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[SIZE=3]Q4/1942 SUMMARY[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Revue d'Action Militaire: The Ziz Valley Campaign[/SIZE]
Article from Le Spectateur militaire. Revue d'Action Militaire is a monthly feature which publishes reports about a battle of military interest. This begins a five-part series on the operations of French Paratroopers during the Rif-Atlas War.

The Ziz Valley Campaign
From May of 1938 onward, Berber rebels under Abd al-Krim had swept into the Ziz Valley, consolidating support for their declared "Republic of the Rif." French military and police garrisons were forced to withdraw in the face of Berber harassment, and Berbers began rounding up people suspected of supporting either the French government or the Moroccan Sultan, Mohammed V.

Following the defeat of Abd el-Krim's Army of the Rif Republic in the Battle of Meknes, and el-Krim's capture on June 4th, the Berber rebels collapsed once again into feuding tribes as the French Army's reinforcements moved in to crush them. The Ziz Valley, cut by the marginal Ziz River, became the stronghold of one of these Berber tribes, led by Ismail Mokhtari.

Mokhtari commanded approximately fifteen hundred mounted tribesmen who had participated in the earliest efforts by el-Krim to establish an independent Berber state in the Rif. Mokhtari's men had composed nearly half of the forces which assaulted the French garrison of Taza in March. At Taza, a group of the Legion Entrangere, supported by a militia formed of European colonists, beat off the attack, causing heavy casualties to Mokhtari's men, as well as other participating Berber forces. Mokhtari withdrew to the Ziz Valley, where his forces recovered their strength. Berber defeats caused an influx of trained fighters fleeing units destroyed by the French Army.

In July, with the situation in northern Morocco stabilized, French forces began pushing south, aiming to crush the remaining Berber rebels. Allied forces in Atlantean Morocco served as the anvil to the French Army's hammer. The Berbers would receive no refuge.



Chasseurs Parachutistes
At the spearhead of the French forces was the 1ere Regiment Chasseurs Parachutistes. First and at that time the only of the French airborne units, the 1st RCP was composed of nearly three thousand of the best-trained, best-motivated fighting forces in the French Army. With justification, the Chasseurs called themselves an elite unit. Every man was a volunteer who'd undergone sixteen weeks of additional training over and above their regular Army training. As paratroopers, they earned a fifty percent pay bonus in exchange for the terrific risks they took in the course of their duties.

Compared to the normal infantry regiment, the 1st RCP was a "light" unit. This meant that firepower was focused at the company and battalion levels, rather than at the regimental level or higher. Supporting forces, such as artillery and supply units, were externalized, and added only when necessary. This permitted the Chasseurs Parachutistes to be more mobile in harsh terrain, and more ruggedly independent in small operations. Against an entrenched enemy, however, the 1st RCP would lack the level of supply and artillery support needed to maintain long-term contact with the enemy. For their combat in the Rif-Atlas War, this balance suited the French Army quite well. In the course of the war, only two battles included more than two thousand combatants on both sides. The 1st RCP's mix of fanatical training and discipline (reportedly second only to the Legion Entrangere), capacity for independent operation, and small-unit firepower made them one of the most desired participants in the battles against the Berbers.

Counter-Insurgency In Morocco
It must be remembered, in any analysis of the Rif-Atlas War, that the conflict was not a bi-polar face-off between European colonial troops and a rebelling native population, but also a civil war between the minority Berber and Arabic peoples of Morocco. Even then, however, the lines between friend and foe were often indistinct. At least one Berber group fought alongside the French Army, operating as scouts and spies, while a number of Moroccan Arabs joined the rebels with the goal of opposing the French.

Despite the combat operations which occurred almost daily throughout mid to late 1938, French forces were able to recover all major cities within two months of Abd el-Krim's capture at Meknes. The Berbers, like the nomadic tribesmen they are, simply fled into the mountains to wage guerrilla war against returning forces. One of the principal tools of the French Army during this period was not the firepower of its forces, but a rapidly-developed intelligence-gathering network. By the end of 1938, French commanders in Morocco had nearly daily intelligence updates from within every Berber rebel unit with more than fifteen or twenty men.

The goal of French counter-insurgency efforts focused not on winning ground battles or control of territory, but in exerting influence on the Moroccans who did not directly support either the Berber rebels, the Arabic sultan, or the French Army. Building on past counter-insurgency doctrine, the French used "oil spots", using the Army to create a protected zone where friendly civilians could live in safety. As the oil spots grew in size, both Berber and Arab collaborators were encouraged to report rebel movements and operations to the French forces, who were then able to protect those who made the reports from rebel retaliation. French retaliations were carefully organized and controlled to prevent excesses, focusing on the primary mission of preserving civilian life and safety. According to French doctrine throughout the war, it was better for one civilian life to be preserved than for ten rebel combatants to be killed.

Dragon Operations
The French Army engaged Mokhtari's Berbers in Ziz Valley over the course of a six month campaign. During that time, the Chasseurs Parachutistes participated in three major and two minor operations in the region, known as "the Dragon series." The first of these operations, Dragon Rouge, will be covered in the November issue. Operation Dragon Noir will be covered in December. Operation Dragon Bleu will be covered in January. The two minor operations, Operation Dragon Gris and Operation Dragon Vert, will be covered in February.

Although other French Army operations took place in the Ziz Valley alongside the Dragon series operations, and the Chasseurs Parachutistes occasionally participated in other operations outside the Ziz Valley at the same time, these five operations, taken in context, provide a deeper understanding into the operational realities of the Rif-Atlas War.

This bodes well to be an interesting series. The introductory article is well thought out, and seems to provide adequate background to set the stage for what is intended to follow.

[SIZE=3]Q4 News Summary:[/SIZE]

Transportation
Compagnie Générale Transatlantique ("The French Line") ordered a new ocean liner in October to serve as a running mate for the SS Pasteur on the South American route. The new ship, to be named René Descartes, was laid down at Chantiers de Penhoët in Saint Nazaire.

The Mondial de l'Automobile was held in Paris from October 4th through the 10th. Major automobile manufacturers from Europe, North America, and Japan displayed their wares in the world's most prestigious automobile show. The French used the opportunity to show off the advancing work on the French autoroute network, although a number of observers called it "Autobahn Lite" in comparison to the German system, which offers more extensive coverage.

The Paris Air Show was held from November 14th through November 21st, with an extremely extensive turnout, although slightly less so than in 1940. The crowds were thrilled by the appearance of civil and military aircraft from around the world. Two Air France Transatlantiques (one MB.970 and one extended-range MB.972) were present as static touring displays. The British Avro York and the Lockheed Constellation were also on hand for comparison. Germany thrilled the crowds with a static example of the upcoming Bf262 jet fighter, and a flying Heinkel He260.

At the Paris Air Show, Marcel Bloch announced that his company, Societie Bloch, would be renamed the Dassault Group following its acquisition of and merger with Avions Amiot and Loire-Nieuport. According to Bloch's press release, the Dassault Group will continue marketing the Transatlantique airliner under the Bloch name, while all military aircraft will now be offered under the Dassault moniker. Dassault will also acquire Loire-Nieuport's contract to operate AIAA in Algiers and AIAI in Saigon.

Colonial Politics
China's decision to depart the League of Nations, a decision announced in September, became a major item of discussion and alarm amongst Indochinese leaders. Sources in the pro-independence Viet Tan Party, the current governing party in Indochina, complained that the Chinese move represented an immense propaganda windfall for the French and pro-union political fortunes. Even though French officials in Paris and Saigon publicly dismissed the Chinese and Indian withdrawal as a move 'of relatively limited importance', and cautioned against assuming nefarious intentions on the part of the Chinese, pro-union and French-language newspapers in Indochina quietly benefitted from playing up the China Scare. By the end of November, the issue remained front-page news in seven out of ten newspapers in Saigon, Hanoi, and Phnom Penh.

Governor General Truong Van Bao requested an immediate defense conference with French officials, which finally occurred on October 20th when the Assistant Minister of National Defense, Alfred August Metayer, arrived in Indochina. The most notable facet of the conference resulted in the creation of an Indochinese Ministry of Territorial Defense, to operate as an independent subsidiary of the French Ministry of National Defense. Minister Without Portfolio Nguyen Van Minh, the Viet Dan opposition leader, was appointed Minister of Territorial Defense. Van Minh's appointment represented a virtual catastrophe for the pro-independence Viet Tan, as much of the opposition to full independence has focused around the desirability of a continued defense alliance with France. Van Minh and his Viet Dan party were perceived to be extremely strong on this issue, and his appointment strengthened Van Minh even further.

Governor General Van Bao privately commented to friends that the timing of the Chinese withdrawal was in many ways relatively fortuitous, as there will be another three years before the next major Indochinese elections, allowing him time to work around the negative effects.

Economics
An end-of-year report by Jacques Rueff, the French Minister of National Economy, asserted that the country had seen a four-percent growth in the national gross domestic product over the past two years. Rueff credited the growth to closer relations with Germany, the US, and Britain, and predicted "a period of sustained high growth" due to improved colonial policies and national infrastructure investment.

Military
The French Navy formed the Force opérationnelle Indochine around new surface units arriving at Cam Ranh Bay, with the fast battleship Richelieu as the task force's flagship. The deployment was announced prior to China's departure from the League of Nations, but was popularly seen in Indochina as part of the French reaction to China's withdrawal.

In other important military news, the Loire-Nieuport LN.190 Épouvantail, developed in concert with Thailand's TNAC, entered service with squadrons in the Outre-mer. The Farman F.420, a heavily-modified and license-built American Consolidated B-24 Liberator, also entered service in the Armee de l'Aire. The F.420 will replace all the current heavy bombers in French service.

Rocketry
The first EA 1941 rocket was launched from Biscarosse, France on December 14th. Intended to take a 25 kg payload to 100 km altitude, the rocket instead veered off course and crashed after 5 seconds of flight. On December 15th, a second EA 1941 was launched at Biscarosse. The rocket exploded on the launch pad, destroying both rocket and launch pad.

[SIZE=3]Revue d'Action Militaire: The Ziz Valley Campaign, Operation Dragon Rouge[/SIZE]
Article from Le Spectateur militaire. Revue d'Action Militaire is a monthly feature which publishes reports about a battle of military interest. This is the second a five-part series on the operations of French Paratroopers during the Rif-Atlas War.

Midelt
With a population of twenty-two thousand, the Moroccan city of Midelt serves as the capital of the eponymous Midelt Province and one of the main commercial centers of central Morocco. The city's importance as a population center, its growing mining industry, and its strategic central location made it a main target for the French counterinsurgency forces as they retook control of Morocco.

In July 1938, Midelt served as the headquarters for Berber chieftain Ismail Mokhtari and his fifteen hundred Berber tribesmen, who controlled most of the surrounding Ziz Valley. Mokhtari held his headquarters at the imposing Kasba Outhmane Ou Moussa, organizing the efforts of his three often-fractious lieutenants. Foremost of the lieutenants was Mohammed Mokhtari, Ismail's oldest son and designated heir. The younger Mokhtari was a dedicated firebrand, and it was often all his father could do to restrain him from the worst excesses.

The Arabic population of Midelt suffered most from Mohammed and his men. On July 29th, anticipating French movements to retake the city, Mohammed arrested at random thirty Arabs from the town, and announced that they would be executed if their relatives did not ransom them with information about the identity of pro-French sympathizers. Although a number of Arabs started coming forward with information, the Berbers were never able to put this insidious plan into effect.

Operation Dragon Rouge
On September 2nd, 1938, transport aircraft of the Armee de l'Aire flew over the town of Midelt in the early morning hours, waking the population. As the Berbers and Arabs stumbled out into the streets to see the aircraft, French parachute infantry drifted down to a landing northeast of the town. This was the leading edge of the storm.

The French planned to use a battalion of paratroopers (2nd Battalion of the 1st RCP) in Operation Dragon Rouge, but were unable to procure sufficient transport for more than two companies. Thus, the original jumping force was composed of C Company of 2nd Battalion and D (headquarters) Company of 2nd Battalion (minus the administrative platoon), as well as a trentaine of the RCP's Groupe Franc. In total, two hundred and sixty-one men made the jump northeast of Midelt. The group was commanded by 2nd Battalion's senior officer, chef de bataillon Richard Laurent.

Although outnumbered by the Berbers in town, the Chasseurs Parachutistes expected rapid relief, and anticipated the Berbers would withdraw without battle. The transports that had dropped them off were scheduled to return later that morning to drop the two remaining companies of the 2nd Battalion. The 1st and 3rd Battalions, moving on foot, were advancing with support elements from the the 21e Régiment de Spahis Marocains toward Midelt, where they expected to arrive on the 3rd.

Ismail Mokhtari quickly realized that his headquarters was under attack, and responded with immediate initiative, ordering his son Mohammed to take all available men to attack the landing zone. Although uncertain about the true strength of the French paratroops, both father and son knew that the Paras would require a pause to organize and consolidate, and were vulnerable while they did so. Mohammed took around two hundred men and advanced on the landing zone, finding the Chasseurs Parachutistes in relative disarray.

Due to the lack of transport aircraft, the French had procured a dozen airliners from Air France, which they had converted into impromptu air transports. Bomber pilots were pressed into service to fly them, and had received no training on how to undertake parachute operations. As a result, the transport aircraft had formed into an unorthodox formation during the drop stage, and the paratroopers became widely scattered. Although squads had generally landed close to each other, most organization above the platoon level was impossible. In the moment of attempting to sort out this near-disastrous landing, Mohammed Mokhtari's Berbers attacked on horseback.

Fight for the Landing Zone
The Berbers attacked with all the ferocity of warrior nomads. Despite the French paratroopers' organizational disarray, however, they retained several advantages. Unlike many nations' paratroopers, the French soldiers jumped with their weapons, which included MAS-36 semiautomatic rifles and the new MG37 light machine gun. These weapons gave the paratroopers a decided firepower advantage. Additionally, the French Air Force had four to six planes, usually MS.406 fighters from Meknes or Fes, patrolling over the landing zone to suppress large Berber formations.

As the Berber counterattack began, the French squads dug in shoulder to shoulder, forming march platoons from the scattered squads, while D Company brought their mortar squad into operation. Two MS.406 fighters additionally swooped in low to drop a bomb and strafe the gathering cavalry. The initial Berber charge collapsed in the face of overwhelming automatic weapons fire from the encircled French, and Mohammed Mokhtari was injured when his horse was hit, throwing him to the ground. The Berbers fell back. Mohammed, despite his injury, quickly assessed the situation and determined that while wild charges might eventually overwhelm the French defenders, it would cost the Berbers far more casualties than the effort was worth, and played to the French strength in automatic weapons. He spread out his men to encircle the French paratroopers, ordered the digging of trenches, and a chain of snipers to pin down the paratroopers.

The French paratroopers used the interval to reorganize by platoon and company. During the jump and the trailing assault, the 2nd Battalion suffered no killed and only eight wounded, compared to an estimated fifteen KIA and forty wounded amongst the Berbers. (The French Army's after-action analysis, based on the recovery of bodies on the battlefield, later reduced this to ten killed and twenty-five wounded.) In order to break the charge and hinder Berber mobility, many of the French paratroopers preferred to shoot horses, of which eighty were eventually accounted for and buried. Chef de bataillon Laurent saw the Berbers reorganizing, however, and spreading out to encircle the paratroopers' landing zones. As the French were in a fairly open area without much cover, Laurent believed this represented a very severe danger that his men would be reduced by attrition.

As the Berbers began to slowly re-engage in a sniping war, Laurent decided the situation needed immediate resolution. Rather than attacking the Berbers directly, however, Laurent decided to move into Midelt itself. Leapfrogging his platoons, Laurent readjusted his position and then began a bounding advance towards the city.

Fight for the Northeast Quarter
As the French paratroopers moved, they took their heaviest casualties in the course of the battle, losing three men to snipers. The French mortars laid down both smoke and high-explosive rounds to cover the French movements, and the calm air allowed the smoke rounds to be particularly effective in disrupting Berber observation of the French movement. Due in no small part to the mortars, Berber casualties continued to exceed French losses despite the more exposed positions of the mobile paratroops.

Reaching the northeast quarter of Midelt, the French paratroops began skirmishing with the Berber tribesmen who had remained in the city. Due to a lack of communications from Mohammed Mokhtari's group, however, the Berbers in the city believed the attacking French troops were more numerous than they truly were, and believed their comrades outside the city had been defeated and driven off. The Berbers did not panic, but most of them quickly determined to flee while they still had the opportunity. This coincided with Ismail Mokhtari's own analysis, and he left the Casbah only ten minutes before the French paratroopers arrived.

Once in the city, the French paratroopers set about eliminating Berber resistance. Much of this faded away within the first hour, but another paratrooper, this time in the Corps Franc's trentaine, was killed by enemy fire when storming a building.

Second Airdrop
A Company of the 2nd Batallion arrived shortly before noon, parachuting down onto the now-abandoned drop zone. Monitoring the radio communications from the lead elements, Colonel Delarue, commanding the regiment, ordered B Company to wait for a third parachute drop, and their space used for airdropping more supplies.

Under the command of Capitaine Robert Chardin, A Company landed without significant opposition, which was fortuitous because, like the first drop, they were scattered and disorganized. Many of the paratroopers further had to dodge the supply drop which came as they were landing. After gathering up the supplies, Chardin moved his men towards the city. A number of Berbers remained in the area, but they withdrew as the French advanced.

Entering Midelt, A Company made arrangements to join forces with C and D companies. A squad of A Company entered a house with C Company soldiers on the roof, only to discover that the ground floor was still occupied by startled Berbers. The squad commander was killed and two men wounded, but the rest of the squad killed all six Berbers with their rifles and bayonets.

Third Airdrop and Night
B Company arrived in the midafternoon, bringing the Chasseurs Parachutistes up to a strength of just under seven hundred men. Berber opposition had largely ended by this point, with only a few scattered snipers trying to harass the paratroopers. As the 2nd Battalion secured the city block by block, the Arab inhabitants began appearing, offering information about Berber movements and hideouts still present in the city. The French paratroopers responded aggressively to these tidbits of information, capturing eighteen Berbers and killing twelve more.

As night fell, all four companies of the 2nd Battalion remained inside the city to ensure security. With dusk, some Berber tribesmen attempted to sneak back into Midelt to harass French forces, and occasional rifle fire kept the town awake long into the night. With dawn, however, the rest of the 1st RCP, as well as the 21st Moroccan Spahis, approached the town.

Aftermath
The 2nd Battalion suffered only five men killed and an estimated twenty injured during the course of the day's fighting. French troops later accounted for thirty Berbers killed, in addition to eighteen prisoners. Chef de bataillon Laurent speculated that the Berbers removed the bodies of many of their other dead, burying them in secret to hide their true casualties. Although prisoners were interviewed extensively in the aftermath of all operations, this was never fully confirmed.

However, Operation Dragon Rouge remained an unambiguous French victory, as they secured the city of Midelt with minor losses, and pushed Mokhtari and his tribesmen into the surrounding wilderness. It would be their only easy victory of the Ziz Valley Campaign.

A most interesting item from Le Spectateur militaire.

It shows that a determined force of airborne troops can wreak havoc on an enemy's well laid plans. It also shows the dangers of improvising an airborne force.

The II/1er RPC was fortunate in that the initial force sent to disrupt the landing was so small, and that air support was at hand to help fight off the Berbers. It also points out the dangers of dropping troops and supplies into the same small drop zone in quick succession. There is no doubt that the French Army has now taken these lessons to heart, but it will be interesting to see how soon they were put into practice during the campaign.

Quoted

The first EA 1941 rocket was launched from Biscarosse, France on December 14th. Intended to take a 25 kg payload to 100 km altitude, the rocket instead veered off course and crashed after 5 seconds of flight. On December 15th, a second EA 1941 was launched at Biscarosse. The rocket exploded on the launch pad, destroying both rocket and launch pad.

The staff of the German research station at Peenemunde take due note of this report, and review their own safety procedures; meanwhile they informally commiserate with their French colleagues.

A lot of the French problems came from their lack of dedicated transport aircraft during this period - an entirely historical weakness. The troops themselves were very highly-trained and well armed, but France simply didn't have the aircraft - both the right type and the right quantity - to use paratroopers as they wanted. In my writeup on the Rif-Atlas War, I made mention of this shortfall:

Quoted

The Armee de l’Aire also realized, belatedly, the need to provide sufficient cargo aircraft to support their deployments. In May 1938, the Army proposed deploying the Regiment Chasseurs Parachutistes, a unit created in January 1937, to Morocco. This plan suffered repeated setbacks while the Armee de l’Aire attempted to gather sufficient transports for the job. Eventually, through “creatively acquiring” retired airliners from Air France and hastily converting a number of old bombers to supplement the few existing transports, the regiment deployed in August 1938. The converted bombers in particular proved exceptionally unsuitable for paratrooper deployments, and at least on two occasions, paratroopers were killed jumping from the planes. When one of the converted bombers crashed in January 1939 with a full load of paratroopers on board, killing eighteen soldiers and three aircrew, the Armee de l’Aire suspended all paratrooper operations until sufficient transport aircraft could be acquired. These accidents resulted in more men of the Regiment Chasseurs Parachutistes killed by mishap than killed in action, despite deploying in three combat jumps and fairly regular campaigning between August 1938 and January 1939.

The problem the French had with paratroop operations was not that they didn't learn the lesson; it was that their equipment issue was simply unsolvable at the time.

Quoted

Originally posted by BruceDuncan

Quoted

The first EA 1941 rocket was launched from Biscarosse, France on December 14th. Intended to take a 25 kg payload to 100 km altitude, the rocket instead veered off course and crashed after 5 seconds of flight. On December 15th, a second EA 1941 was launched at Biscarosse. The rocket exploded on the launch pad, destroying both rocket and launch pad.

The staff of the German research station at Peenemunde take due note of this report, and review their own safety procedures; meanwhile they informally commiserate with their French colleagues.

They should actually take note not so much of the safety procedures, but the French choice of fuel - which is the chief cause of all but one of the EA 1941 rockets exploding. Liquid Oxygen and Gasoline just doesn't work well as rocket fuel!

LOX and gasoline? Mon dieu!

Quoted

Originally posted by BruceDuncan
LOX and gasoline? Mon dieu!

Yes... wasn't the smartest choice, but it was the one preferred by M. Barre.

From what I've found on the EA 1941, the fuel itself wasn't entirely the problem (per se): it just melted pieces off the inside of the engine, which clogged the nozzle, and caused the entire thing to explode. When DEFA got involved in rocketry towards the end of the EA 1941 project, they figured out what was going wrong, fixed the problem, and put together a new rocket - whereupon the French government threw everything in the trash can because they had so many captured German scientists who were designing much more capable stuff.

Barre was a genius in many ways - he started designing surface-to-air missiles in the 1930s, and long-ranged surface-to-surface bombardment rockets - but his genius didn't transfer well to the selection of rocket fuel (or his willingness to try something less... caustic and explosive).

Whats the problem with gasoline? Kerosene, which is very similar, is a very common rocket fuel. The dangerous fuels are the decomposing oxidizers like hydrogen peroxide.

Quoted

Originally posted by Desertfox
Whats the problem with gasoline? Kerosene, which is very similar, is a very common rocket fuel. The dangerous fuels are the decomposing oxidizers like hydrogen peroxide.

When liquid oxygen and gasoline get together in rocket fuel, it's not very shock-stable and can be set off by static electricity or a good bump. LOX-Kerosene took longer to develop as the kerosene needed to be a specific sort of blend; once the researchers determined this blend in the 1950s, LOX+gasoline fell out of favor. According to the research I've done, even though kerosene and gasoline are 'very similar', there are some pretty substantial differences in their behavior when you are undertaking rocketry.

[SIZE=3]Revue d'Action Militaire: The Ziz Valley Campaign, Operation Dragon Noir[/SIZE]
Article from Le Spectateur militaire. Revue d'Action Militaire is a monthly feature which publishes reports about a battle of military interest. This is the third article a five-part series on the operations of French Paratroopers during the Rif-Atlas War.

On September 2nd, French paratroops of the 1ere Regiment Chasseurs Parachutistes recaptured the Moroccan city of Midelt, seized by Berbers during the opening months of the Rif-Atlas Revolt. The Berber rebels offered scattered resistance to this attack (Operation Dragon Rouge) before fleeing to the Atlas Mountains, south of Midelt.

Intelligence
Upon liberating Midelt, the French field intelligence officers received a wealth of intelligence sources amongst the local Arab population, which had suffered at Berber hands. Although many of the Arabs did not support the French military effort, they opposed the Berbers and were happy to see the French rooting out their enemies. Thus Arab civilians, who knew the country as well as the Berbers, volunteered information about the movement of Berber bands and the location of their hideouts.

The French military encouraged this in several different ways. French intelligence officers opened up the regiment's field hospitals to locals, and often sat in while military corpsmen treated various ailments and injuries, chatting convivially with the locals to glean information. Occasionally, money would change hands, but just as often, the intelligence officers would barter cigarettes, alcohol, medical supplies, protection, and even cattle. The 1ere RCP, on September 4th, paid out five goats and one donkey, and a squad of paratroopers was dispatched to rebuild a house destroyed by the Berbers - payment for reliable intelligence.

Over the course of September 3rd and 4th, the 1ere RCP's intelligence staff started to build a comprehensive picture of the Berber resistance in the Ziz Valley. On the 4th, Colonel Delarue and his staff met to assess the intelligence picture. The Arabs had provided substantial information identifying a number of Berber food and weapons caches hidden in the mountains south of Midelt, and Delarue determined to wipe them out. Delarue planned a detailed operation, code-named Dragon Noir, to enter the mountains, capture, and destroy the caches. Simultaneously, a second operational force (Dragon Bleu) would advance seventy kilometers down the main highway to secure the town of Rich. Delarue's battalion commanders drew lots for the mission, with the task falling on 2nd (Dragon Noir) and 3rd (Dragon Bleu) Battalions. Operation Dragon Bleu will be covered in next month's issue of LSM.

Ascent
The 2nd and 3rd Battalions rested through the day on September 5th, and mustered just after dusk. Chef de bataillon Laurent took command of the Dragon Noir forces and moved out from the 1ere RCP's camp, marching at night to avoid drawing too much attention. Laurent organized two of his three parachute infantry companies (A and C company) in a line abreast, leading the battalion; B and D companies, the latter with the headquarters and mortar units, advanced together as a reserve force. This worked well through most of the march, with the units keeping good contact with each other. However, an hour before sunrise, A Company under Capitaine Robert Chardin turned slightly left to follow a dried out gulley.

According to the French maps, this gully was relatively shallow, and led straight to one of the mission objectives. Laurent's mission orders sent Chardin's company up the gully, and then anticipated that they could cross the ridge to rejoin the rest of the battalion. However, unbeknownst to Chef de bataillon Laurent, the gully was deeper than the maps or aerial photographs showed, and took a dogleg away from the rest of the battalion's course of march.

Shortly before dawn, Capitaine Chardin began to feel increasingly uneasy about his company's position, and instructed Lieutenant Jean Victor to take one of the company's platoons and scale the gully on his right flank. Chardin them moved up the gully another two hundred meters as Lieutenant Victor's platoon picked their way through the high ground. At this point, Chardin realized his company was off course, and had the rest of his men climb out of the gully. Once in an elevated position, Chardin spotted his objective (a gap in a ridge to the southeast) approximately three hundred meters away. Chardin sent Victor's platoon to the right flank, where he expected to link up with the rest of the battalion, and advanced towards the gap in the ridge with the main body of his company.

At some point during this series of movements, a Berber sentry higher in the mountains caught sight of the French paratroopers and tried to raise an alarm. A dozen Berbers were encamped just out of sight of the French, in the process of restocking their food and ammunition. Both the Berbers and the French were unaware of each other's proximity, and closed to less than fifty meters distance. The Berber sentry, trying and failing to warn his comrades, finally fired his rifle at the paratroopers, wounding Captain Chardin in the shoulder.

The Chasseurs Parachutistes responded with an immediate and well-disciplined reaction. One squad began to lay down covering fire, killing the Berber sentry, while the rest of the paratroopers advanced at double time. The startled Berbers at the cache, belatedly alerted by their sentry's rifle shot, had little time to scatter, and three of them were gunned down only a few moments later. The rest took to their heels, pursued by Lieutenant Victor's platoon. In a few violent moments, the French paratroopers took the cache, killing four Berbers.

Captain Chardin's injury was severe, however, and as the French began preparing to destroy the weapons cache, they moved him into the cover of the rocky depression while the company's corpsman treated him. Although Chardin lost a great deal of blood, he would survive the ordeal.

The Berbers Return
Unbeknownst to the French, the Berbers who had fled from the sudden French attack were mere outriders of a much larger force of rebels, numbering some four hundred men scattered within a ten-kilometer radius. The fleeing Berbers soon linked up with their comrades, who sent messengers to the other scattered groups. These men quickly rallied and started moving towards A Company, which was still engaged in preparing the weapons cache for demolition. Within ten minutes of the first fight, Berber marksmen began shooting at the French paratroops. Lieutenant Victor's platoon, having unwisely pursued the fleeing Berbers, were isolated from the main body by a steep ravine, and took refuge in a stone hut. The rest of the company sought new defensive positions up the slope from the Berber supply cache, in a position nicknamed "The Bowl."

With Chardin wounded, command of A Company devolved on Lieutenant Charles Gabriel Duveyrier. A tough, no-nonsense officer, Duveyrier had been one of the first ten officers in the Regiment Chasseurs Parachutistes. As more Berbers appeared to snipe at the company, Duveyrier contacted Chef de bataillon Laurent by radio and requested instructions.

Laurent quickly assessed his mission objectives. Now that he was on the ground and seeing the terrain with his own eyes, he started to doubt the accuracy of his maps. In spite of Laurent's unease, his main force found two more Berber food caches without opposition or incident, and began preparing them for destruction or transport. After a cursory discussion with his company commanders, Laurent instructed Duveyrier to hold his position for six hours, whereupon the rest of the battalion would arrive to engage the Berbers. Laurent also called for air support from Fes. In his official report, Laurent justified his decision: "So long as A Company held out, their position would draw more Berbers into a fight, like bees to honey. This would allow me to maneuver with the rest of my battalion to outflank and destroy the Berber troops."

Lieutenant Duveyrier took stock of his situation, and tried to open contact with Lieutenant Victor's isolated platoon near the Stone Hut. Victor's platoon was pinned down by fire from higher in the hills, and separated from the rest of the company by a sheer ravine. In spite of this, Duveyrier and Victor established contact through the use of message grenades and, during brief periods of sunshine, signal mirrors. Lieutenant Victor opined that his men would be slaughtered if he attempted any movement to rejoin Duveyrier's group, but he felt his own position near the Stone Hut was tenable, despite sniper fire from the ridge.

Battle for the Stone Hut
The Stone Hut, probably built by herdsmen, remained a keystone of the French position throughout the next two days. A low broken-down stone wall, once intended to enclose animals, ran around two sides of the house, and provided limited protection to the French paratroopers. The hut itself was firmly built, and nearly impervious to rifle fire, making it a nearly unassailable bastion to the lightly-armed Berbers. However, about a hundred meters to the southwest, the ground rose up in a series of three ridges, each connected by a narrow crest of rock wide enough for only one man. Berber snipers quickly found this was a perfect position to snipe down on the French platoon sheltering at the Stone Hut.

Lieutenant Victor set up two of his three machine-guns to fire back at the Ridge, and sent one of his squads (sans machine gun team) to drive off the Berber snipers. (This position was dubbed "the Knife" by the paratroops). Covered by the machine-gunners, seven men negotiated the narrow path, killing two Berbers and driving away an unknown number more. However, once the squad had seized the Knife, they came under fire from the Berbers who had simply retired further up the slope. With no cover in this exposed position, the senior sergeant decided to return to the Stone Hut. In this maneuver, the French had one man lightly injured.

Within a half-hour, Berbers had returned to the Knife, and Lieutenant Victor dispatched another squad to drive the snipers away, establish a position, and hold the ridge. Three snipers were killed and one paratrooper was wounded. The paratroopers tried to establish a defensive position on the ridge, but once again, sniper fire threatened to drive them off the ridge, and the commanding sergeant ordered a withdrawal. Within thirty minutes, Berber snipers returned to the Knife, firing down on the Stone Hut and killing one of the French paratroopers.

Frustrated by this seesaw battle for the Knife, Lieutenant Victor sent a squad to clear the Knife for a third time, and then brought his four-man command squad and a second rifle squad up the ridge with large rocks and improvised sandbags. As the Berbers retreated, the French used the opportunity to construct a very basic stone-and-sand breastwork on the third ledge of the Knife. Victor posted one of his light machine guns in this tiny fortification and then retreated to the Stone Hut, leaving three men. This small machine-gun team held their isolated position for thirty-six hours, protected by nothing more than a stone wall barely thirty-five centimeters in height.

Battle for the Bowl
Unlike Lieutenant Victor's position at the Stone Hut, Lieutenant Duveyrier's troops at the Bowl had a relatively safe position against sniper fire, but faced a different sort of difficulty. To the northwest of the Bowl was an extensive rockfall that provided excellent cover to Berbers attempting to infiltrate the position. Sheltered behind large boulders, the Berbers could make their way to within only a few meters of the French position. This required extreme vigilance on the part of the French paratroopers, as the company mortars and headquarters were set up in the depression. Shortly before noon, three Berbers launched a suicidal attack by means of the rockfall, aiming for the command staff. Lieutenant Duveyrier shot one of the men at point-blank range, and the other two men were gunned down by the other defenders. One man from the company headquarters was killed.

Air support arrived at 1230 hours, but the MS410 fighters from Fes could not identify the French combatants from the Berbers. They requested for the paratroops to lay out colored panels on the ground to identify their positions, but lacking a radio connection to the paratroops, it took two hours for the request to be transmitted - by which time the aircraft had used all of their fuel and had returned home. Later in the day, a twin-engine bomber (MB.170) flew over and dropped eight 40kg bombs in the general vicinity of the combatants, but did not hit anything notable.

Having learned from their previous experience, the Berbers never attempted overt charges aimed at overwhelming the French paratroopers. In retrospect, it appears the Berbers did not even have an existing command and control structure, but had simply gravitated toward the fight in small groups of three to five. These men occasionally formed into larger bands, only to break up again the moment it seemed expedient to do so. On one occasion, two groups of Berbers, each mistaking the other's identity, spent three hours sniping at each other while the French watched.

By far the most feared weapon of the paratroops was the company AT team, equipped with two Russian PTRS 14mm rifles. Acting in the counter-sniper role, the two AT rifles could demolish virtually any bit of cover used by the Berber snipers, and the report of the big rifles, and their impact, often caused Berber marksmen to flee, even if the rounds missed. When they hit, the results were even more impressive.

The Battalion Arrives - Eventually
As A Company remained encircled under the irregular Berber gunfire, the rest of the battalion dismembered the unguarded and uncontested caches of food and ammunition. After a cursory cataloging of captured equipment, it was either destroyed or carried off by the paratroops. Chef de bataillon Laurent remembered seeing one soldier "festooned with five or six belts filled with grenades, like a decorated Christmas tree." Whatever the paratroopers didn't want to take with them was piled and burned, although a stash of dried goat meat, buried in the ground, was simply scattered across the area to spoil or be found by scavengers.

Once this litany of pillaging and destruction reached its conclusion, Laurent began to focus on relieving A Company. Before this could happen, Laurent had to find A Company. It did not take long for Laurent to determine his maps and aerial photographs were not very helpful. Radio communications with Lieutenant Duveyrier were difficult, and Duveyrier's description of his environs was no material help to his commanding officer. Laurent determined to march to the sound of the guns. Unfortunately, this took him the wrong way. Due to a quirk of acoustics in the mountain air, Laurent marched his men three different directions, chasing echoes of the distant gunfire. It was only in the afternoon, following the otherwise unhelpful bombing run by the MB.170, that Laurent figured out the proper direction to find A Company.

As this comedy of errors played out, and night fell before Laurent managed to reach A Company's position. The paratroopers, who had marched all of the previous night and much of the day, were exhausted. Calling a halt, Laurent and Duveyrier consulted by radio, and A Company's acting commander assured Laurent that his men would hold until relieved. Unable to do much more, Laurent ordered his men to rest, rousing them before dawn.

A Company continued to see sporadic action throughout the night, as Berbers attempted to infiltrate the French lines or find new firing positions. Three men from A Company's mortar team were killed during a Berber infiltration attack on the Bowl at 0300 hours. Berber casualties during the evening are difficult to reconstruct, but the paratroopers found twelve enemy combatants inside the Bowl come morning. From bloodstains and tracks, it seems likely other enemy combatants were injured but crawled out of the Bowl without being spotted.

Encirclement
Before dawn, Laurent goaded his men to rise and prepare for combat. C Company later determined they had camped only half a kilometer southwest from the Bowl. Quietly ascending the ridge, one C Company platoon achieved an elevated firing position over a nest of nearly a dozen Berber snipers. Their commander, Lieutenant Dubois, later wrote: "As we finished moving into position, the first rays of the sun appeared over the eastern horizon, piercing the freezing mountain air. One of the Berbers sat up and began a loud wailing cry for Islamic prayer, echoed by other voices around the mountainside. All the Berbers laid down their rifles and prostrated themselves to pray. We waited in silence for them to finish, none of us wishing to open our ambush while they were disarmed and praying; it was only when they finished and reached for their rifles that we pulled the pins in our grenades and sent them on their way."

The unexpected arrival of the rest of 2nd Battalion decisively turned the tide. The Berbers, with no clear commander or organizer, did not entirely realize the numeric superiority the French now had in play. Laurent's encirclement, crude as it was, netted nearly a hundred Berbers between the French paratrooper companies. These men attempted to scatter and sneak away from the encirclement, but on the barren mountainside, they were relatively easy to spot, and very few actually evaded death or capture. By noontime, the paratroops of B Company cautiously advanced to link up with the exhausted men defending the Bowl.

The Knife - Second Day
Berber opposition continued on the northeast extent of the line, focused around the Stone Hut. Sniper fire prevented Lieutenant Victor's platoon from receiving aid until well after dusk on September 7th. Constant sniper fire threatened the tenuous French position on the Knife, and rose to such a level that Victor did not believe he could send any more men up to relieve the machine gun team. These three isolated men continued to fire back at the Berbers. By dusk, they had only eight 6.5mm rounds left between them. One of the men crawled out to take a rifle from a fallen Berber, but was wounded in the leg as he crawled back to position. A Berber sniper, perhaps believing the position abandoned, attempted to follow the wounded man, whereupon the two uninjured men threw a rock that knocked the Berber off the narrow path and down a rocky slope.

Laurent, viewing the position from the next hilltop over, had difficulty trying to determine a way to relieve Victor's platoon. Virtually every approach required a body of men to move across long stretches of open ground visible to Berber marksmen, and some of the routes required climbing across a boulder-strewn slope. Laurent called on the expertise of the regiment's Groupe Franc troops, requesting them to find a route to drive the Berbers off the high ground over the Knife and the Stone Hut. A six man team (l'equipe) set off, skirting the high ground and finding a thin crevasse running through the mountainside in the rear of the Berber position. The six men scaled the crevasse and took a Berber prisoner, interrogating him about the strength of the enemy positions. Once this was done, they radioed Laurent, who sent another platoon from C Company to follow them to the top.

Once the platoon was in position on top of the mountain, they began working their way back down the slope, attacking the snipers from the rear. As darkness fell, most of the Berbers, still fighting on personal initiative alone, decided to abandon their positions and leave the battlefield, although a number continued to contest the ground until the next morning.

Summary
2nd Battalion remained in the area until late on September 8th, where they conducted an impromptu analysis of the battle, gathering bodies, stacking captured arms, and searching for more food and weapons caches.

The French suffered five men killed during the course of the operation, a figure which belied the ferocity of the combat. The French Army later awarded three Croix de guerre des théâtres d'opérations extérieures to the three men of Lieutenant Victor's platoon who had manned the position on the Knife; a fourth went to the leader of the l'equip, and a fifth to Lieutenant Duveyrier. When the 1er Regiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes, at the close of the war, was decorated with the Legion of Honour, their performance during Operation Dragon Noir was specifically noted in the citation.

Berber casualties, as always, were extremely difficult to quantify, but French troops confirmed fifty-eight dead and twenty-nine wounded and captured Berbers. Interrogations of the prisoners resulted in French intelligence estimating a total of four hundred Berbers involved at some point or another in the battle; Chef de bataillon Laurent, by contrast, claimed his battalion had faced approximately seven hundred Berbers, a figure he used in his official report on Dragon Noir. Most official documents use the lower figure.

Unlike its predecessor operation, Dragon Noir represented a different style of fighting than many of the Paratroopers were trained for. Unlike Dragon Rouge, Operation Dragon Noir had no airborne assault element, and sent the paratroopers into the mountain strongholds of the Atlas Berbers. Colonel Delarue later commented "because of the agressivité exhibited by all of the officers and men, the Chasseurs Parachutistes became most efficient at fighting and killing the enemy wherever he appeared."

That aggressiveness and emphasis on initiative often resulted in near-disasters, as evidenced by Lieutenant Victor's foolhardy pursuit of fleeing Berbers, which resulted in his platoon's isolation. In Colonel Delarue's cover letter to the official report, he supported Lieutenant Victor's actions, although he added a note of warning. "On many occasions, I have seen timid officers spend precious minutes to make decisions or prepare a plan, allowing the enemy time to regroup and prepare. A vigorous and immediate attack, by contrast, may throw the enemy into confusion and panic. In this state, the enemy seeks to preserve themselves first, and strike back at our men only as an afterthought. The difficulty for the platoon and company commander is to retain that aggressiveness and initiative while still maintaining his focus on the objective, and not being lured into disaster by a more cunning or disciplined enemy."

Another illuminating report. While the French suffered only five dead, I suspect that the number of wounded was much higher.

The difficulty of maintaining air-ground communications is a cogent point. Since the time of the Rif War, has the French Army acted to improve air-ground communications?

Quoted

Originally posted by BruceDuncan
The difficulty of maintaining air-ground communications is a cogent point. Since the time of the Rif War, has the French Army acted to improve air-ground communications?

Yes, particularly as a result of the creation of ground-attack regiments and the Escadrille de Police et de Surveillance. In this particular sort of situation, the Army would request an EPS unit (six COIN aircraft) to provide close air support prior to the start of the operation, and the planes would receive radio frequencies to contact the units on the ground (generally battalion commanders) to take calls-for-fire.