Three of the PTs were detached to sail for the northwest as an anti-E-boat patrol. Four others took 70 French commandos northwest to land at the Pointe des Deux Frères, in the beautiful Gulf of Napoule that washes the beach at Cannes. (The French commandos ran into a mine field ashore, were strafed by friendly planes, and captured by the Germans.)
The rest of the task unit sailed straight north, as though headed for Genoa, trailing balloons as radar targets, with the hope that the enemy would think a big invasion force was bound for the Italian seaport.
At Genoa, the phony flotilla turned west for the waters off Cannes and Nice, still trailing its radar target balloons. The launches and PTs maneuvered off Antibes, making as much of an uproar as possible, while the British gunboats bombarded the beach.
AZURE COAST
SARDINIA MADDALENA BASE PT HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS CORSICA BASTIA BASE TUSCAN ARCHIPELAGO LANDING BEACHES ITALY PT DIVRSION SMOKE SCREEN OPERATION GUN PT 206 VS. HUMAN TORPEDOS FRANCE PT FAKE LANDING PTs 202 and 208 SUNK BY MINES PTs FAKE A LANDING PT 555 SUNK HERE BOOBY-TRAPPED DUMMY PARATROOPERS DROPPED HERE SPAIN
The minuscule fleet was delighted to hear from Radio Berlin that a massive Allied landing near Cannes had been pushed into the sea with heavy losses, and that Antibes and Nice had been bombarded by four large battleships.
Captain Henry C. Johnson, commanding the diversion groups, said: “The decoy screen proved effective as in addition to several enemy salvos falling short of or bursting in the air over the gunboats, the PTs and the launches were subjected to a considerable degree of large-caliber fire which passed well over them.”
Happy with the confusion they had sown, the eastern diversion group sailed west to join a western task unit with a similar mission.
Off the Baie de la Ciotat, between Marseilles and the port of Toulon, the eastern group joined company with four more launches, 11 crash boats, and eight PTs of Squadron Twenty-Nine, under the control of the destroyer Endicott. Skipper of the destroyer was a sailor who might be expected to know a bit about a PT’s capabilities. His name was Lieut. Commander John Bulkeley.