Dragooned

Ken Timmerman's

Threat Watch

www.kentimmerman.com

Friday evening

Dear <<First Name>>,

Churchill was not happy about Operation Anvil, the plan to land 450,000 Allied troops on the beaches of the south of France on Aug. 15, 1944. That's why he dubbed it, Operation Dragoon - "because I was dragooned into it," he liked to say.

Every year, Americans and Frenchmen and women gather all along the Mediterranean coast of France to celebrate the "forgotten" D-Day landings, and I have been honored to join them on several occasions, including this past week.

From Cap Negre near Marseilles, all the way to Saint-Raphael, the liberators stormed ashore with the morning sun at their backs (and in the eyes of the remaining Nazi defenders). This was the landing that cemented the return of the French army, led by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, from years of ignominy and occupation.

Less known is the fact that many of the French forces were in fact colonial levies from Senegal, Morocco, and the Ivory Coast, causing French commentators at the time to note that without them, France would have been liberated by the Americans; with them, France helped to liberate herself.

(Pictured here are re-enactors of a Moroccan scout division at the Aug. 15 parade in Sainte-Maxime).

The annual parades, often winding through the streets of small towns, are just part of the bigger picture, which is to keep the flames of memory alive for future generations. As the mayor of Sainte Maxime reminded all of us, "freedom is not free." Message getting lost in the US, perhaps?

On August 16, 1944, U.S. forces leading the liberation force met up with French resistance fighters in Draguignan, and this year, the re-enactors brought in a Sherman tank to meet up with grimy Frenchmen who heeded the code-word call from BBC, "Nancy has a stiff neck."

Eight hundred and sixty Americans are buried at the Rhone American Cemetery in Draguignan. Nearly three hundred Frenchmen also paid the price to liberate their homeland during Operation Dragoon. But the results were stunning. Within 24 hours, the liberators had secured a bridgehead twenty miles deep all across the landing area, and within weeks, they also drove the Nazis out of the key resupply ports of Marseilles and Toulon.

You can listen to the US 6th fleet buglers play taps to those heroes on my Facebook page, here:

And here you can listen to the French rendition of the Star Spangled banner just before the parade in Sainte-Maxime earlier this week. H ere are a few more photos.

I discuss the D-Day landings as well as the latest geopolitical events around the world in my weekly segment at the beginning of Prophecy Today Weekend. Tune in live at 1 PM on Saturday on Jacksonville's Way Radio, or at 104.9 FM or 550 AM. If you miss it live, you can listen to the podcast later.

Yours in freedom,

Ken

Ken Timmerman's 12th book of non-fiction, AND THE REST IS HISTORY: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies, is now available from PostHill Press.

AND THE REST IS HISTORY can be ordered directly from Amazon by clicking here or by viewing my author's page, here.

- Republican nominee for Congress, Maryland District 8 (2012)
- National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Board, Trump for President 2016
- President & CEO, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org
- Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2006
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