Nearly 450,000 Allied troops, including a large contingent of Free French forces, stormed the Mediterranean coast of France between Toulon and Cannes. Facing lighter resistance than at Normandy, the operation rapidly liberated Marseille and Toulon, opened vital new supply ports, and forced a German retreat up the Rhône Valley, accelerating the liberation of southern France within weeks.
Originally planned to coincide with the Normandy landings in June, Operation Dragoon was delayed by a shortage of landing craft and executed instead in mid-August. Under commanders including U.S. General Alexander Patch and French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, the invasion force landed along a stretch of Riviera coastline between Toulon and Cannes with support from naval bombardment and airborne drops inland.
The operation had been contentious among Allied leadership; Winston Churchill argued strenuously against diverting resources from the Italian campaign, preferring a push through the Balkans, but American planners insisted on securing southern French ports to relieve the logistical bottleneck at Normandy's beaches. German defenses, thinned by earlier transfers of troops to Normandy, crumbled faster than expected. Marseille and Toulon fell within two weeks, providing crucial deep-water ports that would supply Allied armies driving toward Germany, while French troops took particular pride in liberating their own homeland's soil.