Operation Dragoon - Planning

Planning

Initially, the chief operational objective of Operation Dragoon was the capture of the important French ports of Marseilles and Toulon, which were considered as essential to supply the growing Allied forces in France. The Allied planners used lessons learned from the Anzio and Normandy landings. They chose a location without high ground controlled by the Wehrmacht, as such conditions had forced them to incur heavy casualties after the initial landings at Normandy. The Allies chose an area at the Var coast east of Toulon as the landing site. Prior to the invasion, an air campaign was planned to isolate the battlefield and cut the Germans off from reinforcement by destroying several key bridges. Also a large airborne landing was planned in the center of the landing zone to quickly seize the high ground overlooking the beaches. Parallel to the invasion, several commando units would seize the islands off the coast.

Although the German Command expected another Allied landing in the Mediterranean, the advancing Red Army and the Allied Landing at the Normandy required all German resources, so little was done to improve the condition of Army Group G. Given the advancing Allied forces in northern France, the German Command deemed a realistic defense in the South impossible. Blaskowitz's Army Group G headquarter openly discussed a general withdrawal from southern France in July and August with the German High Command, but the 20 July plot led to an atmosphere in which any withdrawal was out of question. Blaskowitz was quite aware that with his scattered forces any serious Allied landing attempt would be impossible to ward off. He planned the withdrawal in secret, to include demolition of the ports and conduct an ordered withdrawal, covered by the 11th Panzer Division. He intended to establish a new defense line centered on Dijon in central France. German intelligence was aware of the impending Allied landing, and on 13 August Blaskowitz ordered the 11th Panzer Division to move east of the Rhone River, where the landing was expected.