France honours overlooked heroes of 1944 Provence landings, 80 years on
France on Thursday remembers the 1944 Allied landings in Provence, an event overshadowed by the Normandy landings two months prior but that was key to the World War II endgame in Europe.
On 15 August, 1944, some 100,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed on the beaches of the French Riviera.
They were followed by 250,000 Free French soldiers recruited mostly from French overseas colonies in Africa.
The aim: recapturing the strategic port cities of Marseille and Toulon, occupied by the Nazis.
Within two weeks they had met their objectives, facing only limited resistance from an exhausted and badly equipped German contingent.
As a result, say historians, the invasion into southern France never captured the collective imagination like the hard-fought and prolonged victories in Normandy, which inspired Hollywood movies The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan.
Efforts to mark the Provence landings with major events like those seen for the Normandy landings have meanwhile been hampered by the large presence of French and foreign holidaymakers on France's Riviera beaches.
The Provence landings gave French fighters a chance to prove their worth, and added weight to France's subsequent claim to a seat at the table of World War II victors, despite its lightning-fast defeat in 1940.
"The invasion of southern France on August 15, 1944, is one of the least celebrated yet most important combat operations by the Allies in the summer of 1944," author Steven J. Zaloga wrote in a 2009 book about the invasion codenamed "Operation Dragoon".
The attack "succeeded far beyond the wildest dreams of its advocates", he wrote.
'Not forgotten'
Read more on RFI English
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