PART VIII: Race Up the Rhone Valley

Texas Invades Southern France

While Donnell was recovering from Malaria, the 36th Infantry Division regrouped, rested, and trained for a new amphibious assault.   This division was unique.  While most U.S. divisions were created from scratch with recruits from all across the country, the 36th ID was a Texas National Guard unit that was federalized and became known as the “Texas Division” or the “T-Patchers.”  The term “T-Patchers" reflects the unit patch. 

36th ID Unit Patch

The “T” is for Texas and the arrowhead shape recalls a time when the National Guard consisted of Texas and Oklahoma men.  The division had served well in World War One.  But by the Second World War, the unit was exclusively Texan.  As a result, Donnell lived, trained and fought alongside men from Corsicana, Waxahachie, Corpus Christie, Huntsville, and all over the Lone Star State.  To this day, the Texas Division continues its long history of service.  In fact, I saw a T-Patch bumper sticker on a truck yesterday while traveling near Glen Rose, Texas.  The modern day 36th is a Texas-based armoured division, having served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and several theaters in the War on Terror, including Iraq and Afghanistan.  

But back to Donnell's War.  The Allied forces had landed several divisions on the Normandy coast on June 4, 1944, the famous D-Day invasion of Western France.  Allied forces had begun to drive inland but faced tough opposition and unfavorable terrain.  It was slow going.  To ease pressure on that front, seize critical ports to bring in badly needed supplies, and neutralize the untouched tens of thousands of German soldiers in Southern France, the allies launched Operation Dragoon on August 15, 1944.  Dragoon landed several divisions along the French Riviera.  Most of these troops, including the 36th ID, came from the Italian theater.  They were soon joined by Free French troops who had been trained and equipped by the United States.  Together these forces constituted the Allies' Seventh Army.

Blocking The German Retreat

The landings were very successful and U.S. and Free French troops were soon seizing important French ports and landing sites.  This was a crucial task because the biggest limiting factor holding back the allied forces in Normandy was the lack of good ports.  Modern armies require fantastic amounts of fuel, ammunition, food, spare parts, replacements, clothes, medicine, and literally tons of other supplies.  But as important as securing those ports was, the 36th ID’s was given a different mission.  It was tasked with driving inland as fast as possible.  It began a rapid assault deep into France, traveling over 250 miles inland to seize Grenoble.  It was in Grenoble where Donnell rejoined his unit, just in time for the 36th ID's next big operation.  Unfortunately, I do not have any direct references to Donnell or letters or other remembrances from him describing this period.  I have reviewed, however, after action reports and unit histories of U.S. forces engaged in these battles, including other regiments and field artillery battalions in the 36th ID.  From them, I learned the following.

The German 19th Army was retreating north with six divisions and the remnants of several other units, attempting to escape from the oncoming allied forces.  One of these German divisions was an elite armor division, the 11th Panzer.  The rest were infantry divisions with assorted supporting units.  

Map of Southern France, showing 36 ID units racing to cut off the German escape near Montelimar and Valence

The 36th ID split off, with some units joining Task Force Butler, while most of the division’s artillery and infantry (including the 143rd) swung around further north, moving to block the German retreat near Montelimar, France.  That means that the 36th ID, largely alone, was trying to block the escape of six desperate German divisions.  Every vehicle was pressed into service to carry troops, fuel, supplies, and artillery rounds for the guns.  The artillery battalions' trucks were overloaded to “two hundred to three hundred percent.”  133rd AA Report.  The M16 gun trucks, one of which Donnell commanded, were pressed into service as troop carriers, each carrying a squad of about 7 soldiers in the already cramped half tracks.  On August 24, 2014, they travelled 70 miles.  The next day, the division moved another 54 miles in a night march, and the artillery did not get into position until 5:00 am the morning of August 26.   It was to be a very long day.  The division’s artillery, including Donnell’s unit, were positioned in the hills above the roads traveling up the Rhone valley, an ideal position for artillery seeking to interdict and destroy the enemy forces below.  The infantry regiments set up blocking positions along the roads north.  

The fighting was fierce and the enemy desperate.  Remember that the U.S. blocking forces were outnumbered and facing heavy armor as well as overwhelming enemy infantry.  Although the artillery was firing from the hills down into the valley, German forces assaulted them, set out ambushes, infiltrated snipers into their areas, and engaged the U.S. artillery units with their own heavy guns (called "counter-battery fire").  The French Resistance was quite active in the area, helping catch German soldiers and break up potential ambushes.  Nevertheless, the 36th ID’s artillery batteries faced tough fighting.  The 132nd Field Artillery, sister unit to Donnell’s own 133rd, reported German counterattacks on their positions that had their guns engaging the German’s at 2,000 yards.  That is very close action for artillery. A battery of the 141st Field Artillery was almost overrun by German tanks, with the “last tank stopped when only a few rounds of ammunition remained.” Try Us, The Story of the Washington Artillery in WWII, pg. 109.  On August 27, German artillery fire also hit the U.S. artillery positions, including a battalion command post, killing the operations officers among others, while wounding the battalion executive officer, intelligence officer, and several others.  All told, the Battalion HQ lost seven officers to counter-battery fire that day.  Nevertheless, the U.S. guns kept firing.  Indeed, the guns were firing so furiously that ammunition supplies grew critically low for all of the U.S. artillery units, with the supply depots hundreds of miles to the south.  This unit alone was awarded four medals for valor posthumously, seven purple hearts, and a dozen other medals during this period.  

105mm howitzers of the type employed by Donnell's battalion

The Germans, some of them at least, were able to force their way through the outnumbered blocking units of the 36th ID.  It was a hollow victory, however, as the 36th ID's artillery battalions inflicted severe damage on the German forces.  105mm and 155mm shells rained down from the surrounding hills into the Rhone valley, destroying men, tanks, trucks, artillery, and the horses that the German army needed so much to haul supplies and artillery.  According to a history of the 36th ID, “It was the artillery at Montelimar that counted most and swayed the tide of battle.  During the eight days, Division field artillery battalions—131st, 132nd, 133rd, 155th—fired well over 37,000 rounds at the confined, retreating army….   At Montelimar the German Nineteenth Army was virtually destroyed.”  All told, the German army suffered catastrophic losses, including 2,100 vehicles and two divisions worth of artillery pieces.  The 36th ID had, with limited support, held out against larger German units for days until finally joined by U.S. forces moving up from the coast.  They did not stop the entire Ninth Army from escaping, but they shattered it as a fighting force.  

In my experience, Donnell was reticent to talk about "the action" his unit participated in during the wars.  His letters home were no different.  It seems the last thing these soldiers wanted to discuss with loved ones was combat, destruction, and killing; preferring instead to assure their loved ones about their own safety and talk about happier times and home life.  But there is no doubt that Donnell was heavily involved in these actions.  He hauled soldiers to and from battle, carried supplies and ammunition to the three batteries of artillery in his battalion.  It is almost certain he was directly involved in the fighting, experiencing counter-battery fire from German artillery and providing security to his own unit with the gun truck and bazooka teams he commanded.  Judging by the unit histories I have been able to review, German ambushes and armored attacks were experienced by all of the artillery units involved in this operation.  

After several days hard fighting, the 36th ID reorganized and resupplied and quickly set off in pursuit of the retreating Germans.  Even heavier fighting lay ahead, as well as up close encounters with some of the most evil deeds done by man as the T-Patchers liberated eastern France and German death camps.  There are letters from Donnell to his wife, Donnell's own pictures, and more unit histories to review and write about in the next section.