title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: As of 2013, high-quality evidence supports the use of bisphosphonates (either orally or via IV infusion) in the treatment of CRPS. Bisphosphonates inhibit osteoclasts which are cells involved in the resorption of bone. Bone remodeling, via osteoclast activity in resorption of bone, is thought to sometimes be hyperactive in CRPS. It is hypothesized that bone resorption causes acidification of the intercellular milieu and this activates nerves involved in nociception that densely innervate bone causing pain; therefore inhibiting bone resorption and remodeling is thought to help with regards to pain in CRPS. CRPS involving high levels of bone resorption, as seen on bone scan, is more likely to respond to bisphosphonate therapy.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: Opioids such as oxycodone, morphine, hydrocodone, and fentanyl have a controversial place in treatment of CRPS. These drugs must be prescribed and monitored under close supervision of a physician, as these drugs will lead to physical dependence and can lead to addiction. Thus far, no long-term studies of oral opioid use in treating neuropathic pain, including CRPS, have been performed. The consensus among experts is that opioids should not be a first line therapy and should only be considered after all other modalities (non-opioid medications, physical therapy, and procedures) have been trialed.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: Spinal cord stimulator appears to be an effective therapy in the management of patients with CRPS type I (level A evidence) and type II (level D evidence). While they improve pain and quality of life, evidence is unclear regarding effects on mental health and general functioning.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: Dorsal root ganglion stimulation is type of neurostimulation that is effective in the management of focal neuropathic pain. The FDA approved its use in February 2016. The ACCURATE Study demonstrated superiority of dorsal root ganglion stimulation over spinal (dorsal column) stimulation in the management of CRPS and causalgia.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: Surgical, chemical, or radiofrequency sympathectomy — interruption of the affected portion of the sympathetic nervous system — can be used as a last resort in patients with impending tissue loss, edema, recurrent infection, or ischemic necrosis. However, little evidence supports these permanent interventions to alter the pain symptoms of the affected patients, and in addition to the normal risks of surgery, such as bleeding and infection, sympathectomy has several specific risks, such as adverse changes in how nerves function.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: No randomized study in medical literature has studied the response with amputation of patients who have failed the above-mentioned therapies and who continue to be miserable. Nonetheless, on average, about half of the patients will have resolution of their pain, while half will develop phantom limb pain and/or pain at the amputation site. As in any other chronic pain syndrome, the brain likely becomes chronically stimulated with pain, and late amputation may not work as well as it might be expected. In a survey of 15 patients with CRPS type 1, 11 responded that their lives were better after amputation. Since this is the ultimate treatment of a painful extremity, it should be left as a last resort.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: The prognosis in CRPS is improved with early and aggressive treatment; with the risk of chronic, debilitating pain being reduced with the early treatment. If treatment is delayed, however, the disorder can quickly spread to the entire limb, and changes in bone, nerve, and muscle may become irreversible. The prognosis is worse with the chronic "cold" form of CRPS and with CRPS affecting the upper extremities. Disuse of the limb after an injury or psychological distress related to an injury are also associated with a poorer prognosis in CRPS. Some cases of CRPS may resolve spontaneously (with 74% of patients undergoing complete resolution of symptoms (often spontaneously) in a population based study in Minnesota), but others may develop chronic pain for many years. Once one is diagnosed with CRPS, should it go into remission, the likelihood of it resurfacing after going into remission is significant. Taking precautions and seeking immediate treatment upon any injury is important.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: CRPS can occur at any age, with the average age at diagnosis being 42. It affects both men and women; however, CRPS is three times more frequent in females than males.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: CRPS affects both adults and children, and the number of reported CRPS cases among adolescents and young adults has been increasing, with a recent observational study finding an incidence of 1.16/100,000 among children in Scotland.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: The condition currently known as CRPS was originally described during the American Civil War by Silas Weir Mitchell, who is sometimes also credited with inventing the name "causalgia". However, this term was actually coined by Mitchell's friend Robley Dunglison from the Greek words for heat and for pain. Contrary to what is commonly accepted, it emerges that these causalgias were certainly major by the importance of the vasomotor and sudomotor symptoms but stemmed from minor neurological lesions. In the 1940s, the term reflex sympathetic dystrophy came into use to describe this condition, based on the theory that sympathetic hyperactivity was involved in the pathophysiology. In 1959, Noordenbos observed in causalgia patients that "the damage of the nerve is always partial." Misuse of the terms, as well as doubts about the underlying pathophysiology, led to calls for better nomenclature. In 1993, a special consensus workshop held in Orlando, Florida, provided the umbrella term "complex regional pain syndrome", with causalgia and RSD as subtypes.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of the National Institutes of Health, supports and conducts research on the brain and central nervous system, including research relevant to RSDS, through grants to major medical institutions across the country. NINDS-supported scientists are working to develop effective treatments for neurological conditions and ultimately, to find ways of preventing them. Investigators are studying new approaches to treat CRPS and intervene more aggressively after traumatic injury to lower the patient's chances of developing the disorder. In addition, NINDS-supported scientists are studying how signals of the sympathetic nervous system cause pain in CRPS patients. Using a technique called microneurography, these investigators are able to record and measure neural activity in single nerve fibers of affected patients. By testing various hypotheses, these researchers hope to discover the unique mechanism that causes the spontaneous pain of CRPS, and that discovery may lead to new ways of blocking pain. Other studies to overcome chronic pain syndromes are discussed in the pamphlet "Chronic Pain: Hope Through Research", published by the NINDS.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: Research into treating the condition with mirror visual feedback is being undertaken at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Disease in Bath. Patients are taught how to desensitize in the most effective way, then progress to using mirrors to rewrite the faulty signals in the brain that appear responsible for this condition. However, while CRPS can go into remission, the chance of it reoccurring is significant.


title: Complex regional pain syndrome

text: The Netherlands has the most comprehensive program of research into CRPS, as part of a multimillion-Euro initiative called TREND. German and Australian research teams are also pursuing better understanding and treatments for CRPS.


title: James Frain

text: James Dominic Frain is an English stage and screen actor. His best known television roles include Thomas Cromwell in the Showtime/CBC historical drama "The Tudors" (2007–2009), Franklin Mott in the HBO drama "True Blood" (2010), Warwick the Kingmaker in the BBC drama serial "The White Queen" (2013), John Sumner in the Sky/Canal+ crime drama "The Tunnel" (2013), Ferdinand Chevalier in the BBC/Space sci-fi thriller "Orphan Black" (2015–2017), Theo Galavan/Azrael in Fox's "Gotham" (2015–2016), and Sarek in "" (2017–2019). He also played leading roles in the BBC dramas "Armadillo" (2001), "The Buccaneers" (1995) and "The Mill on the Floss" (1997).


title: James Frain

text: In film, he is best known for playing Daniel Barenboim and Álvaro de la Quadra in the biographical dramas "Hilary and Jackie" and "Elizabeth", respectively (both 1998), Bassianus in the Shakespeare adaptation "Titus" (1999), and Gérard de Villefort in the historical drama "The Count of Monte Cristo" (2002).


title: James Frain

text: Frain was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, and brought up in Stansted Mountfitchet, near Bishop's Stortford,Essex, the eldest of eight children of a teacher mother and a stockbroker father. He was educated at Newport Free Grammar School, studied Drama and Film at the University of East Anglia and trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.


title: James Frain

text: In 1993, while in his final year of drama school, he made his film debut in "Shadowlands", after being spotted by the film director Richard Attenborough. In 1995, He starred as a Northern Irish terrorist in the Thaddeus O'Sullivan directed film, "Nothing Personal".


title: James Frain

text: In 2000, Frain was nominated for Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's 20th Genie Awards in Toronto, for his performance as Gustave Sonnenschein in the István Szabó directed film "Sunshine".


title: James Frain

text: He has been a regular on the stage in the United Kingdom, appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal Court Theatre, as well as on the West End. He has also appeared on Broadway and was a recipient of the 2008 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performances along with the rest of the cast of "The Homecoming" (2007).


title: James Frain

text: He has appeared in a number of television series, such as "Soldier Soldier" (1993); "Armadillo" (2001); "24" (2005); "Invasion" (2006); and "The Closer" (2006). His more recent roles include Thomas Cromwell in Showtime's "The Tudors"; the villainous billionaire 'Chess' in the NBC superhero/crime drama series "The Cape"; heroic Templar Sir Gregory in the Syfy original film "Dark Relic" (2010); and vampire Franklin Mott in the HBO drama "True Blood". In season 2 of "Grimm", Frain joined the cast as a mysterious recurring character named Eric Renard.


title: James Frain

text: He appeared in the second season of "Gotham" as Azrael, and portrayed Sarek, the father of Spock, on "", the second prequel TV series in the Star Trek franchise.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: U.S. Bancorp (stylized as us bancorp) is an American bank holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and incorporated in Delaware. It is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association, and is the fifth largest banking institution in the United States. The company provides banking, investment, mortgage, trust, and payment services products to individuals, businesses, governmental entities, and other financial institutions. It has 3,106 branches and 4,842 automated teller machines, primarily in the Western and Midwestern United States. It is ranked 117th on the Fortune 500, and it is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board. The company also owns Elavon, a processor of credit card transactions for merchants, and Elan Financial Services, a credit card issuer that issues credit card products on behalf of small credit unions and banks across the U.S.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: U.S. Bancorp operates under the second-oldest continuous national charter, originally Charter #24, granted in 1863 following the passage of the National Bank Act. Earlier charters have expired as banks were closed or acquired, raising U.S. Bank's charter number from #24 to #2. The oldest national charter, originally granted to the First National Bank of Philadelphia, is held by Wells Fargo, which was obtained upon its merger with Wachovia.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: The U.S. Bank name first appeared as United States National Bank of Portland, established in Portland, Oregon, in 1891. In 1902, it merged with Ainsworth National Bank of Portland, but kept the U.S. National Bank name. It changed its name to the United States National Bank of Oregon in 1964.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: The central part of the franchise dates from 1864, with the formation of First National Bank of Minneapolis. In 1929, that bank merged with First National Bank of St. Paul (also formed in 1864) and several smaller Upper Midwest banks to form the First Bank Stock Corporation, which changed its name to First Bank System in 1968.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In the eastern part of the franchise, Farmers and Millers Bank in Milwaukee opened its doors in 1853, growing into the First National Bank of Milwaukee and eventually becoming First Wisconsin and ultimately Firstar Corporation. In Cincinnati, First National Bank of Cincinnati opened for business on July 13, 1863 under National Charter #24—the charter that U.S. Bancorp still operates under today, and one of the oldest active national bank charters in the nation. U.S. Bancorp claims 1863 as its founding date. Despite having started up in the midst of the Civil War, First National Bank of Cincinnati went on to survive many decades to grow into Star Bank.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In January 1969, the U.S. National Bank of Oregon reorganized as a holding company, U. S. Bancorp, after receiving authorization from its bank directors on September 9, 1968 and subsequently receiving legal approval to proceed from the Comptroller of the Currency on November 28, 1968. LeRoy B. Staver, president, and chief executive officer of the bank, was quickly appointed chairman and chief executive officer for the new holding company while Robert B. Wilson was appointed president of the holding company and also executive vice president for the bank. Wilson later resigned as president in December 1972 and his position was filled eight months later by John A. Elorriaga.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: Staver retired in October 1974 and was succeeded by John Elorriaga who was promoted to chairman and chief executive officer while Carl W. Mays Jr was named president in Elorriaga's place.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: A major change in the organization of leadership in the U.S. Bancorp of Oregon occurred in August 1983. Although Elorriaga remained as chairman and chief executive officer for the firm, Mays was appointed to the new position of executive assistant to the chairman while Edmund P. Jensen was appointed president as a replacement to Mays, and Roger L. Breezley was appointed to the new post of chief operating officer.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In December 1986, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Forest Grove, Oregon-based Valley National Corporation (not to be confused with the Phoenix, Arizona, company of the same name) with its five-branch Valley National Bank of Forest Grove subsidiary for $13.7 million in stock.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: U.S. Bancorp of Oregon made its first acquisition outside the state of Oregon by announcing in December 1986 the pending acquisition of the Spokane, Washington-based Old National Bancorp with its Old National Bank of Washington and First National Bank of Spokane subsidiaries for $174 million. The acquisition was completed in July 1987 on the first day that the state of Washington had allowed bank acquisitions by out-of-state companies.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In December 1986, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Camas, Washington-based Heritage Bank for $2.8 million.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In May 1987, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Seattle, Washington-based Peoples Bancorp with its Peoples National Bank subsidiary for $275 million in stock. The acquisition was completed in December 1987. After the acquisition, Peoples and Old National were combined to form U.S. Bank of Washington.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: John Elorriaga retired as chairman of the board and chief executive officer in November 1987 and was replaced by Roger L. Breezley while Jensen continued as president.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In December 1987, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Bellingham, Washington-based Mt Baker Bank for $25 million.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: U.S. Bancorp of Oregon entered the state of California by announcing in April 1988 the pending acquisition of the Eureka, California-based Bank of Loleta with seven branch offices in Humboldt and Del Norte counties for $15.3 million in cash. The acquisition was completed in December 1988 and was renamed U.S. Bank of California.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In April 1988, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Bellingham, Washington-based Northwestern Commercial Bank for $15.5 million. The acquisition was completed in November 1988.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In July 1988, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Auburn, Washington-based Western Independent Bancshares with its Auburn Valley Bank subsidiary for $4.25 million in cash.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In October 1989, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Sacramento, California-based Mother Lode Savings Bank with three branch offices for $5.3 million. The acquisition was completed in August 1990. This acquisition was one of the first of a thrift by a commercial bank in the nation since legislation permitting such takeovers went into effect.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: During the late 1980s, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon made several attempts to enter the state of Idaho by the acquisition of an existing Idaho-based bank, the only method then allowed under Idaho law, but failed when the price got too high. In March 1990, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced that they would establish a bank through a loophole in Federal banking law that allows the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to allow the relocation of bank headquarters within 30 miles of their present location without regards to state boundaries and state regulations. So U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced that they plan to transfer the existing branches of the First National Bank of Spokane to the U.S. Bancorp of Washington and then ask permission from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to move the headquarters of First National from Spokane, Washington, to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. After receiving Federal approval, First National was finally moved in February 1992 and renamed U.S. Bank of Idaho.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In July 1990, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Auburn, California-based HeartFed Financial Corporation with its Heart Federal Savings and Loan subsidiary for $107.8 million in stock. At the time of the announcement, Heart Federal Savings had 29 branch offices in northern California. The acquisition was completed in March 1991 for $118 million.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In November 1991, Edmund P. Jensen was given the post of chief operating officer in addition to his duties as president, making him a possible successor to Breezley.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In February 1992, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the 20 branch offices in Northern California and 29 branch offices in Nevada for $70 million that were being divested by Bankamerica Corporation as a result of Bank of America's impending acquisition of Security Pacific Corporation. This acquisition gave U.S. Bancorp of Oregon its first presence in the state of Nevada.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: Another major change in the organization of leadership in the U.S. Bancorp of Oregon occurred in January 1993. While retaining his position as chief operating officer, Edmund P. Jensen was appointed vice-chairman while giving his position of president to Kevin R. Kelly. At the same time, Gerry B. Cameron was appointed vice-chairman. Ten months later, Jensen resigned to become president of Visa Inc. In January 1994, Gerry Cameron was first appointed chief operating officer as a replacement to Jensen and later appointed chief executive officer just three weeks later. Kelly submitted his resignation as president in March 1994 and Breezley finally gave up the chairmanship to Cameron in April 1994.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In May 1995, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Boise, Idaho-based West One Bancorp for $1.8 billion. At the time of the announcement, West One had branch offices in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Utah while U.S. Bancorp of Oregon had branch offices in Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, and Nevada. The acquisition was completed in December 1995 and gave U.S. Bancorp of Oregon its first entry into the state of Utah. As part of the acquisition deal, West One's chairman and chief executive Daniel R. Nelson would become the chief operating officer and president of U.S. Bancorp and he would later be Cameron's successor as chairman and CEO upon Cameron's planned retirement in three years. Since both U.S. Bancorp and West One had overlapping territories in Oregon and Washington, the U.S. Justice Department would only allow the acquisition to proceed if U.S. Bancorp would sell off 27 branch offices in Washington and Oregon. As a result of the regulatory ruling, U.S. Bancorp sold 25 branch offices in Oregon, four in central Washington and one in Idaho to First Hawaiian Bank for $38 million in cash.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In February 1996, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the San Ramon, California-based California Bancshares for $309 million in stock. California Bancshares had a total of 38 branches in the East San Francisco Bay Area in nine separate banks that included Alameda First National, Community First National, Modesto Banking Co., Commercial Bank of Fremont, Lamorinda National Bank, Bank of San Ramon Valley, Westside Bank, Concord Commercial Bank and Bank of Milpitas. The acquisition was completed in June 1996.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In September 1996, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the St. George, Utah-based Sun Capital Bancorp with its three-branch office Sun Capital Bank subsidiary for $15.5 million. The acquisition was completed in January 1997.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In December 1996, Daniel R. Nelson, president and chief operating officer of U.S. Bancorp of Oregon, unexpectedly announced his early retirement effective on New Year's Day 1997. Nelson was originally in line to be Gerry B. Cameron's successor as chairman and chief executive upon the Cameron's planned retirement on New Year's Day 1999.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In December 1996, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon announced the pending acquisition of the Sacramento, California-based Business & Professional Bank for $35 million in cash. The acquisition was completed in May 1997.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In March 1997, the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based First Bank System announced the pending acquisition of U.S. Bancorp of Oregon for $9 billion in stock. At the time of the announcement, U.S. Bancorp of Oregon had banking offices in Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho and Utah while First Bank System had banking offices in Minnesota, Colorado, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Wyoming. Under the terms of the acquisition, First Bank System was the nominal survivor, and the newly merged company was headquartered in Minneapolis. However, it took the more recognizable U. S. Bancorp name. John F. Grundhofer, chairman and chief executive of First Bank, was appointed president and chief executive of the new company while Gerry B. Cameron, chairman, and chief executive of U.S. Bancorp of Oregon, was appointed chairman of the new company, which he held until his retirement in 1998. The acquisition was completed in August 1997. Approximately 4000 jobs were eliminated, mostly in Portland.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: First Bank System can trace its roots to the formation of First National Bank of Minneapolis in 1864. In 1929, the First National Bank of Minneapolis joined with the First National Bank of St. Paul to form a joint holding company for both banks that was called the First Bank Stock Corporation, while keeping both subsidiary banks legally separate. The new holding company quickly grew by acquiring other banks in the four-state region before the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 prohibited such actions. First Bank Stock Corporation was renamed First Bank System Inc. in 1968.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In September 1997, the new U.S. Bancorp, formerly First Bank System, announced the pending acquisition of the St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Zappco, Inc. with its three banks and six banking locations for an undisclosed amount. At the time of the announcement, U.S. Bancorp had more than 1,000 banking offices in the states of Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, California, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Nevada, South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, Illinois, Utah, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Wyoming. The acquisition was completed in December 1997.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In March 1998, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the Vancouver, Washington-based Northwest Bancshares with its 10-branch offices Northwest National Bank subsidiary for an undisclosed amount. In October 1998, the U.S. Justice Department agreed to allow the acquisition to proceed on the condition that one of the Northwest National Bank branch offices was to be sold. The acquisition was completed in December 1998 after U.S. Bancorp sold the request banking office to Centennial Bank of Eugene.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: At the end of 1998, Gerry Cameron retired as chairman and handed the position over to John Grundhofer who added the title of chairman to his other positions of president and chief executive officer.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In February 1999, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the San Diego-based Bank of Commerce with its 10 branch offices for $314 million in stock. The acquisition was finalized in July 1999.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In May 1999, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the Newport Beach, California-based Western Bancorp with its Santa Monica Bank and Southern California Bank subsidiaries and a total of 31 branch offices for $904 million in stock. At the time of the announcement, U.S. Bancorp had 98 branch offices within California. The acquisition was finalized in November 1999 for $1.04 billion in stock.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In July 1999, Philip G. Heasley was appointed president and chief operating officer of U.S. Bancorp. John Grundhofer had handed over the position of president to Heasley while still retaining the titles of chairman and chief executive officer. Heasley had assisted Grundhofer in turning the company around from near insolvency when the company was originally known as First Bank until it became a successful financial institution that became large enough to be absorb other banks, including U.S. Bancorp of Oregon in 1997. Heasley resigned the following year to join Bank One as the head of their First USA credit card unit around the same time Firstar was about to takeover U.S. Bancorp.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In September 1999, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the San Diego-based Peninsula Bank with its 11 branch offices for $104 million in stock. In early January 2000, a group of Peninsula Bank stockholders tried to stop the merger because the initial merger agreement was made prior to the huge 27% single-day drop in the value of U.S. Bancorp stock which effectively lowered the purchase price. The acquisition was later completed in January 2000 at a 10% reduction of the original price negotiated.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In June 2000, U.S. Bancorp announced the acquisition of the San Diego-based Scripps Financial Corporation with its nine-branch office Scripps Bank subsidiary for $155 million in stock. The acquisition was completed in October 2000.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In October 2000, Firstar Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, announced the pending acquisition of U.S. Bancorp for $21 billion in stock. The merger was completed on February 27, 2001. While Firstar was the nominal survivor, the merged company took the U.S. Bancorp name and moved to old U.S. Bancorp's headquarters in Minneapolis. Under the merger agreement, Jerry Grundhofer, president and chief executive officer of Firstar, would continue in those positions in the combined company while his older brother, John Grundhofer, chairman, president and chief executive officer of U.S. Bancorp, would serve as chairman of the board in the combined company until his planned retirement on December 31, 2002. The merged company retained some administrative functions in Milwaukee and Cincinnati.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: To allow the merger to proceed, the U.S. Department of Justice required Firstar to sell 11 branch offices in the Minneapolis-area and 2 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Bremer Bank of Saint Paul, Minnesota, purchased the 11 Minneapolis-area Firstar offices while Liberty Bank of West Des Moines, Iowa, purchased the 2 Council Bluffs offices.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: Firstar Corporation traced its roots to the founding of the Farmer's and Millers Bank in Milwaukee in 1853, which by 1919 evolved into First Wisconsin National Bank. However, the Firstar that took over U.S. Bancorp in 2001 was actually the same company and leadership that acquired Firstar 27 months earlier in 1998, namely Star Banc Corporation. That bank, in turn, traced its roots to the founding of First National Bank of Cincinnati in 1863. Jerry Grundhofer and his team from Star Banc were instrumental in both acquisitions.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: Present-day U.S. Bancorp retains Star Banc's pre-1998 stock price history. As mentioned above, it claims 1863 as its founding date, and operates under the charter originally granted to First National Bank of Cincinnati. Additionally, all SEC filings before 1998 are under Star Banc, and all filings from 1998 to 2000 are under Firstar.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In April 2001, the new U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of all 20 branch offices in California of the Encino-based Pacific Century Bank from its Honolulu-based parent Pacific Century Financial Corporation. The acquisition was completed in September 2001.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In July 2002, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of all 57 retail banking branches of the San Mateo, California-based Bay View Bank from its Bay View Capital Corporation parent for $429 million. The acquisition was completed in November 2002.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On New Years Day 2003, John Grundhofer retired as chairman of U.S. Bancorp and handed the position to his younger brother Jerry Grundhofer, who added the title of chairman to his other positions of president and chief executive officer in the corporation.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In May 2004, U.S. Bancorp announced that it was acquiring the $34 billion corporate trust bond administration business from National City Corporation.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In October 2004, Richard K. Davis was appointed chief operating officer and president of U.S. Bancorp. Jerry Grundhofer had handed over the position of president to Davis while still retaining the titles of chairman and chief executive officer. Davis had been a protege of Grundhofer since their days together at Star Banc Corporation and had assisted in the takeover of Firstar by Star Banc in 1998 and the later acquisition of U.S. Bancorp by Firstar in 2001.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: U.S. Bancorp acquired Genpass along with its MoneyPass ATM network subsidiary for an undisclosed amount in May 2005.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In November 2005, U.S. Bancorp announced that it was acquiring the $410 billion corporate trust and institutional custody businesses of Wachovia Corporation for $720 million in cash.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In July 2006, U.S. Bancorp announced that it was acquiring the $123 billion municipal and corporate bond trustee business from SunTrust.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In June 2006, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the Avon, Colorado-based Vail Banks Inc. with its WestStar Bank subsidiary and 23 locations for $98.6 million in cash. The acquisition was completed in September 2006.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In November 2006, U.S. Bancorp announced that it was acquiring the $30 billion municipal bond trustee business from LaSalle Bank.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In November 2006, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the Great Falls, Montana-based United Financial Corporation with its Heritage Bank subsidiary for $71 million in stock. The acquisition was completed in February 2007 and nearly double the branch presence of U.S. Bank in Montana.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In December 2006, Jerry Grundhofer handed over the position of chief executive officer to president Richard Davis while Grundhofer remained chairman until his retirement the following year in December 2007. After Grundhofer retirement in December 2007, Davis added the position of chairman to his other titles of president and chief executive officer.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In March 2008, the U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the seven-office Los Angeles-based Mellon 1st Business Bank from the Bank of New York Mellon for an undisclosed amount in cash. The acquisition was completed in June 2008.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On November 14, 2008, the U.S. Treasury invested $6,599,000,000 in preferred stock and warrants in the company via the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Weeks earlier, U.S. Bancorp has entered into acquisition talks with National City Corp. and had made an offer to buy National City until PNC Financial Services used its portion of TARP funds to outbid U.S. Bancorp and acquire National City instead. Had National City accepted U.S. Bancorp's offer, U.S. Bancorp would have expanded into Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania (three states that as of 2021 still don't have a retail presence from U.S. Bancorp), but major divestments would've been made in Midwestern states, especially Ohio.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On November 21, 2008, the company acquired the failed Downey Savings & Loan Association and also the failed Pomona First Federal Bancorp in a transaction facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for an undisclosed amount. Downey Savings had 170 branch offices in California and five branch offices in Arizona while PFF Bank had 38 branch offices in Southern California.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In April 2009, U.S. Bancorp acquired the assets and deposits of the failed Ketchum, Idaho-based First Bank of Idaho in a transaction facilitated by the FDIC. First Bank of Idaho had seven offices in Idaho and Wyoming, some of which operated under the name First Bank of the Tetons.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On June 17, 2009, the company redeemed the $6.6 billion of preferred stock and on July 15, 2009, it completed the purchase of a warrant held by the U.S. Treasury Department. This effectively concluded U.S. Bancorp's participation in the Capital Purchase Program. It was the first bank to repay the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On October 5, 2009, the company announced its acquisition of the $8 billion mutual fund administration and accounting servicing division of Fiduciary Management, Inc. for an undisclosed amount.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On October 7, 2009, the company agreed to buy the bond trustee business of First Citizens Bank, a subsidiary of First Citizens BancShares Inc. for an undisclosed amount.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On October 20, 2009, the company completed a transaction to purchase the failed FBOP Corporation's nine subsidiary banks from the FDIC for an undisclosed amount. The banks included BankUSA, National Association with 2 offices in Arizona, Cal National Bank with 68 offices in California, Citizens National Bank with 1 office in Texas, Community Bank of Lemont with 1 office in Illinois, Madisonville State Bank with 1 office in Texas, North Houston Bank with 1 office in Texas, Pacific National Bank with 17 offices in California, Park National Bank with 31 offices in Illinois, and San Diego National Bank with 28 offices in California.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: Since the company did not have a previous presence in Texas nor want one in the near future, the company subsequently sold the three banks in Texas in 2010 to Houston-based Prosperity Bancshares for an undisclosed amount. Each of the banks had one office each.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In October 2009, BB&T Corporation (now Truist Financial) announced the pending sale of its Nevada banking operations to U.S. Bancorp for an undisclosed amount. BB&T had just acquired the 21 offices in Nevada through a transaction facilitated by the FDIC for disposal of the assets and deposits of the failed Alabama-based Colonial BancGroup but BB&T had no desire to expand west of Texas while it wanted to keep the other Colonial former locations in the Southeastern United States. The acquisition was completed in January 2010.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In July 2010, U.S. Bancorp sold its FAF Advisors subsidiary to Nuveen Investments for $80 million and a 9.5% stake in Nuveen.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In 2010, Huntington Bancshares announced it would take over the leases of bank branches inside Giant Eagle locations in Ohio, largely replacing U.S. Bancorp but also replacing branches from FirstMerit Corporation (which itself would be acquired by Huntington in 2016) and Citizens Financial Group; the deal didn't affect Citizens branches inside Giant Eagle locations in Pennsylvania. The deal mostly didn't affect U.S. Bancorp, but it did lead to the withdrawal from the Youngstown, Ohio market since U.S. Bancorp's only branches in the area were inside Giant Eagle locations; the branches had been a holdover from the Firstar days. By 2020, U.S. Bancorp had organically become Ohio's largest bank by deposits despite not having a presence in the Youngstown and Toledo markets and ahead of major banks based in Ohio (Huntington, Fifth Third Bank & KeyBank), PNC Bank, and Chase Bank.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In January 2011, U.S. Bancorp acquired the assets and deposits of the failed First Community Bank of New Mexico in a transaction facilitated by the FDIC for an asset discount of approximately $380 million. The acquisition had included 35 offices in New Mexico and 3 offices in Arizona.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In January 2012, the company acquired the assets and deposits of the failed Knoxville, Tennessee-based BankEast in a transaction facilitated by the FDIC for an asset discount of approximately $67.5 million. The acquisition had included 10 offices in the Knoxville area.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In March 2013, U.S. Bancorp announced that it was acquiring the $57 billion municipal bond trustee business from Deutsche Bank.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In January 2014, U.S. Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of 94 branch offices of the Charter One Bank in Chicago from the RBS Citizens Financial Group for $315 million, doubling its market share in Chicago. 13 Charter One branches were closed due to their close proximity to existing U.S. Bank offices. The acquisition was completed in June 2014.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In January 2015, chief financial officer Andrew Cecere was promoted to chief operating officer. A year later, Cecere was given the additional position of president.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In January 2017, U.S. Bancorp announced that chairman and CEO Richard Davis was going to hand over his CEO position to president and COO Andrew Cecere in April 2017 while remaining as chairman. Davis officially retired from the company in April 2018 and Cecere became chairman, president and CEO.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In February 2018, the bank was charged by the Department of Justice with failing to implement measures preventing illegal activities, including one case of abetting. U.S. Bancorp agreed to pay $613 million in fines and implement measures to improve the monitoring of its customer transactions. In September 2018, $505 million was distributed to customers of an illegal payday loan business whose suspicious activities US Bancorp had failed to report.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In September 2018, Fiserv announced that it would acquire MoneyPass from US Bancorp for $690 million. The deal was finalized in March 2019. The sale did not include Elan's credit card division, which issued some of the most prominent cards including Fidelity, BMW and Mercedes Benz. In December 2019, the bank dismissed Emily James, a Portland, Ore., call-center employee, and her supervisor, after James gave $20 of her own money to Marc Eugenio. On Christmas Eve, Eugenio ran out of gasoline and cash, and he was stranded at a gas station when his U.S. Bank debit card was rejected because funds he had deposited two days earlier had not yet been released into his account. After an unsuccessful attempt to release the funds, James met Eugenio at the gas station during her break and offered him $20 from her own pocket as a Christmas Eve act of kindness. She was fired from her job for violating company policy, but rehired after an investigation prompted by an article from Nicolas Kristof was published in "The New York Times".


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In May 2020, the US Bancorp Center in downtown Minneapolis was damaged by rioting during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. Two other bank branch locations on East Lake Street in Minneapolis were destroyed by arson. US Bancorp rebuilt the damaged branch location at 919 East Lake Street and donated the property at 2800 East Lake Street for redevelopment as an affordable housing project.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: On September 21, 2021, U.S. Bancorp agreed to purchase MUFG Union Bank's consumer business for $8 billion. It is the bank's biggest deal since 2001 when it merged with Milwaukee-based Firstar Corp. for $21 billion. The deal with MUFG Union Bank will add $58 billion in loans to U.S. Bancorp's current base of $294 billion and will give U.S. Bancorp a large presence on the U.S. West Coast, especially California. The combined bank will have $723 billion in assets. U.S. regulatory approval for the merger was announced on October 16 of 2022, and was completed as of December 1, 2022. The deal is scheduled to close by the end of 2022.


title: U.S. Bancorp

text: In May 2022, Bancorp announced a five-year community benefits plan, developed in coordination with the NCRC and the CRC as part of the planned acquisition of MUFG Union Bank. The $100 billion community plan is set over five years and is focusing on supporting equitable access to capital for low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color.


title: Genius

text: Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabilities of competitors. Genius is associated with intellectual ability and creative productivity, and may refer to a polymath who excels across diverse subjects.


title: Genius

text: There is no scientifically precise definition of a genius. The term is also defined as the exceptional ability itself, as simply genius without the article. In that sense of the word, sometimes genius is associated with talent, but several authors such as Cesare Lombroso and Arthur Schopenhauer systematically distinguish these terms. Walter Isaacson, biographer of many well-known geniuses, explains that although high intelligence may be a prerequisite, the most common trait that actually defines a genius may be the extraordinary ability to apply creativity and imaginative thinking to almost any situation.


title: Genius

text: In ancient Rome, the "genius" (plural in Latin "genii") was the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person, family ("gens"), or place ("genius loci"). The noun is related to the Latin verbs "gignere" (to beget, to give birth to) and "generare" (to beget, to generate, to procreate), and derives directly from the Indo-European stem thereof: "ǵenh" (to produce, to beget, to give birth). Because the achievements of exceptional individuals seemed to indicate the presence of a particularly powerful "genius", by the time of Augustus, the word began to acquire its secondary meaning of "inspiration, talent". The term "genius" acquired its modern sense in the eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms: "genius", as above, and "Ingenium", a related noun referring to our innate dispositions, talents, and inborn nature. Beginning to blend the concepts of the divine and the talented, the "Encyclopédie" article on genius (génie) describes such a person as "he whose soul is more expansive and struck by the feelings of all others; interested by all that is in nature never to receive an idea unless it evokes a feeling; everything excites him and on which nothing is lost."


title: Genius

text: The assessment of intelligence was initiated by Francis Galton (1822–1911) and James McKeen Cattell. They had advocated the analysis of reaction time and sensory acuity as measures of "neurophysiological efficiency" and the analysis of sensory acuity as a measure of intelligence.


title: Genius

text: Galton is regarded as the founder of psychometry. He studied the work of his older half-cousin Charles Darwin about biological evolution. Hypothesizing that eminence is inherited from ancestors, Galton did a study of families of eminent people in Britain, publishing it in 1869 as "Hereditary Genius". Galton's ideas were elaborated from the work of two early 19th-century pioneers in statistics: Carl Friedrich Gauss and Adolphe Quetelet. Gauss discovered the normal distribution (bell-shaped curve): given a large number of measurements of the same variable under the same conditions, they vary at random from a most frequent value, the "average", to two least frequent values at maximum differences greater and lower than the most frequent value. Quetelet discovered that the bell-shaped curve applied to social statistics gathered by the French government in the course of its normal processes on large numbers of people passing through the courts and the military. His initial work in criminology led him to observe "the greater the number of individuals observed the more do peculiarities become effaced...". This ideal from which the peculiarities were effaced became "the average man".


title: Genius

text: Galton was inspired by Quetelet to define the average man as "an entire normal scheme"; that is, if one combines the normal curves of every measurable human characteristic, one will, in theory, perceive a syndrome straddled by "the average man" and flanked by persons that are different. In contrast to Quetelet, Galton's average man was not statistical but was theoretical only. There was no measure of general averageness, only a large number of very specific averages. Setting out to discover a general measure of the average, Galton looked at educational statistics and found bell-curves in test results of all sorts; initially in mathematics grades for the final honors examination and in entrance examination scores for Sandhurst.


title: Genius

text: Galton's method in "Hereditary Genius" was to count and assess the eminent relatives of eminent men. He found that the number of eminent relatives was greater with a closer degree of kinship. This work is considered the first example of historiometry, an analytical study of historical human progress. The work is controversial and has been criticized for several reasons. Galton then departed from Gauss in a way that became crucial to the history of the 20th century AD. The bell-shaped curve was not random, he concluded. The differences between the average and the upper end were due to a non-random factor, "natural ability", which he defined as "those qualities of intellect and disposition, which urge and qualify men to perform acts that lead to reputation…a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence." The apparent randomness of the scores was due to the randomness of this natural ability in the population as a whole, in theory.


title: Genius

text: Criticisms include that Galton's study fails to account for the impact of social status and the associated availability of resources in the form of economic inheritance, meaning that inherited "eminence" or "genius" can be gained through the enriched environment provided by wealthy families. Galton went on to develop the field of eugenics. Galton attempted to control for economic inheritance by comparing the adopted nephews of popes, who would have the advantage of wealth without being as closely related to popes as sons are to their fathers, to the biological children of eminent individuals.


title: Genius

text: Genius is expressed in a variety of forms (e.g., mathematical, literary, musical performance). Persons with genius tend to have strong intuitions about their domains, and they build on these insights with tremendous energy. Carl Rogers, a founder of the Humanistic Approach to Psychology, expands on the idea of a genius trusting his or her intuition in a given field, writing: "El Greco, for example, must have realized as he looked at some of his early work, that 'good artists do not paint like that.' But somehow he trusted his own experiencing of life, the process of himself, sufficiently that he could go on expressing his own unique perceptions. It was as though he could say, 'Good artists don't paint like this, but "I" paint like this.' Or to move to another field, Ernest Hemingway was surely aware that 'good writers do not write like this.' But fortunately he moved toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward someone else's conception of a good writer."


title: Genius

text: A number of people commonly regarded as geniuses have been or were diagnosed with mental disorders, for example Vincent van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, John Forbes Nash Jr., and Ernest Hemingway.


title: Genius

text: It has been suggested that there exists a connection between mental illness, in particular schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and genius. Individuals with bipolar disorder and schizotypal personality disorder, the latter of which being more common amongst relatives of schizophrenics, tend to show elevated creativity.


title: Genius

text: In a 2010 study done in the Karolinska Institute it was observed that highly creative individuals and schizophrenics have a lower density of thalamic dopamine D2 receptors. One of the investigators explained that "Fewer D2 receptors in the thalamus probably means a lower degree of signal filtering, and thus a higher flow of information from the thalamus." This could be a possible mechanism behind the ability of healthy highly creative people to see numerous uncommon connections in a problem-solving situation and the bizarre associations found in the schizophrenics.


title: Genius

text: Galton was a pioneer in investigating both eminent human achievement and mental testing. In his book "Hereditary Genius", written before the development of IQ testing, he proposed that hereditary influences on eminent achievement are strong, and that eminence is rare in the general population. Lewis Terman chose "'near' genius or genius" as the classification label for the highest classification on his 1916 version of the Stanford–Binet test. By 1926, Terman began publishing about a longitudinal study of California schoolchildren who were referred for IQ testing by their schoolteachers, called Genetic Studies of Genius, which he conducted for the rest of his life. Catherine M. Cox, a colleague of Terman's, wrote a whole book, "The Early Mental Traits of 300 Geniuses", published as volume 2 of The Genetic Studies of Genius book series, in which she analyzed biographical data about historic geniuses. Although her estimates of childhood IQ scores of historical figures who never took IQ tests have been criticized on methodological grounds, Cox's study was thorough in finding out what else matters besides IQ in becoming a genius. By the 1937 second revision of the Stanford–Binet test, Terman no longer used the term "genius" as an IQ classification, nor has any subsequent IQ test. In 1939, David Wechsler specifically commented that "we are rather hesitant about calling a person a genius on the basis of a single intelligence test score".


title: Genius

text: The Terman longitudinal study in California eventually provided historical evidence regarding how genius is related to IQ scores. Many California pupils were recommended for the study by schoolteachers. Two pupils who were tested but rejected for inclusion in the study (because their IQ scores were too low) grew up to be Nobel Prize winners in physics, William Shockley, and Luis Walter Alvarez. Based on the historical findings of the Terman study and on biographical examples such as Richard Feynman, who had a self-reported IQ of 125 and went on to win the Nobel Prize in physics and become widely known as a genius, the current view of psychologists and other scholars of genius is that a minimum level of IQ (approximately 125) is necessary for genius but not sufficient, and must be combined with personality characteristics such as drive and persistence, plus the necessary opportunities for talent development. For instance, in a chapter in an edited volume on achievement, IQ researcher Arthur Jensen proposed a multiplicative model of genius consisting of high ability, high productivity, and high creativity. Jensen's model was motivated by the finding that eminent achievement is highly positively skewed, a finding known as Price's law, and related to Lotka's law.


title: Genius

text: Some high IQ individuals join a High IQ society. The most famous and largest is Mensa International, but many other more selective organizations also exist, including Intertel, Triple Nine Society, Prometheus Society, and Mega Society.


title: Genius

text: Various philosophers have proposed definitions of what genius is and what that implies in the context of their philosophical theories.


title: Genius

text: In the philosophy of David Hume, the way society perceives genius is similar to the way society perceives the ignorant. Hume states that a person with the characteristics of a genius is looked at as a person disconnected from society, as well as a person who works remotely, at a distance, away from the rest of the world. On the other hand, the mere ignorant is still more despised; nor is any thing deemed a surer sign of an illiberal genius in an age and nation where the sciences flourish, than to be entirely destitute of all relish for those noble entertainments. The most perfect character is supposed to lie between those extremes; retaining an equal ability and taste for books, company, and business; preserving in conversation that discernment and delicacy which arise from polite letters; and in business, that probity and accuracy which are the natural result of a just philosophy.


title: Genius

text: In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person. For Kant, originality was the essential character of genius. The artworks of the Kantian genius are also characterized by their exemplarity which is imitated by other artists and serve as a rule for other aesthetical judgements. This genius is a talent for producing ideas which can be described as non-imitative. Kant's discussion of the characteristics of genius is largely contained within the "Critique of Judgment" and was well received by the Romantics of the early 19th century. In addition, much of Schopenhauer's theory of genius, particularly regarding talent and freedom from constraint, is directly derived from paragraphs of Part I of Kant's "Critique of Judgment".


title: Genius

text: In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, a genius is someone in whom intellect predominates over "will" much more than within the average person. In Schopenhauer's aesthetics, this predominance of the intellect over the will allows the genius to create artistic or academic works that are objects of pure, disinterested contemplation, the chief criterion of the aesthetic experience for Schopenhauer. Their remoteness from mundane concerns means that Schopenhauer's geniuses often display maladaptive traits in more mundane concerns; in Schopenhauer's words, they fall into the mire while gazing at the stars, an allusion to Plato's dialogue "Theætetus", in which Socrates tells of Thales (the first philosopher) being ridiculed for falling in such circumstances. As he says in Volume 2 of "The World as Will and Representation":


title: Genius

text: In the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, genius entails that an individual possesses unique qualities and talents that make the genius especially valuable to the society in which he or she operates, once given the chance to contribute to society. Russell's philosophy further maintains, however, that it is possible for such geniuses to be crushed in their youth and lost forever when the environment around them is unsympathetic to their potential maladaptive traits. Russell rejected the notion he believed was popular during his lifetime that, "genius will out".


title: Genius

text: In his classic work "The Limitations of Science", J. W. N. Sullivan discussed a utilitarian philosophy on the retrospective classification of genius. Namely, scholarship that is so original that, were it not for that particular contributor, would not have emerged until much later (if ever) is characteristic of genius. Conversely, scholarship that was ripe for development, no matter how profound or prominent, is not necessarily indicative of genius.


title: Genius

text: Geniuses are variously portrayed in literature and film as both protagonists and antagonists, and may be the hero or villain of the story. In pop culture, the genius is often stereotypically depicted as either the wisecracking whiz or the tortured genius.


title: Genius

text: Throughout both literature and movies, the tortured genius character is often seen as an imperfect or tragic hero who wrestles with the burden of superior intelligence, arrogance, eccentricities, addiction, awkwardness, mental health issues, a lack of social skills, isolation, or other insecurities. They regularly experience existential crises, struggling to overcome personal challenges to employ their special abilities for good or succumbing to their own tragic flaws and vices. This common motif repeated throughout fiction is notably present in the characters of Dr. Bruce Banner in "The Incredible Hulk" and Dr. Henry Jekyll in "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", among others. Although not as extreme, other examples of literary and filmic characterizations of the tortured genius stereotype, to varying degrees, include: Sherlock Holmes, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in "Amadeus", Dr. John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind", Leonardo da Vinci in "Da Vinci's Demons", Dr. Gregory House in "House", Will Hunting in "Good Will Hunting", and Dr. Sheldon Cooper in "The Big Bang Theory."


title: Genius

text: One of the most famous genius-level rivalries to occur in literary fiction is between Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty; the latter character also identified as the modern archetype of an evil genius.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Operation Dragoon (initially Operation Anvil) was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence (Southern France) on 15August 1944. Despite initially designed to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, the Allied landing in Normandy, the lack of available resources led to a cancellation of the second landing. By July 1944 the landing was reconsidered, as the clogged-up ports in Normandy did not have the capacity to adequately supply the Allied forces. Concurrently, the French High Command pushed for a revival of the operation that would include large numbers of French troops. As a result, the operation was finally approved in July to be executed in August.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The invasion sought to secure the vital ports on the French Mediterranean coast and increase pressure on the German forces by opening another front. After preliminary commando operations, the US VI Corps landed on the beaches of the Côte d'Azur under the shield of a large naval task force, followed by several divisions of the French Army B. They were opposed by the scattered forces of the German Army Group G, which had been weakened by the relocation of its divisions to other fronts and the replacement of its soldiers with third-rate "Ostlegionen" outfitted with obsolete equipment.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Hindered by Allied air supremacy and a large-scale uprising by the French Resistance, the weak German forces were swiftly defeated. The Germans withdrew to the north through the Rhône valley, to establish a stable defense line at Dijon. Allied mobile units were able to overtake the Germans and partially block their route at the town of Montélimar. The ensuing battle led to a stalemate, with neither side able to achieve a decisive breakthrough, until the Germans were finally able to complete their withdrawal and retreat from the town. While the Germans were retreating, the French managed to capture the important ports of Marseille and Toulon, soon putting them into operation.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The Germans were not able to hold Dijon and ordered a complete withdrawal from Southern France. Army GroupG retreated further north, pursued by Allied forces. The fighting ultimately came to a stop at the Vosges mountains, where Army GroupG was finally able to establish a stable defense line. After meeting with the Allied units from the Third Army, the Allied forces were in need of reorganizing and, facing stiffened German resistance, the offensive was halted on 14September.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The Americans considered operation Dragoon a success. It enabled them to liberate most of Southern France in just four weeks while inflicting heavy casualties on the German forces, although a substantial part of the best German units were able to escape. The captured French ports were put into operation, allowing the Allies to solve their supply problems quickly. The British disagreed with the American stance due to the weak political impact and lack of movement in Italy.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: During planning stages, the operation was known as "Anvil", to complement Operation Sledgehammer, at that time the code name for the invasion of Normandy. Subsequently, both plans were renamed. Sledgehammer became Operation Overlord, and Anvil became Operation Dragoon. The original idea of invading southern France had come in 1942 from General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff. It was supported by Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference in late 1943. In discussions with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Stalin advocated for the operation as an inherent part of Overlord, preferring to have the Allies in the far west instead of at an alternative landing in the Balkans, which he considered to be in his zone of influence. Marshall insisted that the operation be included in the strategic planning, and Roosevelt found cancelling the operation to be unpalatable.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Operation Dragoon was controversial from the time it was first proposed. The American military leadership and its British counterparts disagreed on the operation. Winston Churchill argued against it on the grounds that it diverted military resources that were better deployed for Allied operations in Italy. Instead, he favored an invasion of the oil-producing regions of the Balkans. Churchill reasoned that by attacking the Balkans, the Allies could deny Germany petroleum, forestall the advance of the Red Army, and achieve a superior negotiating position in postwar Europe, all at a stroke.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: When first planned, the landings were to take place simultaneouslyOverlord in Normandy and Anvil in the south of France. A dual landing was soon recognized as impossible to conduct with the forces available. The expansion of Overlord from a three- to a five-division front required many additional LSTs, which would have been needed for Anvil. Another Allied amphibious landing, in Italy at Anzio, had gone badly. All of these resulted in the postponing of Anvil by the Allies.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: After the landing at Normandy, a revival of Anvil became increasingly attractive to Allied planners. The Normandy ports had insufficient capacity to handle Allied supply needs and French generals under Charles de Gaulle pressed for a direct attack on southern France with participation of French troops. These factors led to a reconsideration of the plan. Despite Churchill's objections, the operation was authorized by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff on 14July, then renamed Dragoon on 1August. The landing was scheduled for 15August.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Churchill and his chiefs of staff had opposed Dragoon in favour of reinforcing the campaign in Italy, by capturing Trieste, landing on the Istria peninsula, and moving through the Ljubljana Gap into Austria and Hungary. Then on 4 August, Churchill proposed that Dragoon (less than two weeks away) should be switched to the coast of Brittany. Eisenhower, supported by Roosevelt, who (with his 1944 election campaign four months away) opposed diverting large forces to the Balkans, stood firm on the agreed plan despite long harangues from Churchill on 5 and 9 August.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The chief objectives of Operation Dragoon were the important French ports of Marseille and Toulon, considered essential to supply the growing Allied forces in France. The Allied planners were cautious, taking heed of lessons learned from the Anzio and Normandy landings. They chose a location with no high ground controlled by the Wehrmacht, conditions that had led to heavy casualties after the initial landings on Omaha Beach at Normandy. The choice for the disembarkation site was an area on the Var coast east of Toulon. A preliminary air campaign was planned to isolate the battlefield and cut the Germans off from reinforcement by destroying several key bridges. A large airborne landing was also planned in the center of the landing zone to quickly seize the high ground overlooking the beaches. Parallel to the invasion, several commando units were to take control of the islands off the coast.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The Allied plan consisted of a three-division landing of US forces led by Major General Lucian Truscott to secure a beachhead on the first day. Their flanks were to be protected by French, American and Canadian commando units. Within 24 hours, 50,000–60,000 troops and 6,500 vehicles were to be disembarked. The airborne landings would concentrate in an area near Draguignan and Le Muy, with the aim of taking these towns to prevent German counterattacks against the beaches. The bulk of the American force then had to advance quickly to the north along the Rhône, to take Lyon and Dijon and make contact with the Allied forces in northern France. After a successful initial landing, units of the French ArmyB were to land, given the task of taking the French ports of Toulon and Marseille.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Although the Germans expected another Allied landing in the Mediterranean, the advancing Red Army and the Allied landings in Normandy placed great strains on German resources, so little was done to improve the condition of Army Group G, occupying southern France. Given the advancing Allied forces in northern France, the Germans deemed a realistic defense in the south impossible. Johannes Blaskowitz's Army GroupG headquarters discussed a general withdrawal from southern France in July and August with the German High Command, but the 20 July plot led to an atmosphere in which any withdrawal was out of the question. Blaskowitz was quite aware that with his scattered forces, any serious Allied landing attempt would be impossible to ward off. He planned to withdraw in secret, to include demolishing the ports, and to proceed in an orderly manner, covered by the 11th Panzer Division. He intended to establish a new defense line at Dijon in central France. German intelligence was aware of the impending Allied landing, and on 13August, Blaskowitz ordered the 11th Panzer Division to move east of the Rhône, where the landing was expected.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The Western Naval Task Force was formed under the command of Vice Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt to carry the U.S. 6th Army Group, also known as the "Southern Group" or "Dragoon Force", onto the shore. The 6th Army Group was formed in Corsica and activated on 1August, to consolidate the French and American forces slated to invade southern France. Admiral Hewitt's naval support for the operation included the American battleships "Nevada", "Texas", and "Arkansas", the British battleship "Ramillies", and the French battleship , with 20 cruisers for gunfire support and naval aircraft from 9 escort carriers assembled as Task Force88.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The main ground force for the operation was the US Seventh Army commanded by Alexander Patch. The US Army's VI Corps, commanded by Major General Lucian Truscott, would carry out the initial landing and be followed by the French Army B under command of Général Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Accompanying the operation was a fully mobilized separate detachment called "Task Force Butler", consisting of the bulk of the Allied tanks, tank destroyers, and mechanized infantry.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The French Resistance played a major role in the fighting. As the Allies advanced into France, the Resistance evolved from a guerilla fighting force to a semiorganized army called French Forces of the Interior (FFI). The FFI would tie down German troops by sabotaging bridges and communication lines, seizing important traffic hubs and directly attacking isolated German forces. They were aided by Allied special forces from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), who would supply the Allies with vital intelligence.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The Allied ground and naval forces were supported by a large aerial fleet of 3470 planes. The majority of them were stationed on Corsica and Sardinia. The tactical bombers and fighters had to support the landings directly, while the strategic element had to bomb German targets deep into France. The strategic bombing started well before the landing, and targeted airports, traffic hubs, railroads, coastal defenses, and communication lines.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Opposing the Allies was the German Army Group G ("HeeresgruppeG"). Although nominally an army group, Army Group G had at the time of the invasion only one army under its command: the 19th Army, led by Friedrich Wiese. As southern France had never been important to German planning, their forces there had been stripped of nearly all their valuable units and equipment over the course of the war. Due to the Allied threat in Normandy, Army Group G's units were continuously sent north until the Dragoon landings. The remaining 11 divisions were understrength and only one panzer division was left, the 11th. In early August, the 11th Panzer Division had sent one of its two panzer battalions to Normandy shortly before the landing.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The troops were positioned thinly along the French coast, with an average of per division. Generally, the troops of the German divisions were only second- and third-rate. This meant that over the course of the war, the divisions were thinned out and soldiers were replaced with wounded old veterans and "Volksdeutsche" from Poland and Czechoslovakia. Numerous units were also replaced by "Ostlegionen" and "Ostbataillone". These units were volunteers from Eastern Europe, mainly the Soviet Union, and had a generally low fighting morale. The equipment of those troops was in poor shape, consisting of old weapons from various nations, with French, Polish, Soviet, Italian and Czech guns, artillery, and mortars. Four of the German divisions were designated as "static", which meant that they were stripped of all of their mobile capabilities and unable to move from their positions. The only potent unit inside Army Group G was the 11th Panzer Division, which was commanded by Wend von Wietersheim.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The German chain of command was overly complex, with parallel chains for the occupation forces, the land forces, the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine. The Luftwaffe, with 200 aircraft, and the Kriegsmarine, with 45 small ships, played a negligible role in the operation. The German defense was aided by extensive coastal artillery placements which had been constructed in the years before the landing. After the Fall of France, the Vichy French regime greatly improved the coastal defenses to appease the Germans. Along the coast, about 75 coastal guns of heavy and medium caliber were placed. Toulon was protected by a complex of heavy gun artillery batteries in mounted turrets. After their military take-over in November 1942, the Germans improved the coastal defense further by repairing damaged and outdated turrets, as well as moving in additional guns. This included the guns taken from the dismantled French battleship" Provence".


title: Operation Dragoon

text: To ensure the success of Dragoon and support the initial landings, preliminary commando operations had to be carried out. The first target was the Hyères Islands, specifically Port-Cros and Levant. The guns of the German garrisons on both islands could reach the proposed Allied landing area and the sea lanes that the troops would follow. The First Special Service Force, a joint U.S.-Canadian special-forces unit trained in amphibious assault and mountaineering and consisting of three regiments, received the order to take the islands as part of Operation Sitka.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The landings on Port-Cros and Levant started simultaneously on 14August. On Levant, the 2nd and 3rd Regiments of the First Special Service Force faced sporadic resistance that became more intense when the German garrison forces came together in the area of the port. The men of the First Special Service Force gained the upper hand and discovered that the "coastal defense battery" the Allied naval forces were worried about was actually several well-camouflaged dummy weapons.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: On Port-Cros, the 1st Regiment drove the German garrison to the western side of the island to an old fort. Fighting continued through 16August. When darkness fell, German guns on the French mainland at Cap Benat shelled Port-Cros. HMS "Ramillies" took aim at the fort where the Germans were barricaded. The German garrison surrendered on the morning of 17August. With both islands in Allied hands, the men of the First Special Service Force transferred to the mainland, where they were attached to the First Airborne Task Force.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Meanwhile, at Cap Nègre to the west of the main invasion, a large group of French commandos destroyed German artillery emplacements as part of Operation Romeo. Their main effort was supported by diversionary flank landings by other commando teams. While the main mission succeeded, 67 French commandos were taken prisoner after they ran into a minefield. In addition to the commando operations, another operation was carried out, named Operation Span. This was a deception plan, aimed to confuse the German defenders with fake landings and paratroopers, to disperse them from the actual landing zones.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The first to land in the early hours were the airborne and glider troops. The 1st Airborne Task Force force landed in the River Argens valley around the area of Le Muy with the objective of preventing German reinforcements from reaching the landing beaches. The American component being the largest, consisted of Mission Albatross followed by Mission Dove the Glider born landings, Mission Bluebird, and Mission Canary the latter being the reinforcements. The British landing codenamed Operation Rugby consisted of 2nd Parachute Brigade. Fog and low cloud resulted in many paratroopers landing ten miles away, others were closer, but some ended up fifteen miles away. The British took the villages of Le Mitan, La Motte, Clastron and Les Serres and then assaulted and captured the bridge over the River Naturby, which carried the road to Le Muy. Soon after they secured the high ground to the east and north of Le Muy, while the Americans did the same in the west and south. The Americans then attempted to seize the town that evening but were repelled. Only in the afternoon of the following day after reinforcements did they succeed in capturing Le Muy along with 700 prisoners. The 1st Airborne Task Force then awaited for the arrival of ground troops whilst holding off a number of counterattacks. Overall the landings were successful, with only 104 dead, 24 of which were caused by glider accidents and 18 by parachute accidents.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The preceding bombing missions, together with resistance sabotage acts, hit the Germans heavily, interrupting railroads, damaging bridges, and disrupting the communication network. The landing started on the morning of 15August. Ships of the Western Naval Task Force approached under cover of darkness and were in position at dawn. The first of 1,300 Allied bombers from Italy, Sardinia, and Corsica began aerial bombardment shortly before 06:00. Bombing was nearly continuous until 07:30, when battleships and cruisers launched spotting aircraft and began firing on specific targets detected by aerial surveillance. Naval gunfire ceased as the landing craft headed ashore at 08:00. The relatively steep beach gradients with small tidal range discouraged Axis placement of underwater obstacles, but landing beaches had been defensively mined. LCIs leading the first wave of landing craft fired rockets to explode land mines on the beaches to be used by following troops.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The main landing force consisted of three divisions of the VI Corps. The 3rd Infantry Division landed on the left at Alpha Beach (Cavalaire-sur-Mer), the 45th Infantry Division landed in the centre at Delta Beach (Le Muy, Saint-Tropez) and the 36th Infantry Division landed on the right at Camel Beach (Saint-Raphaël).


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The landings were overwhelmingly successful. On Delta and Alpha beaches, German resistance was low. The Osttruppen surrendered quickly, and the biggest threats to the Allies were the mines. A single German gun and a mortar position were silenced by destroyer fire. The Allied units in this sector were able to secure a beachhead and quickly linked up with the paratroopers, capturing Saint-Tropez and LeMuy. The most serious fighting was on Camel Beach near the town of Saint-Raphaël. This beach was defended by several well-emplaced coastal guns, as well as flak batteries. Through heavy German fire, the Allies attempted to land at the shore. However, at sector Red of the Camel Beach landing zone, the Allies were not able to succeed. A bombing run of 90Allied B-24 bombers was called in against a German strongpoint here. Even with the assistance of naval fire, the Allies were not able to bring the landing ships close to the shore. They decided to avoid Camel Red and land only at the sectors of Camel Blue and Camel Green, which was successful.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The Allied casualties at the landings were very light, with only 95killed and 385 wounded; 40 of those casualties were caused by a rocket-boosted Henschel Hs 293 guided gliding bomb launched from a Do 217 bomber aircraft by a rare appearance of the bomber wing KG 100, which sank the tank landing ship .


title: Operation Dragoon

text: French sabotage by the FFI, together with the Allied bombing, severed German communication lines, causing initial confusion among the troops. German field commanders were not able to communicate with Army GroupG's headquarters. Despite the hampered communications, German commanders acted independently to put measures in effect to counter the Allied invasion. Directly facing the brunt of the Allied landings was the German LXII Corps at Draguignan, commanded by Ferdinand Neuling. Allied paratroopers interrupted his communication lines and trapped his headquarters in the city. He, therefore, ordered the nearby 148th Infantry Division to counterattack against the beaches at LeMuy, just before the Allied paratroopers cut him off completely. Wiese, as commander of the 19th Army, was also unable to contact Blaskowitz's Army GroupG headquarters, but implemented a plan to push the Allied forces in the LeMuySaint-Raphaël region back into the sea unilaterally. With almost no mobile reserves to react against the beach landings, he ordered the commander of the 189th Infantry Division, Richard von Schwerin, to establish an "ad hoc" battle group ("Kampfgruppe") from all nearby units to counterattack the Allied beachheads in this area. While vonSchwerin assembled all the men he could find, the 148th Infantry Division near Draguignan encountered heavy resistance from the FFI, which had been reinforced by British paratroopers, upsetting the plan for a swift counterattack toward the beaches.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: While the Germans were unable to mount a counterattack against the Allied beachheads on 15August, by the morning of 16August, vonSchwerin had finally assembled a force about the size of four infantry battalions. With this force, he launched a two-pronged assault towards LeMuy and the Allied beachhead, as well as toward Draguignan to relieve the LXIICorps headquarters there. By that time, the Allies had already landed a significant number of troops, vehicles, and tanks. The Allied mobile forces of the 45thDivision went out against the German forces themselves. The division surrounded the town of LesArcs, recently reoccupied by vonSchwerin's troops, and attempted to isolate the German forces there. After heavy fighting throughout the day, vonSchwerin ordered his troops to retreat under cover of night. At the same time, heavy fighting occurred at Saint-Raphaël. Mobile units of the 148th Infantry Division finally had arrived there and encountered the U.S. 3rd Division, which was trying to take Saint-Raphaël. This attack, however, was fruitless. By 17August, the German counter-attacks had been largely defeated, Saint-Raphaël was secured together with a large beachhead along the coastline, and mobile forces had linked up with the airborne troops in LeMuy. French troops had been pouring ashore since 16August, passing to the left of the American troops with the objective of Toulon and Marseille.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: By the night of 16/17 August, Army Group G headquarters realized that it could not drive the Allies back into the sea. Simultaneously in northern France, the encirclement of the Falaise pocket threatened the loss of large numbers of German forces. Given the precarious situation, Adolf Hitler moved away from his "no step backwards" agenda and agreed to an OKW plan for the complete withdrawal of Army GroupsG and B. The OKW plan was for all German forces (except the stationary fortress troops) in southern France to move north to link up with Army GroupB to form a new defensive line from Sens through Dijon to the Swiss frontier. Two German divisions (the 148th and 157th) were to retreat into the French-Italian Alps. The Allies were privy to the German plan through Ultra interception.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The German Navy's response was minimal. The Kriegsmarine had some 25 surface ships (mostly torpedo boats and smaller) though the main anti-invasion force, 10th Torpedo Boat Flotilla based at Genoa, had just four torpedo boats fit for service during "Dragoon" and this force took no action against the invasion fleet. There were two actions against the Allied naval forces taken by other units. On 15 August, off Port-Cros, the US destroyer encountered two German warships and in a short action sank both. On 17 August, off La Ciotat, a force of two German warships encountered a force of PT boats and gunboats staging a diversionary attack. Their destroyer escort engaged both vessels, and after an hour-long gun battle both German vessels were sunk. The Kriegsmarine also had a U-boat force based at Toulon operating in the Western Mediterranean; By the summer of 1944 this had been reduced to eight U-boats, and in air-raids prior to "Dragoon" five were destroyed. On the night of 17 August one boat attempted to sortie; she ran aground leaving harbour and was scuttled by her crew. The other two U-boats took no action, and were scuttled to avoid capture before the fall of Toulon.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The Germans started the withdrawal, while the motorized Allied forces broke out from their beachheads and pursued the German units from behind. The rapid Allied advance posed a major threat for the Germans, who could not retreat fast enough. The Germans tried to establish a defense line at the Rhône to shield the withdrawal of several valuable units there. The US 45th and 3rd Divisions were pressing to the north-west with uncontested speed, undermining Wiese's plan for a new defense line. Barjols and Brignoles were taken by the two American divisions on 19August, which also were about to envelop Toulon, as well as Marseille from the north, cutting off the German units there.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: In the northeast, the German problems loomed as large. Taskforce Butlerthe Allied mechanized component of the landingswas pushing north of Draguignan. On 18August Neuling's surrounded LXII Corps headquarters attempted an unsuccessful breakout and was finally captured with the rest of the city after some fighting. The German troops in this area were exhausted and demoralized from the fighting against the FFI, so Taskforce Butler was also able to advance at high speed. Digne was liberated on 18August. At Grenoble, the 157th Reserve Infantry Division faced the Allied advance, and its commander decided to retreat on 21August toward the Alps. This decision would prove to be fatal for the Germans, as it left a large gap in the eastern flank of the retreating Army GroupG. Blaskowitz now decided to sacrifice the 242nd Infantry Division in Toulon, as well as the 244th Infantry Division in Marseille, to buy time for the rest of Army GroupG to retreat through the Rhône Valley, while the 11th Panzer Division and the 198th Infantry Division would shield the retreat in several defense lines.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Meanwhile, the disembarked French units started to head for Marseille and Toulon. The initial plan was to capture the ports in succession, but the unexpected Allied advance allowed the French commander de Lattre de Tassigny to attack both ports almost simultaneously. He split his forces into two units, with Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert given the task to take Toulon from the east while Edgard de Larminat drove north to encircle the city at the flanks. The Germans had a significant force stationed in both cities, but they lacked the time to prepare for a determined defense. After heavy fighting around Hyères, which temporarily stopped the advance, French forces approached Toulon on 19August. At the same time, Monsabert swung around the city, enveloped it, and cut off the highway between Toulon and Marseille. On 21August, the French pressed into Toulon, and heavy fighting ensued. The heavy German resistance led to an argument between Larminat and deTassigny, after which deTassigny took over direct command of the operation, dismissing Larminat. By 26August, the remaining German units had surrendered. The battle for Toulon cost the French 2,700 casualties, but they captured all remaining German forces, which lost their entire garrison of 18,000 men.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: At the same time, Monsabert's attempt to liberate Marseille commenced. At first, a German force at Aubagne was defeated before French troops attacked the city directly. Unlike Toulon, the German commander at Marseille did not evacuate the civilian population, which became increasingly hostile. The resulting fighting with FFI troops further weakened the German units, which were exhausted from partisan fighting. The Wehrmacht was not able to defend on a broad front and soon crumbled into numerous isolated strongpoints. On 27August, most of the city was liberated, with only a few small strongpoints remaining, and on 28August, German troops issued the official surrender. The battle caused 1,825 French casualties, but 11,000 German troops were captured. In both harbours, German engineers had demolished port facilities to deny their use to the Allies.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The French Allied forces that helped liberate Toulon and Marseille consisted of large numbers of men from the Free French Colonial Infantry Division - Algerians, Malians, Mauritanians, and the Senegalese Tirailleurs, under General Charles de Gaulle.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: While Marseille and Toulon were liberated, the German retreat continued. The 11th Panzer Division started several feint attacks toward Aix-en-Provence to discourage any further Allied advance. By doing so, LXXXVCorps, as well as IVLuftwaffe Field Corps, were able to successfully retreat from the Allied advance at the Rhône. The Allies were unsure of German intentions, and Truscott decided to try to trap the Germans with a right flank movement whilst pursuing them with his three divisions from VICorps. However, uncertainty at the Allied headquarters led to indecisiveness, and the Allies missed several opportunities to cut off the retreating LXXXVCorps.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: Through the decryption of German radio communications, the Allied headquarters became aware of the German withdrawal plan. They recognized the open German flank to the east of the Rhône at Grenoble due to the retreat of the 157th Infantry Division towards the Alps. To seize this opportunity, Taskforce Butler was ordered to advance in this direction, paralleling the German evacuation effort and ultimately cutting them off further north. While doing so, it fought some scattered German resistance, and finally, after turning left, found itself near Montélimar, a small city on the east bank of the Rhône River. This town lay directly on the German escape route. Following Taskforce Butler was the 36th Infantry Division. Together, they were tasked on 20August to block the German force at Montélimar and continue the northward advance to Grenoble, while VICorps was pursuing the Germans from behind. However, after this speedy advance, the forward Allied forces suffered now from a serious lack of fuel and supplies, which made this task difficult.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: On 21 August, Taskforce Butler occupied the hills north of the town of Montélimar, according to revised orders from Truscott, as he considered it too weak to block the entire German force marching north. From this position, Taskforce Butler fired on the evacuating German troops, while waiting for further reinforcements. Troops from the FFI supported the Americans, harassing German troops through the entire battle. The sudden appearance of this new threat shocked Wiese and the German command. As a first countermeasure, Wietersheim's 11thPanzer Division was called in. The first of its units to arrive, together with several "ad hoc" Luftwaffe battle groups, were asked to deal with this new threat. This hastily assembled force mounted an attack against Puy the same day, and the Germans were able to isolate Taskforce Butler from supplies. This success was, however, short-lived, and the Germans were soon pushed back.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The next day, the first units of the 36th Division arrived, reinforcing Taskforce Butler. However, the Allied troops were still short of supplies and lacked enough men to directly attack the German escape route. During the next few days, more Allied men and supplies trickled in. At the same time, the US 45thDivision took over positions at Grenoble, leaving the 36thDivision free to fully commit its forces at Montélimar. Taskforce Butler was officially dissolved on 23August, and John E. Dahlquist, commander of the now fully arrived 36thInfantry Division, assumed direct control of its units. For the rest of the day, only small skirmishes occurred between German and Allied forces. Meanwhile, the Germans also struggled to bring the 11thPanzer Division through the chaos of the evacuation into position in the town. By 24August, a substantial number of the 11thPanzer Division had finally reached the battle area.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: With his newly reorganised units, Dahlquist attempted a direct attack against Montélimar, which failed against the newly arrived German tank units. The subsequent German counter-attack gained some ground against the hills occupied by the Allies. Its aim was to push the Americans from the hills north of Montélimar and to force the American artillery to move back out of range. After the fighting, the Germans captured a copy of Dahlquist's operational plans, giving them a better picture of the Allied forces. As a result, Wiese planned a major attack for 25August by the 11thPanzer Division and the 198th Infantry Division, together with some "ad hoc" Luftwaffe battlegroups. This attack was, however, also a big failure. The Allies struck back and retook the hills north of Montélimar, and were able to establish a temporary roadblock on the German escape route. Again, this Allied success also did not last long, as another attack led by Wietersheim reopened the passage at midnight.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: After the repeated German counterattacks prevented any lasting roadblock, Truscott finally allowed reinforcements from the 45thDivision to support Dahlquist at Montélimar, as he felt the successful operations further south at the French ports allowed him to refocus to the north. At the same time, the Germans also reinforced their fighting force. Over the next few days, a stalemate emerged, with the Allies unable to block the retreat route and the Germans unable to clear the area of the Allied forces. Both sides became increasingly frustrated during the fighting, with attack, counterattack, and spoiling attacks, which made launching a decisive offensive hard for the 36thDivision. Whilst the 36thDivision had surrounded the 19thArmy, they themselves were almost surrounded, too, during the chaotic fighting, with only a thin supply route to the east open, resulting in their having to fight to the front and the rear. As the 36thDivision was seemingly making no progress, an angry Truscott arrived at Dahlquist's headquarters on 26August to relieve him of command. However, on seeing the heavy terrain and shattered forces, he refrained and left the headquarters again. Finally, during 26–28August, the majority of the German forces were able to escape, leaving behind 4,000 burnt-out vehicles and 1,500 dead horses. On 29August, the Allies captured Montélimar, and the final German troops trying to break out surrendered. The Germans suffered 2,100 battle casualties plus 8,000 POWs, while the Americans had 1,575 casualties. Total POW losses of the 19thArmy now amounted to 57,000.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: The VI Corps, together with units from the French IICorps at its flank, pursued and tried to cut off the German forces on their way toward the town of Dijon, while the Germans planned to prevent another Montélimar with a defensive shield by the 11thPanzer Division. The Allied 45th and 3rdDivisions, as well as the 11thPanzer Division, were racing north to fulfill their objectives. In the meantime, the Germans tried to continue with the evacuation through Lyon. Behind their flight, the Germans destroyed bridges, hoping this would slow down the Allied advance. However, the 45thDivision was able to bypass the German forces, taking the town of Meximieux on 1September. This again posed a threat to the German evacuation. After some initial skirmishes, the 11thPanzer Division launched a heavy attack into the city, causing 215 American casualties and destroying a number of tanks and vehicles.


title: Operation Dragoon

text: At the same time, the main German units retreated through Lyon. On 2September, the 36thInfantry Division arrived at Lyon to find the Maquis fighting the Milice with much of the factory areas on fire. The next day, Lyon was liberated and 2,000 Germans were captured, but the rest had already continued their retreat north. Lyon celebrated for two days with the Americans. The Allies made a last-ditch attempt to cut off the Germans with an offensive towards Bourg-en-Bresse by the 45thDivision and the 117thCavalry Squadron from the original Taskforce Butler. However, the 45thDivision was not able to overcome the German defenses near the town. The 117thCavalry Squadron had more success, bypassing Bourg-en-Bresse and taking Montreval and Marboz north of Bourg-en-Bresse, instead. By 3September, Montreval was secure, but the squadron soon found itself trapped by units from the 11thPanzer Division, which surrounded the town. As a result, the squadron was almost annihilated, and the German escape route was again open. The American units then retired to Marboz.