Word: beachhead
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Will Lang, veteran of Tunisia, of Salerno, of the Anzio beachhead, went in with the first wave of American infantry (at "a very tough spot," Osborne reported) . . . Reg Ingraham, our naval expert, covered the landings from a warship offshore, then pushed on to Toulon with General Patch's Seventh Army . . . Carl My dans came from Italy to join General de Lattre's fighters in the march on Marseilles (to the best of our knowledge, My dans was the only correspondent with the French forces) . . . and Photographer George Silk flew in from Italy in a British glider which tore...
...Allied Seventh Army ballooned out through southern France in the fastest development of a beachhead since North Africa. The ordinary rules no longer held; an army superbly equipped, trained and led exploded into the vacuum made by i) an unexpectedly weak and inadequate German defense; 2) the French Forces of the Interior...
Only in Toulon, Marseilles and the coastal strip on either side of the beachhead was there any substantial German opposition. Even this was virtually wiped out twelve days after the landing. Allied troops entered Marseilles, reportedly scheduled for capture on D-plus-50, on D-plus-eight. La Cannebire, heart of France's second city, was a no man's land for six days thereafter, until the last German garrison gave...
...eastern wing of the beachhead the Germans also showed some fight. But the garrison of Cannes was pounded into surrender by sea, air and land by D-plus-ten, and Allied forces advancing east went on toward Nice, only a few miles away. A plunge northeastward to Briangon brought the Seventh Army only five miles from the Italian frontier. Any German hope of evacuating large bodies of troops from southern France to northern Italy was virtually ended...
...miles from the coast, 230 miles from Lieut. General Omar N. Bradley's forces in the north, 200 miles from the German frontier. Three days later a party of correspondents, jeeping peacefully through Maquis-held territory, turned up on the Swiss frontier near Geneva, 200 miles from the beachhead...