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She went out under the path of the allied bombers to cheer along with hundreds of happy people in the streets, some who died. Not only were the docks hit, but much of an old section of the town called "Le Panier" (the basket) was leveled by mistake. But my mother told me she'd had enough of seeing her friends and neighbors die of starvation and welcomed any retaliation against the Nazis. Over the years she's described a number of people she knew before the war who gradually got visibly thinner and thinner until they couldn't get out of bed and finally died. The Nazis had confiscated all the food from French farmers and sent it to Germany leaving the people to subsist on bread made of sawdust and not enough protein to keep a person alive. My mother found a walnut tree in the countryside and her mother and sisters lived on walnuts for quite awhile and my mother said if not for these kinds of food sources they would have starved. I don't know if the bombing of Marseille served a useful purpose. From my mother's descriptions, the Germans were well entrenched and the Battle of Marseille that took place after the allied landing in Provence was hard-fought. My mother's brother who spent the war in the resistance took to the streets with comrades ahead of the allied arrival and is pictured below firing his machine gun in street fighting.
I've been to Marseille and it's one of my favorite places - very diverse and vital.
Cheers. 
The city itself had no military importance, but at the time the ground forces in the Russian army were the best in the world.
We didn't know how far they'd advance in Europe and we had to make sure they'd stop at an acceptable place, by demonstrating what we were capable of doing.
But I didn't attend any of the meetings where the decision was made so I really don't know.
