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History Presentation Operation Dragoon – A Second D-day in France
November 16
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Doors Open at 9am Presentation Starts at 10am
Operation Dragoon, the highly successful August 1944 invasion of southern France, was one of the largest amphibious landings of WWII. But it was overshadowed by Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy, which was launched two months earlier in June 1944.
Operation Overlord and Dragoon together functioned as a pincer movement designed to drive German forces from France. Dragoon was originally planned for June in conjunction with Overlord, but a lack of sufficient resources for simultaneous landings delayed Dragoon until August.
In all, about 500,000 American and French troops participated in Operation Dragoon. Preceded by a massive air and naval bombardment and commando raids on coastal defenses, three American infantry divisions landed on the French Riviera on August 15th. Airborne paratroop drops and glider landings behind the beaches delayed German counterattacks. On the August 16th, the first wave of an eventual 260,000 soldiers from the Free French Army were ferried ashore.
A primary objective of the invasion was the liberation of the French Mediterranean ports of Marseille and Toulon, which were in Allied hands by August 28th. The speed with which the ports were put back in working order meant that Allied forces streaming into Normandy and southern France could be supplied more quickly for their final push into Germany.
Operation Dragoon met far less resistance than Operation Overlord. Allied losses on the beach landing sites on the first day of Dragoon were just 95 killed and 185 wounded, compared with almost 4500 Allied soldiers killed on D-Day in Normandy.
On Saturday, November 16th, at 10:00 a.m., museum Docent and retired Army Colonel Nick Cressy will tell the story of Operation Dragoon, how it came to be, how it was executed, and the important results of the second invasion of France. Doors open at 9:00 a.m., presentation starts at 10:00 a.m.