Up from the South

The 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.

Original invasion plans appeared to have been scrapped. Lieut. General Alexander M. Patch's men were successfully improvising to make the most of good fortune.

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 up.

Toulon, where the scuttled French Navy lay rusting in the harbor, was finally cracked on D-plus-twelve, slowly, painfully and destructively. Both cities were impatiently awaited by supply officers, who needed the ports.

On the 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.

To Germany: 200 Miles. But it was northward that the Allied advance made the swiftest progress. Motorized units of "Butler's Task Force," commanded by Brigadier General Frederick B. Butler, kiting up secondary roads in the hills east of the Rhone valley, quickly reached Grenoble. They were now 150 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.

French guerrillas popped up with everything from Italian pistols to ancient hunting rifles. Wrote TIME Correspondent Will Lang: "Maquis patriots swarmed to the advancing Americans like children to the Pied Piper. They came on cycles trailing little wagons, on horse-drawn carts, in wood-burning busses to which they had hitched draft animals when the engines quit. All men of all ages were armed and burning for the revenge for which they had waited for years."

This advance, by light, fast units, reached northward without running into any substantial trouble. Behind them the main Allied force turned to fan westward toward the Rhone valley, where the supply lines were better. In the south it seized Aries, Tarascon, and Avignon on the lower Rhone and crossed the river. Farther north it moved toward German garrisons at Montelimar, Valence and Lyons. By then the German escape route was a hopeless grid of Allied regulars and French irregulars.

"Perplexed . . . Stunned." Before week's end it was clear that the plight of the six German divisions in southern France was more critical than the conservative communiques had said. Four German generals had been captured. * Fifty thousand Germans--more than half of all the enemy in southern France--had been killed, wounded or captured.

Tall, nervous Sandy Patch had plenty of good news to report when his boss, U.S. Lieut. General Jacob L. Devers, dropped in for a visit. Said Patch in a proud order of the day: "We have achieved a great initial victory. The enemy in our area is perplexed and stunned. ... I therefore call on every officer and every man, regardless of fatigue or possible shortage of food and equipment, for uninterrupted continuation of their maximum energy and endurance so that the enemy may not have time to recover. . . . The opportunity for a decisive result is in front of us. . . ."

*British headquarters in northern France announced 17 more German generals and one admiral had been killed, wounded or captured since June 6.

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