At 08:00 on 15 August 1944, after a night of airborne and commando landings and an hour of bombing and naval gunfire, the first waves of VI Corps came ashore on the Côte d’Azur. On the left the 3rd Infantry Division landed in Cavalaire Bay and on the beach of Pampelonne below Saint-Tropez; in the center the 45th Infantry Division landed on the Delta beaches around Sainte-Maxime. Resistance was light. Mines, not German guns, caused most of the casualties, and by nightfall both divisions were miles inland.

Alpha: the 3rd Division

The 3rd Division’s objective was the Saint-Tropez peninsula, held by an Ost battalion of the German 765th Grenadier Regiment, two artillery battalions and a coast artillery battery. On Alpha Red, in Cavalaire Bay, the 7th Infantry’s leading wave started for the shore at about 06:30, and rocket craft fired on the beach between 07:50 and 07:56. Opposition at the water’s edge was negligible, but two landing craft carrying men of the 2nd Battalion and one swimming tank sank, causing about sixty casualties. The 3rd Battalion cleared Cavalaire-sur-Mer by 10:30. The 30th Infantry followed ashore at 09:20, and by 20:00 its 3rd Battalion had taken Collobrières, about twenty-four hours ahead of schedule. General O’Daniel came ashore about 10:45.

On Alpha Yellow, the beach of Pampelonne at the head of the peninsula, the 15th Infantry landed on schedule. Mines caused most of its few casualties. Its 1st Battalion took the high ground by 14:00, overrunning a strongpoint and capturing forty prisoners. The 3rd Battalion reached Saint-Tropez at about 15:00 to find that misdropped paratroopers of the 509th and men of the French Resistance had already cleared most of the town; the garrison of the Citadel, sixty-seven men, surrendered.

Gallery · 8 photographs · select to enlarge

Alpha, 15 August 1944

Sergeant Connor at Cap Cavalaire

Among the first men ashore on Alpha Red was the 7th Infantry’s Battle Patrol, a platoon of thirty-six men sent to clear the German positions on Cap Cavalaire at the eastern end of the bay. As it moved forward, a mine hanging from a tree exploded, killing the platoon leader and badly wounding Sergeant James P. Connor of Wilmington, Delaware, in the neck. Connor refused to be evacuated. When the platoon sergeant was killed he took command, was wounded twice more, in the shoulder and back and then in the leg, and kept directing the attack from the ground. Reduced to less than a third of its strength, the platoon killed seven Germans, captured forty and took three machine guns. Connor received the Medal of Honor in 1945.

Another soldier of the 3rd Division also distinguished himself near the beaches that day. Staff Sergeant Audie Murphy of the 15th Infantry, later the most decorated American soldier of the war, earned the Distinguished Service Cross near Ramatuelle on 15 August after his close friend Private Lattie Tipton was killed by Germans who had pretended to surrender.

Gallery · 8 photographs · select to enlarge

The first prisoners and the first wounded

Delta: the 45th Division at Sainte-Maxime

In the center, the 45th Division landed on four beaches on either side of Sainte-Maxime and in the Bay of Bougnon. Opposite them were a battalion of the 765th Grenadiers, an artillery battalion and a naval battery, but the bombardment had destroyed much of the German artillery; only one 75-mm gun fired a few rounds, and three mortars on Cap Sardineaux fired about sixty rounds before they were destroyed. The 157th Infantry’s leading wave landed at 08:02. Its 3rd Battalion took Sainte-Maxime at about 15:30 after calling in naval gunfire, and its 1st Battalion pushed five miles inland to Plan de la Tour.

The 180th Infantry landed on Delta Yellow and Blue with little opposition, though mines disabled four swimming tanks. Its 3rd Battalion pushed north over rough hills toward Le Muy, and at about 20:30 a platoon of the 45th Reconnaissance Troop met paratroopers of the 509th south of the town, joining the beaches to the airborne. The 179th Infantry landed without incident and assembled in reserve.

Gallery · 6 photographs · select to enlarge

Delta and inland

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