American historian Samuel Eliot Morison once said: (QUOTE):
"If Tinian in the Pacific was the perfect amphibious operation on a small scale,
Operation Dragoon was the nearly faultless one on a large scale."
Operation Dragoon, initially known as Anvil, was a successful Allied operation that occurred
in southern France in August 1944. It was initially going to be executed simultaneously
with the landings of Normandy in June 1944, but logistical problems ensured it was not possible.
Unlike other operations of that year, such as Overlord and Market Garden,
historians have relegated Dragoon to darkness,
as if these second D-Day landings had less importance for military historiography.
To do so is a mistake because the operation itself revealed
how the relations between the US and the British changed as the years passed by.
Dragoon showed the political and military differences each country
had during the penultimate year of the war,
especially regarding the topic of the advance into the heart of Germany,
which was a problem that also caused controversy among US Generals on their approach to Berlin.
These problems persisted in postwar analysis about the operation,
with many historians postulating that if Dragoon had taken a different turn,
with a landing in the Balkans instead of France - the Cold War that followed
could have started with Eastern Europe on the other side of the Iron Curtain…
Operation Anvil
The US and British Conference held in Quebec in August 1943 set the time frame for the
1944 invasion of Northern France, in Normandy, better known as D-Day or Operation Overlord.
A second operation was proposed with a concurrent invasion of Southern France
with the codename of Anvil. At first, it was viewed skeptically by the British,
who maintained a cautious attitude toward France's landing operations.
They considered it a better idea to focus the Mediterranean's war effort
to liberate the Italian Peninsula from Axis hands.
During the Cairo and Teheran conferences held in November and December of 1943,
Operation Anvil was brought to the table again.
This was the first time English Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
American President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin met.
Churchill still wanted to advance Allied operations in the Mediterranean,
preferably against the Balkans. He was not fond of the idea of invading Southern France.
However, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
with Roosevelt and Stalin, supported the invasion of southern France.
The general assumption was that the best way to ensure the success of Overlord
would be with the support of a second operation
in southern France that would force the Germans to abandon the country.
By late January 1944, it became apparent that ground operations in Italy were not doing well.
The Germans stood their ground firmly against the overwhelming force of the Allies.
The British remained obstinate about the need for ground reinforcements in Italy.
A renewed offensive movement in the peninsula would not be possible before April.
British Command urged for supplies in such a front, but they were not heard
by their other Allies. US and French forces approved Anvil on July 2, 1944,
just a month after the Normandy landings.
Operation Overlord had taken the Germans by surprise, and US Command was sure that
a second landing would mop up the rest of the German resistance in France.
The op called for an American and French army to land just east of Marseille and
Toulon and capture them. These two crucial port cities would increase the Allied supply
capacity on the French mainland to continue supporting ground troops.
Churchill's Opposition
By 1943, the US and the UK had confirmed their suspicions of
the Soviet hunger for new territories.
At Tehran, Roosevelt and other Allies agreed to Stalin's demands for more land in Eastern Europe
for the tremendous effort the USSR put forth to keep the Germans at bay.
In the race for Berlin, the East was a price that would have to be paid to Soviet Russia.
With such agreement for the future new world order,
Eastern European countries were doomed to suffer under the Communist Regime.
Churchill knew that the Soviets would become an enemy ten times more potent at the end of the
war than Germany itself. He feared that the alliance with Communism would not last long,
and he wanted to put a stop to Soviet ambitions. To kill two birds with one stone, he opposed
the idea of a landing in Southern France in favor of a quick operation in the Balkans.
By taking the Balkans, the US and British forces could surround the Germans from the East and,
at the same time, put a defensive line around Eastern Europe to neutralize the Soviet forces
for when the war reached an end. If that happened, when post-war negotiations began,
the Allies would have a much better position for negotiating with Stalin.
But Churchill was not considered highly by some officials of the Allied Command.
One officer even said of him, (QUOTE): "He is a grumpy old man. He wants to take the Balkans
as a way to redeem himself for the failure at Gallipoli during his youth."
The Cold War that followed, however, would seem to prove Churchill's point…
Operation Dragoon
The Balkans put aside in favor of the second landing in France.
The name was changed to Dragoon on July 27, 1944,
to ensure security and secrecy. The British were assured by the US that Operation Dragoon would
not affect the course of the war in Italy, as men and weapons would continue supporting the front.
The area of Cavalaire-Agay, which extended from Antibes to Cap Benat along the Southern Coast,
was chosen for the landings. The coast provided useful sea approaches and was
a suitable bridgehead for attacks against Toulon and Marseilles.
Another added benefit was that the landing zones were close to Corsica,
which was recently conquered by the Allies, and it could provide air support if needed.
Allied Forces
Three US infantry divisions led by General Alexander Patch
would carry out the initial assaults in landing sectors Alpha, Delta, and Camel.
Navy demolition teams would land with the first wave of troops to remove beach obstacles.
Under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, the First Free French Army would land after the
American divisions. The op was of great importance for the French as it was the first full French
Army to participate in France's liberation since the Wehrmacht neutralized them in 1940.
A light infantry brigade, the1st Special Service Force, composed of US and Canadian forces,
was tasked with capturing Port Cros and the Levant islands in the Sitka sector off Cap Benat.
Additionally, French commandos were going to capture critical
German coastal batteries in the Camel and Alpha sectors.
The only British ground unit that took part in the operation was the 1st Airborne Task
Force that was to be dropped behind enemy lines between the Camel and Delta sectors.
German Forces
Opposing the Allies was the weakened Army Group G under General Johannes Blaskowitz.
During the Normandy Invasion, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge had withdrawn forces from
Blaskowitz's command to support the German forces attempting to keep the allies at bay.
As a result, second and third-rate soldiers were all that was left to
put a stop to the Allied landing. These poorly trained soldiers had
little to no combat experience and were ill-equipped for combat.
The equipment of those troops was in poor shape, consisting of obsolete weapons from
various nations, with French, Polish, Soviet, Italian, and Czech guns, artillery, and mortars.
These 11 understrength Heer divisions were positioned thinly along the French coast,
with an average of 56 miles per division. 4 of them were static
divisions with no mobile capabilities, forcing them to stay in their location.
Those were all the forces that the Third Reich could afford to give to guard the Atlantic Wall.
The German War Industry was crippled. Resources were scarce as well as manpower.
Long gone were the days of the ferocious Blitzkrieg shock troops and the highly
effective Waffen SS soldiers from the foreign divisions of volunteers.
The 11th Panzer division was Blaskowitz's only mobile unit, and he kept it in reserve.
Another blow that the OB West suffered was the loss of the legendary Desert Fox,
General Erwin Rommel, the Afrika Korps' well respected and admired commander.
Towards the Liberation of France
As part of the liberation of French soil, US and British forces had been bombing ports, facilities,
coastal fortifications, bridges, and roads near the landing zones since the end of April 1944.
These missions continued until 8 AM of August 15, supported by heavy naval bombardment.
Destroyers continued to provide close-in gunfire support throughout the landing operations.
The landings went well for the Allies. On Dragoon's D-Day,
the Allies landed 94,000 men and suffered less than 400 casualties. Following the consolidation
of the beachhead, the French forces headed southwest to capture Toulon and Marseille.
In Toulon, German resistance was encountered, but by August 26, they had surrendered.
Their remains retreated through the Vosges Mountains, ending the occupation of France.
On August 29, Marseille was retaken by the French Army.
The operation formally ended in mid-September after the 7th Army
made contact with George Patton's 3rd Army advancing from the west.
The Aftermath
Operation Dragoon was a tremendous success for the Allied forces.
It liberated most of France in a month while capturing more than 120,000 German troops.
As the battle plan had expected stricter resistance from the Germans near the beaches,
the need for transport was underestimated.
Fuel consumption surpassed the available supplies, and this shortcoming caused a
slow advance through the territories that the Germans left as they retreated and regrouped.
Although Dragoon was supposed to be a secondary attack that drew German forces away from the
fight in Normandy, it still managed to achieve its purpose of forcing the Germans to retreat.
The operation highlighted the increasing tensions and
differences between how Americans and the British viewed the war.
Even though The conclusion of the operation was not the end of the debate surrounding it.
Churchill, in his postwar memoirs, continued to ridicule and criticize the operation.
He mentioned it as one of the reasons why Stalin was able to
amass influence in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
In the end, although Operation Dragoon was a success, Churchill's interpretation of the
fallout from Operation Dragoon won and proved his point. As a result, generations of scholars
have given it little recognition in comparison to other operations from the European theatre.