The Memory Road of La Londe les Maures 1942-1944

This stele was erected in 1970 by the association of the French Remembrance on the site of the first divisional cemetery created after the liberation of La Londe les Maures. On August 17th, 1944, the first American soldiers arrived by this road. They will be followed by the African commandos. An American destroyer tank was stopped by the German artillery in front of the castle of the Tour Saint Honoré. From the top of the destroyed turret, Sergeant Stanley BENDER fixed enemy shootings and attacked the bridge before liberating the village. This bridge now bears his name. The Marquis de LORDAT, who owned the land, acceded to the request of General Diégo BROSSET, who commanded the 1st DFL (1st Free French Division). He demanded to bury the 117 bodies out of the 298 officers, sub-officers and soldiers of his unit who had perished between La Londe and Le Pradet. The graves were maintained by the children of the Jean Jaurès school for many years after the end of the war. General de LATTRE de TASSIGNY, commander of the 1st French Army, Rhine and Danube, comes to pay tribute to the disappeared after the Liberation of Toulon. General O'DANIEL, commander of the 3rd American Infantry Division (3rd DI.U.S.), stopped there before visiting the huge field hospital installed on the VALROSE site. General de GAULLE came to pray there after the end of the War. He is welcomed by the mayor Mr. François de LEUSSE. This officer of the Foreign Legion integrated into the commandos of Africa under the name of Captain de Montgraham, landed on the beach of Le Canadel and liberated Cap Bénat and Fort de Brégançon. In November 1944, during the liberation of Belfort, at the head of the 3rd African Commando, he was one of the few survivors of this decimated unit at the Bois d'Arsot in Offemont where a crossroads bears his name. Most of the bodies of the soldiers of the 1st DFL were returned to their families after the opening of the national necropolis of BOULOURIS near Saint Raphael, inaugurated on August 15th, 1964 by General De Gaulle. On May 8th, 1981, the first flag was presented there to the French Remembrance local committee, created on May 2nd, 1980 on the initiative of M. PONEL, director of the Jean Jaurès school during the occupation and president of the French Remembrance of Hyères.

3rd American Infantry Division - 3rd DIUS - Company E October 31, 1909 – June 22, 1994 The highest distinction of the United States of America "The Medal of Honor" was awarded to him in 1984 for the 40th anniversary of the landing in Provence. On August 17th, 1944 at La Londe les Maures (France), he performed an act of bravery. One says that he "deliberately advanced 40 metres in open ground, visible to German soldiers, under a rain of allied and enemy fires to a first machine gun, which he put out of action in a single, short burst. He opened a path up through the heart of the fighting zone despite the explosions of grenades, towards a second machine gun 25 metres away. While the two servants who operated it swept the area and fired two times in its direction, he bravely continued under fire and reached the top of the site, neutralizing the device. Instructing his men to occupy the holes left by shell fire, he travelled another 35 metres to kill a enemy sniper. He leads his group to the destruction of 8 enemy strong points. His boldness impressed the rest of the company so much that the men left their positions to charge, while screaming, to submerge the enemy’s roadblock and infiltrate the city. They destroyed two anti-tank guns in the process, killed 37 Germans and captured 26 others. He led his men through an attack that overwhelmed the enemy, destroyed a roadblock, took a town, seized the bridge over the Maravenne River and captured the sector command.” (The sector covered the area of Val Rose, Saint Honoré and la Pabourette) He will wait for the arrival of the US tanks with his section and on the morning of August 18th he will cross the liberated city. Sergeant Stanley BENDER died on June 22nd 1994 at the age of 85. He is buried in the High Lawn Cemetery (Town of Fayette) in West Virginia, United States (location "Section A - Lot 360). A bridge and a museum bearing his name are dedicated to him.

Eugène OSWALD, born on August 14th, 1925 in La Londe, is the son of Jacques OSWALD, a village doctor. In 1943, he fled and joined the famous and glorious maquis of Ain to escape the STO (compulsory labour service). On July 13th, 1944, he and three other Maquis men ambushed an enemy detachment from a hill. Spotted by the Nazis overlooking their position, they were shot on their legs and finished off on the spot. Eugène OSWALD and two of his comrades from Haute Savoie were killed. The fourth one from the Ain dragged himself to a nearby wood and survive his injuries. He described the scene he experienced after the massacre: "I see the Germans finishing off my comrades from the woods, then they rush to a nearby farm and fill it with straw and wood to set it on fire. At this moment the farmer walks towards the German officer holding a sheet of paper. The officer ordered his soldiers to remove the wood and decided to spare the farm. The paper attests that the husband who owns the farm is a prisoner of war in Germany where he is responsible for maintaining a German farm whose farmer is fighting in France. » A stele bearing the name of Eugène OSWALD (19 years old) and his two comrades is erected on the place where they died in the commune of SONGIEU in the Ain. Eugène OSWALD is buried in the family vault in the cemetery of La Londe les Maures, the nursery school and the street that leads to it both bear his name.

Louis BUSSONE was born on July 30th, 1919 in La Londe. F.T.P.F (Maverick and French partisan). On August 17th, 1944 at 3 p.m., at the announcement of the arrival of the American and French soldiers who had landed on August 15th, 1944 on the Provençal coast, after having defused the explosive charges under the Maravenne bridge and facilitated the arrival of the liberating troops, he attempted to sabotage the device that the German soldiers had installed to destroy the Pansard bridge during their withdrawal. Surprised by an enemy patrol, he fled to his home but he was catched by the German soldiers that were chasing him. He was arrested and passed through the village with his hands on his head under the eyes of the villagers. He was shot on August 17th, 1944 at the age of 25 near the cooperative cellar by the head of the Kommandantur. The latter, taken prisoner by African commandos during the attack on the Mauvanne blockhouses, was shot dead by the village inhabitants in the evening of 18th August.

On August 12th, 1944, the elements of this unit, invested with their victory at Bir Hakeim, waited in Taranto harbour on several ships and continued to train for a landing that everyone knew was close. On August 15th the maps of the Provence coast are distributed; On the morning of August 16th, the ship's radio announced the landing. The commandos have established themselves on the soil of Provence and an American airborne division occupies the Argens Valley. At 5pm, the French coasts appear. Men have been waiting for this moment for 4 years. Cavalaire Bay is identified. It is in the hands of Franco-American paratroopers since the day before, who cleaned the coast like the African commandos between Le Canadel and Le Lavandou. A Divisional surgical team (Spears) has been detached in the forward guard and is accompanying the commandos. General BROSSET commanding the Division landed with the 2nd Brigade. On August 17th, the entire Division landed and gathered at the Valmer Cross. On August 18th, it took the direction of Hyères, placed under the command of General de LARMINAT who also headed the 9th Colonial Infantry Division and a group of commandos and shock battalions. On August 19th, it crosses La Londe. The marine riflemen of the SAVARY squadron branch off towards Les Borrels and Le Pas du Cerf to regroup at Domaine de la Clapière. From there they took the road to Pierrefeu to ensure the link between the other elements of the 1st DFL and the 9th D.I.C. which had liberated Collobrières. Pierrefeu was liberated, the marine riflemen joined the Domaine de la Clapière while waiting for news about Mont Redon before liberating La Crau. The other units headed for Hyères to relay the African commandos chosen to seize Mount Coudon after the capture of the Mauvanne blockhouses. The German defence zones are the main goals. The Golf Hotel, Costebelle, Mont Fenouillet in Hyères, Mont Redon in La Crau, Le Pradet and the Thouar hill in La Garde are the bastions where heavy fighting will cause enormous losses to the Division (298 men lost their lives there, more than 300 were wounded) before entering Toulon. N/B: the names of 117 of them are inscribed in front of the French Remembrance Stele in the Saint Honoré district (D.559) towards Le Lavandou.

Eugène OSWALD was born on August 14th, 1925 in La Londe. His father, Jacques, is the village doctor. To escape the STO (forced labour department) he fled and joined the famous and glorious maquis of Ain. During an ambush on the occupying army from the top of a hill, he and three other Maquis were spotted by the Nazis overlooking their position. The method to punish the Maquis is strictly respected. After shooting them in the legs, the Nazis rushed to finish them off. Eugène OSWALD and two of his comrades from Haute Savoie were killed. The fourth one from the Ain dragged himself to a nearby wood and survived his injuries. A stele bearing the name of Eugène OSWALD and his two comrades’ is erected on the place where they perished in the commune of SONGIEU (01). Shot dead on July 13th, 1944 he was to be 19 years old. Pierre RIVAULT was born on May 6th, 1920 in Tours. Worker at the Bormettes factory, he left the village by jumping out of a truck and joined the maquis to escape the STO (forced labour department). Taken prisoner by the Nazis with nine other FTPFs (Maverick and French partisan), he was tortured, horribly mutilated, then shot dead with his comrades on the banks of the Asse de Blieux, a small stream located at the place called La Tuilière in the commune of SENEZ in the Alpes de Haute Provence on July 20th, 1944 at the age of 24. His body, found in a mass grave, was not identified until 1945 and his name was transcribed into the civil status registers of this small town. A square in the Bormettes district bears his name. Louis BUSSONE was born on July 30th, 1919 in La Londe. Maverick and French partisan (F.T.P.F). On the announcement of the arrival of the American and French soldiers who had landed on August 15th, 1944 on the Provençal coast, he sabotaged the firing system of the Pont du Maravenne. He then attempted a new sabotage of the device that the German soldiers had installed to destroy the Pansard bridge during their withdrawal. Surprised by an enemy patrol, he was shot near the cooperative cellar on August 17th, 1944 at the age of 25, as the first American and French soldiers approached the village.

General Paul DUCOURNAU -1910 – 1985 The 1st African commando under the orders of Captain DUCOURNAU seized the Cap Nègre on the night of August 14th-15th, 1944, after destroying the German batteries. The commandos liberated Le Lavandou on the 16th, Bormes on the 17th and reached La Londe in the evening of August 17th alongside the soldiers of the 3rd American Infantry Division. On August 18th, 1944, the group of African commandos crossed the Pansard, invaded the Château de la Pascalette, the seat of the Kommandantur abandoned by the Germans, and reached the level crossing where the American tanks were first fired from the 15-cm batteries of the KRIEGSMARINE of the Mauvanne battery. The 1st commando was sent for reconnaissance by Colonel BOUVET. Captain DUCOURNAU and his commandos seized the blockhouses in a heroic manner but with heavy casualties. Of the 60 commandos, 5 were killed and 25 wounded. 50 enemies were wounded or killed. The 100 survivors were taken prisoner. Corporal Jackie BOISDRON, 20 years old young Frenchman from North Africa, first killed in Mauvanne, rests in the municipal cemetery of La Londe. Decorated in the Ile d'Elbe, he was the youngest military medalist in France. The wounded French and German soldiers and prisoners were gathered at the cooperative cellar before being evacuated to the fort of Brégançon and Lavandou and then to Italy. The same day, the young man from Longe signed Joseph SPADA's commitment to the commandos. He was killed on November 20th during the attack on Mont Salbert at the place known as La Forêt in the commune of Châlonvillars (70) near the village of Cravanche (90). From La Londe to the evening of August 19th, 1944, the African commandos joined Cuers in the vehicles of the 1st DFL. They have just received the order to seize the Fort du Coudon which they will take on August 21st at 5 p.m. and open the road to the French troops for the Liberation of Toulon. In one week, Captain DUCOURNAU at the head of his commandos will have carried out three major actions. In his diary, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny described the capture of Mauvanne as a fantastic achievement. After the Alsace campaign where he was wounded, surrounded and narrowly escaped certain death, Captain Paul DUCOURNAU entered Germany crossing the Rhine at Village Neuf. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he commanded the 3rd Colonial Parachute Battalion in Indochina (Lang Son), then the 25th Parachute Division in Algeria (Constantinois) during Operation Turquoise. In 1967, as Lieutenant General, Military Governor of Metz, he was seriously wounded during an inspection, a helicopter blade accidentally ended an exemplary military career. He died in 1985.

The landing of Allied troops in North Africa on November 8th, 1942 resulted in the invasion of the Free Zone. Italian troops settled all over the Mediterranean coast. The Germans occupying the rest of the territory. On December 15th, 1942, a detachment of the 7th Lupi di Toscana Infantry Division under Colonel Bellucci settled at Château de la Pascalette and Désirade. Frieze horses and barbed wire were laid by the sea and the occupants installed concrete shelters and pyramids (tetrahedrons) at the Pansard bridge and Oswald Street to control the entrance and exit of the village. Italian soldiers commit acts of robbery and are denounced by the inhabitants. Their command does not tolerate these behaviours and the carabinieri put an end to these practices. However, the situation in Italy is deteriorating. On July 25th, 1943, the High Council of the Italian fascist forced Mussolini to resign. On September 5th, the Lupi di Toscana division is about to leave La Londe. But the Germans invested the Pascalette and Désirade. They hunt down and take prisoners of their former allies who are grouped together at the Maravenne estate. These Italian soldiers will be used as labour for the construction of the seaside blockhouses, then transferred to a camp in Pignans. The German occupation and the resistance On September 5th, 1943, the Italians withdrew in disorder. On September 8th, Italy surrendered. The 1st battalion of the 198th Wehrmacht infantry regiment was made up of Armenians from the Ost Légion, occupying the village and installing the "Kommandantur" at the Château de la Pascalette. An Austrian 77-gun was put into battery in front of the sea. Italian soldiers who remained on the spot were taken prisoner and used to organize the defence points. The occupants create fear and put a lot of pressure on the population. Workers from the Bormette factory are sent to Germany as part of the Compulsory Labour Service (STO). Many managed to escape to join the maquis. Two of them, OSWALD and RIVAULT, lost their lives. The liberation committee set up will be made up of seven of these shadow fighters. Unlike the Normandy landing (Operation OVERLORD), the resistance was put on alert and used before the Provence landing, particularly inland. The numerous blows of hands, sabotage, destruction of railway and communication lines disrupted the defences and caused any retreat to the occupying troops. The low rate of human losses for the landing alone compared to that of Normandy attests to this. The Nazis concentrated most of their resistance around the ports and there the fighting was fierce and deadly. The Allied staff planned two months to reach Marseille, it will only take 15 days for Provence to be liberated. Marcel KAFI, 17 years old, is required at the Château de la Pascalette. He must prepare defensive sites and clean the surroundings of the bunkers built under the pines. A few months before the landing, he was approached by the resistance to steal gunpowder. For several days he fulfilled his mission. Quickly suspected, he was rescued by the gendarme CRESPIN who led him to the Font de la Truie aux Borrels; guided by the resistance fighters he walked for three nights, with other young people from Hyeres and Landes and hid in a farm near the Garde-Freinet waiting for the landing. On August 18th, on the beach of Pardigon in Cavalaire, he joined the 4th Senegalese riflemen's regiment (4° RTS). He participated in the liberation of Solliès-Pont, La Farlède, La Valette and Toulon with the 9th Colonial Infantry Division (9th DIC). He was wounded in Delle (Belfort territory) on November 18th, 1944. Two months later he resumed fighting as far as the Black Forest. From 1948 to 1962 he pursued a career as a non-commissioned officer in the colonial parachute battalions in Indochina where he was again wounded and in Algeria under the command of a certain Colonel DUCOURNAU.

Pierre MAZIERES born on January 30th, 1918 in La Londe. He joined Commander DOR in August 1944 to form an FFI air unit. Warrant Officer of Bombardment Group 1/31 "Aunis". He performs several bombing missions. On November 13th, 1944, at the start of a reconnaissance mission whose objective is the bombardment of the Royan pocket, his plane, a Junkers 88, knows a mechanical problem and crashes in Colomiers (Haute Garonne). Pierre MAZIERES was 26 years old. He was married with two young children. By decree of February 25th, 1945, the Military Medal and the Croix de Guerre with Palm are awarded to him posthumously. Pierre RIVAULT born May 6th, 1920 in Tours He was a worker at the Bormettes factory. To escape the STO (forced labour department), he left the village in front of the German occupation and joined the maquis in March 1943 under the No. 61029. Under the name of Bibbia (Bibi), he follows camp Faïta and becomes head of the Santerre detachment at Brue Auriac (83). After blowing up an ammunition depot, he rescued his attacked detachment on January 16th, 1944. He was the chief of the maquis VENTURUCCI, who was one of the victims of the massacre of January 2nd, 1944 in Signes (Var). He leads several sabotages or attacks in this department and then in the Var sector of Ginasservis and La Verdière under the name of "James". June 20th, 1944, commander of the 13th company he leads several ambushes in the Valley of the Asse and organizes a parade on July 14th, 1944 in Barrême. Taken prisoner by the Nazis with nine other FTPF (Maverick and French partisan), he is tortured, horribly mutilated, then shot with his comrades at the edge of the Asse de Blieux, small torrent located at the place said Tuilière, the bridge of Maurelière in the municipality of SENEZ (04) July 20th, 1944 at the age of 24 years. His body was only identified in 1945 and his name transcribed on the registers of the civil status of this small town. Since February 9th, 1945, this Bormettes place bears his name. (Source : Departementale’s Archives) Ubaldo SANGES born on November 9th, 1915 in Genoa, Italy. As a quarter master mechanic, he disappears in the explosion of the torpedo boat "La Railleuse" off Casablanca in Morocco, March 23rd, 1940 at the age of 25 years. He is missing and then quoted to the order of the Army Corps by order No. 75 of February 4th, 1952 for the following reason: "Gloriously fallen for France at his combat outpost." This quote includes the awarding of the 1939-1945 War Cross with gilt star and the posthumous military medal. Léonard TURC born on April 2nd, 1918 in La Londe. Seaman defender of anti-air defense, quartered in a powder magazine in the arsenal of Toulon who was victim of emanations. He contracted a respiratory disease and died at St. Anne's Hospital in Toulon May 16th, 1940 at the age of 22.