Top 8 anecdotes on Operation Dragoon (Provence Landing) | Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Tourism

Plane trees at a château in La Motte guided the airborne Landing

On 15th August 1944, very early in the morning – 4.30 – General Frederick’s 1st Airborne Task Force was parachuted over the villages of Le Muy and La Motte. It numbered 9,700 men, including two French teams of the Shock Battalion. It aimed to block the Argens Valley. Following this and right up to the evening, 400 gliders deposited large quantities of heavy material, including vehicles and weapons, in the area. On that day, to make it easy to see from the sky, the pilots used the marker formed by the line of plane trees of the Château de Valbourgès, in La Motte. A family property, this wine-growing estate now produces excellent red, rosé and white wines under the designation Côtes de Provence and Vin de pays du Var.

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Une publication partagée par Château de Valbourgès (@chateaudevalbourges)

The “the chef is hungry”: the coded message that announced the Landing

On the evening of 14th August, the French Forces of the Interior were warned of the Landing in Provence via a coded message broadcast on the French radio station BBC Londres. The first message, “Nancy has a stiff neck“, warned them that it was imminent. In all, around 12 messages were broadcast, the last of which – “the chef is hungry” – announced the beginning of hostilities. From 1941, the BBC’s radio waves were regularly used for communication by the networks of the Resistance. The formulations were those of the personal messages addressed by those who had fled to their families. After General de Gaulle’s appeal, also broadcast by BBC Londres, millions of French people listened to this frequency every day.

The Allied Forces knew that the Dramont beach was not a minefield

This beach is commonly known as Dramont beach. For the Allies in August 1944, its code name was Camel Green Beach and it was crucial in establishing a bridgehead at the entrance to the Argens Plain to reach Toulon. Another important advantage was that the Allies knew that Dramont Beach was not a minefield. They were informed of this by Louis Marchand, a member of the British intelligence service and assistant manager of the blue porphyry quarry overlooking the beach. The Germans used it to send this very hard blue porphyry that they used to strengthen their buildings. A very precious piece of information!

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Hotel Du Roy Rene Aix En Provence Archives Groucaute

Churchill was against Operation Dragoon

But he later stayed in Aix to paint

Originally, Operation Dragoon was to take place at the same time as the Normandy Landing on 6th June 1944, to mark the start of Operation Overlord. This strategy was to make it possible to take the Germans in a pincer movement on two flanks. The plan was supported by the Americans, and then by Stalin. But Churchill wasn’t for it: he favoured an operation in the Balkans, but Stalin refused. More or less rallied to the cause, after the war he chose Provence as a holiday destination. In the summer of 1948, he spent six weeks with his family at the Hôtel du Roi René in Aix-en-Provence writing his memoirs, walking and painting landscapes.

Jean Moulin opened an art gallery in Nice

At 22 rue de France, in Nice, a plaque commemorates the memory of this episode: « Jean Moulin, the unifier of the Resistance and creator of the CNR, sacrificed his life so that France could live free. This house housed the Romanin gallery, which served as a “cover” for his clandestine activities from October 1942 to June 1943, before his arrest in Caluire.».The profession of gallery owner, which implied a lot of trips, was the ideal camouflage for the hero of the Resistance. Particularly because Nice was then occupied by the Italians, who, contrary to the Germans, did not know who he was. Very keen on art, Jean Moulin, an amateur draughtsman, also had his own art collection.

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Une publication partagée par Résistance(s) et Mémoires (@resistance_et_memoires)

Germans masqueraded as members of the Resistance in Oraison

At the limit of Provence and the Alps, Oraison, now well-known for its fields of lavender, rapidly became an important place for the Resistance in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. But on 16th July 1944, a month before the Provence Landing, the members of the local resistance network, the Comité Départemental de Libération led by Louis Martin Bret, fell into an enemy trap. On that day, members of the Resistance met in the village. Informed of this meeting, Germans disguised as resistance fighters went to Oraison, where they simulated an attack. Thinking that they were allies, one of them went to the Town Hall and lacerated the portrait of Pétain. Finally, the Germans revealed themselves before arresting the members of the network who were imprisoned in Marseille and shot in Signes on 18th July 1944.

The Fort of Brégançon was taken from the Germans on a bluff

Built in the 17th century on a rocky spur on the seafront in Bormes-les-Mimosas, the Fort of Brégançon, the official holiday home of the French President, fell into the hands of the enemy during WW2. 80 German soldiers were still entrenched there on 17th August 1944, when it was taken by the 3rd Commando d’Afrique led by Capitaine Leusse… on a bluff! He managed to convince them that his men were superior in number and well-equipped. The plan was successful: when the assault was launched the Germans surrendered without a fight. But only after having eliminated those among them who would not lay down their arms…

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Une publication partagée par OFFICE DE TOURISME BORMES LES MIMOSAS (@bormeslesmimosastourisme)

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Une publication partagée par 𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗢𝗨𝗫 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 / 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗘𝗟 (@ventouxprovencetourisme)

The Ventoux Maquis was born in a hotel in Sault

On holiday in Provence, at the foot of Mont-Ventoux, you might put down your bags at the hotel-restaurant Le Louvre, in Sault’s historic centre. It was inside these walls that an important page of the Resistance in the Vaucluse was written. In December 1941, it was here that the two founders of the Maquis Ventoux, Philippe Beyne and Maxime Fisher, first met. The former was a reservist lieutenant colonel, and the latter a lawyer at the Paris bar, from which he had been struck off because he was a Jew. During WW2, the Maquis Ventoux became one of the most important sources of the Resistance in Provence, with active support from the local population.