Armoured Warfare from the Riviera to the Rhine, 1944–1945

Book excerpt: While the Allied armies were deadlocked with the Germans in Normandy after D-Day and even as they broke out and began their long advance, another campaign was being fought against the Germans in southern France and it is this campaign, which is often neglected in accounts of the liberation of Europe, that is the subject of Anthony Tucker-Joness latest photographic history. In a sequence of over 150 wartime photographs he tells the story, from the amphibious invasion of the French Riviera Operation Dragoon to the battle at Montelimar, the forcing of the Belfort gap, the destruction of German resistance in the Colmar pocket and the entry of Allied forces into southern Germany. His concise narrative gives a graphic overview of each phase of the operations, and the selection of photographs shows the American, French and German forces in action. The mechanized and armoured units and their equipment are a particular feature of the book. The photographs are a valuable visual record of the tanks, guns, jeeps and trucks the most up-to-date military vehicles and weaponry of the time as they moved along the roads and through the towns and countryside of southern France.