Seine River Steamers hospital ships during the First World War, as the ghastily wounded British soldiers could be smoothly moved downriver to larger hospital ships at Le Havre. Atlantic Salmon have naturally returned to the Seine almost a century after over fishing and pollution caused them to disappear. Seine River Steamers The Seine River was the scene of many early experiments with steam navigation. The steamship has a long ancestry, dating back at least to 1783 when the Marquis de Jouffray d'Abbans steamed his little boat, the Pyroscaphe, across the Seine. Robert Fulton even exhibited one to Napoleon's regime. With the success of
Seine River Crossing at Mantes-Gassicourt fulfilled a prophecy made a week earlier—that "the battle of Normandy is rapidly developing into the Battle of Western France." Having decided to send part of Patton's force down the west bank of the Seine, the Allied commanders saw a coincident opportunity to seize a bridgehead on the east bank of the river as a springboard for future operations. The XV Corps thus drew a double mission—the 5th Armored Division was to attack down the west bank while the 79th Infantry Division established a bridgehead on the east bank. In his order issued on 20 August, General Montgomery cautioned: "This