Operation Dragoon, the Allied landings in southern France on August 15, 1944, was one of the most controversial operations of 1944, leading to a deep divide between United States and British planners. The US objective was to threaten the rear of the German armies occupying France by a landing on the eastern French coast and to push rapidly northward towards Lorraine to meet up with Allied forces bursting out of Normandy. Popular Osprey author Steve Zaloga tells the story of this ultimately successful operation, from the derisive debates between the Allied commanders to the men who hit the beaches and charged ashore to help liberate occupied France.

Introduction
Chronology
Opposing commanders
Opposing armies
Orders of battle
Opposing plans
The campaign
Aftermath
The battlefields today
Further reading
Index

Steven J. Zaloga received his BA in history from Union College and his MA from Columbia University. He has worked as an analyst in the aerospace industry for over two decades, covering missile systems and the international arms trade, and has served with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federal think-tank. He is the author of numerous books on military technology and military history, with an accent on the US Army in World War II as well as Russia and the former Soviet Union.