It was already April when the ship was rowed to the U.S. Army Air Corps, and it took nearly another month to refit and test. By the time it was handed over to the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing, it was already early May. In the renovation, the Americans moved almost the entire air combat command center to the ship. From a distance, the entire ship is densely packed with various antennas, like islands and reefs overgrown with various shrubs. In order to prevent these electronic devices from interfering with each other, the distance between the various devices must be as wide as possible. As a result, the original cabin structure was also changed to a mess, and half of the original conference parlor, which Ron had taken a fancy to and could be used as a war room, was encroached upon. Fortunately, the encroachment is only half of the upper half - the inner height of this parlor is nearly 4.5 meters, and the upper half is separated from the various equipment. The lower half becomes the war room. In terms of area alone, the area of this operational command room is not small. But in terms of the height of the inner space, it is a true tragedy.

The height of the interior of this combat command room is only two meters, and although such a height does not make everyone have to bow their heads and confess guilt inside, it is also extremely unaccustomed to the staff officers who are responsible for holding the push rod and the indicator baton. When they habitually raise the indicator stick in their hands, the indicator stick will stick to the ceiling, and then under the influence of the reaction force, it will suddenly smash on the sand table or map, sweeping all kinds of marks on it.

But this is not the most terrible, the most terrible thing is that such a low inner @ one @ book @ read - novel xstxt emptiness will cause a sense of depression to the people in it, which will directly affect their efficiency. The solution was also very creative, the Yankees used the law of perspective on the ceiling to draw a section of the interior that did not exist. This makes it much less inhibitive, but it also greatly increases the chances of staff officers hitting the ceiling with their batons.

But in general, apart from this weakness, the boat is quite satisfactory. In particular, the wide open-air deck was loved by many officers. Of course, even more important is the increase in command efficiency, where commanders can directly direct the battle from a closer distance, and they can even give direct instructions to each fighter with a special fuel air bomb.

This has greatly improved the efficiency of command. Of course, the necessary habilitation training is still essential.

……

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, there are only a few days left in May, and the landing is imminent. You know, if you miss June, the weather will get worse and worse in the following months, so that a landing operation or something is almost completely impossible. Landing operations have strict weather requirements: in order to ensure the safe landing of landing craft, the wind speed at sea should not exceed 13-18 miles per hour; In order to increase the accuracy of the fire of the attacking battleship, the visibility should not be less than 3 miles: in order to prevent the paratroopers from being too dispersed during the landing, the land wind speed should be less than 20 miles per hour; In the days leading up to the offensive, there could be no ground fog in the English Channel.

However, the Allies suffered the worst weather in nearly 40 or 50 years. RAF Colonel and Chief Meteorologist Stagg (1900-1975) noted that "a succession of three bands of low pressure is slowly moving from Scotland across the Atlantic Ocean towards the island of Newfoundland". He predicted that this would lead to strong winds in the English Channel until June 7, accompanied by 100 percent coverage and low clouds of 500 to 1,000 feet. In such weather conditions, neither naval shelling nor air attacks can be carried out.

The weather conditions made the commanders in the Allied command almost white-headed. And for the German side, this is really good news. The Germans had simulated countless attempts to resist landings, but no matter whether Long was undefeated or Long was absent, they could not stop the Allies from landing on the continent by all means. In the face of absolute strength, no well-conceived battle plan can turn things around. At most, they can do more than increase the enemy's casualties or reduce their own losses. And even these two tactical goals could not be achieved by the Germans at the same time.

At this time, the bad weather greatly helped the German army, and no matter how strong the Allies were, they could not compete with the power of nature. As long as this dangerous period of time has passed, the weather records over the years show that there will be fewer and fewer suitable weather for landfall after June. And considering the time required for a large-scale landing operation, the year will be basically safe. Because once the battle arrives and drags on until September, any landing operation is impossible. So, in the eyes of the Germans, the Allies were already about to miss the landing window. After a while, the Germans would be able to transfer most of their forces deployed on the Western Front to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians.

On May 30 the commander-in-chief of the Western Front, Rensted, reported to Hitler that there were no signs of an offensive being "imminent" due to unsuitable weather. On June 4, the German Air Force weather station in Paris decided that the weather was bad and that the Allies would not move for half a month. After getting this weather forecast, Marshal Rommel slept soundly for the first time in days. The next day, he rushed back to Germany to give his wife his birthday.

However, weather forecasts are not guaranteed to be 100% correct until the 21st century, let alone in the forties of the last century? At that time, weather forecasting relied heavily on meteorological data accumulated over many years. But this thing is a big weakness in Germany. The Germans simply did not have the accumulation of meteorological data in the English Channel. After the defeat of the French, the Germans received some information from the French, but these materials were incomplete. After that, the Germans themselves accumulated some recorded data. But the gap between the information in their hands and that of the British was even greater than that of the German Navy and the British Royal Navy. Marshal Rommel's return to China finally confirmed his reputation as "Rommel's absence."

On the evening of June 3, the day before the Germans made their forecast of bad weather for the next half month, it was the time when dark clouds hung over the Strait and the wind turned fierce. Allied meteorologists, however, made this prediction: there is a new cyclone behind the cold front that is approaching the English Channel, and it will not make landfall on June 5, and on the 6th it will be in the gap where the first cold front has passed and the new cold front has not yet arrived, and there may be new cold front suitable for landfall in the strait.

Just when the Germans were letting their guard down, D-Day quietly arrived. On the night of June 4, Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, received a weather forecast from the United States from the United States, the most famous meteorologist in Europe and the United States at that time: a storm would pass through the strait on June 5, and there would be suitable weather for landfall on June 6. Eisenhower received the June 6 forecast from the Joint Meteorological Group: sunny in the morning and cloudy in the evening. The weather was not ideal, but it was beneficial for airlift landings, air bombing, and naval observations, and greatly reduced the likelihood of Allied troops being bombed by enemy planes on the beaches on the first night after landing. After obtaining such a reliable weather forecast that met the minimum meteorological requirements for landfall, Eisenhower decided to set Day D for June 6 and not change it after the June 5 Morning Light Weather Symposium. The order was issued at 4:30.

From 11 p.m. on June 5 to 1 p.m. on June 6, the first troops began to set off. This group of troops included the British 1st Airborne Division, the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The moon rose late that night, just after midnight. Countless transport planes began to cross the strait in the reddish light of the rising moon. At this time, Ron had been on duty in his command ship for a long time.

Just as the group of transport planes flew over Ron's head and headed across the channel, the fleet also received orders to attack. One by one, the battleships began to fire the boilers, then pulled up the anchor chains and untied the cables. Then they left Portsmouth Harbour one by one, and headed for Normandy with the reddish moon. The reddish moonlight cast by the rising moon jumped over the waves of the English Channel, smearing the surface of the sea with a dull red.

"The moonlight is tinged with blood, which heralds a bloody dawn." Standing on the foredeck, Ron said leisurely, "Scott, what do you think of my prophecy?" There is no smell of witches. ”

"Not at all, General. We are setting out for a battle of this magnitude that even fools know that tomorrow there will be a river of blood. General, you're more like a wizard when you make some other judgments. His adjutant refused to make amusement, but retorted to him.

"Scott, you're so uninteresting." Ron smiled and shook his head.

……

June 6, 2pm, Putsmouth, Crow's Nest Airport.

48 P/A-38 attack aircraft have already been pulled out of the hangar. Ground crews are busy hanging up bombs, refueling, and doing routine pre-takeoff checks. Each P/A-38 has a 1.5-ton fuel-air bomb under its belly, which will be the nutcracker that will smash through the hard walnuts of the enemy's coastal forts.

At 4 o'clock, all the pilots had already gotten up and started to eat breakfast in the dining room. By this time the fleet had been sailing on the straits for several hours.

At 4:40, the pilots began to board the plane, ready to take off.

At 4:50 a.m., the moon had risen to mid-heaven, and the eastern sky was slightly white. At this time, the pilots received orders to attack. Boynton released the brakes of the P-81 fighter and was the first to slide to the runway. Behind him, the propellers of one plane after another began to spin.

……

At 5:30 a.m., the group of attack planes caught up with the formation of the landing ships that were sailing, and a few minutes later they caught up with the shelling formation, which was further ahead, which was responsible for providing artillery support, and at this time, the sky began to dawn, and at the same time the originally clear sky was covered with dark clouds and even rain. But Ron could still see the Normandy coastline faintly from the bridge of the command ship.