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Operation Dragoon

Operation Dragoon (initially Operation Anvil) was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence (Southern France) on 15August 1944. Although initially designed to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, the Allied landing in Normandy, a lack of available resources led to a cancellation of the second landing. By July 1944 the landing was reconsidered, as the clogged-up ports in Normandy did not have the capacity to adequately supply the Allied forces. Concurrently, the High Command of the French Liberation Army pushed for a revival of the operation that would include large numbers of French troops. As a result, the operation was finally approved in July to be executed in August.

The invasion sought to secure the vital ports on the French Mediterranean coast and increase pressure on the German forces by opening another front. After preliminary commando operations, the US VI Corps landed on the beaches of the Côte d'Azur under the shield of a large naval task force, followed by several divisions of the French Army B. They were opposed by the scattered forces of the German Army Group G, which had been weakened by the relocation of its divisions to other fronts and the replacement of its soldiers with third-rate Ostlegionen outfitted with obsolete equipment.

Hindered by Allied air supremacy and a large-scale uprising by the French Resistance, the weak German forces were swiftly defeated. The Germans withdrew to the north through the Rhône valley, to establish a stable defense line at Dijon. Allied mobile units were able to overtake the Germans and partially block their route at the town of Montélimar. The ensuing battle led to a stalemate, with neither side able to achieve a decisive breakthrough, until the Germans were finally able to complete their withdrawal and retreat from the town. While the Germans were retreating, the French managed to capture the important ports of Marseille and Toulon, soon putting them into operation.

The Germans were not able to hold Dijon and ordered a complete withdrawal from Southern France. Army GroupG retreated further north, pursued by Allied forces. The fighting ultimately came to a stop at the Vosges mountains, where Army GroupG was finally able to establish a stable defense line. After meeting with the Allied units from the American Third Army, the Allied forces were in need of reorganizing and, facing stiffened German resistance, the offensive was halted on 14September.

The Americans considered Operation Dragoon a success. It enabled them to liberate most of Southern France in just four weeks while inflicting heavy casualties on the German forces, although a substantial part of the best German units were able to escape. The captured French ports were put into operation, allowing the Allies to solve their supply problems quickly. The British disagreed with the American assessment due to the weak political impact and lack of movement in Italy.

Prelude
The idea of invading southern France had come in 1942 from General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff. It was supported by Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference in late 1943. In discussions with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Stalin advocated for the operation as an inherent part of the planned invasion of Normandy, preferring to have the Allies in the far west instead of at an alternative landing in the Balkans, which he considered to be in his zone of influence. Marshall insisted that the southern landing be included in the strategic planning, and Roosevelt found cancelling it to be unpalatable.

During planning, the operation was known as "Anvil", to complement Operation Sledgehammer, which was at the time the code name for the Normandy invasion. Both plans were later renamed: Sledgehammer to Operation Overlord and Anvil to Operation Dragoon.

Operation Dragoon was controversial from the time it was proposed. The American military leadership and its British counterparts disagreed on the operation. Winston Churchill argued that it would divert military resources from Allied operations in Italy. Instead, he favored an invasion of the oil-producing regions of the Balkans. Churchill reasoned that by attacking the Balkans, the Allies could deny Germany petroleum, forestall the advance of the Red Army, and achieve a superior negotiating position in postwar Europe, all at a stroke.

When first planned, the landings were to take place simultaneously – Overlord in Normandy and Anvil in the south of France. A dual landing was soon recognized as impossible to conduct with the forces available. The expansion of Overlord from a three- to a five-division front required many additional tank landing ships (LSTs), which would have been needed for Anvil. Another Allied amphibious landing, in Italy at Anzio, had gone badly. All of these led the Allies to postpont Anvil.

After the landing at Normandy, a revival of Anvil became increasingly attractive to Allied planners. The Normandy ports had insufficient capacity to handle Allied supply needs and French generals under Charles de Gaulle pressed for a direct attack on southern France with participation of French troops. These factors led to a reconsideration of the plan. Despite Churchill's objections, the operation was authorized by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff on 14July, then renamed Dragoon on 1August. The landing was scheduled for 15August.

Churchill and his chiefs of staff had opposed Dragoon in favour of reinforcing the campaign in Italy, by capturing Trieste, landing on the Istria peninsula, and moving through the Ljubljana Gap into Austria and Hungary. Then on 4 August, Churchill proposed that Dragoon (less than two weeks away) should be switched to the coast of Brittany. Eisenhower, supported by Roosevelt, who (with his 1944 election campaign four months away) opposed diverting large forces to the Balkans, stood firm on the agreed plan despite long harangues from Churchill on 5 and 9 August.

Planning
The chief objectives of Operation Dragoon were the important French ports of Marseille and Toulon, considered essential to supply the growing Allied forces in France. The Allied planners were cautious, taking heed of lessons learned from the Anzio and Normandy landings. They chose a location with no high ground controlled by the Wehrmacht, conditions that had led to heavy casualties after the initial landings on Omaha Beach at Normandy. The choice for the disembarkation site was an area on the Var coast east of Toulon. A preliminary air campaign was planned to isolate the battlefield and cut the Germans off from reinforcement by destroying several key bridges. A large airborne landing was also planned in the center of the landing zone to quickly seize the high ground overlooking the beaches. Parallel to the invasion, several commando units were to take control of the islands off the coast.

The Allied plan consisted of a three-division landing of US forces led by Major General Lucian Truscott to secure a beachhead on the first day. Their flanks were to be protected by French, American and Canadian commando units. Within 24 hours, 50,000–60,000 troops and 6,500 vehicles were to be disembarked. The airborne landings would concentrate in an area near Draguignan and Le Muy, with the aim of taking these towns to prevent German counterattacks against the beaches. The bulk of the American force then had to advance quickly to the north along the Rhône, to take Lyon and Dijon and make contact with the Allied forces in northern France. After a successful initial landing, units of the French ArmyB were to land, given the task of taking the French ports of Toulon and Marseille.

Although the Germans expected another Allied landing in the Mediterranean, the advancing Red Army and the Allied landings in Normandy placed great strains on German resources, so little was done to improve the condition of Army Group G, occupying southern France. Given the advancing Allied forces in northern France, the Germans deemed a realistic defense in the south impossible. Johannes Blaskowitz's Army GroupG headquarters discussed a general withdrawal from southern France in July and August with the German High Command, but the 20 July plot led to an atmosphere in which any withdrawal was out of the question. Blaskowitz was quite aware that with his scattered forces, any serious Allied landing attempt would be impossible to ward off. He planned to withdraw in secret, to include demolishing the ports, and to proceed in an orderly manner, covered by the 11th Panzer Division. He intended to establish a new defense line at Dijon in central France. German intelligence was aware of the impending Allied landing, and on 13August, Blaskowitz ordered the 11th Panzer Division to move east of the Rhône, where the landing was expected.

Opposing forces
The Western Naval Task Force was formed under the command of Vice Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt to carry the U.S. 6th Army Group, also known as the Southern Group or Dragoon Force, onto the shore. The 6th Army Group was formed in Corsica and activated on 1August, to consolidate the French and American forces slated to invade southern France. Admiral Hewitt's naval support for the operation included the American battleships Nevada, Texas, and Arkansas, the British battleship Ramillies, and the French battleship FRENCH BATTLESHIP Lorraine, with 20 cruisers for gunfire support and naval aircraft from 9 escort carriers assembled as Task Force88.

The main ground force for the operation was the US Seventh Army commanded by Alexander Patch. The US Army's VI Corps, commanded by Major General Lucian Truscott, would carry out the initial landing and be followed by the French Army B under command of Général Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Accompanying the operation was a fully mobilized separate detachment called "Task Force Butler", consisting of the bulk of the Allied tanks, tank destroyers, and mechanized infantry.

The French Resistance played a major role in the fighting. As the Allies advanced into France, the Resistance evolved from a guerilla fighting force to a semiorganized army called French Forces of the Interior (FFI). The FFI would tie down German troops by sabotaging bridges and communication lines, seizing important traffic hubs and directly attacking isolated German forces. They were aided by Allied special forces from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), who would supply the Allies with vital intelligence.

The Allied ground and naval forces were supported by a large aerial fleet of 3470 planes. The majority of them were stationed on Corsica and Sardinia. The tactical bombers and fighters had to support the landings directly, while the strategic element had to bomb German targets deep into France. The strategic bombing started well before the landing, and targeted airports, traffic hubs, railroads, coastal defenses, and communication lines.

Opposing the Allies was the German Army Group G (HeeresgruppeG). Although nominally an army group, Army Group G had at the time of the invasion only one army under its command: the 19th Army, led by Friedrich Wiese. As southern France had never been important to German planning, their forces there had been stripped of nearly all their valuable units and equipment over the course of the war. Due to the Allied threat in Normandy, Army Group G's units were continuously sent north until the Dragoon landings. The remaining 11 divisions were understrength and only one panzer division was left, the 11th. In early August, the 11th Panzer Division had sent one of its two panzer battalions to Normandy shortly before the landing.

The troops were positioned thinly along the French coast, with an average of 90 km per division. Generally, the troops of the German divisions were only second- and third-rate. This meant that over the course of the war, the divisions were thinned out and soldiers were replaced with wounded old veterans and Volksdeutsche from Poland and Czechoslovakia. Numerous units were also replaced by Ostlegionen and Ostbataillone. These units were volunteers from Eastern Europe, mainly the Soviet Union, and had a generally low fighting morale. The equipment of those troops was in poor shape, consisting of old weapons from various nations, with French, Polish, Soviet, Italian and Czech guns, artillery, and mortars. Four of the German divisions were designated as "static", which meant that they were stripped of all of their mobile capabilities and unable to move from their positions. The only potent unit inside Army Group G was the 11th Panzer Division, which was commanded by Wend von Wietersheim.

The German chain of command was overly complex, with parallel chains for the occupation forces, the land forces, the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine. The Luftwaffe, with 200 aircraft, and the Kriegsmarine, with 45 small ships, played a negligible role in the operation. The German defense was aided by extensive coastal artillery placements which had been constructed in the years before the landing. After the Fall of France, the Vichy French regime greatly improved the coastal defenses to appease the Germans. Along the coast, about 75 coastal guns of heavy and medium caliber were placed. Toulon was protected by a complex of heavy 340 mm gun artillery batteries in mounted turrets. After their military take-over in November 1942, the Germans improved the coastal defense further by repairing damaged and outdated turrets, as well as moving in additional guns. This included the 340 mm guns taken from the dismantled French battleship Provence.

Preliminary operations
To ensure the success of Dragoon and support the initial landings, preliminary commando operations had to be carried out. The first target was the Hyères Islands, specifically Port-Cros and Levant. The guns of the German garrisons on both islands could reach the proposed Allied landing area and the sea lanes that the troops would follow. The First Special Service Force, a joint U.S.-Canadian special-forces unit trained in amphibious assault and mountaineering and consisting of three regiments, received the order to take the islands as part of Operation Sitka.

The landings on Port-Cros and Levant started simultaneously on 14August. On Levant, the 2nd and 3rd Regiments of the First Special Service Force faced sporadic resistance that became more intense when the German garrison forces came together in the area of the port. The men of the First Special Service Force gained the upper hand and discovered that the "coastal defense battery" the Allied naval forces were worried about was actually several well-camouflaged dummy weapons.

On Port-Cros, the 1st Regiment drove the German garrison to the western side of the island to an old fort. Fighting continued through 16August. When darkness fell, German guns on the French mainland at Cap Benat shelled Port-Cros. HMS Ramillies took aim at the fort where the Germans were barricaded. The German garrison surrendered on the morning of 17August. With both islands in Allied hands, the men of the First Special Service Force transferred to the mainland, where they were attached to the First Airborne Task Force.

Meanwhile, at Cap Nègre to the west of the main invasion, a large group of French commandos destroyed German artillery emplacements as part of Operation Romeo. Their main effort was supported by diversionary flank landings by other commando teams. While the main mission succeeded, 67 French commandos were taken prisoner after they ran into a minefield. In addition to the commando operations, another operation was carried out, named Operation Span. This was a deception plan, aimed to confuse the German defenders with fake landings and paratroopers, to disperse them from the actual landing zones.

Airborne landings
The first to land in the early hours were the airborne and glider troops. The 1st Airborne Task Force force landed in the River Argens valley around the area of Le Muy with the objective of preventing German reinforcements from reaching the landing beaches. The American component being the largest, consisted of the air dropped Mission Albatross, followed by the Glider born Mission Dove. Later on the Missions Bluebird and Canary, would bring in the reinforcements.

The British landings, codenamed Operation Rugby consisted of 2nd Parachute Brigade. Fog and low clouds resulted in many paratroopers landing ten miles away, others were closer, but some ended up fifteen miles away. The British took the villages of Le Mitan, La Motte, Clastron and Les Serres and then assaulted and captured the bridge over the River Naturby, which carried the road to Le Muy. Soon after they secured the high ground to the east and north of Le Muy, while the Americans did the same in the west and south.

The American 550th Glider Infantry Battalion under the command of Lt. Colonel Edward Sachs then attempted to seize the town that evening but were repelled. Only in the afternoon of the following day after reinforcements did they succeed in capturing Le Muy along with 700 prisoners. The 1st Airborne Task Force then awaited for the arrival of ground troops whilst holding off a number of counterattacks. Overall the landings were successful, with only 104 dead, 24 of which were caused by glider accidents and 18 by parachute accidents.

Main invasion force landings
The preceding bombing missions, together with resistance sabotage acts, hit the Germans heavily, interrupting railroads, damaging bridges, and disrupting the communication network. The landing started on the morning of 15August. Ships of the Western Naval Task Force approached under cover of darkness and were in position at dawn. The first of 1,300 Allied bombers from Italy, Sardinia, and Corsica began aerial bombardment shortly before 06:00. Bombing was nearly continuous until 07:30, when battleships and cruisers launched spotting aircraft and began firing on specific targets detected by aerial surveillance. Naval gunfire ceased as the landing craft headed ashore at 08:00. The relatively steep beach gradients with small tidal range discouraged Axis placement of underwater obstacles, but landing beaches had been defensively mined. LCIs leading the first wave of landing craft fired rockets to explode land mines on the beaches to be used by following troops.

The main landing force consisted of three divisions of the VI Corps. The 3rd Infantry Division landed on the left at Alpha Beach (Cavalaire-sur-Mer), the 45th Infantry Division landed in the centre at Delta Beach (Le Muy, Saint-Tropez) and the 36th Infantry Division landed on the right at Camel Beach (Saint-Raphaël).

The landings were overwhelmingly successful. On Delta and Alpha beaches, German resistance was low. The Osttruppen surrendered quickly, and the biggest threats to the Allies were the mines. A single German gun and a mortar position were silenced by destroyer fire. The Allied units in this sector were able to secure a beachhead and quickly linked up with the paratroopers, capturing Saint-Tropez and LeMuy. The most serious fighting was on Camel Beach near the town of Saint-Raphaël. This beach was defended by several well-emplaced coastal guns, as well as flak batteries. Through heavy German fire, the Allies attempted to land at the shore. However, at sector Red of the Camel Beach landing zone, the Allies were not able to succeed. A bombing run of 90Allied B-24 bombers was called in against a German strongpoint here. Even with the assistance of naval fire, the Allies were not able to bring the landing ships close to the shore. They decided to avoid Camel Red and land only at the sectors of Camel Blue and Camel Green, which was successful.

The Allied casualties at the landings were very light, with only 95killed and 385 wounded; 40 of those casualties were caused by a rocket-boosted Henschel Hs 293 guided gliding bomb launched from a Do 217 bomber aircraft by a rare appearance of the bomber wing KG 100, which sank the tank landing ship USS LST-282.

German counterattacks
French sabotage by the FFI, together with the Allied bombing, severed German communication lines, causing initial confusion among the troops. German field commanders were not able to communicate with Army GroupG's headquarters. Despite the hampered communications, German commanders acted independently to put measures in effect to counter the Allied invasion. Directly facing the brunt of the Allied landings was the German LXII Corps at Draguignan, commanded by Ferdinand Neuling. Allied paratroopers interrupted his communication lines and trapped his headquarters in the city. He, therefore, ordered the nearby 148th Infantry Division to counterattack against the beaches at LeMuy, just before the Allied paratroopers cut him off completely. Wiese, as commander of the 19th Army, was also unable to contact Blaskowitz's Army GroupG headquarters, but implemented a plan to push the Allied forces in the LeMuy – Saint-Raphaël region back into the sea unilaterally. With almost no mobile reserves to react against the beach landings, he ordered the commander of the 189th Infantry Division, Richard von Schwerin, to establish an ad hoc battle group (Kampfgruppe) from all nearby units to counterattack the Allied beachheads in this area. While vonSchwerin assembled all the men he could find, the 148th Infantry Division near Draguignan encountered heavy resistance from the FFI, which had been reinforced by British paratroopers, upsetting the plan for a swift counterattack toward the beaches.

While the Germans were unable to mount a counterattack against the Allied beachheads on 15August, by the morning of 16August, vonSchwerin had finally assembled a force about the size of four infantry battalions. With this force, he launched a two-pronged assault towards LeMuy and the Allied beachhead, as well as toward Draguignan to relieve the LXIICorps headquarters there. By that time, the Allies had already landed a significant number of troops, vehicles, and tanks. The Allied mobile forces of the 45thDivision went out against the German forces themselves. The division surrounded the town of LesArcs, recently reoccupied by vonSchwerin's troops, and attempted to isolate the German forces there. After heavy fighting throughout the day, vonSchwerin ordered his troops to retreat under cover of night. At the same time, heavy fighting occurred at Saint-Raphaël. Mobile units of the 148th Infantry Division finally had arrived there and encountered the U.S. 3rd Division, which was trying to take Saint-Raphaël. This attack, however, was fruitless. By 17August, the German counter-attacks had been largely defeated, Saint-Raphaël was secured together with a large beachhead along the coastline, and mobile forces had linked up with the airborne troops in LeMuy. French troops had been pouring ashore since 16August, passing to the left of the American troops with the objective of Toulon and Marseille.

By the night of 16/17 August, Army Group G headquarters realized that it could not drive the Allies back into the sea. Simultaneously in northern France, the encirclement of the Falaise pocket threatened the loss of large numbers of German forces. Given the precarious situation, Adolf Hitler moved away from his "no step backwards" agenda and agreed to an OKW plan for the complete withdrawal of Army GroupsG and B. The OKW plan was for all German forces (except the stationary fortress troops) in southern France to move north to link up with Army GroupB to form a new defensive line from Sens through Dijon to the Swiss frontier. Two German divisions (the 148th and 157th) were to retreat into the French-Italian Alps. The Allies were privy to the German plan through Ultra interception.

The German Navy's response was minimal. The Kriegsmarine had some 25 surface ships (mostly torpedo boats and smaller) though the main anti-invasion force, 10th Torpedo Boat Flotilla based at Genoa, had just four torpedo boats fit for service during Dragoon and this force took no action against the invasion fleet. There were two actions against the Allied naval forces taken by other units. On 15 August, off Port-Cros, the US destroyer USS Somers (DD-381) encountered two German warships and in a short action sank both. On 17 August, off La Ciotat, a force of two German warships encountered a force of PT boats and gunboats staging a diversionary attack. Their destroyer escort engaged both vessels, and after an hour-long gun battle both German vessels were sunk. The Kriegsmarine also had a U-boat force based at Toulon operating in the Western Mediterranean; By the summer of 1944 this had been reduced to eight U-boats, and in air-raids prior to Dragoon five were destroyed. On the night of 17 August one boat attempted to sortie; she ran aground leaving harbour and was scuttled by her crew. The other two U-boats took no action, and were scuttled to avoid capture before the fall of Toulon.

German withdrawal
The Germans started the withdrawal, while the motorized Allied forces broke out from their beachheads and pursued the German units from behind. The rapid Allied advance posed a major threat for the Germans, who could not retreat fast enough. The Germans tried to establish a defense line at the Rhône to shield the withdrawal of several valuable units there. The US 45th and 3rd Divisions were pressing to the north-west with uncontested speed, undermining Wiese's plan for a new defense line. Barjols and Brignoles were taken by the two American divisions on 19August, which also were about to envelop Toulon, as well as Marseille from the north, cutting off the German units there.

In the northeast, the German problems loomed as large. Taskforce Butler – the Allied mechanized component of the landings – was pushing north of Draguignan. On 18August Neuling's surrounded LXII Corps headquarters attempted an unsuccessful breakout and was finally captured with the rest of the city after some fighting. The German troops in this area were exhausted and demoralized from the fighting against the FFI, so Taskforce Butler was also able to advance at high speed. Digne was liberated on 18August. At Grenoble, the 157th Reserve Infantry Division faced the Allied advance, and its commander decided to retreat on 21August toward the Alps. This decision would prove to be fatal for the Germans, as it left a large gap in the eastern flank of the retreating Army GroupG. Blaskowitz now decided to sacrifice the 242nd Infantry Division in Toulon, as well as the 244th Infantry Division in Marseille, to buy time for the rest of Army GroupG to retreat through the Rhône Valley, while the 11th Panzer Division and the 198th Infantry Division would shield the retreat in several defense lines.

Liberation of Marseille and Toulon
Meanwhile, the disembarked French units started to head for Marseille and Toulon. The initial plan was to capture the ports in succession, but the unexpected Allied advance allowed the French commander de Lattre de Tassigny to attack both ports almost simultaneously. He split his forces into two units, with Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert given the task to take Toulon from the east while Edgard de Larminat drove north to encircle the city at the flanks. The Germans had a significant force stationed in both cities, but they lacked the time to prepare for a determined defense. After heavy fighting around Hyères, which temporarily stopped the advance, French forces approached Toulon on 19August. At the same time, Monsabert swung around the city, enveloped it, and cut off the highway between Toulon and Marseille. On 21August, the French pressed into Toulon, and heavy fighting ensued. The heavy German resistance led to an argument between Larminat and deTassigny, after which deTassigny took over direct command of the operation, dismissing Larminat. By 26August, the remaining German units had surrendered. The battle for Toulon cost the French 2,700 casualties, but they captured all remaining German forces, which lost their entire garrison of 18,000 men.

At the same time, Monsabert's attempt to liberate Marseille commenced. At first, a German force at Aubagne was defeated before French troops attacked the city directly. Unlike Toulon, the German commander at Marseille did not evacuate the civilian population, which became increasingly hostile. The resulting fighting with FFI troops further weakened the German units, which were exhausted from partisan fighting. The Wehrmacht was not able to defend on a broad front and soon crumbled into numerous isolated strongpoints. On 27August, most of the city was liberated, with only a few small strongpoints remaining, and on 28August, German troops issued the official surrender. The battle caused 1,825 French casualties, but 11,000 German troops were captured. In both harbours, German engineers had demolished port facilities to deny their use to the Allies.

The French Allied forces that helped liberate Toulon and Marseille consisted of large numbers of men from the Free French Colonial Infantry Division - Algerians, Malians, Mauritanians, and the Senegalese Tirailleurs, under General Charles de Gaulle.

Battle at Montélimar
While Marseille and Toulon were liberated, the German retreat continued. The 11th Panzer Division started several feint attacks toward Aix-en-Provence to discourage any further Allied advance. By doing so, LXXXVCorps, as well as IVLuftwaffe Field Corps, were able to successfully retreat from the Allied advance at the Rhône. The Allies were unsure of German intentions, and Truscott decided to try to trap the Germans with a right flank movement whilst pursuing them with his three divisions from VICorps. However, uncertainty at the Allied headquarters led to indecisiveness, and the Allies missed several opportunities to cut off the retreating LXXXVCorps.

Through the decryption of German radio communications, the Allied headquarters became aware of the German withdrawal plan. They recognized the open German flank to the east of the Rhône at Grenoble due to the retreat of the 157th Infantry Division towards the Alps. To seize this opportunity, Taskforce Butler was ordered to advance in this direction, paralleling the German evacuation effort and ultimately cutting them off further north. While doing so, it fought some scattered German resistance, and finally, after turning left, found itself near Montélimar, a small city on the east bank of the Rhône River. This town lay directly on the German escape route. Following Taskforce Butler was the 36th Infantry Division. Together, they were tasked on 20August to block the German force at Montélimar and continue the northward advance to Grenoble, while VICorps was pursuing the Germans from behind. However, after this speedy advance, the forward Allied forces suffered now from a serious lack of fuel and supplies, which made this task difficult.

On 21 August, Taskforce Butler occupied the hills north of the town of Montélimar, according to revised orders from Truscott, as he considered it too weak to block the entire German force marching north. From this position, Taskforce Butler fired on the evacuating German troops, while waiting for further reinforcements. Troops from the FFI supported the Americans, harassing German troops through the entire battle. The sudden appearance of this new threat shocked Wiese and the German command. As a first countermeasure, Wietersheim's 11thPanzer Division was called in. The first of its units to arrive, together with several ad hoc Luftwaffe battle groups, were asked to deal with this new threat. This hastily assembled force mounted an attack against Puy the same day, and the Germans were able to isolate Taskforce Butler from supplies. This success was, however, short-lived, and the Germans were soon pushed back.

The next day, the first units of the 36th Division arrived, reinforcing Taskforce Butler. However, the Allied troops were still short of supplies and lacked enough men to directly attack the German escape route. During the next few days, more Allied men and supplies trickled in. At the same time, the US 45thDivision took over positions at Grenoble, leaving the 36thDivision free to fully commit its forces at Montélimar. Taskforce Butler was officially dissolved on 23August, and John E. Dahlquist, commander of the now fully arrived 36thInfantry Division, assumed direct control of its units. For the rest of the day, only small skirmishes occurred between German and Allied forces. Meanwhile, the Germans also struggled to bring the 11thPanzer Division through the chaos of the evacuation into position in the town. By 24August, a substantial number of the 11thPanzer Division had finally reached the battle area.

With his newly reorganised units, Dahlquist attempted a direct attack against Montélimar, which failed against the newly arrived German tank units. The subsequent German counter-attack gained some ground against the hills occupied by the Allies. Its aim was to push the Americans from the hills north of Montélimar and to force the American artillery to move back out of range. After the fighting, the Germans captured a copy of Dahlquist's operational plans, giving them a better picture of the Allied forces. As a result, Wiese planned a major attack for 25August by the 11thPanzer Division and the 198th Infantry Division, together with some ad hoc Luftwaffe battlegroups. This attack was, however, also a big failure. The Allies struck back and retook the hills north of Montélimar, and were able to establish a temporary roadblock on the German escape route. Again, this Allied success also did not last long, as another attack led by Wietersheim reopened the passage at midnight.

After the repeated German counterattacks prevented any lasting roadblock, Truscott finally allowed reinforcements from the 45thDivision to support Dahlquist at Montélimar, as he felt the successful operations further south at the French ports allowed him to refocus to the north. At the same time, the Germans also reinforced their fighting force. Over the next few days, a stalemate emerged, with the Allies unable to block the retreat route and the Germans unable to clear the area of the Allied forces. Both sides became increasingly frustrated during the fighting, with attack, counterattack, and spoiling attacks, which made launching a decisive offensive hard for the 36thDivision. Whilst the 36thDivision had surrounded the 19thArmy, they themselves were almost surrounded, too, during the chaotic fighting, with only a thin supply route to the east open, resulting in their having to fight to the front and the rear. As the 36thDivision was seemingly making no progress, an angry Truscott arrived at Dahlquist's headquarters on 26August to relieve him of command. However, on seeing the heavy terrain and shattered forces, he refrained and left the headquarters again. Finally, during 26–28August, the majority of the German forces were able to escape, leaving behind 4,000 burnt-out vehicles and 1,500 dead horses. On 29August, the Allies captured Montélimar, and the final German troops trying to break out surrendered. The Germans suffered 2,100 battle casualties plus 8,000 POWs, while the Americans had 1,575 casualties. Total POW losses of the 19thArmy now amounted to 57,000.

Final German retreat
The VI Corps, together with units from the French IICorps at its flank, pursued and tried to cut off the German forces on their way toward the town of Dijon, while the Germans planned to prevent another Montélimar with a defensive shield by the 11thPanzer Division. The Allied 45th and 3rdDivisions, as well as the 11thPanzer Division, were racing north to fulfill their objectives. In the meantime, the Germans tried to continue with the evacuation through Lyon. Behind their flight, the Germans destroyed bridges, hoping this would slow down the Allied advance. However, the 45thDivision was able to bypass the German forces, taking the town of Meximieux on 1September. This again posed a threat to the German evacuation. After some initial skirmishes, the 11thPanzer Division launched a heavy attack into the city, causing 215 American casualties and destroying a number of tanks and vehicles.

At the same time, the main German units retreated through Lyon. On 2September, the 36thInfantry Division arrived at Lyon to find the Maquis fighting the Milice with much of the factory areas on fire. The next day, Lyon was liberated and 2,000 Germans were captured, but the rest had already continued their retreat north. Lyon celebrated for two days with the Americans. The Allies made a last-ditch attempt to cut off the Germans with an offensive towards Bourg-en-Bresse by the 45thDivision and the 117thCavalry Squadron from the original Taskforce Butler. However, the 45thDivision was not able to overcome the German defenses near the town. The 117thCavalry Squadron had more success, bypassing Bourg-en-Bresse and taking Montreval and Marboz north of Bourg-en-Bresse, instead. By 3September, Montreval was secure, but the squadron soon found itself trapped by units from the 11thPanzer Division, which surrounded the town. As a result, the squadron was almost annihilated, and the German escape route was again open. The American units then retired to Marboz.

Over the next two weeks, more skirmishes occurred and the Allies were not able to cut off a major portion of the German forces, but the Germans were also not able to maintain any stable defense line as planned. On 10September, forward units of the VI Corps were able to establish contact with units from Patton's Third Army. Truscott hoped to be able to push through the Belfort Gap, but on 14September, he received orders from the Allied High Command to halt the offensive. Army GroupG was finally able to establish a stable defense line at the Vosges Mountains, thwarting further Allied advances. This, combined with the Allied need to reorganise their command structure as the forces from northern and southern France linked up, forced the Allies to stop their pursuit of the Germans, ending the offensive here.

During their fighting retreat up the Rhône, the Germans also withdrew their remaining forces from their garrisons in southwestern France. These divisions raced north along the Atlantic coast and then swung towards the east at the Loire to link up with the rest of Army GroupG at Burgundy. While they did not have to fight the Western Allies as much as the Germans had done at the Rhône, they still had to advance through French partisan-dominated terrain. About 88,000 men moved north, leaving 20,000 in southwestern France behind. During the retreat, about 19,000 men were captured by the Allies and 60,000 men reached Army GroupG's line, where they were integrated into the defense of the Vosges Mountains.

War crimes
French resistance against the Nazi German occupation and the Vichy French puppet government increased drastically in the weeks leading up to the Dragoon landings. To fight the uprising, German units committed numerous atrocities and war crimes against French fighters, as well as civilians, in retaliatory acts. On 9June, after an attack on the German garrison at Tulle, the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich hanged about 99 civilians while moving towards northern France during the Tulle massacre. The next day, that division murdered 642 civilians in Oradour-sur-Glane during the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre and then proceeded to plunder and raze the town. German units also worked together with French collaborators to subdue partisans, for example against the partisan base at the Vercors massif, but with little lasting result.

Atrocities continued during the German retreat from southern France as German soldiers plundered and burned down towns. French civilians were brought before military courts and sentenced to death because of alleged partisan activities. These atrocities did not help to subdue the French uprising. Instead, the German reprisals had the opposite effect and encouraged the French population to engage in partisan fighting.

Aftermath
Operation Dragoon was considered a success by the Allied forces. It enabled them to liberate most of southern France in only four weeks, while inflicting heavy casualties on the German forces. However, the Allies failed to cut off the most valuable units of the retreating Army Group G, which retreated over a distance of 800 km in good order, into the Vosges Mountains on the German border, with the capability of continuing the fight. The main reason for the failure to capture or destroy Army GroupG was the Allied shortage of fuel, which began soon after the landing. The Allies had not anticipated the speed of their own advance, so could not adequately provide supplies and logistics to the leading Allied units.

A significant benefit of Operation Dragoon was the use of the port facilities in southern France, especially the large ports at Marseille and Toulon. After Operation Cobra and Operation Dragoon, the Allied advance slowed almost to a halt in September due to a critical lack of supplies. The ports were quickly brought back into service, together with the railroad system in southern France. Thereafter, large quantities of supplies could be moved north to ease the supply situation. In October, 524,894 tons of supplies were unloaded, which was more than one-third of the Allied cargo shipped to the Western front.

Operation Dragoon also had political implications. Two days after the landing, the Germans proceeded to dismantle the French State. Members of the Sicherheitsdienst stormed French government institutions and moved French officials, including Philippe Pétain, to Belfort in Eastern France. Later, they were moved to Sigmaringen in Germany, where they acted as a government in exile. With the collapse of the Vichy regime, troops of the Provisional Government of the French Republic re-established control of the French political institutions. Antony Beevor comments, "The landings in the south of France prompted a rapid German withdrawal and thus reduced the damage and suffering done to France."

Despite these successes, criticism of Dragoon was made by some Allied generals and contemporary commentators such as Bernard Montgomery, Arthur R. Wilson and Chester Wilmot in the aftermath, mostly because of its geostrategic implications. Dragoon was argued to have diverted highly experienced men and much-needed materiel away from the continuing fighting at the Western front that could have been used, instead, to bolster the Italian front or to hasten the advance towards the Rhine by the Overlord forces. The resulting loss of momentum gave Stalin on the Eastern Front a free hand to pursue his offensive efforts with more determination, allowing him to win the race towards Berlin and occupy the Balkans. Dragoon, therefore, had consequences reaching into the Cold War.

title: Operation Dragoon


text:
Operation Golden Pheasant

Operation Golden Pheasant was an emergency deployment of U.S. troops to Honduras in 1988, in response to Nicaraguan attacks on Contra logistics in Honduras.

History
In early March 1988, the Nicaraguan Sandinista government launched Operation Danto 88 to overrun Contra rebel supply caches in the San Andrés de Bocay region, crossing into Honduran territory in their drive.

The United States, under President Ronald Reagan, dispatched elements of the 7th Infantry Division (Light) Quick Reaction Force (QRF) on a no-notice deployment. This small force quickly landed at Palmerola Air Base (now known as Soto Cano Air Base) and were moved quickly into position at a Honduran military base to facilitate the guarding of a local general. An international special operations unit led by Orlando Lentini, and the aviation assets of Joint Task Force Bravo (JTF-B) stationed on Pamerola AB, worked along with the 7th Infantry Division and were on the ground several days when the 82nd Airborne elements arrived. The deployment evolved into a live-fire exercise, the light infantry soldiers, paratroopers and special operations unit deployed ready to fight, causing the Sandinistas to rapidly withdraw back across their border.

The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment and Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment 82nd Airborne Division, were joined by soldiers from the 2nd Battalion 9th Infantry Regiment, 2d and 3d Battalions of the 27th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light) QRF from Fort Ord, California.

On 17 March, 1st Battalion landed at Palmerola Air Base. The 2nd Battalion jumped onto the airfield that day, with only one casualty-the Executive Officer broke his leg on landing. Soldiers of the 27th Infantry Regiment (the "Wolfhounds") rappelled onto the airbase on 17 March 1988 and were moved quickly up to the Nicaraguan border. 2/27th Infantry trained with the Honduran 11th Infantry Battalion at San Lorenzo, 3/27 Infantry trained with the Honduran 9th Infantry Battalion in Jamastran, 2/504 Airborne trained with the Honduran 2nd Infantry Battalion Airborne in Tamara, and 1/504 trained with the Honduran 16th Infantry Battalion in Juticalpa.

Prior to the deployment of combat forces the U.S. had deployed an Engineer Task Force (20th Engineer Brigade, from Fort Bragg, NC) of about 1100 soldiers for Ahuas Tara 88, an annual exercise providing assistance to Honduras. The Engineers were tasked with building roads, bridges, ports and buildings to build confidence with allied forces and to gain real world experience deploying and operating in an austere environment. The Engineer Task Force augmented and supported deploying combat forces with engineering, logistical, and communications troops. When combat forces redeployed the Engineers continued their mission.

The units from the 82nd Airborne, the 504th, began rigorous training exercises with orders to avoid the fighting on the border. Had those orders changed, the paratroopers and infantrymen were prepared to fight, but the invading Sandinista troops had already begun to withdraw. Within days, the Sandinista government negotiated a truce with Contra leaders, and by the end of March the 7th Infantry had returned to Fort Ord, California and the paratroopers of the 82nd had returned to Fort Bragg.

United States Army units

 * Elements of Company C, 214th Aviation Regiment, 1st Corps, assigned to JTFB at Palmerola AB
 * Elements of 9th Aviation Battalion, 9th Aviation Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, assigned to JTFB at Palmerola AB
 * 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light)
 * Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 9th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light)
 * Battery B, 6/8 Field Artillery, 7th Infantry Division (Light)
 * 13th Engineer Battalion
 * 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division
 * 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division
 * Company C, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division
 * Company A, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division
 * Company HHC 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Scout  Platoon
 * Company D, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division
 * General Support (GS) Platoon, 782nd Maintenance Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division
 * Company B, 307th Medical Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division
 * General Support (GS) Platoon, 82nd Military Police Company, 82d Airborne Division
 * Company B, 407th Supply and Transport Battalion, 82d Airborne Division
 * Company C, and HQ Elements, 3rd Battalion (Airborne), 73rd Armor, 82nd Airborne Division
 * 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light)
 * 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light)
 * 3rd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light)
 * 21st Military Police Company (Airborne), 503rd Airborne MP Battalion, 16th MP Brigade (Airborne)
 * 313th Military Intelligence Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division
 * Battery A, 1/14th Field Artillery, 24th Infantry Division
 * Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division
 * Company A, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (Light) along with elements of Headquarters and
 * Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment
 * Joint Task Force Bravo, 401st Military Police Company
 * 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
 * Second Battalion, 9th Aviation Regiment
 * 864th Engineering Battalion (Combat, Heavy)
 * 1st Squadron 17th Cavalry Regiment (Airborne, Air Cav)
 * 988th MP Company, 3rd Platoon
 * 937th Engineering Group
 * Company C, 426th Signal Battalion (retasked from supporting Exercise Ahuas Tara 88)
 * HHC 50th Signal Battalion (Airborne, 18th Airborne Corps Electronic Technician)
 * Assault Command Post Platoon, A Company, 50th Signal Battalion (Airborne)
 * Company A, 307th Engineer Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division
 * Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 62nd Regiment Air Defense Artillery, Stinger Teams, 7th Infantry Division (Light)
 * Already deployed in country in support of Ahuas Tara
 * 27th Engineer Battalion (Combat)(Airborne)
 * B Co, 11th Engineer Battalion (Combat, Heavy)
 * HHC, 20th Engineer Brigade
 * C Co, 426th Signal Battalion
 * 235th Signal Company (Satellite Communication)

United States Marine Corps units

 * 2nd Battalion 7th Marines
 * 2nd Battalion 5th Marines

United States Air Force units
437th military airlift wing Charleston AFB 0306th Air Refueling Squadron Altus AFB, OK
 * 113th Civil Engineer Squadron (District of Columbia Air National Guard)
 * 1352nd Aerospace Audiovisual Squadron
 * 3rd MAPS Pope AFB
 * Det 1, 507th Tactical Air Control Wing, Pope AFB
 * 183rd Airlift Squadron (Mississippi Air National Guard)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Operation Golden Pheasant


text:
Operation Provide Comfort

Operation Provide Comfort and Provide Comfort II were military operations initiated by the United States and other Coalition nations of the Persian Gulf War, starting in April 1991, to defend Kurdish refugees fleeing their homes in northern Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War, and to deliver humanitarian aid to them. The no-fly zone instituted to help bring this about would become one of the main factors allowing the development of the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

Summary

Operation Haven (the UK's name for the operation) was a UK-headed initiative, made at a time when the US was fundamentally uninterested in any further taking of action in the Persian Gulf region. John Major, the British prime minister at the time, lobbied for other European states to support the mission, which resulted in NATO's support and leveraged the necessary US air support. Then, as Saddam Hussein's retributive activities intensified, US ground and logistic support was also achieved. This was a distinctly UK-headed operation though, with a proposed force of 6,000 personnel, spearheaded by the 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines, with elements from the UK's army, the Royal Air Force, and other coalition member states. It was deemed dramatically successful, even though it appeared to be risky given the climate of those times. Operation Haven literally "invaded" Iraq. The Coalition's main task was to enter northern Iraq, clear the designated area of any Iraqi threat and establish a safe environment for the Kurdish refugees to return to their homes. The mission was both a military one and humanitarian as once security had been established, the US would provide air support and specialist elements along with other Coalition members, supply and rebuilding of infrastructure would then be initiated. The ground mission within Iraq took 58 days to complete. Operation Provide Comfort (i.e. Haven) officially ended on 24 July 1991, shortly after the enforcement of the "No Fly Zone" continued to ensure Kurdish security in the region.

US participation and events
The 1991 uprising in northern Iraq resulted in an Iraqi military response towards the rebels in both northern and southern Iraq. Fearing another genocide like what had happened during the 1988 Anfal campaign, millions of Kurds fled towards the border with Iran and Turkey.

On 3 March, General Norman Schwarzkopf warned the Iraqis that Coalition aircraft would shoot down Iraqi military aircraft flying over the country. On 20 March, a US F-15C Eagle fighter aircraft shot down an Iraqi Air Force Su-22 Fitter fighter-bomber over northern Iraq. On 22 March, another F-15 destroyed a second Su-22 and the pilot of an Iraqi PC-9 trainer bailed out after being approached by US fighter planes.

On 5 April, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 688, calling on Iraq to end repression of its civilian population. On 6 April, Operation Provide Comfort began to bring humanitarian relief to the Kurds. A no-fly zone was established by the US, the UK, and France north of the 36th parallel, as part of the Iraqi no-fly zones. This was enforced by US, UK, and French aircraft. Included in this effort was the delivery of humanitarian relief of over an estimated 1 million Kurdish refugees by a 6-nation airlift operation commanded from Incirlik Air Base Turkey involving aircraft from the US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, and Italy. Soviet aircraft participated in logistical aspects of the operation. The airlift was commanded by Colonel Dave Wall, Wing Commander, Aviano Air Base, Italy. Intel and Planning Section Chief was Lt. Colonel Mike DeCapua who coordinated drop zone locations and unique aircraft loads. During the 31-day airlift, more tonnage was delivered and more air miles flown than in the entire Berlin Airlift. C-130s and other transport aircraft flew air drop missions under AWACS control with A-10s and F-16s providing air and ground fire support for the airlift aircraft. On several occasions A-10s neutralized Iraqi radar units in the Zaku area.

Units of the 18th Military Police Brigade, commanded by Colonel Lucious Delk, and a forward Headquarters Command Cell led by Captain Alan Mahan, and Sergeant Major Ed Deane, with units of the 709th Military Police Battalion, the 284th Military Police Company, the 527th Military Police Company and 3rd Platoon of the 202d Military Police Company, provided security of the headquarters, Kurdish refugee camps, and convoy security. The brigade was the last unit to leave the area at the conclusion of operations. Several members of the 202d Military Police Company received the Soldier's Medal after calling in and assisting in the medical evacuation of a wounded Iraqi citizen from a minefield near the river not far from the MP headquarters camp.

While Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm were run by the US Central Command (CENTCOM), Operation Provide Comfort came under the authority of the US European Command (EUCOM), headquartered in Vaihingen, Germany. On-ground humanitarian aid was provided by the 353rd Civil Affairs Command commanded by BG Donald Campbell, and by its subordinate units, 432nd Civil Affairs Battalion, and 431st Civil Affairs Battalion. These units were relocated to Turkey and northern Iraq after completing missions in Kuwait. The 353rd also had liaison officers assigned to HQ EUCOM and to the US Mission to the United Nations, Geneva. The 353rd were soon joined in Iraq by Lieutenant Colonel Ted Sahlin's 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which had only returned to the US two weeks before after having been deployed to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait for the past 10 months. The base camps that were established for Kurdish refugees were nicknamed Camp Jayhawk and Camp Badger after college mascots. Other camps were established in Silopi, Turkey. The first troops to arrive were the 36th Civil Engineering Squadron from Bitburg Air Base Germany. Smaller "detachment" camps were also built in and around Zakho, Iraq and Sirsenk, Iraq by these same members and were led by Captain Donald Gleason from Ramstein Air Force base and USAF Security Policemen from RAF Bentwaters and RAF Lakenheath. He led a team of fifteen that is now known as the first Air Force unit to enter Iraq. Supplies for these camps were sourced from a variety of areas including units that were returning to the US, Coalition countries, European military stocks, and civilian contractors in the US. Many supplies had to be airdropped due to restrictions by the Turkish government for entering Iraq through their border.

Also deployed to Zakho from their main-body deployment site in Rota, Spain, was Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133, homeported in Gulfport, Mississippi, commanded by Commander Donald Hutchins. It provided humanitarian aid, water wells, and minor repairs to Sirsink air field. Like its Air Force counterparts, it was the first Naval Mobile Construction Battalion to enter Iraq prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Carrier Strike Group 6 commenced its 21st and final operational deployment on 30 May 1991. During this period it provided air power presence and airborne intelligence support (the airwing flew over 900 sorties over Iraq) to the Combined Joint Task Forces of Operation Provide Comfort and Operation Northern Watch enforcing the northern "no-fly zone" in Iraq. It completed this deployment on 23 December 1991.

Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili commanded the overall operation and later became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Task Force Bravo, the in-country multi-national element of the operation was commanded by Major General Jay Garner, US Army, who was later appointed a Special Representative to Iraq under the George W. Bush administration.

The first conventional units to cross into Iraq and enter Zakho were US marines on April 20, 1991, when two companies of infantry were airlifted into Zakho, where around 300 regular Iraqi Army infantry and armored vehicles from the 66th Special Assault Brigade were still present posing as police. The Marines had been preceded by 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (who were inserted into Iraq on 13 April 1991). The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit was commanded by Colonel James L. Jones. The MEU consisted of the 24th MEU command element, Battalion Landing team 2/8 (BLT 2/8) under Lt. Colonel Tony Corwin, Composite Helicopter Squadron 264 (HMM-264) Led by Lt. Colonel Joseph Byrtus Jr. and MEU service support group 24 (MSSG-24) led by Lieutenant Colonel Richard Kohl, counting about 2,000 marines. The Marine Expeditionary Unit had been under the command of Commodore Turner, commander, Mediterranean Amphibious Ready Group 1–91, aboard his flagship USS Guadalcanal, but were transferred to Combine Task Force (CFT) Provide Comfort on 14 April and was 3 months into a 6-month routine Mediterranean deployment. The 24th MEU would initially serve as the command to a regiment sized force consisting of all MEU elements, 697 Royal Marines from 45 Commando (22 April), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Thompson and 400 marines from the Dutch 1st Amphibious Combat Group (1st ACG) commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Cees Van Egmond (arrived 23 April) for purposes of containing Zakho until the Iraqi forces would withdraw from the area. On 29 April, 3rd Commando Brigade took back command of 45 Commando, 29th Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery and the 1st ACG for expanded operations to the east. On 4 May, BLT 2/8 commenced operations to the south of Zakho along the route to Dohuk. The MEU then began to move back to Silopi, beginning with the BLT on June 15. 24th MEU left northern Iraq on July 15 and embarked on 19 July for the United States, ending its 6-month deployment.

The 24th MEU (SOC) along with Joint Task Force Bravo(Task Force Alpha was responsible for the Kurd camps in the mountains) grew in size in the days following April 20. The MEU was joined by 4th Brigade (Aviation), 3rd Infantry Division, 18th Engineer Brigade, Naval Mobil Construction Battalion 133, 18th Military Police Brigade, 418th Civil Affairs Battalion USAR, 432nd Civil Affairs Battalion USAR, and 431st Civil Affairs Battalion USAR, Canadian 4th Field Ambulance, 3d Battalion, 325th Infantry (Airborne)(reinforced)(arriving on 27 April), 40 Commando, 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery, the French 8th Marine Parachute Infantry (Cougar Force), a Spanish expeditionary force formed from the 1st Airborne Brigade, "Roger De Flor" and the Italian Folgore Parachute Brigade. All together military forces from 10 countries participated deploying 20,000 military personnel. The Kurds were housed in Camp Jahawk and Camp Badger. The mayor of Jayhawk was MAJ Carl Fisher and the mayor of Badger was MAJ John Elliott.

The US contributed to the operation with the United Kingdom who providing the initiative and significant ground and air forces with 3 Commando Brigade and the RAF. Other allies included France, the Netherlands and Australia. The UK deployed 40 and 45 Commando Royal Marines and air transport assets to help protect refugees and to deliver humanitarian aid. The UK used the name Operation Haven. France deployed transport aircraft and special forces, the Netherlands deployed troops from the Korps commando troepen and an Army Medical/Engineering Battalion, and Australia contributed transport aircraft and medical, dental and preventive health teams (under the Australian name, Operation Habitat).

In March 1991 at a refugee camp in Yeşilova Turkish soldiers, instead of cooperating with the Corps of Royal Marines in relief distribution, were charged with stealing blankets, bed linen, flour and food, including sixty boxes of water, intended for the refugees, forcing the Marines to intervene.

Operation Provide Comfort II
Operation Provide Comfort II began on 24 July 1991, the same day Provide Comfort ended. This operation was primarily military in nature, and its mission was to prevent Iraqi aggression against the Kurds.

Partly as a result of Western commitment to the Kurds, Iraqi troops were withdrawn from the Kurdish regions in October 1991 and these areas assumed de facto independence.

On 5 April 1992, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force bombed bases in northern Iraq belonging to the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran. Iraqi jets were scrambled to intercept the intruders while Coalition aircraft did not interfere.

On 15 January 1993, Iraqi air defense sites opened fire on two USAF F-111 bombers. On 17 January, Iraqi Su-22s fired on two F-16 jets, and a US F-4 Phantom destroyed an Iraqi radar which had been targeting French reconnaissance aircraft. Around a half-hour later, a US F-16 shot down an Iraqi MiG-23 Flogger which had crossed into the no-fly zone. The next day, US F-16s bombed Bashiqah Airfield and F-4 Phantoms attacked Iraqi air defense sites. Over the next few days and months, more Iraqi sites fired on the American patrols, and several were attacked. That August, the USAF deployed the F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft to Turkey, and on 18 August, these aircraft dropped four laser-guided bombs on an Iraqi SA-3 site near Mosul.

On 14 April 1994, two USAF F-15 Eagle fighters on patrol mistakenly downed two US Army Black Hawk helicopters carrying 26 Coalition citizens, killing all aboard.

On 9 December 1995, F-4 Phantom II aircraft of the Idaho Air National Guard finished their tour of duty with Combined Task Force Provide Comfort at Incirlik Air Base. This was the last operational use of the F-4 Phantom by the USAF.

In August 1996, Iraqi troops intervened in the Kurdish regions of Iraq, and the United States responded with Operation Desert Strike against targets in southern Iraq. As a result, some incidents occurred in northern Iraq, and the United States launched an operation to evacuate certain pro-American Kurds from northern Iraq.

The operation ended officially on 31 December 1996 at the request of the Government of Turkey who wanted to improve relations with Iran and Iraq. It was followed by Operation Northern Watch, which began on 1 January 1997 with the mission of enforcing the northern no-fly zone. France declined to participate in Operation Northern Watch.

title: Operation Provide Comfort


text:
User:Viz

Articles I have contributed significantly to.

 * Chandragupta II.
 * Leonard Adleman.
 * King Kanishka.
 * Stony Brook University.
 * Gupta Empire.
 * Chandragupta I.
 * Ghatotkacha.
 * Samudragupta.
 * Daniel Carleton Gajdusek.
 * Kuru epidemic.
 * Elaine Pagels.

Articles I would like to work on (Historical).
 * Kumara Gupta I
 * Buddhagupta
 * Narasimhagupta
 * Maharaja Sri-Gupta
 * Huvishka
 * Vashishka
 * Vasudeva
 * Harshavardhan

Articles I would like to work on (Other).
 * Fore tribe

title: User:Viz


text:
Industrial relations

Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor/trade unions, employer organizations, and the state.

The newer name, "Employment Relations" is increasingly taking precedence because "industrial relations" is often seen to have relatively narrow connotations. Nevertheless, industrial relations has frequently been concerned with employment relationships in the broadest sense, including "non-industrial" employment relationships. This is sometimes seen as paralleling a trend in the separate but related discipline of human resource management.

While some scholars regard or treat industrial/employment relations as synonymous with employee relations and labour relations, this is controversial, because of the narrower focus of employee/labour relations, i.e. on employees or labour, from the perspective of employers, managers and/or officials. In addition, employee relations is often perceived as dealing only with non-unionized workers, whereas labour relations is seen as dealing with organized labour, i.e unionized workers. Some academics, universities and other institutions regard human resource management as synonymous with one or more of the above disciplines, although this too is controversial.

Overview
Industrial relations examines various employment situations, not just ones with a unionized workforce. However, according to Bruce E. Kaufman, "To a large degree, most scholars regard trade unionism, collective bargaining and labour–management relations, and the national labour policy and labour law within which they are embedded, as the core subjects of the field."

Initiated in the United States at end of the 19th century, it took off as a field in conjunction with the New Deal. However, it is generally regarded as a separate field of study only in English-speaking countries, having no direct equivalent in continental Europe. In recent times, industrial relations has been in decline as a field, in correlation with the decline in importance of trade unions and also with the increasing preference of business schools for the human resource management paradigm.

Industrial relations has three faces: science building, problem solving, and ethical. In the science building phase, industrial relations is part of the social sciences, and it seeks to understand the employment relationship and its institutions through high-quality, rigorous research. In this vein, industrial relations scholarship intersects with scholarship in labour economics, industrial sociology, labour and social history, human resource management, political science, law, and other areas.

Industrial relations scholarship assumes that labour markets are not perfectly competitive and thus, in contrast to mainstream economic theory, employers typically have greater bargaining power than employees. Industrial relations scholarship also assumes that there are at least some inherent conflicts of interest between employers and employees (for example, higher wages versus higher profits) and thus, in contrast to scholarship in human resource management and organizational behaviour, conflict is seen as a natural part of the employment relationship. Industrial relations scholars therefore frequently study the diverse institutional arrangements that characterize and shape the employment relationship—from norms and power structures on the shop floor, to employee voice mechanisms in the workplace, to collective bargaining arrangements at company, regional, or national level, to various levels of public policy and labour law regimes, to varieties of capitalism (such as corporatism, social democracy, and neoliberalism).

When labour markets are seen as imperfect, and when the employment relationship includes conflicts of interest, then one cannot rely on markets or managers to always serve workers' interests, and in extreme cases to prevent worker exploitation. Industrial relations scholars and practitioners, therefore, support institutional interventions to improve the workings of the employment relationship and to protect workers' rights. The nature of these institutional interventions, however, differ between two camps within industrial relations. The pluralist camp sees the employment relationship as a mixture of shared interests and conflicts of interests that are largely limited to the employment relationship. In the workplace, pluralists, therefore, champion grievance procedures, employee voice mechanisms such as works councils and trade unions, collective bargaining, and labour–management partnerships. In the policy arena, pluralists advocate for minimum wage laws, occupational health and safety standards, international labour standards, and other employment and labour laws and public policies. These institutional interventions are all seen as methods for balancing the employment relationship to generate not only economic efficiency but also employee equity and voice. In contrast, the Marxist-inspired critical camp sees employer–employee conflicts of interest as sharply antagonistic and deeply embedded in the socio-political-economic system. From this perspective, the pursuit of a balanced employment relationship gives too much weight to employers' interests, and instead deep-seated structural reforms are needed to change the sharply antagonistic employment relationship that is inherent within capitalism. Militant trade unions are thus frequently supported.

History
Industrial relations has its roots in the industrial revolution which created the modern employment relationship by spawning free labour markets and large-scale industrial organizations with thousands of wage workers. As society wrestled with these massive economic and social changes, labour problems arose. Low wages, long working hours, monotonous and dangerous work, and abusive supervisory practices led to high employee turnover, violent strikes, and the threat of social instability. Intellectually, industrial relations was formed at the end of the 19th century as a middle ground between classical economics and Marxism, with Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy (1897) being a key intellectual work. Industrial relations thus rejected the classical econ.

Institutionally, industrial relations was founded by John R. Commons when he created the first academic industrial relations program at the University of Wisconsin in 1920. Another scholarly pioneer in industrial relations and labour research was Robert F. Hoxie. Early financial support for the field came from John D. Rockefeller Jr. who supported progressive labour–management relations in the aftermath of the bloody strike at a Rockefeller-owned coal mine in Colorado. In Britain, another progressive industrialist, Montague Burton, endowed chairs in industrial relations at the universities of Leeds, Cardiff, and Cambridge in 1929–1930.

Beginning in the early 1930s there was a rapid increase in membership of trade unions in the United States, and with that came frequent and sometimes violent labour–management conflict. During the Second World War these were suppressed by the arbitration powers of the National War Labor Board. However, as the Second World War drew to a close and in anticipation of a renewal of labour–management conflict after the war, there was a wave of creations of new academic institutes and degree programs that sought to analyse such conflicts and the role of collective bargaining. The most known of these was the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, founded in 1945. But counting various forms, there were over seventy-five others. These included the Yale Labor and Management Center, directed by E. Wight Bakke, which began in 1945. An influential industrial relations scholar in the 1940s and 1950s was Neil W. Chamberlain at Yale and Columbia universities.

In the 1950s, industrial relations was formalized as a distinct academic discipline with the emergence in the UK of the so-called "Oxford school", including Allan Flanders, Hugh Clegg, and Alan Fox, Lord William McCarthy, Sir George Bain (all of whom taught at Nuffield College, Oxford), as well as Otto Kahn-Freund (Brasenose College, Oxford).

Industrial relations was formed with a strong problem-solving orientation that rejected both the classical economists' laissez-faire solutions to labour problems and the Marxist solution of class revolution. It is this approach that underlies the New Deal legislation in the United States, such as the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.

By the early 21st century, the academic field of industrial relations was often described as being in crisis. In academia, its traditional positions are threatened on one side by the dominance of mainstream economics and organizational behaviour, and on the other by postmodernism.

In policy-making circles, the industrial relations emphasis on institutional intervention is trumped by a neoliberal emphasis on the laissez-faire promotion of free markets. In practice, trade unions are declining and fewer companies have industrial relations functions. The number of academic programs in industrial relations is therefore shrinking, while fields such as human resource management and organizational behaviour grow. The importance of this work, however, is stronger than ever, and the lessons of industrial relations remain vital. The challenge for industrial relations is to re-establish these connections with the broader academic, policy, and business worlds.

Theoretical perspectives
Industrial relations scholars such as Alan Fox have described three major theoretical perspectives or frameworks, that contrast in their understanding and analysis of workplace relations. The three views are generally known as unitarism, pluralism, and the radical or critical school. Each offers a particular perception of workplace relations and will, therefore, interpret such events as workplace conflict, the role of unions and job regulation differently. The perspective of the critical school is sometimes referred to as the conflict model, although this is somewhat ambiguous, as pluralism also tends to see conflict as inherent in workplaces. Radical theories are strongly identified with Marxist theories, although they are not limited to these.

Pluralist perspective
In pluralism, the organization is perceived as being made up of divergent sub-groups, each with its own legitimate interests and loyalties and with their own set of objectives and leaders. In particular, the two predominant sub-groups in the pluralist perspective are the management and trade unions. The pluralist perspective also supports that conflict is inherent in dealing with industrial relations since different sub-groups have different opinions in the day-to-day operations. Consequently, the role of management would lean less towards enforcing and controlling and more toward persuasion and coordination. Trade unions are deemed legitimate representatives of employees, conflict is resolved through collective bargaining and is viewed not necessarily as a bad thing and, if managed, could, in fact, be channeled towards evolution and positive change.

Unitarist perspective
In unitarism, the organization is perceived as an integrated and harmonious whole with the idea of "one happy family" in which management and other members of the staff all share a common purpose by emphasizing mutual co-operation. Furthermore, unitarism has a paternalistic approach: it demands loyalty of all employees and is managerial in its emphasis and application. Consequently, trade unions are deemed unnecessary since the loyalty between employees and organizations are considered mutually exclusive, and there cannot be two sides of industry. Conflict is perceived as the result of poor management.

Radical or critical perspective
This view of industrial relations looks at the nature of the capitalist society, where there is a fundamental division of interest between capital and labour, and sees workplace relations against this background. This perspective sees inequalities of power and economic wealth as having their roots in the nature of the capitalist economic system. Conflict is therefore seen as a natural outcome of capitalism, thus it is inevitable and trade unions are a natural response of workers to their exploitation by capital. Whilst there may be periods of acquiescence, the Marxist view would be that institutions of joint regulation would enhance rather than limit management's position as they presume the continuation of capitalism rather than challenge it.

title: Industrial relations


text:
WDM

WDM may refer to:

Science and technology

 * Warm dark matter in cosmology
 * Warm dense matter, a state of matter between solid and plasma
 * Wavelength-division multiplexing, a signal transmission method
 * wdm, the WINGs Display Manager on Unix
 * Windows Driver Model, a framework for device drivers in Windows
 * Wide Diesel Mixed, a series of Indian locomotives

Other uses

 * West Des Moines, Iowa, United States, a city
 * Western Development Museum of Saskatchewan
 * World Development Movement, a British campaign for social justice
 * Waking Down in Mutuality, an American "spiritual awakening" association
 * Warith Deen Muhammad (Wallace D. Muhammad), a leader of the Nation of Islam
 * WDM (Washington, D.C.), an early 1920s radio station

ריבוב

title: WDM


text:
Napier's bones

Napier's bones is a manually-operated calculating device created by John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland for the calculation of products and quotients of numbers. The method was based on lattice multiplication, and also called rabdology, a word invented by Napier. Napier published his version in 1617. It was printed in Edinburgh and dedicated to his patron Alexander Seton.

Using the multiplication tables embedded in the rods, multiplication can be reduced to addition operations and division to subtractions. Advanced use of the rods can extract square roots. Napier's bones are not the same as logarithms, with which Napier's name is also associated, but are based on dissected multiplication tables.

The complete device usually includes a base board with a rim; the user places Napier's rods and the rim to conduct multiplication or division. The board's left edge is divided into nine squares, holding the numbers 1 to 9. In Napier's original design, the rods are made of metal, wood or ivory and have a square cross-section. Each rod is engraved with a multiplication table on each of the four faces. In some later designs, the rods are flat and have two tables or only one engraved on them, and made of plastic or heavy cardboard. A set of such bones might be enclosed in a carrying case.

A rod's face is marked with nine squares. Each square except the top is divided into two halves by a diagonal line from the bottom left corner to the top right. The squares contain a simple multiplication table. The first holds a single digit, which Napier called the 'single'. The others hold the multiples of the single, namely twice the single, three times the single and so on up to the ninth square containing nine times the number in the top square. Single-digit numbers are written in the bottom right triangle leaving the other triangle blank, while double-digit numbers are written with a digit on either side of the diagonal.

If the tables are held on single-sided rods, 40 rods are needed in order to multiply 4-digit numbers – since numbers may have repeated digits, four copies of the multiplication table for each of the digits 0 to 9 are needed. If square rods are used, the 40 multiplication tables can be inscribed on 10 rods. Napier gave details of a scheme for arranging the tables so that no rod has two copies of the same table, enabling every possible four-digit number to be represented by 4 of the 10 rods. A set of 20 rods, consisting of two identical copies of Napier's 10 rods, allows calculation with numbers of up to eight digits, and a set of 30 rods can be used for 12-digit numbers.

Multiplication
The simplest sort of multiplication, a number with multiple digits by a number with a single digit, is done by placing rods representing the multi-digit number in the frame against the left edge. The answer is read off the row corresponding to the single-digit number which is marked on the left of the frame, with a small amount of addition required, as explained in the examples below.

When multiplying a multi-digit number by another multi-digit number, the larger number is set up on the rods in the frame. An intermediate result is produced by the device for multiplication by each of the digits of the smaller number. These are written down and the final result is calculated by pen and paper.

To demonstrate how to use Napier's bones for multiplication, three examples of increasing difficulty are explained below.

Multiplication by a small single-digit number
The first example computes 425 × 6.

Napier's bones for 4, 2, and 5 are placed into the board, in sequence. These bones show the larger figure which will be multiplied. The numbers lower in each column, or bone, are the digits found by ordinary multiplication tables for the corresponding integer, positioned above and below a diagonal line. (For example, the digits shown in the seventh row of the 4 bone are $2/8$, representing 7 × 4 = 28.) In the example below for 425 × 6, the bones are here depicted as red (4), yellow (2), and blue (5). The left-most column, preceding the bones shown coloured, may represent the 1 bone. (A blank space or zero to the upper left of each digit, separated by a diagonal line, should be understood, since 1 × 1 = 01, 1 × 2 = 02, 1 x 3 = 03, etc.) A small number is chosen, usually 2 through 9, by which to multiply the large number. In this example the small number by which to multiply the larger is 6. The horizontal row in which this number stands is the only row needed to perform the remaining calculations and may now be viewed in isolation. For the calculation, the digits separated by vertical lines (i.e. paired between diagonal lines, crossing over from one bone to the next) are added together to form the digits of the product. The final (right-most) number on that row will never require addition, as it is always isolated by the last diagonal line, and will always be the final digit of the product. In this example, there are four digits, since there are four groups of bone values lying between diagonal lines. The product's digits will stand in the order as calculated left to right. Apart from the first and the final digit, the product's digits will each be the sum of two values taken from two different bones. Bone values are added together, as described above, to find the digits of the product. In this diagram, the third product digit from the yellow and blue bones have their relevant values coloured green. Each sum is written in the space below. The sequence of the summations from left to right produces the figure of 2550. Therefore, the solution to multiplying 425 by 6 is 2550.

Multiplication by a larger single-digit number
When multiplying by larger single digits, it is common that upon adding a diagonal column, the sum of the numbers results in a number that is 10 or greater.

The second example computes 6785 × 8.

Like Example 1, the corresponding bones to the biggest number are placed in the board. For this example, bones 6, 7, 8, and 5 were placed in the proper order as shown below. In the first column, the number by which the biggest number is multiplied by is located. In this example, the number was 8. Only row 8 will be used for the remaining calculations, so the rest of the board has been cleared for clarity in explaining the remaining steps. Just as before, each diagonal column is evaluated, starting at the right side. If the sum of a diagonal column equals 10 or greater, the "tens" place of this sum must be carried over and added along with the numbers in the adjacent left column as demonstrated below. After each diagonal column is evaluated, the calculated numbers are read from left to right to produce a final answer; in this example, 54280 was produced.

Therefore: The solution to multiplying 6785 by 8 is 54280.

Multiplication by a multi-digit number
The third example computes 825 × 913.

The corresponding bones to the leading number are placed in the board. For this example, the bones 8, 2, and 5 were placed in the proper order as shown below. To multiply by a multi-digit number, multiple rows are reviewed. For this example, the rows for 9, 1, and 3 have been removed from the board for clarity. Each row is evaluated individually and each diagonal column is added as explained in the previous examples. The sums are read from left to right, producing the numbers needed for the long hand addition calculations to follow. For this example, row 9, row 1, and row 3 were evaluated separately to produce the results shown below. Starting with the rightmost digit of the second number, the sums are placed from the rows in sequential order as seen from right to left under each other while utilising a 0 for a place holder. 2475   8250  742500

The rows and place holders are summed to produce a final answer. 2475    8250 + 742500    753225

In this example, the final answer produced was 753225. Therefore: The solution to multiplying 825 by 913 is 753225.

Division
Division is performed in a similar fashion. To divide 46785399 by 96431, the bars for the divisor (96431) are placed on the board, as shown in the graphic below. Using the abacus, all the products of the divisor from 1 to 9 are found by reading the displayed numbers. Note that the dividend has eight digits, whereas the partial products (save for the first one) all have six. So the final two digits of 46785399, namely the '99', are temporarily ignored, leaving the number 467853. Then, the greatest partial product that is less than the truncated dividend is found. In this case, 385724. Two things must be marked down, as seen in the diagram: since 385724 is in the '4' row of the abacus, a '4' is marked down as the left-most digit of the quotient; the partial product, left-aligned, under the original dividend, is also written. The two terms are subtracted, which leaves 8212999. The same steps are repeated: the number is truncated to six digits, the partial product immediately less than the truncated number is chosen, the row number is written as the next digit of the quotient, and the partial product is subtracted from the difference found in the first repetition. The process is shown in the diagram. The cycle is repeated until the result of subtraction is less than the divisor. The number left is the remainder.

So in this example, what remains is a quotient of 485 with a remainder of 16364. The process usually stops here and the answer uses the fractional form $485 16364⁄96431$.

For more accuracy, the cycle is continued to find as many decimal places required. A decimal point is marked after the last digit of the quotient and a zero is appended to the remainder which leaves 163640. The cycle is continued, each time appending a zero to the result after the subtraction.

Extracting square roots
For extracting the square root, an additional bone is used which is different from the others as it has three columns. The first column has the first nine square numbers, the second has the first nine even numbers, and the last has the numbers 1 to 9.

To find the square root of 46785399, its digits are grouped into twos starting from the right so it looks like this:

 * 46 78  53  99
 * Note: A number with an odd number of digits like 85399 would be grouped as 08 53  99

The leftmost group is chosen first, in this case 46. The largest square on the square root bone less than 46 is picked, which is 36 from the sixth row. The first digit of the solution is 6, since the sixth row was chosen.

Then, the number in the second column from the sixth row on the square root bone, 12, is set on the board.

The value in the first column of the sixth row, 36, is subtracted from 46, which leaves 10.

The next group of digits, 78, is added next to 10; this leaves the remainder 1078.

At this stage, the board and intermediate calculations should look like this:

The numbers in each row are "read", ignoring the second and third columns from the square root bone; these are recorded. (For example, the sixth row is read as: $0/1$ $0/2$ $0/3$ → 756).

Like in multiplication shown before, the numbers are read from right to left and add the diagonal numbers from top-right to left-bottom (6 + 0 = 6; 3 + 2 = 5; 1 + 6 = 7).

The largest number less than the current remainder, 1078 (from the eighth row), is found.

Like before, 8 is appended to get the next digit of the square root and the value of the eighth row, 1024, is subtracted from the current remainder, 1078, to get 54. The second column of the eighth row on the square root bone, 16, is read and the number is set on the board as follows.

The current number on the board is 12. The first digit of 16 is added to 12, and the second digit of 16 is appended to the result. So the board should be set to:
 * 12 + 1 = 13 → append 6 → 136

 * Note: If the second column of the square root bone has only one digit, this is appended to the current number on the board.

The board and intermediate calculations now look like this.

Once again, the row with the largest value less than the current partial remainder, 5453, is found. This time, it is the third row with 4089.

The next digit of the square root is 3. The same steps as before are repeated and 4089 is subtracted from the current remainder, 5453, to get 1364 as the next remainder. When the board is rearranged, the second column of the square root bone is 6, a single digit. So 6 is appended to the current number on the board, 136, to leave 1366 on the board.
 * 136 → append 6 → 1366

The process is repeated again. Now, the largest value on the board smaller than the current remainder, 136499, is 123021 from the ninth row.

The value of every row often doesn't need to be found to get the answer. The row that has the answer may be guessed by looking at the number on the first few bones and comparing it with the first few digits of the remainder. But the diagrams show the value of all rows to make it understandable.

9 is appended to the result and 123021 is subtracted from the current remainder.

If all the digits have been used, and a remainder is left, then the integer part is solved, but a fractional bit still needs to be found.

If the integer part is solved, the current result squared (68392 = 46771921) must be the largest perfect square smaller than 46785899.

This idea is used later on to understand how the technique works, but more digits can be generated.

Similar to finding the fractional portion in long division, two zeros are appended to the remainder to get the new remainder 1347800. The second column of the ninth row of the square root bone is 18 and the current number on the board is 1366.
 * 1366 + 1 → 1367 → append 8 → 13678

is computed to set 13678 on the board.

The board and intermediate computations now look like this.

The ninth row with 1231101 is the largest value smaller than the remainder, so the first digit of the fractional part of the square root is 9.

The value of the ninth row is subtracted from the remainder and a few more zeros are appended to get the new remainder 11669900. The second column on the ninth row is 18 with 13678 on the board, so
 * 13678 + 1 → 13679 → append 8 → 136798

is computed to set 136798 on the board.

The steps can be continued to find as many digits needed and if the precision needed is achieved. If the remainder becomes zero, this means the exact square root was found.

Rounding up
Having found the desired number of digits, it is easy to determine whether or not it needs rounding up; i.e., changing the last digit. Another digit doesn't need to be found to see if it is equal to or greater than 5. 25 is appended to the root and it is compared to the remainder; if it is less than or equal to the remainder, then the next digit will be at least five and rounding up is needed. In the example above, 6839925 is less than 11669900, so the root needs to be rounded up to 6840.0.

To find the square root of a number that isn't an integer, say 54782.917, everything is the same, except that the digits to the left and right of the decimal point are grouped into twos.

So 54782.917 would be grouped as

 * 05 47  82.91  70

Then the square root can be found using the process previously mentioned.

Diagonal modification
During the 19th century, Napier's bones were transformed to make them easier to read. The rods were made with an angle of about 65° so that the triangles that had to be added were aligned. In this case, in each square of the rod the unit is to the right and the ten (or the zero) to the left.

The rods were made such that the vertical and horizontal lines were more visible than the line where the rods touched, making the two components of each digit of the result easier to read. Thus, in the picture it is immediately clear that:
 * 987654321 × 5 = 4938271605

Genaille–Lucas rulers
In 1891, Henri Genaille invented a variant of Napier's bones which became known as Genaille–Lucas rulers. By representing the carry graphically, the results of simple multiplication problems can be read directly, with no intermediate mental calculations.

The following example calculates 52749 × 4 = 210996.

title: Napier's bones


text:
Black-necked swan

The black-necked swan (Cygnus melancoryphus) is a species of waterfowl in the tribe Cygnini of the subfamily Anserinae. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and the Falkland Islands.

Taxonomy and systematics
The black-necked swan has occasionally been placed by itself in the genus Sthenelides. Its closest relatives are the black swan (C. atratus) and mute swan (C. olor). It is monotypic.

Description
The black-necked swan is the only member of its genus that breeds in the neotropics and is the largest waterfowl native to South America. Adults are 102 to 124 cm long with a wingspan of 135 to 177 cm. Males weigh 4.6 to 8.7 kg and females 3.5 to 4.4 kg. The sexes are alike. Adults' body plumage is white and the neck and head black; the latter usually has a white stripe behind the eye. They have a prominent red knob at the base of their bill. Juveniles are grayish rather than white and lack the knob until their third or fourth year.

Distribution and habitat
The black-necked swan is found in the southern tier of South America. It nests from Tierra del Fuego north to central Chile, Uruguay, and Rio Grande do Sul in extreme southern Brazil. It withdraws from the southern half of Argentina in winter and is then found as far north as Brazil's São Paulo state. It is a year-round resident of the Falkland Islands. Vagrants have been found on Juan Fernández Island, the South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Islands, and the Antarctic Peninsula.

The black-necked swan inhabits freshwater marshes and swamps, shallow lakes, brackish lagoons, and sheltered coastal sites. On the mainland of South America, it is often found near human habitation but shuns built-up areas in the Falklands. It is generally found at low elevations but non-breeding flocks can be found as high as 900 to 1250 m in the Andes of southern Argentina.

The wetlands created in Chile by the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, such as Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary on the Cruces River, have become important population centers for the black-necked swan. The population in this sanctuary has fluctuated widely over the years, reaching a low of 214 in January 2008 and a peak of 22,419 in May 2020 before plumbing to 2,782 in May 2022.

Feeding
The black-necked swan's diet is almost entirely vegetarian. It feeds on aquatic plants like Chara, Potamogeton, Typha; algae such as Aphantotece and Rhyzoclonium; and presumably small numbers of aquatic invertebrates. In parts of Chile its principal food is Egeria densa. It forages mostly by immersing its head and neck and by surface feeding, but also upends to reach deeper. In times of drought it has been observed grazing in meadows and pastures.

Breeding
The black-necked swan's breeding season varies geographically. In the far south of its range, it breeds from July to November but ends as early as September in the northern parts. In the Falklands, it breeds between August and November. The exact timing of breeding appears dependent on rainfall. The species is believed to form long-term pair bonds. Its nest is a mound of vegetation constructed by both members of a pair on a small islet or partially floating in a reedbed. The clutch size is four to eight eggs. Males guard females during the 34- to 36-day incubation period. Captive nestlings fledged about 100 days after hatch.

Vocalization
The black-necked swan is mostly silent outside the breeding season. During that time, both sexes give a "soft, musical 'Whee-whee-whee' with the accent on the initial syllable", repeating it to challenge intruders. The call is also used to maintain contact between members of a pair. Males also give "a musical 'hooee-hoo-hoo'."

Diseases
Black-necked swans can contract avian influenza. In March 2023 influenza A virus subtype H5N1 was detected in black-necked swan populations in Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary, Chile and Estación Tapia, Uruguay. As on May 30, 2023, three more black-necked swans were found dead  due to influenza H5N1 in Lagoa da Mangueira, Taim Ecological Station, Brasil. This raises the total at that station to 63.

Status and conservation
The IUCN has assessed the black-necked swan as being of Least Concern. It has a very large range, and though its population size is not known, it is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. It is widespread and generally common. Large-scale hunting in the 18th and 19th centuries extirpated it from much of Chile but it has recolonized those areas. Some egg collecting and hunting still occur, however. The species occurs in several protected areas in mainland Argentina, in which country the population is estimated at 50,000.

title: Black-necked swan