Operation Dragoon: Landing in France
Audie Murphy recalls landing near St. Tropez
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 24
August 15, 1944. “Technically it was called a perfect landing. The last operation designed to correct the enemy coastal defenses in southern France had been calculated and prepared to the smallest detail; and it moved with the smooth precision of a machine.
“Resistance, compared to that and other invasions, was light. Several weeks previously our forces had broken out of the Normandy beachhead. They now slashed across northern France like an angry river through a levee breach. The eastern front was crumbling under the mighty impact of the Russians. German cities were being ground to dust by our Air Force.
“The German situation was compared to a man who had occupied a stolen house. Now justice was hammering on both his front and back doors. As he dashed alternately between the doors, frantically trying to keep them closed, a trap door opened in the floor; And a third party started climbing up from the cellar. We were that party.
“But we do not know, we do not see the gigantic pattern of the offensive as we peer over the edge of the landing boats that are nearing the coast of France. We study the minute detail of the front that lies immediately before us.
“My regiment’s first objective is a sandy stretch of shoreline bearing the code name of “Yellow Beach.” The terrain looks harmless enough. It is early morning in mid-August. Beyond the beach, thin patches of mist hover over the flat farmlands; and above the mist, the inland hills rise calm and green.
“About us in the bay lying between St. Tropez and Cavalaier is the now familiar design of an amphibious invasion. The battleships have given the beach a thorough pounding. Now their guns are quiet but the huge gray ships steam slowly in the background.
“The rocket boat guns take over. As weapons, they are more intimate than the naval cannon. Fired in batches, their missiles sail hissing through the air like schools of weird fish. They hit the earth, detonating mines, blasting barbed wire entanglements and unnerving the waiting enemy.
“Under the rocket barrage, scores of landing boats churn toward the shore. I stand in one; and the old fear that always precedes action grapples with my guts. Seeking to distract my mind, I glance at the men huddled in the boat. They look as miserable as wet cats. Though the water has been smooth enough, several are seasick; and others have the lost, abstract expression of men who are relieving their bowels.
“Suddenly I see the comedy of little men, myself included, who are pitted against a riddle that is as vast and indifferent as the blue sky above us. My sense of humor has always been considered perverse because I laugh at big things and fret over small ones. Now I laugh.”
As they advance toward the French coast, Murphy tries to get his men to sing. They’re not into it.
But singing was a popular pastime for troops under the gun. The Third Division even had — still has — its own song, Dogface Soldier, co-written by Sgt. Bert Gold and Lt. Ken Hart in 1942, both of Long Beach, NY. They wrote the song about common soldiers, and when it came to the attention of then-Third Infantry Division commander Lucien K. Truscott, he had it adopted as the division’s song. The song was immensely popular with the Third Division soldiers. They sang it, marched to it and danced to it.
“Dogface Soldier” made its public debut in the 1955 Audie Murphy film “To Hell and Back.” The song is the most publicized and well-known song from the war.
Here are the lyrics:
I Wouldn’t Give A Bean
To Be A Fancy Pants Marine
I’d Rather Be A
Dog Face Soldier Like I Am
I Wouldn’t Trade My Old OD’s
For All The Navy’s Dungarees
For I’m The Walking Pride
Of Uncle Sam
On Army Posters That I Read
It Says “Be All That You Can”
So They’re Tearing Me Down
To Build Me Over Again
I’m just a Dogface Soldier,
With a rifle on my shoulder,
And I eat a Kraut for breakfast every day.
So Feed Me Ammunition
Keep Me In the Third Division
Your DogFace Soldier’s A-Okay
Photos: NARA
Quotes are from Audie Murphy’s autobiography, “To Hell and Back”
Ch. 25: https://medium.com/@tradeswomn/ready-to-leave-poor-italy-d7dd9e12dc7d
