As the day of August 15 went by , the situation of the German troops was deteriorating. The beaches of the Riviera were teeming with Allied tanks, vehicles and supply crates that a steady stream continued to reinforce. In the evening, the Allied forces had taken 2,000 prisoners and captured six towns, including Saint-Tropez, which fell at 6:30 p.m. to the 15th regiment. Draguignan, Le Muy and Les Arcs were also about to be taken. These three agglomerations were to fall in less than 36 hours.
The only German success was achieved in the sector of "Red Chameau", the beach of Fréjus. The troops of the 142nd regiment (36th division) were not to land at Fréjus before 2 p.m., six hours after the other landings. The Germans had installed long-range guns there with the idea that if the French Mediterranean coast were to be attacked, it was here that the attackers would land.
The guns and machine gun nests that lining the shore were so strongly entrenched that they were intact after the preliminary bombardments. Thus the German line of defense proved to be impassable at Fréjus. The dredgers could not approach the coast to remove the submerged obstacles. Infantry landing craft that attempted to zigzag their way through the German curtain of fire were all repulsed.
Allied forces were ordered to abandon Fréjus and head further east on "Green Chameau" (Le Dramont). The landing craft carrying the three battalions of the 142nd Regiment arrived in sight of "Chameau Vert" at 3:34 p.m., to discover that the 141st Regiment (36th Division) had been in possession of the ground for several hours.
During the night of August 16, a second wave of invasion made up of the seven divisions of the French 1st Army, began to land at Cavalaire-sur-Mer and Saint-Tropez. Out of respect for their national honor, General Patch had entrusted the French with a special mission:the liberation of Toulon and Marseilles. The deadline for achieving this objective had been set for September 24. General de Lattre de Tassigny, commander of the 1st French Army , promised to get it over with in a fortnight. He hadn't been called "King Jean" by his men for nothing. In this case, de Lattre was 27 days early.
He decided to invest the two ports at the same time. Units of the 3rd Algerian division of General de Monsabert were to attack Toulon from the heights to the north and northwest of the city, in liaison with the 6,000 hardened goumiers of General Guillaume's 4th Moroccan mountain division. Marseille was entrusted to a detachment of the 3rd Algerian, to the 1st division of the Free French Forces and to the 1st armored brigade of General Sudre.
Marseille and Toulon, the French knew it well, were formidable targets and remained so despite the air and naval bombardments organized on 17 and 23 August to weaken the defenses in anticipation of the assault. Each port was defended by about 200 guns, ranging from 75 to 200 mm. They were occupied by powerful and determined garrisons:15,000 men in Marseilles and 25,000 in Toulon. Both were strongly fortified. Toulon had a belt of 30 forts, and Marseille a double defense system, in addition to concrete shelters and various bar obstacles. the four main access roads.
In both cases, de Lattre returned with a strangulation tactic. On August 21, Toulon was surrounded by the Algerians Monsabert to the north and west and by 2nd corps to the east. On August 22 and 23, the grip of the besiegers began to tighten as the French advanced through the outskirts towards the center. Once they had entered Toulon, de Lattre's troops were joined by p. 2,000 F.F.I. and the fierce ru fighting that ensued lasted a week.
For the Germans, the battle was lost in advance. One after another, the inner bastions that protected the entrenched camp of Toulon fell and on the evening of August 27, the last embryo of resistance was made up of only 1,800 Germans still holding the peninsula of Toulon. Saint Mandrier. At 11:45 p.m., Rear Admiral Heinrich Runfus, commanding the German coastal defenses in Provence, made his official surrender.
From then on, the capitulation of Marseilles was imminent. De Lattre had planned to encircle Marseilles and engage the Germans in an outer perimeter. This decision resulted partly from the city being heavily fortified and partly from the need to keep troops in reserve to cover the left flank of the neighboring U.S. 3rd Division.
However, things did not turn out as de Lattre had expected. The leading elements of the 3rd Algerian Division had barely reached the fixed perimeter when they were driven into Marseilles by troops of F.F.I. wildly enthusiastic. Monsabert and his 800 men then found themselves in an uncomfortable position. They were besieged for a while by the Germans, but the pressure eased with the arrival of new French troops. The French reduced one after another the pockets of German resistance, in a systematic way; General Hans Schaeffer, realizing that his troops were about to be completely wiped out, signed the capitulation shortly after dawn on August 28.
The French took about 37,000 prisoners at Marseilles and 17,000 in Toulon. The German losses could not be counted but they were certainly greater than those of the French:
2,700 killed and wounded in Toulon and 4,000 in Marseilles.
Au When Marseille fell, Operation Dragoon was a good month ahead of schedule. From August 16, elements of the 36th U.S. Division rushed north on the heels of the XIX Army, in full retreat in the Rhone Valley. Six days later, the Americans managed to overtake them and headed west to trap their prey northwest of Montelimar. The 11th Panzer Division, which had arrived just in time to cover the retreat, however prevented the trap from closing. attack with sufficient force to allow the bulk of the XIX Army to break out in the direction of Loriol, and thence to the Langres plateau and the Belfort Gap. On September 6, the French were only 30 kilometers from the German rearguard. The XIX Army succeeded in containing them and slipping through the gap. The 11th Panzer largely escaped with it.
Although the main objective managed to escape, the 36th Division had inflicted very heavy losses on the Germans; it had taken 15,000 prisoners, and destroyed 4,000 tanks, guns and other vehicles. to the east by a Cannes-Grenoble axis and to the west by the Martigues-Montélimar axis. Grenoble fell on August 23, followed by Nice on September 1, Lyon on September 3 and Autun on September 9. The Free French 1st Division, after capturing Autun after heavy fighting, bypassed Dijon on September 11 . The Germans promptly abandoned the town.
On September 12 around 9 a.m., elements of the 1st Division, advancing north of Dijon, encountered scouts from the 2nd Division in the Sombernon region. D.B. this French armored division was part of the right wing of General George S. Patton's Third Army. Thus the junction between "Dragoon" and "Overlord" was effected; the north-south pincer movement had just been closed. Three days later, the forces of "Dragoon" were integrated into the Sixth Army, on the right flank of "Overlord" and officially came under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower.