The Battle of Port Cros
On August 15, 1944 the Devil’s Brigade was landed on the island of Port Cros to secure it from the Germans in advance of the main landings of Operation Dragoon. The island held five fortifications which housed guns heavy enough to bombard the invasion beaches, and the Devil’s Brigade seized them all in a day’s fighting, three of the forts by assaulting them. The other two surrendered without resistance. The action by the Devil’s Brigade was conducted simultaneously with attacks on other islands of the Hyeres, and were instrumental to the success of the landings on the beaches.
Earlier that same day USS Somers was patrolling the waters of the Hyeres off of Port Cros when it encountered two enemy warships. One was a former corvette of the Italian Navy, built as primarily an anti-submarine platform, though equipped with guns for a surface action against smaller ships. It was being operated by the German Kriegsmarine. The other was a French aviso, also operated by the Kriegsmarine, and armed for a surface engagement. Somers, an American destroyer, was part of the support fleet for Operation Dragoon, which was scheduled to begin with the commando actions about four hours following contact.
USS Somers attacked the former Italian ship with a spread of torpedoes, one of which struck the enemy vessel. The Germans were unfamiliar with much of the damage control procedures of the Italian built ship, and the vessel began to founder quickly. The formerly French vessel attempted to come to its rescue when it was taken under fire by Somers’ deck guns. The Germans returned fire, but their vessel was hit several times, and it too began to sink. Somers patrolled the area for a few more hours against the possibility of German e-boat intervention against the Devil’s Brigade action, before returning to the main body of the invasion fleet.
The action between USS Somers and the two German patrol vessels was one of the very few surface actions fought by the US Navy in the European Theater during the Second World War. After the action Somers provided gunfire support for the troops landing on the beaches during the initial assault of Operation Dragoon. The action prompted the US Army to occupy the nearby Isle of Levant, as a coast watching station for further potential German naval activity. Two days later USS Endicott and a flotilla of motor torpedo boats sank two additional German patrol boats during a ruse operation to draw German forces away from the landing beaches.
The American feint coincided with the dropping of dummy paratroops, which distracted German units in the area and caused them to remain in place when they saw the approaching American flotilla, believing it to be a preliminary to another landing. The Allied ships, which included British gunboats, were bombarding the French town of La Ciotat when two German operated gunboats attempted to intervene. Together the German vessels outgunned Endicott, which engaged both and sank them. One hundred and sixty-nine German sailors were rescued from the water and became prisoners of war following the naval actions during Operation Dragoon. One American was wounded.