laststandonzombieisland

Some 80 years ago today. Yellow 28, a Fisher-built M4A2 Sherman medium tank of the 12e Régiment de Chasseurs d’Afrique (12e RCA), 2e Division Blindée (2e DB), named “Tarentaise” debarks from the LST-491-class tank landing ship USS LST-517 at Utah Beach, Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, France, 2 August 1944.

Original Caption: “The tank of a French fighting unit rolls out of an LST, onto a Normandy beach. They are waiting in a transit area for clearance to move forward in the liberation of their native land.”

The Signal Corps photog caught a great shot of another 12e RCA Sherman, “Ile de France” (Nº420657) motoring off into history.

Note the “Somua” plate affixed to the front of Ile de France, a salute to the 23 scratch-and-dent Somua S-35 tanks 12e GACA/12e RCA dragged around West and North Africa for three years.

Kind of like a Peugeot fan being forced to drive a Ford so he spray-paints a Peugeot lion on the hood for the feels.

During the two-week fight to clear Normandy on the drive to Paris, LeClerc’s 2e DB suffered 133 killed, 648 wounded, and 85 missing.

Ile de France, commanded by Lt. Jean Baillou, was among those injured when his Sherman was destroyed on 12 August. The same engagement saw Tarentaise lost as well.

As detailed in “Le Général Leclerc et la 2e DB, 1944-1945” by Dominique Forget:

On August 12, 1944, the tank “Tarentaise” was involved in heavy fighting in the town of Rouessé-Fontaine (Sarthe). After engaging and destroying two German gun positions outside the town, it moved in to engage reported German armor when it was hit by another German gun, pushing it into a ditch and knocking it on its side. Stuck in a ditch and immobile, the “Tarentaise” was hit by a shot that destroyed its engines and created a deadly “brew”. The crew managed to evacuate, but the tank commander (Sgt. Bizard) was mortally wounded.

As for USS LST-517, she was decommissioned on 21 December 1945 and sold in 1947, fate unknown.