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Southern France may well prove to be another bloody Anzio. —Winston Churchill The Allies began their fourth summer of World War II in the Mediterranean in dramatically different circumstances from those of the first three summers. Unlike the dark days of 1940–41, the United States was now firmly in the Allied camp. As a result of the British victory at El Alamein, the Torch landings and subsequent Tunisian campaign, and the invasions of Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio, the Allies now controlled all of the North African coast, the islands of Malta and Sicily, and most of the Italian mainland. Rome, the original but elusive goal of the Italian campaign, had fallen to Gen. Harold Alexander’s armies on June 4, 1944, and the German Fourteenth Army and remnants of the Tenth Army were withdrawing rapidly up the Italian peninsula. Allied discussions about an offensive from Italy to Vienna via the Llubljana Gap were put on hold in early July when Alexander was forced to relinquish troops for the forthcoming invasion of southern France. The U.S. Fifth Army was reduced to five divisions and the Fifteenth Army Group as a whole to only eighteen, with little hope of adequate reinforcements arriving for months. The transfer of these divisions to France was a crushing blow to Alexander, who had high hopes of reaching Florence by mid-July and attacking the enemy’s Gothic Line by August 15.1 This advance up the west coast of Italy prompted the Allies to reschedule Operation Brassard, an amphibious operation designed to occupy the island of Elba to prevent the Germans from using it as an outpost. They also planned to mount heavy guns on Elba to harass enemy traffic through the Piombino Canal. Operation Brassard, origiCHAPTER 16 PRELIMINARIES TO OPERATION DRAGOON u-Tomblin 16.qx2 6/30/04 1:19 PM Page 379 nally scheduled or May 25, had been postponed until June 17 to allow the inexperienced French troops more time to train.2 Although this delay gave the German forces on Elba ample time to evacuate the island, which lies only five miles off the west coast of Italy, Hitler “attached great import to holding Elba as long as possible.” Consequently , on June 12 Gen. Alfred Jodl told Field Marshal Albert Kesselring that Elba must be defended “to the last man and the last cartridge .” Citing Elba’s limited importance, the German naval commander objected, but to no avail, and two days later the commander in chief, Southwest told German naval command, Italy to hold Elba “at all costs” and said that reinforcements were being sent from the island of Pianosa. This decision went undetected by Allied intelligence, which took the bustle of enemy traffic between Elba and the mainland to be a partial evacuation. It was, in fact, a stream of reinforcements.3 According to Lt. Cdr. Trevor Blore RNVR, an optimistic tone prevailed at the final briefing for Operation Brassard held by Rear Adm. Tom Troubridge on June 15. His staff officers explained that Force N was to land Ninth French Colonial Division troops at several different locations on Elba using exclusively small craft, as the shallow waters surrounding the island prevented the use of larger ships and transports. The only gunfire support, therefore, would be provided by PTs, LCGs, Hedgerows, and two former Chinese gunboats, Aphis and Cockshafer. The assault was to be made by three groups. Group 1, composed of PTs and MTBs, would create diversions and land French commandos on the north side of Elba to silence key enemy batteries. Group 2, with 5 LCIs and eight MLs towing LCAs, was to land troops on four beaches on the south coast. Group 3, with nine LCIs, four LSTs, and three MLs towing LCS(M)s, would make the main assault on Kodak Amber and Green beaches at 0400. These would be followed a half hour later by an additional twenty-eight LCIs and at first light by another forty LCTs bearing the heavy equipment. Troubridge cheerfully told his commanders that French intelligence reports indicated only eight hundred enemy troops were on Elba, mostly Poles or troops of non-German origin who were unlikely to put up a fight. The admiral dismissed enemy shore batteries, which he assumed would be taken care of by commandos or air attacks. On the morning of D-day Minus One, June 16, landing craft for Brassard embarked Gen. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s French troops, and in the late afternoon...

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