Operation Dragoon

**Watchdog** · 11-01-2020, 09:50 PM

by RH1941

Until I bought this grouping I had never heard of Operation Dragoon

I think you are far from alone there Gary and it is no fault of the individual collector / enthusiast but of the "popular press" at the time and of course the subsequent popular awareness drawn from that ever since. Which has meant that, in said popular awareness Operation Overlord (No mention of Op Neptune either) aka D-Day has become the "be all and end all" of the liberation of Europe and therefore the beginning of the end of the war, with such operations as Torch, Husky, Baytown, Giant, Avalanche and Shingle all '42 - '43 period involving US, UK and Canadian forces and concerning French N Africa then Sicily/Italy aka "the soft underbelly of Europe" being overlooked in terms of "big news".

In UK there was even a song about the allied troops in Italy being "D-Day Dodgers"

so how much chance is there of Dragoon being widely known? Not many people are really aware of Op Bagration and that was enormous! It's no wonder that Bill Slims' 14th Army (largest army in the Commonwealth at the time) thought of themselves as "The Forgotten Army". The power of the press eh?

I think it is only when you look at all these various Ops together and see them on a map that the strategy becomes visible and you realise that Normandy was only one of the fingers (granted it was probably the thumb) in the fist that was squeezing the throat of the Axis.

This to me is why it is so fantastic for us to see a group like the one at the top of this thread that provokes a discussion that leads to just one member going away and saying "do you know what I was reading today?" to some idiot playing "Call of Cyber Death Mega Warmageddon Obliteration" on his PlayStation 74

We all delight in the helmets, uniforms and daggers etc but the real history is in these small personal bring back groups. Keep 'em coming guys

Regards

Mark
PS Just to put "D-Day" in to perspective and at the risk of stating the obvious , the name "D-Day" is itself pretty much what today would be called media hype because the ONLY meaning of the term is as a reference to the start of an operation, any operation. It is a simple unambiguous reference to the actual start date ie "D" = day (it can change as it did in 1944 so not date) and "H" = Hour or start time. Therefore, we have all been falling for it for decades because every Operation has a "D" and an "H" So "D Day" for Op Dragoon was 15 Aug 44

**Rakkasan187** · 11-01-2020, 11:33 PM

Well put Mark,,

Stay Safe Berliner!!

Smitty

**RH1941** · 11-02-2020, 08:27 PM

A photo of the back

**Watchdog** · 11-02-2020, 09:50 PM

It looks to read "Major General Hubler. Garmisch-Partenkirschen. Lived in his house from 7th May"

The closest I can get to that is Generalmajor Hans Huttner who was an officer with connections to units in Bayreuth which is in Bavaria as is Garmisch-Partenkirchen (1936 Winter Olympiad was held there, one of the most amazing places I have ever been!).

He nominally commanded the fictitious Infanterie Division 703 in the Netherlands at the end of the war and was captured by British forces. Despite his being a confirmed Nazi there was a barracks named after him during the'80s in Hof, Bavaria. It is still there and used by the Bundeswehr but the name was changed in the '90s. Huttner died in 1956.

From pictures it looks like the same man.