The British army formulated a battle plan for Operation Overlord to implement the landing on the German mainland, due to the German front on the Eastern Front stretched too long, the material logistics could not keep up, and the cold weather caused the German guns to freeze at minus 48 degrees, and finally the Battle of Stalingrad ended in failure, with the defeat of the German army, Li Ming also began to negotiate with Hitler about the defense plan.

As early as September 1941, Stalin proposed to Churchill the request to open a second theater in Europe to carry out a strategic flanking attack on Germany, but at that time, the United States had not yet entered the war, and Britain was simply unable to organize such a large-scale strategic landing operation. In response to the Soviet Union's suggestion, Britain responded only by sending small forces to carry out sneak attacks and harassment on the European continent.

In June 1942, the Soviet Union and the United States and Britain issued a joint communiqué, reaching a full understanding and consensus on opening a second battlefield in Europe, but Britain made some reservations about the obligations it undertook in the memorandum.

In July 1942, the Anglo-American London Conference decided to land in North Africa in the autumn of 1942 and postpone the opening of a second theater in Europe until the first half of 1943. However, at this time, the situation on the Soviet-German battlefield was very grim, the German army had advanced to Stalingrad, and the Soviet Union strongly demanded that Britain and the United States launch a landing operation in Europe to contain the German army and reduce the pressure on the Soviet army. Britain hastily dispatched an assault force of 6,018 men to land in Diep, France, but suffered a crushing defeat with 5,810 casualties, or 96.5%.

In January 1943, the Anglo-American Casablanca Conference adopted the decision to land in Sicily in the first half of the year. The landing on the European continent was postponed to August 1943. At this meeting, Britain insisted on the postponement of the landing on the European continent, citing the complexity and danger of a large-scale amphibious landing and the need to proceed with caution, citing the failure of Diep. In fact, Britain wanted to take advantage of the Soviet-German rivalry, and on the other hand, it wanted to use the power of the United States to restore the traditional power of the British Empire in North Africa and southern Europe before the war. Of course, it was opposed by the United States, and as a compromise, Britain agreed to set up a Anglo-American Special Planning Staff to be responsible for drawing up landing plans in Europe. Lieutenant General F. Morgan of the British Army served as Chief of Staff. Immediately after Morgan took office, he formed "Kausak", which is the English abbreviation of the Supreme Staff of the Allied European Expeditionary Force, whose main members are Deputy Chief of Staff Brigadier General Ray Buck of the US Army, representatives of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and all services related to the landing, and Vice Admiral Mountbatten, commander of the British Joint Operations Command, who is responsible for directing sneak attacks and harassment operations on the European continent.

In May 1943, the Anglo-American Washington Conference decided to land on the European continent in May 1944 to open up a second battlefield. According to the lessons learned from previous landing operations, the landing site must meet the following three conditions: First, it must be within the radius of fighters taking off from British airfields, second, the crossing distance should be as short as possible, and third, there should be a large port nearby. The 480 km stretch of coastline from Vlissingen in the Netherlands to Cherbourg in France is a good place to measure: the Contantine Peninsula, Calais and Normandy.

In further comparison, the narrow terrain of the Constantine Peninsula made it inconvenient to deploy large forces, and was the first to be rejected. Calais and Normandy have their pros and cons, with Calais having the advantage of being the closest to the UK, only 33km, and being close to mainland Germany; The disadvantage is that the German army has the strongest defense force here, and the defenders are elite troops, the fortifications are complete and strong, and there is no large port nearby, and there is also a lack of inland communication lines, which is not conducive to the development of depth after the landing. Although Normandy is far away from Britain, it has the advantage that the German defense is weak, the terrain is open, and 30 divisions can be deployed at the same time, and the third is that it is only 80km away from Cherbourg, the largest port in northern France. After several trade-offs and comparisons, "Kausak" chose Normandy and began to formulate a specific plan on June 26, 1943, with "Overlord" as the code name of the battle plan and "Sea King" as the code name of the relevant naval operation. It was initially planned to land three divisions on three beachheads, later "Omaha", "King" and "Juno", at a width of 32 km between Carantin and Caen, and at the same time parachute two brigades. The second echelon, consisting of 8 divisions, will occupy Cherbourg in two weeks. The biggest problem in the whole plan was the port problem, that is, how to solve the logistical supply of the troops before the occupation of Cherbourg, knowing that Normandy was mostly windy and rough in May and June, and it was impossible to guarantee logistics supply by landing on the beachhead alone - this seemed to be an insurmountable difficulty. Helpless, Rear Admiral John Hughes Hallett, the naval representative of the "Kausak", remembered Mountbatten's joke at a meeting: since there is no natural harbor, build an artificial harbor. Therefore, it was suggested that the manufacturing of accessories should be assembled into an artificial port to solve the problem. There was no other solution, and his idea was approved. On July 15, Morgan submitted the outline of the "Overlord" plan to the British-American Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Operation Overlord was formulated on the basis of the British invasion of France in the early days of the war, and lasted more than two years [2] .

In September 1941, Admiral Mountbatten, chief of staff of the British Joint Operations Command, began to study the feasibility of carrying out an amphibious landing in the European theater and opening up a second theater of theater, and in December of the same year, after the United States entered the war, the American side officially worked with the British planners

dup”）。

After the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the British General Staff appointed Morgan (F. Morgan).

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ick E. Mo

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Lieutenant General became Chief of Staff of the Supreme Allied Commander and authorized him to draw up plans for an invasion of France, codenamed Anvil ("ANVIL").

In December of the same year, U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eise

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Appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, he chose the Chief of Staff in the Mediterranean, Lieutenant General Walte

Bedell Smith) as Chief of Staff of the Allied Forces, Morgan became Deputy Chief of Staff, and as a counterbalance, British Air Force General A. Ted (A. Smith) became the Deputy Chief of Staff

thu

Tedde

) as deputy commander-in-chief, in charge of the theater air force. After intense bargaining, Eisenhower finally secured a joint commission composed of Britain and the United States to continue planning an attack on France across the Channel.

According to the Anvil Plan, the Allies threw 3-5 divisions into the offensive along the Pas de Calais, and the route of attack was from Dover in England to Calais in France. Later, both Eisenhower and Montgomery decided that 3-5 divisions were not enough, so the attack area was extended to a wider area, Montgomery preferred to include Caen in the attack, Morgan's planners believed that extending the bridgehead to 60 miles would exceed the available resources of the Allies, Montgomery believed that either a solution should be found or a change of commander, and this dispute provoked a debate about the value of the Anvil Plan, and Eisenhower began to consider a plan for an attack from northern France, codenamed Operation Overlord ("Ope

atio

s Ove

lo

d“）

On January 23, 1944, the Allies decided to attack from Normandy in a quarrel. U.S. troops are on the west flank, targeting Cherbourg (Che

bou

g), the British army was on the eastern flank, and the target was Caen (Cae

）。 According to the plan, the time for the offensive was June 5, 1944.

West. On the night of the landing, the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were in the Church of Our Lady (Ste. Me

e-Eglise) was airborne, seized the road to the coast, prevented the enemy from strengthening the coastal defenses. The next day, Bradley's 1st Army would arrive there, the 4th Division of the 7th Army would land on Utah Beach near the dunes of Farreville, and to the east, the 1st and 29th Divisions of the 5th Army would land on Omaha Beach near Vieville, and after a successful landing, the 5th Army would expand its beachhead, and the 7th Army would cross the Cotin Peninsula and occupy Cherbourg to the south, then move south to occupy St. Louis, and once the St. Louis and St. Louis-Perrier roads were captured, the 1st Army was ready to carry out offensive operations using mechanized forces. Patton's 3rd Army then entered the battlefield and marched towards the Brittany Peninsula, capturing Brest and other ports, and assuming the security of the 1st Army's right flank when it attacked Paris.

Eastern Front. The British 2nd Army was deployed between Bayeux and Caen, and the British 6th Airborne Division was airborne near Caen and the mouth of the Orne River before H o'clock to occupy the northeastern flank of the theater of operations. The 30th Division of the British 50th Army landed on GOLD Beach near Bayeuux. The 1st Army attacked east in two directions. THE 3RD CANADIAN DIVISION LANDED ON JUNO BEACH AND THE BRITISH 3RD DIVISION LANDED ON SWORD BEACH. After the successful landing, the divisions quickly occupied the main communication routes so that the armored forces could deploy.