Here's something interesting I found just lying around.
The gentleman in the center was my great-uncle, David Jenkins (my maternal grandmother's brother). The back of the photo reads "Toulon, France 9-44."
It isn't apparent from the photo, but Uncle David was very light-skinned; so much so that he was originally put in an all-white unit (remember that the Armed Forces were segregated back then). Legend has it that he corrected that "error" with a quickness.
It's nice not to be living in the same sort of 'interesting times' in which Uncle David lived.
UPDATE: Uncle David and friends were probably a part of Operation Dragoon.
Operation Dragoon was the Allied invasion of southern France, on 15 August 1944, as part of World War II. The invasion took place between Toulon and Cannes. During the planning stages, the operation was known as Anvil, to compliment Operation Hammer, which was at that time the codename for the invasion of Normandy. Subsequently both plans were renamed, the latter becoming Operation Overlord, the former becoming Operation Dragoon; a name supposedly picked by Winston Churchill, who was opposed to the plan, and claimed to having been "dragooned" into accepting it.Hah!
