A photograph portrays some women, nurses of the Second World War, probably of the International Red Cross, during some landing operations and usually this image is accompanied by the caption “ nurses of the CRI disembark in Normandy during D-Day “, But unfortunately it is a“ false historical ”But let's go in order, this is the photo.
Doing some research on the internet you actually meet many re- upload of this photo speaking of D-Day and Normandy, and this theory is supported by the fact that, during the D-Day, in addition to the soldiers and the vehicles, on the beaches of Normandy, also many nurses landed.
For obvious reasons the nurses landed on the front line, and they were not sent to the slaughterhouse against the enemy artillery, obviously they landed and remained in the rear but the fact remains that they landed on June 6 anyway, because their task was to provide aid to the soldiers. injured during the first clashes, and it was not possible to wait for the end of the clashes to rescue the wounded.
Given therefore that the nurses were actually present on the battlefield of Normandy, committed to risking their lives, to save the lives of the soldiers we come to the photo.
According to a fact check carried out by Snopes, who did some research to verify the authenticity of this photo, this photo was of nurses landing on the French coast during the Second World War, but not during the Normandy landings of . June 6, 1944 , but in a subsequent landing in southern France on 15 January 1945 .
For those unfamiliar with geography, we specify that Normandy and the Côte d'Azur are the antipodes of French territory, the first overlooking the North Atlantic, the second overlooking the Mediterranean on the border with Italy.
Snopes attribution this information to the source “ Corbis Images ", The famous photographic database that was the first to host this image, and which was the first to attach a caption to the image that describes the scene in detail, indicating the approximate place of landing in the description.
According to the original caption ( by Corbis Images ) this photo would depict a landing nicknamed “ Ladies Day "Which took place on the Riviera, in southern France in January 45. There is a problem, however, on January 15, 1945 there was no amphibious landing.
So when did these nurses land?
The more observant will have noticed that I said “ when "And not" where ”And the reason is that where we actually know, or rather, we can deduce it.
If it is not D-Day or in any case it is not the Normandy landings, assuming however that the landing site is actually the French coast, and in fact there are not many other alternatives, if it is not Normandy it is the French Riviera
In fact, we know that more or less simultaneously with the start of the liberation operations of Europe, as a reflection of the success of the cobra operation ( landing in Normandy ), August 15, 1944 ( about two months after D-Day ) the allies actually landed on the Riviera, at various points between Toulon and Cannes, in what took the name of “ Operation Dragoon "And seeing that, behind the nurses immortalized during the landing, you can see mountains, and that the only narrow bay on the entire coast is the bay of Saint-Tropez , we can assume that the landing took place not far from there, probably east of Sainte-Maxime on 15 August 1945 during the dragoon operation.
