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    Operation Dragoon 1944: France’s other D-Day
    Operation Dragoon 1944: France’s other D-Day
    Operation Dragoon 1944: France’s other D-Day
    Ebook217 pages1 hour

    Operation Dragoon 1944: France’s other D-Day

    By Steven J. Zaloga and John White

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The story of the second major amphibious landing in France in 1944, which built upon the lessons learned from D-Day.

    Operation Dragoon, the Allied landings in southern France on August 15, 1944, was one of the most controversial operations of 1944, leading to a deep divide between United States and British planners. The US objective was to threaten the rear of the German armies occupying France by a landing on the eastern French coast and to push rapidly northward towards Lorraine to meet up with Allied forces bursting out of Normandy

    Popular Osprey author Steve Zaloga tells the story of this ultimately successful operation, from the derisive debates between the Allied commanders to the men who hit the beaches and charged ashore to help liberate occupied France.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJan 20, 2013
    ISBN9781472800213
    Operation Dragoon 1944: France’s other D-Day
    Author

    Steven J. Zaloga

    Steven J. Zaloga received his BA in History from Union College and his MA from Columbia University. He has worked as an analyst in the aerospace industry for three decades, covering missile systems and the international arms trade, and has served with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federal think tank. He is the author of numerous books on military technology and history, including NVG 294 Allied Tanks in Normandy 1944 and NVG 283 American Guided Missiles of World War II. He currently lives in Maryland, USA.

    Read more from Steven J. Zaloga

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    Reviews for Operation Dragoon 1944

    3.5/5

    7 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Pretty good summary of the operation. Pity there is so little written about it.
    • 4/5
      Interesting and useful account. I do however debate vigorously its conclusions

    Book preview

    Operation Dragoon 1944 - Steven J. Zaloga

    OPPOSING COMMANDERS

    GERMAN COMMANDERS

    The Wehrmacht in southern France had a complex and dysfunctional command network. The Heer (army) had a bifurcated command structure with a parallel command network for the military occupation government and the tactical forces. The Kreigsmarine (navy) had a separate command network that was vertically integrated to central naval commands in Paris, not to local army commands. While this would ordinarily have been of little importance in land combat, it was a significant tactical distraction due to the Kriegmarine’s major role in coastal defense along the Mediterranean. This fragile network was further weakened in August 1944 when German headquarters began to abandon their offices in Paris. While the Kriegsmarine and Heer did their best to work around these problems, the Luftwaffe command remained aloof and fought their own war. For example, the Luftwaffe proved unwilling to train or deploy their numerous flak units for secondary missions against ground targets or for shore defense.

    After the occupation of southern France in November 1942, the Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich (MBH: Military Governor in France) established the Heersgebiet Südfrankreich (HGSF: Army District Southern France) under Generalleutnant Heinrich Niehoff. Headquartered in Lyon, this command was responsible for occupation duties and controlled most security units in southern France except for the tactical units along the coast.

    Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz, commander of Heeresgruppe G. (MHI)

    General der Infanterie Friedrich Wiese, commander of AOK 19. (MHI)

    The army tactical combat units in central, western and southern France were commanded by Heeresgruppe G; its two subordinate commands were Armeeoberkommando 1 (AOK 1: First Army) on the Atlantic coast from Spain to the Loire estuary, and AOK 19 on the French Mediterranean coast. Heeresgruppe G was commanded by General der Infanterie Johannes Blaskowitz. Although from East Prussia, he was not from a traditional military family and his father was a Lutheran minister. He served as a young officer in the infantry in World War I, first on the French front including Verdun, later in Serbia and Russia, and ending the war as a captain with the Iron Cross first and second class. He remained in the Reichswehr after the war, steadily advancing in rank and becoming a Generalmajor in October 1932. He was apolitical but strongly nationalistic, so his career continued to advance after the rise of the Nazis. General der Infanterie Günther Blumentritt later recalled that he was rigorously just and high-minded … with a strong spiritual and religious turn of mind. This would not serve him well with the Nazis. Blaskowitz led AOK 8 during the invasion of Poland, fighting the most intense battle of the campaign during the Polish counterattack on the Bzura River. In the wake of the campaign, he complained about the atrocities against Poles and Jews by the SS. He remained in Poland as Commander-in-Chief East through the spring of 1940 but ran afoul of Hitler’s governor-general, Hans Frank, who had him removed in May 1940. Hitler dismissed his complaints about SS brutality as childish ideas and Blaskowitz was sidetracked to occupation duty in France, commanding AOK 1 on the Bay of Biscay. Although not favored by the Nazis, he had the support of the Heeresgruppe B commander in northern France, Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, and in May 1944, Blaskowitz was placed in command of Heeresgruppe G.

    Generalmajor Ludwig Bieringer, military governor of the Var department, commanding Verbindgungsstab 800, which directed the Wehrmacht’s occupation forces in the region. (NARA)

    The headquarters of AOK 19 was led by General der Infanterie Georg von Sodenstern until June 1944, but he ran afoul of Rommel after vigorously contesting his tactics for coastal defense. General der Infanterie Friedrich Wiese replaced him. Wiese had served in World War I, and in 1919 had been a member of the Freikorps. Unlike Blaskowitz, he was regarded as a fervent Nazi. He led an infantry battalion in Poland in 1939, a regiment in France in 1940 and was promoted to command 26. Infanterie-Division in April 1942 while on the Russian Front. Wiese became commander of 35. Armee Korps (AK) in Heeresgruppe Mitte in August 1943, and was promoted to General der Infanterie that October. He had a distinguished career as a Russian Front commander, decorated with the Knight’s Cross in February 1942 and the Knight’s Cross with Oak leaves in January 1944. He remained in corps command until days before the Soviet Operation Bagration offensive in late June 1944 that destroyed the corps; he had been assigned instead to lead AOK 19 in June 1944, arriving in southern France in July.

    The element of AOK 19 most directly connected with Operation Dragoon was 62. AK commanded by General der Infanterie Ferdinand Neuling. He would play little role in the campaign as his headquarters was located near the Allied paratroop drop zone and he was quickly captured.

    German naval forces on the French Mediterranean coast were under the command of Admiral Französische Südküste headquartered in Aix-en-Provence. Vizeadmiral Paul Wever was in command until August 11 when he died of a heart attack. He was replaced by Ernst Scheurlen who did not arrive until August 17 after the invasion had taken place. Scheurlen was a rare example of a Kriegsmarine officer specializing in coastal artillery and his selection was a recognition that navy dispositions on the French Mediterranean lacked any significant warships and depended largely on coastal artillery.

    Lieutenant-General Alexander Patch, commander US Seventh Army. (NARA)

    ALLIED COMMANDERS

    The senior command of Operation Dragoon varied depending upon the phase of the mission. The Mediterranean theater was under the command of Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) led by General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson of the British Army. Wilson’s deputy commander was American Lieutenant-General Jacob Devers and in July 1944, Wilson appointed Devers to the Advanced Detachment AFHQ which served as a link between AFHQ and Seventh Army during the planning of Operation Dragoon. Although the US Seventh Army would conduct the initial amphibious landings, the follow-on force was primarily the 1ère Armée Française. The French promoted the idea of a senior French commander over both, but neither the Americans nor British were content with such an arrangement. The 1ère Armée Française had been raised and equipped by the US Army and was still heavily dependent on the US for administrative and logistical support; an army group headquarters would coordinate with Anglo-American higher headquarters and regional commands where the French had no experience. British and American commanders agreed to the formation of the 6th Army Group to manage the US Seventh and 1ère Française armies once all their forces were ashore; at this point, command would shift from Wilson in the Mediterranean theater to Eisenhower in the European theater. Devers became 6th Army Group commander on July 16, 1944, though the actual activation of the headquarters did not take place until mid-September after Dragoon had

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