bigpigeon.us webpage WWII Germany > The ETO > Liberation > Southern France, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 17 Dec 2023.
In the middle of August 1944, while Allied armies were beginning their sweep from Normandy across Northern France, the Allies launched a second invasion, landing on the Mediterranean coast in southern France.
In the middle of August 1944, while Allied armies were beginning their sweep from Normandy across Northern France, the Allies launched a second invasion, landing on the Mediterranean coast in southern France.
Operation Dragoon - The Southern France Invasion
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On 15 August 1944, the Southern France Campaign began with Allied landings east of Marseille between Toulon and Cannes. Unlike Normandy back in June, the Mediterranean landing was only lightly resisted.
The US 6th Army Group, consisting of the US Seventh Army and the French 1st Army, comprised the ground forces for the Southern France Campaign. |
The Operation Dragoon Landing
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The Allied Advance Northward
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The major French port of Marseille was liberated on 28 August. Germans had destroyed the port facilities, but by the end of October it was handling a third of the ETO's supply needs.
Operation Dragoon had been fiercely opposed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who objected to removing divisions from the Italian Campaign to participate in Dragoon. Fortunately Eisenhower stood his ground, or the 1944 ETO logistical crisis would have been far worse. Within a month after landing, the 6th Army Group had pushed the German 19th Army north xxx miles along the Rhone and Saone Rivers. The German 1st Army, formerly in southwestern France, retreated into Lorraine and northern Alsace. By mid-September, 6th Army Group elements had made contact with the rightmost units of the US Third Army, thus isolating southwestern France. Most of France was liberated by mid September. However, portions of Lorraine, all of Alsace, and various French ports still lay in German hands. When Operation Dragoon ended on 14 September, control of 6th Army Group passed from the Mediterranean Theater to the European Theater. |
The 6th Army Group Advance
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Sources for Big Pigeon's The ETO > Liberation > Southern France webpage:
Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead - The ETO > Liberation > Southern France:
† Crook, Lyle William SN 0-1-286-445, US Army, Cerro Gordo & Montgomery Cos.
- Operation Dragoon Landing map - C/O villandio.net.
- The 6th Army Group Advance map -
Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead - The ETO > Liberation > Southern France:
- Taken from the bigpigeon.us WWII Dead module.
† Crook, Lyle William SN 0-1-286-445, US Army, Cerro Gordo & Montgomery Cos.
- 146th Inf. Regt., 36th Inf. Div., VI Corps, Seventh Army; KIA 28 Aug 1944 Montelimar, Drôme, Rhône-Alpes, southern France; The ETO > Liberation > Southern France.
- Co. F, 179th Inf. Regt., 45th Inf. Div.; captured 1944 southern France; POW near the Elbe Rive in Stalag 4D, Torgau, Saxony, Germany; KIA 12 Apr 1945 in hospital, Halle, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany; hospital struck by Allied air attack; The ETO > Liberation > Southern France.
- 753rd Tank Bn., Seventh Army; KIA 15 Sep 1944, Burgundy area, France; The ETO > Liberation > Southern France. (Technically this is a Rhineland Campaign death as the Southern France Campaign ended 14 September and the official Rhineland Campaign began 15 September.)
- Co. K, 30th Inf. Regt., 3rd Inf. Div.; KIA 16 Aug 1944 near St. Tropez, southern France; Operation Dragoon - The ETO > Liberation > Southern France.
- Co. H, 7th Inf. Regt., 3rd Inf. Div.; DOW 17 Aug 1944, near St. Tropez, southern France; Operation Dragoon - The ETO > Liberation > Southern France.