Race for the Alps - Aug 21st - The Matrix Games version of West Front

As part of Operation Dragoon, Task Force Butler (a mixed independent set of units) was formed to cut off the retreating Germans in the French alpine region trying for the Italian and Swiss Alps. Late in the afternoon of 21 August, 1944 , BG Butler's men moved south from Crest to Puy St. Martin, and then west to Marsanne in the center of the square, probing farther west through the Condillac Pass toward La Coucourde and south down Route D-6 toward Sauzet and Montelimar. Lt. Col. Joseph G. Felber, commanding the advance party, immediately recognized Hill 300 as the key terrain feature and established his command post nearby at the Chateau Condillac. Unable to secure the entire ridgeline of Hill 300, Felber set up outposts, roadblocks, and guard points and posted accompanying FFI soldiers in Sauzet.

German forces were already traveling north along the main highway, and, as soon as an artillery battery could unlimber its pieces, Felber had it open fire on the German traffic. A second battery and several tanks and tank destroyers soon added their fire, while a cavalry troop and some infantry placed a roadblock across the main highway, until a German attack at dusk drove the small force back into the hills. On the north bank of the Drome River, another cavalry troop, after moving west from Crest, fired on a German truck column fording a stream, and then advanced and destroyed about fifty German vehicles.

Upon reaching the forward area, Butler ordered the troop operating on the Drome back to Crest to protect the roads to Puy St. Martin, but left a platoon on the north bank of the Drome as flank protection. After establishing his command post at Marsanne, he sent a message to Truscott's corps headquarters at 2330 confirming his unit's arrival at the objective area. His forces, Butler reported, were thinly spread, but with the expected reinforcements--a regiment of the 36th Division and more artillery--he was confident he could deal with a determined German reaction and launch a successful attack against Montelimar the following afternoon. However, until he was resupplied with ammunition, his artillery and tank destroyers would be unable to halt all the German traffic along the highway.

The morning of 22 August found Butler still waiting for supplies and reinforcement. Meanwhile the Germans moved first, mounting what was to be the first of many efforts to dislodge the Americans. Grouped around the reconnaissance battalion of the 11th Panzer Division and elements of the 71st Luftwaffe Infantry Training Regiment,4 an ad hoc force attacked north from Montelimar about noon, took Sauzet, and forced an American outpost and the FFI back into the hills. The action, however, proved to be a feint. The main German force reassembled south of the Roubion River, advanced nine miles east, and then swung north, crossing the river and advancing on Puy St. Martin and Marsanne, behind Butler's defenses. Almost unopposed, the Germans occupied Puy that afternoon, cutting the American supply line to Crest and Sisteron.

The German success was short-lived. By chance, Butler's detachments at Gap and the Croix Haute Pass had been relieved by some of Stack's forces on the 21st, and both had been traveling to rejoin Butler. The Gap group had just turned south from Crest on the afternoon of the 22d, and its commander, realizing the implications of the German advance, quickly organized a tank-infantry counterattack into Puy. While Sherman tank fire blocked the roads leading from Puy to Marsanne, the unit from Gap cleared Puy that evening, destroying ten German vehicles but suffering no casualties.

Butler believed that the German attack was only a probe to determine his strength, and he expected a much stronger assault on the following day, 23 August. Still no units of the 36th Division had arrived during the day. The only forces joining him on the 22d were his own detachments from Gap and the pass and two 155-mm. battalions of VI Corps artillery. Equally important, his own artillery and armor were dangerously low on ammunition, with about twenty-five rounds per gun. To preserve his position, he needed both reinforcements and resupply.