First, a little anoucement:
I am always looking to contact allied or German vets who where in southern France, and always looking for documentation, photos, texts, diaries, etc, concerning the region of south eastern France. I am putting together a (mostly) oral history book with all this. My dream would be to find a German vet who was at Villeneuve in august 26th 1944.
If you can, please help me to find a German veteran who may have been in Villeneuve-Loubet, or in the region of Nice. I am also interested in photos, documents, anything from the region of Nice, Cannes, Grasse, etc, concerning Allied or German troops.
-German troops were from Reserve Infanterie Division 148, under Fretter-Pico. Send me a PM for more specific details about the German units. I would be interested to see a scan of any German death card for a man killed at Villeneuve or in southern France.
-Allied units involved were the FSSF, 517th, 509th and 551st paratrooper regiments. I have talked to FSSF and 517th vets a lot, but havent had many contacts with the 509th and 551st.
Finaly, anybody who knows some info about MIA soldiers, or who would like some recomendations on how to procede, can contact me as well.
I can be contacted at
schyzowolf@yahoo.fr
(toute personne desirant me contacter en ce qui concerne des corps de soldats allemands portes disparus ou enterres clandestinement peuvent me contacter a l'adresse:
schyzowolf@yahoo.fr )
As promissed, here are more details about the exhumation that occured at Villeneuve-Loubet, southern France, on october 18th 2006. As I am at home for christmas, I have full access to all my pictures, so can make a complete thread.
This is the plan I will follow for this thread; so that you can skip the parts you may find boring:
1. Detailed history of what happened in Villeneuve-Loubet in 1944,
with veteran interviews that I made myself, that will be shown in gold color.
2. Pictures of the exhumation, and detailed analysis of some of the more interesting bodies, and the objects found on them.
3. Photos of random objects discovered.
4. Photos of the funeral that occured at Berneuil cemetery in France on june 23rd 2006 (see page 11):
News video ofs the exhumation can be seen on youtube here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=343cin_nQHU
A home made video is visible here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y7G0dfENiw
One last thing: if you enjoy the thread, dont be affraid to take a minute to post a comment, because it took me much more then a minute to get all this information together and post it.
For some other of my threads concerning research in southern France or digging, here are links:
http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ighlight=moles
http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ight=jean+loup
So, let us start.
On august 15th 1944, the allies landed in southern France, in the area west of Cannes (see red arrows) . The Germans between the landing beaches and the French-Italian border were not in any position to resist the allied advance. The Germans thus decided that they would set up defenses in the mountains at the border, and would try to resist there, as the mountain terrain would make attacks much more difficult for the allies.
The troops between the border and the beach heads were to delay the allied advance as much as possible, to give time for the mountain defenses to be organised.
As of august 20th, several paratrooper regiments, and the Canadian-American First Special Service Force (FSSF) rapidly started their advance towards the Italian border, meeting only sporadic resistance. In Villeneuve-Loubet (white square on the map) the Germans set up a definit point of resistance to stop this advance.
The mass grave in Villeneuve-Loubet, full details
Threaded Mode
