Alice Rufo: "France has not forgotten the meaning of their sacrifice"
Minister Alice Rufo paid tribute to American soldiers during the 82nd anniversary of the liberation of Draguignan.
It was a commemoration imbued with a deep solemnity that took place on August 16 at the American cemetery in Draguignan.
In front of the white headstones lined up under the Var sun, Alice Rufo, Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Armed Forces and Veterans, recalled the sacrifice of the American soldiers who came to liberate Provence exactly eighty-two years ago.
"Yesterday, at Le Dramont, we looked at the sea from which they came. Today, we look at the land where they remained," she declared, emphasizing the symbolic significance of the site.
A sanctuary born from battle
The Draguignan cemetery is contemporary with the fighting. From the days following the landing of August 15, 1944, as the US Seventh Army continued its advance, the first bodies were buried there.
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"Draguignan was barely liberated and it was already receiving those who had fallen for it," Alice Rufo specified.
The site now houses 861 graves, at the foot of Le Malmont. On the memorial wall are engraved the 294 names of those whose bodies were never recovered.
Some anonymous headstones bear the moving inscription: "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God". A tribute reminding us that even if the names have sometimes faded, the memory of courage remains intact.
Tribute to the liberators
Eleven Allied divisions, representing 350,000 men, including 230,000 from French troops, took part in this second landing, which completed the success of the Normandy landing.
The minister evoked those young infantrymen of the 3rd, 36th and 45th Infantry Divisions, those sailors, aviators, and paratroopers dropped over Le Muy on the night of August 14 to 15, who entered Draguignan alongside Var resistance fighters on August 16, 1944.
"They came from Ohio and Virginia, from Texas and Colorado. [...] They died thousands of miles from home, for villages whose names they could not pronounce," recalled Alice Rufo.
A French-American friendship
She highlighted a strong gesture by the American ally: if the French First Army was able to rush towards Toulon and Marseille, it was because "our American allies wanted to leave them the honor of reconquering their homeland."
This sacrifice is part of a much longer history, that of French-American friendship, whose 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is being celebrated this year by the United States. The minister recalled that the first alliance concluded by the young American nation was with France, in 1778.
Photos PRESSE AGENCE.