Overlord offered him real support by forcing Hitler to fight on two fronts (although he was already doing so in Italy) and by keeping two SS panzer corps with four battle-hardened panzer divisions in France at a critical time for the Red Army. These were only redeployed to the east in the spring of 1945, by which time the Red Army was more than ready for them. In contrast, German forces in Italy were able to spare divisions to bolster the Eastern Front.
Hanson Baldwin, a contemporary military analyst for the New York Times, commented on the first day of Operation Dragoon, ‘The troops involved could have been more profitably employed in strengthening our forces in Normandy and Brittany.’ After the war he would reaffirm his belief that ‘the invasion of southern France two months after the Normandy attack had little military, and no political, significance’. Ultimately Dragoon failed in its primary objective of giving ‘the greatest possible assistance to Overlord by destroying or containing the maximum number of German formations in the Mediterranean’. By the time Overlord had secured a footing in Normandy, the mere threat of an invasion in southern France was keeping ten divisions tied up on the Mediterranean coast. It had always seemed to the British that little would be gained by turning the threat into a reality.
Launching the invasion two months after Overlord meant that Dragoon was well past its sell-by date. By this point Hitler knew where the Anglo-American centre of gravity lay, so what cared he about events in the distant south of France. In the weeks following Dragoon and the German collapse in Normandy, stabilising the front east of the Seine became the key priority.
Montgomery’s verdict, given with the benefit of hindsight, was damning:
I personally had always been opposed to Anvil from the beginning, and had advocated its complete abandonment for two main reasons. First, we wanted the landing craft for Overlord; and secondly, it weakened the Italian Front at the very time when progress there had a good chance of reaching Vienna before the Russians. (Failure to do this was to have far-reaching effects in the Cold War that broke out towards the end of 1945.)
But Anvil … in my view was one of the great strategic mistakes of the war.
It is interesting that Montgomery persisted with Churchill’s optimistic view that the Allies could have broken through in Italy.
There can be no denying that Dragoon was an unwanted planning distraction for Eisenhower. It should have been cancelled or simply maintained as a threat, much as Operation Fortitude had convinced the Germans that the Allies would land in the Pas de Calais area as well as Normandy. If this had been done, then all the resources in terms of vital landing craft, logistical, naval and air support as well as the assault troops could have been committed to Overlord and this would have ensured that it could have been conducted in May 1944.
It should also be borne in mind that the dispute over Dragoon was not based on nationality. Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff General Walter Bedell Smith agreed with Montgomery over Dragoon, while Major-General Francis de Guingand agreed with Eisenhower. Indeed, Bedell Smith supported Brooke, while Admiral Andrew Cunningham, the Naval Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, supported Eisenhower. Brooke ultimately shared Churchill’s and Montgomery’s misgivings about the utility of Dragoon. Even ten years after the war ended he remained unconvinced, remarking with great understatement:
It was a relief to feel that at last these landings were taking place and could no longer produce heated arguments. The Americans’ original idea was to launch them in May before Overlord and seriously at the expense of operations in Italy. Coming as they did now, they could no longer do all the harm they would have done at an early date. But I still wonder whether we derived much benefit from them.
In Italy, of course, the Allies never did break through, and the German armies there did not give up until the end of the war. There was an interesting postscript to the Italian Front involving Blaskowitz. On 10 February 1945 he and von Rundstedt’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Siegfried Westphal held a meeting near Stuttgart with Alexander Constantin von Neurath, the German Consul at Lugano. American intelligence reported:
The three frankly discussed the possibility of opening the Western Front to the Allies….
Neither Westphal nor Blaskowitz made definite suggestions. They appear however, (a) to be working with Kesselring, (b) to have uppermost in their minds the idea of opening up the Western and Italian Fronts to the Allies, and (c) to be approaching the point where they might discuss an arrangement on purely military lines with an American Army officer.
However, they knew the Waffen-SS and other Eastern Front veterans were prepared to fight to the bitter end and would not countenance surrender.
The Allies did not reach Milan, Turin and Trieste until 2 May 1945; four days later they arrived at the Brenner Pass, the gateway to Austria. Nor was the amphibious left hook of the Anzio operation repeated. Churchill’s dreams of getting into Austria or Yugoslavia came to nothing, which suited Stalin.
General Clark, commander of the US 5th Army in Italy and subsequently American High Commissioner in Austria, offered a judgement that was as damning as Monty’s:
The weakening of the campaign in Italy in order to invade southern France, instead of pushing into the Balkans, was one of the outstanding political mistakes of the war…. Stalin knew exactly what he wanted in a political as well as military way: and the thing he wanted most was to keep us out of the Balkans…. It is easy to see, therefore, why Stalin favoured Anvil at Tehran…. I later came to understand, in Austria, the tremendous advantages that we had lost by our failure to press on into the Balkans…. Had we been there before the Red Army, not only would the collapse of Germany have come sooner, but the influence of Soviet Russia would have been drastically reduced.
Brooke in part felt that General Alexander had dropped the ball in Italy, having failed to smash the German forces south of the Apennines. Instead of breaking up the Germans on favourable ground he chose to fight them on their prepared Apennine defensive positions. Brooke’s view was that there should have been a concentrated attack, instead of several small pushes all along the front, which could have swung right and left; instead the opportunity was lost and the Germans dug their heels in.
General Wilson recalled that Eisenhower’s and Marshall’s obsession with an invasion of the south of France and the seizure of Marseilles and Toulon seemed to ‘imply a strategy aimed at defeating Germany during the first half of 1945 at the cost of an opportunity of defeating her before the end of 1944’. De Guingand was also of the view that Dragoon in fact weakened the push on the Rhine, observing:
If he [Eisenhower] had not taken the steps he did to link up at an early date with Anvil and had held back Patton, and had diverted the administrative resources so released to the north, I think it possible that we might have obtained a bridgehead over the Rhine before the winter – but not more.
In the Far East General Slim’s amphibious operation to turn the Japanese flank, which had been sacrificed to Overlord and Dragoon, did not take place until 1 May 1945. In the event it proved to be a wasted show of force. Operation Dracula witnessed an airborne assault on the mouth of the Rangoon river, followed by amphibious landings on both banks. With British forces bearing down on them from the north, the Japanese abandoned the Burmese capital and the two British forces linked up on the 6th.
Why did Roosevelt and the US Chiefs of Staff stick so doggedly to the implementation of Operation Anvil/Dragoon? Eisenhower was all for being flexible and adopting a policy of waiting to see how the strategic situation developed. Ultimately it was General Marshall who was the driving force; he spurned Eisenhower’s opportunism. Marshall had already shown great strategic inflexibility; in 1942 his pushing for the seizure of the Cherbourg peninsula so delayed Operation Torch that the Allies lost their chance of defeating the Germans in Tunisia before the winter. Similarly the following year his opposition to the invasion of Italy meant the Allies lost their chance to exploit Mussolini’s downfall. Building on the success in It
aly did not fit his strategic concept. It has been said that Marshall’s strengths were not as a strategist but as an administrator, a role in which he excelled. It was he who built the massive American Army from a standing start.
American war correspondent and military historian Chester Wilmot perhaps summed up the strategic failure of Dragoon most succinctly:
The decision to switch the Mediterranean Schwerpunkt from Italy to southern France meant that from the start of July until the middle of August – during six irrecoverable weeks of summer campaigning, while the struggle in Normandy was at its height and while the Russian summer offensive was in full spate – the Allied assault along the whole southern flank of Europe was deliberately weakened and drastically curtailed. Hitler was spared the necessity of having to reinforce his southern front at the critical juncture when he was hard pressed to the point of desperation in the west and the east.
To the Americans’ credit, General Patch’s US 7th Army and de Lattre’s French 1st Army cleared south and central France in half the time expected, taking some 100,000 prisoners at the cost of about 13,000 casualties as of mid-September.
Likewise, from the supporting logistical supply standpoint Dragoon was a triumph. Despite German efforts to wreck the facilities at Marseilles and Toulon, both ports were open for business by 20 September 1944. By the end of the month over 300,000 Allied troops, 69,000 vehicles and nearly 18,000 badly needed tons of gasoline had poured into France via the Dragoon bridgehead. Ultimately some good had come of it. Churchill, though, always felt that a much bigger opportunity had been lost and the world became a much worse place for it.
Annexes
1. Allied Forces Committed to Operation Dragoon, 15
August 1944
Western Task Force Vice Admiral H. Kent Hewitt USN
8th Fleet Amphibious Force
Six flotillas of landing craft.
Fleet: 505 US ships, 252 British, 19 French, 6 Greek and 263 merchantmen; 370 large landing ships and 1,267 small landing craft; 5 battleships (HMS Ramillies, USS Arkansas, USS Nevada, USS Texas and the French Lorraine), 4 heavy cruisers, 18 light cruisers, 9 aircraft carriers and 85 destroyers. French vessels included a battleship (Lorraine), 5 cruisers (Duguay-Trouin, Emile Bertin, Fantasque, Terrible and Mailin) and 5 torpedo-boats. Escort Carrier Force
Task Force 88 (TF88)
Rear-Admiral T.H. Troubridge RN
Rear-Admiral Calvin T. Durgin USN
Task Group 88.1
Carriers:
HMS Attacker (879 Naval Air Squadron equipped with Seafires)
HMS Emperor (800 Naval Air Squadron equipped with F6F Hellcats)
HMS Khedive (899 Naval Air Squadron equipped with Seafires)
HMS Pursuer (881 Naval Air Squadron equipped with F4F Wildcats)
HMS Searcher (882 Naval Air Squadron equipped with F4F Wildcats)
Light cruisers: HMS Delhi and HMS Royalist (flagship)
Also 5 British destroyers and a Greek destroyer
Task Group 88.2
Carriers:
HMS Hunter (807 Naval Air Squadron equipped with Seafires)
HMS Stalker (809 Naval Air Squadron equipped with Seafires)
USS Kasaan Bay (VF-74 equipped with F6F Hellcats)
USS Tulagi (VOF-01 equipped with F6F Hellcats)
Light cruisers: HMS Colombo and HMS Caledon
Also 6 US destroyers.
Assault Task Forces
Task Force 84 Alpha Force
1 Coastguard cutter and 1 fighter control ship
Bombardment Group: 1 battleship, 1 cruiser, 5 light cruisers, 6 destroyers
Minesweeper Group: 30 minesweepers, 6 submarine chasers, 2 Landing Craft Command
Assault Force: US 3rd Infantry Division
Assault Group: 2 attack transport ships, 3 attack cargo ships, three freighters, 25 LST, 55 LCI, 60 LCT, 20 LCM, 8 minesweepers, 9 patrol craft, 12 fire support craft, 10 LCC
Task Force 85 Delta Force
1 seaplane tender, 1 destroyer, 1 fighter direction tender
Bombardment Group: 2 battleships, 6 light cruisers, 8 destroyers
Minesweeper Group: 10 minesweepers
Assault Force: US 45th Infantry Division
Assault Group: 6 attack transport ships, 2 freighters, 1 LSI, 23 LST, 49 LCI, 48 LCT, 8 LCM, 8 fire support craft, 5 LCC, 6 submarine chasers Salvage & Firefighting Group: 6 tugs
Task Force 86 Sitka Force
Bombardment Group: 1 battleship, 1 cruiser, 3 light cruisers, 4 destroyers
Assault Force: French 1st Special Service Force
Assault Group: 5 destroyer transports, 5 LSI, 17 patrol torpedo boats, 5 minesweepers
Task Force 87 Camel Force
1 attack cargo ship
Bombardment Group: 1 battleship, 1 cruiser, 5 light cruisers, 11 destroyers
Minesweeper Group: 31 minesweepers
Assault Force: US 36th Infantry Division
Assault Group: 3 attack transport ships, 2 attack cargo ships, 3 freighters, 21 LST, 1 LSI, 29 LCI, 45 LCT, 4 LCM, 7 fire support craft, 7 LCC, 17 submarine chasers, 16 patrol craft Salvage & Firefighting Group: 6 tugs, 3 LCI, 1 LCT, 4 LCM
Airborne
1st Airborne Task Force, Brigadier-General Robert T. Frederick 550th Glider Infantry Battalion, plus a platoon of the 887th Engineer Company
509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, plus the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion
551st Parachute Infantry Battalion, plus a platoon of the 887th Engineer Company
517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, plus a 460th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, a 596th Parachute Engineer Company, an anti-tank platoon from the 442nd Infantry Regiment and Company D from the 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion
British 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade, Brigadier C.H.V. Pritchard
US 7th Army
General Alexander M. Patch
US VI Corps
Major General Lucian Truscott
3rd Infantry Division
36th Infantry Division
45th Infantry Division
Armoured support
Duplex Drive (DD) amphibious tank units
191st, 753rd and 756th Tank Battalions
Combat Command Sudre from 1re Division Blindée (armoured division), also known as 1st Combat Command
Task Force Butler
French Armee B (French 1st Army), General de Lattre de Tassigny
French II Corps
General Goislard de Monsabert
1re Division Blindée (armoured division) 1re Division Française Libre (motorised infantry Division) 3e Division d’infanterie algérienne (infantry division) 9e Division d’infanterie coloniale (infantry division)
French I Corps
General Emile Béthouart
2e Division d’infanterie marocaine (infantry division), 4e Division marocaine de montagne (mountain infantry division), 5e Division Blindée (armoured division)
Allied Air Forces
Mediterranean Allied Air Force, General Ira C. Eaker, USAAF:
Mediterranean Tactical Air Force (MATAF)
USAAF 12th Air Force
XII Tactical Air Command, Brigadier-General Gordon P. Saville
Provisional Troop Carrier Division:
435th Troop Carrier Group (Horsa gliders)
436th Troop Carrier Group (Waco Gliders)
Plus detachments from the 79th, 80th, 81st and 82nd Troop Carrier Squadrons, with 526 C-47 transport aircraft and 452 Horsa and Waco gliders
Bomber Forces:
42nd Bomb Wing (Medium)
17th Bomb Group (including the 34th, 37th, 95th and 432nd Bomb Squadrons)
The French Air Force supplied 6 P-47 fighter-bomber groups, 4 B-26 bomber groups and a P-38 reconnaissance group
2. Allied Order of Battle, 1945
US 6th Army Group (became active 15 September 1944)
US 7th Army:
36th Infantry Division
44th Infantry Division
103rd Infantry Di
vision (arrived at Marseilles late October 1944)
VI Corps:
10th Armored Division (assigned mid-March 1945)
63rd Infantry Division (assigned mid-March 1945)
100th Infantry Division (arrived at Marseilles late October 1944)
XV Corps (reassigned from US 3rd Army end of September 1944):
3rd Infantry Division
14th Armored Division (arrived at Marseilles late October 1944)
45th Infantry Division
XXI Corps (assigned from reserve early January 1945 – initially 28th and 75th Infantry and 12th Armored Divisions):
4th Infantry Division
12th Armored Division
42nd Infantry Division (assigned mid-March 1945)
French 1st Army:
with three additional divisions
3. German Forces in the South of France
3.1. Order of Battle, 15 August 1944
Army Group G, General Johannes Blaskowitz
1st Army, General Kurt von der Chevallerie:
LXXX (80th) Corps
158th Reserve Infantry Division
LXXXVI (86th) Corps
159th Reserve Infantry Division
19th Army, General Friedrich Wiese:
11th Panzer Division
189th Reserve Infantry Division
LXII (62nd) Reserve Corps
157th Reserve Infantry Division
242nd Infantry Division
LXXXV (85th) Corps
244th Infantry Division
3.2 Order of Battle, 31 August 1944
19th Army
11th Panzer-Division
IV Luftwaffe Field Corps
189th Reserve Infantry Division
716th Infantry Division
LXXXV Corps
198th Infantry Division
338th Infantry Division
3.3. Order of Battle, 16 September 1944
19th Army:
Operation Dragoon Page 22