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Airborne landing in bandit area south of Grenoble with 22 cargo gliders carried out according to plan. Our battle group in all-round defence in Vassieux, day’s objective probably not reached owing to enemy pressure. Luftflotte 3 (midnight, 22 July1944) Bad weather is said to have inhibited aerial resupply and reinforcement of the surrounded Fallschirmjäger, although apparently 16 sorties were still flown. Armed effort over the r Vercors still consisted of 17 Bf 109s from JGr. 200 on “special operations” (possibly the use of WGr. 21 mortars) and 68 aircraft of Geschwader Bongart. Fifty-two of the Bongart machines strafed and dropped 7.5 tonnes of bombs, causing damage at St. Julien, among tents on the Col de Rousset, east of St. Martin, in La Chappelle and south of Vassieux. Saint-Julien-en-Vercors and Die in the Drôme Valley were also bombed. According to Lfl. 3 the “serptentine road” 8 km north of Die (probably the D518 leading to the Col de Rousset) was blocked by three bombs. On the Col de Rousset that afternoon: An especially bold German pilot, coming from [the south], dives on the tunnel and releases a bomb which pulverises … the lavatories [which] fortunately at the time of the bombardment … are unoccupied. The plane [seems] undamaged despite a hellish fire spitting from every automatic weapon on the crest above it. To bomb he’s had to come down well below the col … We thought we’d put him off with all our machine guns … But not at all, he drops once more, a single bomb which will explode beside the intended target, amongst the rock slides to the left of the Vittoz refuge. Also that day, in response to a query from the Operations Officer of Luftflotte 3, the Geschwader gave the fullest picture yet of its organisation and bases:
Notwithstanding the above, the Geschwader had Re. 2002 operating from Valence-La Trésorie for the Vercors operation, three wrecked ones being found there when Allied Technical Intelligence teams arrived early in September (Valence was liberated by the FFI during the night of the 30th/31st August). Valence-La Trésorerie is 300 km nearer to Vassieux-en-Vercors than Bourges, so there were clear advantages of using it as a base for operations against the Plateau. An Re. 2002 had the range for a round trip of just under 700 km but (assuming a cruising speed of about 325–350 km/h) it would entail a mission duration in the region of two hours, not including turnaround time between sorties. Given this (conjectural) arithmetic, it seems unlikely that Geschwader Bongart could have generated anything like the daily sortie rate it achieved over Vercors without being based close to the battle area. continued on next page …
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