of air ordnance, especially at forward area fields, was rarely adequate, while transportation shortages further slowed the forward movement of both XII TAC units and airfield construction equipment. The transportation difficulties were complicated by the constant requirement to push units northward, which in turn reduced the availability of timely air support. Fortunately, the bomb supply problem did not become critical, since strafing missions proved more appropriate for most air support operations in southern France, especially after the fall of Toulon and Marseille. Of the 1,045 interdiction sorties that XII TAC pilots flew over Italy during the period 1–14 September, 1,021 were bombing missions. In contrast, the 946 sorties over France during the same period consisted of 673 strafing and 273 bombing missions.
On 15 September control of the XII TAC passed from MATAF to the U.S. Ninth Air Force, based in northern France. At the same time, the XII TAC lost control over the units that had remained on Corsica, mostly British fighter squadrons; and these forces, together with the MATAF units originally allocated to the support of ANVIL, moved to Italy.
Close Air Support
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of air operations in the southern France campaign was the total absence of normal close air support activities involving the use of air-ground liaison teams—or at least forward air observers in light aircraft, conducting air strikes in direct support of ground combat units. However, with the problems of range, airfield preparation, and continuous redeployments, the XII TAC could not respond effectively to direct support requests from tactical units. By the time aircraft were able to arrive on the battlefield at the proper location, the tactical situation had often changed and the targets were no longer present.
Because of these difficulties, the XII TAC limited its direct support to area concentrations using simple bomb-line methods, a system whereby aircraft bombed or strafed just forward of a map line that marked the forward elements of the Allied ground units. To be effective, the line obviously had to be changed continuously; furthermore, the process took considerable time and occasioned some argument between ground and air commanders. Often bomb lines were so far from the ground combat front that bombing or strafing missions were of no direct help to the ground forces. At other times the ground combat units had to be cautious about exploiting a drive for fear of overrunning the bomb line, thus exposing themselves to strikes from their own air support. Toward mid-September the VI Corps staff made arrangements with the air command to close the distance between the bomb line and the infantry’s front line, but the improvement was one of degree rather than kind.
The problem was brought home most forcefully during the battle at Montelimar. Before the Allied buildup there, the XII TAC had achieved excellent results in bombing and strafing German columns moving up the Rhone valley from Avignon north across the Drome River. But establishing bomb lines after 20 August in the Montelimar area greatly restricted the use of Allied air power along Route N-7, the main Rhone highway, and provided the American tactical commander with little assistance once the situation on the ground became fluid. For example, during the German breakthroughs in the Bonlieu area it was impossible for ground force commanders to obtain air support, because Bonlieu lay south and east of the existing bomb line. Without better air support methods, the XII TAC was forced to concentrate on targets west of the Rhone and north of the Drome, all well outside the immediate ground battlefield; meanwhile the ground commanders would doubtlessly have preferred a few tactical air strikes against German infantry and armor in the Hill 300 and Bonlieu areas.
Lacking any arrangements or capabilities for providing true close air support, XII TAC operations were devoted almost entirely to interdiction sorties against retreating German columns well forward of the Seventh Army’s ground front (and, until about 10 September, against LXIV Corps’ columns west of the Rhone). But even these operations became more limited in scope and number as weather conditions
began to deteriorate toward mid-September.
Despite these difficulties, both XII TAC and the attached MATAF bombers performed their interdiction missions successfully, destroying large quantities of German equipment, dispersing German troop columns, and retarding German deployments. However, that interdiction program could not by itself prevent the movement of the Nineteenth Army northward, and Allied airpower failed to influence significantly the outcome of any single ground engagement, except perhaps at Toulon and Marseille. The campaign in southern France thus convincingly demonstrated that interdiction operations cannot substitute for true close air support, which might have supplied the firepower needed by ground units when other support assets were lacking.
Civil Affairs
Civil Affairs (CA) operations are efforts conducted by a military command to ensure the safety and well-being of the civilian population in its area of operation. These measures are based on the legal and humanitarian obligations of the command.11 Responsibility for conducting CA operations in southern France was vested in AFHQ which delegated most of its CA responsibilities to Seventh Army, while retaining technical supervision of the effort. Since the forces in southern France were ultimately to pass to SHAEF control, CA plans and operations in southern France had to be carefully attuned with those in the north; AFHQ and the Seventh Army thus closely modeled their CA directives after those of SHAEF. In both the north and the south, the Allies established no military government. Rather, local French civilian agencies conducted and controlled the civil administration within France, except for matters concerning Allied military security. The principal Allied CA contributions were in the fields of supply and coordination.
Within the Seventh Army, two officers controlled CA activities, Col. Harvey S. Gerry, the Seventh Army G-5 staff officer, and Col. Henry Parkman, Jr., who was the senior officer of Civil Affairs Headquarters, Seventh Army (CAHQ). Gerry was the adviser to General Patch on all CA matters, and monitored and coordinated CA field operations in southern France. In the field, CA operations came under the control of Parkman, who was both Chief Civil Affairs Officer, Seventh Army, and the commanding officer of the 2678th Civil Affairs Regiment, the headquarters of which functioned as CAHQ. The 2678th CA Regiment had an initial authorization of 196 officers and 398 enlisted men. Planners estimated that this strength would prove unnecessary during early operations in southern France, and so 50 officers and 75 enlisted men were temporarily returned to Italy, only to be quickly recalled when the Seventh Army’s unexpectedly rapid advance increased the
need for CA personnel. The command was thus at full strength in France by the end of September.
Ostensibly, CAHQ and the CA regiment’s component teams and detachments operated under broad policies established by the Seventh Army G-5, but CAHQ had a technical channel of communications to G-5 AFHQ and sometimes received orders directly from this headquarters. Colonel Gerry at Seventh Army headquarters complained that CAHQ also established policy on its own initiative, while Colonel Parkman at CAHQ felt that the Seventh Army G-5 sometimes unduly intruded into field operations. Inevitably, discord arose between the two staffs, and the problems were not entirely solved until both policy and operational responsibilities became centralized under the 6th Army Group’s G-5 late in September. Even before that time, the AFHQ G-5 had to take an active CA coordinating role in southern France in order to tie Seventh Army’s civil affairs activities forward of the Army’s rear boundary to those of logistical agencies south of the boundary.
Civil Affairs Operations
Despite some conflicts of interest and divided responsibilities, direct military control of civil activities was limited. As the Allies expected, local French civilian government officials were quickly able to reestablish the civil administration necessary to handle the distribution of relief supplies that CAHQ furnished through Allied military channels. So rapid and thorough was the turnover to the French that CA teams and detachments of the 2678th CA Regiment were quickly eliminated in favor of small liaison offices with French governmental agencies in key geographical locations. This transition also reflected basic U.S. Army CA doctrine.
In the field, CA operations in southern France represented an Allied effort carried out by American, British, and French military personnel. SHAEF supplied many of the American and British personnel, while other American troops, experienced in military government, came from Italy. The First French Army provided CA liaison officers for Seventh Army’s combat units, CAHQs various detachments or offices, and French local governmental agencies. As the French were unable to supply enough of these liaison officers, all those assigned were markedly overworked for the first month or so of CA operations in southern France.
Food, CA planners estimated, would be the principal civil relief necessity in the ANVIL assault area, which was a deficit food-producing region. Nevertheless, the combat-heavy loading concept for early convoys prompted planners to delay major CA food imports until the D plus 40 convoy. Pre-assault plans called for three Liberty ships (or the equivalent) full of CA supplies to reach southern France in five-day increments with the convoys from D plus 40 through D plus 80. Initially, relief supplies were to come from theater stockpiles, with the French furnishing edible oils from North Africa. Later shipments were to arrive directly from the United States.
The Seventh Army’s rapid drive
northward created the same problems for CA units and personnel that faced all logistical support agencies in southern France. Although it was obvious that the scheduled arrival of CA personnel, supplies, and transportation could not cope with requirements, accelerating the arrival of CA troops and, to a lesser extent, supplies proved difficult. Emergency food supplies, hastily loaded as additional cargo on ships from Italy and North Africa, began arriving on D plus 10; and the first civil relief Liberty ship began unloading over a St. Tropez gulf beach on 10 September (D plus 25 as opposed to the original schedule of D plus 40). By the end of September approximately 35,000 tons of food earmarked for civil relief had reached southern France.
Meanwhile, CA officials on the ground helped alleviate the more serious distribution problems, assisting, for example, in organizing and distributing food stocks taken from the Germans and other stocks that the FFI had secretly assembled. Seventh Army resources were normally used only in an emergency, or when the American units had excess supplies, labor, or transport. Although CA personnel were reluctant to tax the hard-pressed U.S. logistical agencies during the first part of the campaign and were able to obtain most necessities from local French sources, the Seventh Army did release 100,000 cans of condensed milk and about 3,450 pounds of dried milk from its own stocks to meet a critical milk shortage among small children in the coastal areas.
Transportation required for effective CA relief operations remained critical through September. Neither the Seventh Army nor the logistical agencies could provide many trucks, and, for purely tactical reasons, the Seventh Army sometimes found it necessary to retain control of trucks allocated to CA activities. In other areas, a lack of coordination hampered the most effective use of available transportation for CA purposes. For example, although the Allies found a general surplus of food in the Lyon region, it was hard to arrange transportation to move foodstuffs south; often empty truck convoys and later empty trains moved back to the beaches and ports with their capacity for moving food to the coastal region unused. The problem was not solved until enough CA officials were available in the forward area to coordinate the movement of food stocks south with Army transportation units and commands.
The Nice–Cannes area, east of the assault beaches, was an especially troublesome region. Here, at the end of transportation lines, near famine conditions existed for some time, compounded by FFI and Allied troop misconduct such as looting and robbery. The disorderly conditions were largely under control by mid-September, but Nice especially remained a hungry area until well toward the end of September.
Nice was also a center of black market activities, which plagued CA agencies throughout the coastal area. American troops were guilty of contributing to black market operations, for even common army supplies (especially rations) as well as Post Exchange items brought high prices. By the end of September the black
market was generally under control at Toulon, but remained significant at Marseille and Nice despite the best efforts of CA personnel, in conjunction with other concerned American and French agencies, to contain it. The port of Marseille became infamous as a center of traffic in stolen and pilfered goods, and some officials estimated that for a time roughly 20 percent of all supplies unloaded at the port were subsequently stolen. Here and elsewhere the theft of gasoline became a major problem, and contributed significantly to the Seventh Army’s POL shortages.
Outside of food and transportation, the only major civil relief shortage involved certain types of medical supplies. Food and medical supply deficiencies were largely overcome before the end of September, while other relief problems did not materialize on the scale expected by CA planners. The rehabilitation of civilian communication and power facilities proved a much easier task than initially estimated; no significant problems with refugees or displaced persons developed; and clothing shortages were localized and overcome without undue trouble. Hospitals, hospital equipment (except for some medical supplies), and civilian medical personnel were generally adequate; school buildings were undamaged, although teacher shortages existed.
Like logistical support activities in southern France, CA operations through the end of September constituted a shoestring success, achieved after somewhat hectic beginnings. But the successful Allied CA effort would not have been possible without the universal and wholehearted cooperation of French civilian officials and agencies.
Conclusions
In summary, logistical constraints severely limited operations of the Seventh Army, the XII TAC, and many other Allied units and agencies through late September. The unexpectedly rapid and deep Allied penetration was the direct cause of most of these problems, while a theater-wide scarcity of service units and an unanticipated shortage of French civilian labor, especially at the beach and port areas, were contributing factors. Commanders and planners at all levels did their best to overcome these difficulties, but the lack of vehicles and fuel was felt throughout the campaign. Using captured German supplies and stripping vehicles from ancillary units were only short-term solutions, which were sometimes achieved at the cost of overworking the few troops and equipment that were available. Only the vigorous Allied pursuit and the German pell-mell withdrawal northward prevented the logistical situation from being more detrimental to the expanding Allied campaign.
Basic to the whole issue of logistical support was the planning concept. The expectation of a strong, protracted German resistance and possibly major German counterattacks in southern France proved incorrect. With hindsight, the Seventh Army planners might have anticipated that Army Group G would be more interested in withdrawing its forces northward intact than in defending the
beaches and ports of southern France to the last man. Thus, overly conservative intelligence estimates had an obvious impact on logistical planning, loading, and scheduling. The resulting combat-heavy loading program for both assault and early follow-up convoys left little or no room for logistical flexibility once the situation ashore turned out differently than expected. The shortage of shipping, especially amphibious vessels, also reduced logistical flexibility as did the decision to accelerate the arrival of French combat units. Efforts to change unit and shipping schedules turned out to be only partially successful since many support units and much cargo were locked in to preassault schedules. The air units were subject to the same planning constraints. From their bases in Corsica they were prepared to support a lengthy battle on a carefully defined beachhead, but were ill-equipped for more mobile operations on the mainland.
Yet, given the complicated nature of amphibious operations and the priorities of the Allied high command, especially the precedence given to the OVERLORD forces in northern France, the ANVIL planners probably did the best they could with the means available. And while the Seventh Army may have rated German capabilities too high, the Allied armies would find in the months ahead that the German defenders would not always retreat so rapidly, even when their manpower and matériel situation indicated that withdrawal was the wisest course of action. In short, Hitler and OKW might easily have taken a completely different course of action, ordering the Nineteenth Army to defend in place and reinforcing it with units from western France and Italy. Had this been the case, the Allied combat-heavy logistical loading would have seemed a wise decision, and any proposal to structure the ANVIL assault force for a more mobile campaign highly premature.