Operation Dragoon - Opposing Forces

Opposing Forces

The U.S. 6th Army Group, also known as the Southern Group and as Dragoon Force, commanded by Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, was created to carry out the Operation. It was formed in Corsica and activated on 1 August 1944 to consolidate the French and American forces slated to invade southern France. As addition, Task Force 88 was also activated in August to support the landing. It was planned that the forces of the US Seventh Army, commanded by Alexander Patch, would make the initial landing, to be followed by the French Army B commanded by Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Accompanying the whole operation was a fully mobilized unit called "Taskforce Butler", consisting of the bulk of the Allied tanks, tank destroyers and mechanized infantry. In addition, the French Resistance of the FFI played a major role in fighting, tying down numerous German troops. French resistance fighters also supplied the Allies with vital intelligence information and sabotaged German operations.

In conjunction with the amphibious landing, several airborne operations were planned, conducted by a combined US-British airborne unit, the 1st Airborne Task Force.

Opposing the Allies was the German Army Group G (Armeegruppe G). Although nominally an Army Group, Army Group G had at the time of the invasion only one Army under its command: the 19th Army, led by Friedrich Wiese. As southern France had never been important to German planning, their forces there had been stripped of nearly all their valuable units and equipment over the course of the war. The remaining 11 divisions were understrength and only one intact Panzer Division was left, the 11th Panzer Division, which also had lost two of its tank battalions. The troops were positioned thinly along the French coast, with an average of 90 km (56 mi) per division. Generally the troops of the German divisions were only second and third grade. This meant that over the course of the years, Germans in those divisions were sent away and replaced with wounded old veterans as well as Volksdeutsche from Poland and Czechoslovakia. There were numerous Ostlegionen inserted, as well as several units made up from volunteered Soviet prisoners of war (Ostbataillone). The equipment of those troops was in poor shape, consisting of obsolete weapons from various nations, with French, Polish, Soviet, Italian and Czech guns, artillery and mortars. Four of the German divisions were designated as "static", which meant that they were stripped of all of their mobile capabilities and unable to move from their assigned position. The only potent unit inside Army Group G was the 11th Panzer Division, which was commanded by Wend von Wietersheim.

The German command chain was overly complex, with parallel chains for the occupation forces, the land forces, the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine commands. As part of their defense, the Germans had several fortifications and coastal guns which they had constructed during the years of occupation. The Luftwaffe as well as the Kriegsmarine played a negligible role in the operation.