On the eve of the amphibious assault on the French Riviera, hundreds of Allied ships carrying American, French, and other Allied troops massed off Corsica and Sardinia. The operation, launched the following morning, aimed to seize the vital ports of Marseille and Toulon and to force German forces to retreat up the Rhône Valley, easing pressure on Allied armies fighting in Normandy.
Operation Dragoon had been a source of bitter dispute between Winston Churchill and American planners. Churchill wanted Allied resources directed toward Italy and the Balkans, fearing Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe after the war, but Eisenhower and Roosevelt insisted on the southern France landings to secure deep-water ports that could supply the enormous armies now fighting across France.
By the night of August 14, the invasion fleet, more than 880 vessels, was underway, filled with troops of the U.S. Seventh Army and General de Lattre de Tassigny's French First Army. Pathfinder paratroopers and glider troops would land in darkness ahead of the main beach assault. Though overshadowed in memory by Normandy, the landings the next day succeeded with remarkably light casualties and opened a critical supply artery that fed Allied forces for the rest of the war in Europe.