Chapter 113: The Normandy Landings (2)

To deceive the enemy into believing that the landing site was Calais rather than Coteninn, the Allies fabricated a Dover-based 1st Army Group, larger than Montgomery's 21st Army Group, and appointed Patton as commander-in-chief of the Army Group. In order to avoid the leakage of the time of the attack, the Allies designated this day as D-Day, and from September 1943 onwards, all the planning documents for Operation Overlord used Neptune instead of Ove

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In February 1944, the Anglo-American Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the "Overlord Program Outline and Revised Operational Plan, but the need for landing ships also increased, and in order to ensure that there were enough landing ships, the Anglo-American Joint Staff Staff."

The Long Council decided to postpone the date of the landings until early June, and to postpone the landings scheduled for the same time in the south of France until August.

As the landing day (codenamed D-Day) was postponed to the beginning of June, the Allied High Command began to determine specific dates and moments, which was a complex coordination issue, with each branch of the armed forces making different demands according to their own needs, and the Army requested to land on ** to reduce the time the troops were exposed to the beach; The Navy demanded to go ashore at low tide in order to minimize damage to the landing craft by obstacles; The Air Force requires moonlight to facilitate the identification of ground targets by the airborne troops, and finally, after careful consideration, scientifically formulates a plan that meets the needs of each branch of the armed forces, and lands between ** and low tide, because the tides of the five beachheads are not the same, so five different landing moments (code H hours) are specified, and the D day is arranged on the day of the full moon, and the airborne landing time is one o'clock in the morning, and the landing date that meets the above conditions is only two sets of consecutive three days in June 1944, June 5 to 7, June 18 to 20, Finally, the first day of the first group, June 5, was chosen.

The purpose of the campaign was to cross the English Channel and seize a strategic landing ground in northern France, creating the conditions for the opening of a second European theater of war and the eventual defeat of Germany. The campaign was to land in Normandy, seize the landing field, and on the 12th day of the landing, expand the landing field to a width of 100 km and a depth of 100 km. It is planned to parachute 2 American paratroop divisions on the right flank of the landing field to cut off the German reinforcements from Cherbourg, and cooperate with the landing force to seize the "Utah" beachhead, and parachute 1 British paratroop division on the left flank to seize the crossing point of the Conn Canal, and then the first batch of 8 reinforced battalions will land on 5 beachheads to establish a landing field, and after consolidating and expanding the landing field, the follow-up troops will go ashore, the right flank will first capture Cherbourg, and the left flank will develop to the line from the Conn River to Saint-Ro to cover the attack of the right flank troops; In the second stage, he captured Okana, Bayeux, Izzini, and Carentin, and in the third stage, he captured Bretagne, advanced to the Seine, and took Paris directly.

On January 21, 1944, Eisenhower convened the first meeting of the High Command of the Expeditionary Force at the Norfolk Hotel, at which the program of the landing operation was clarified, making this meeting the most important military conference of the Allies in World War II.

Only the 21st Panzer Division organized a counterattack on D-DAY, but the division commander was not in the command post, and the chief of staff had no right to mobilize and assemble troops, so he had to put his hands on it

Some of the 24 No. 4 tanks were sent to attack the British forces east of Caen. Due to the haste of the sortie, the lack of preparation, and the lack of infantry support, it was easily repulsed by the British army. In the afternoon of the same day, the division commander Fichdinger rushed back to the division headquarters and gathered his troops to attack Luke Town between Juno Beach and Sword Beach, when the Allies still had a gap of several kilometers between the two beaches, and this German counterattack was hitting the key points of the Allies, which would bring great difficulties to the Allies. While the 21st Panzer Division was on the move, 500 Allied transport planes were flying overhead, transporting follow-up troops and supplies to the British 6th Airborne Division. Other than that, the Germans didn't fight back much on D-Day

June 6, 1944, the twenty-four hours predicted by Rommel and the longest day in history that Eisenhower called it, passed peacefully.

On June 7, 1944, Hitler handed over command of the five Panzer Divisions of the Panzer Group on the Western Front to Rommel, who was determined to use this elite force to counterattack in a big way, but in the face of the dire situation, he had to set the first goal of the counterattack to prevent the Allies from connecting the five landing beaches into a complete landing field, and then secure Caen and Cherbourg. It is a pity that this armored unit came from 100~200 kilometers away, and under the fierce air raids of the Allied forces along the way, it could not be put into combat as a formation at all. In this way, on June 7, 1944, the Germans were unable to launch a decisive large-scale counterattack under the absolute superior firepower of the Allied naval and air forces throughout the day.

On June 8, 1944, Hitler and Li Ming discussed the battle plan and jointly encircled Berlin, Li Ming mobilized the First Front Army, the Second Front Army, the First Army of the Japanese Allied Army, and the Second Army of the Northern Police Force In order to enhance the defensive advantage of Normandy, the Fifth Field Artillery Division of the Central Army, the Second Division of the newly formed ** Artillery, the First Division of the Central Tank Division in France, the Third Mortar Brigade, the First Army of the Northern Army, the Second Army, commanded by Commander Zhao Sanduo, and the Bazooka Anti-riot Brigade was on standby near Normandy.

The 1st Brigade of the Central Flying Eagle Brigade. The second brigade, the third brigade, the Northern Army has 17 brigades at the Normandy airport in France, the regular Northern Army infantry division 200 divisions, not including the police force, the Japanese Allied Army, the Vietnamese Allied Army, the Burmese Allied Army, the Korean Allied Army, and the Northern Army near Normandy, there are more than 4 million police forces, not counting the German army, it is difficult to say whether Li Ming participated in the victory or defeat of the Normandy Campaign.

Six German armored divisions were stationed in Normandy, but due to the lack of German troops in the early stage, the battlefield did not take advantage.

On June 9th, the weather was fine, Commander Zhao Sanduo took a telescope under the pillbox and looked at nothing for a while, at about 8 o'clock in the morning, the air found the Coalition bombers, fighters, and Allied Navy transport ships, Commander Zhao Sanduo reported to Li Ming, Li Ming told Hitler, Hitler ordered the SS long-range 350 mm caliber heavy artillery to open fire, and the British troop carrier not far away was sunk by the heavy artillery, and the Allied ships could not rely on the darkness under the heavy artillery blow and drove down the river, The long-range artillery of the Northern Army also fired 350 mm heavy artillery, as more and more ships at sea the Central Artillery Division all fired, more than 10,000 heavy artillery, dozens of ships fell into the sea to feed the fish, at this time the coalition forces dispatched 500 bombers, the German planes were not many and did not dispatch, the commander of the Central Flying Eagle Brigade Gao Zhihang ordered me to hit hard and be sure to sink, more than 2,000 planes of the Central Flying Eagle Brigade quickly opened fire on the coalition forces, and all 500 planes were sunk in 2 rounds, and then Gao Zhihang covered all the ships that landed, Coupled with heavy artillery fire, the coalition forces did not approach the Normandy position for a day, and at this time more than 500 aircraft were lost and more than 300 transport ships were all wiped out.

At about 5 o'clock in the night, as soon as it was dark, the Allies began to discredit the landing, and at about 8 o'clock, the Germans found that the Allied sea was full of flares, and then several flares flew into the sky, and then the distance was very close, all kinds of light and heavy machine guns, mortars, grenadiers, rocket launchers, and heavy artillery fired, and the British and French transport ships sank quickly, and there were constantly British and American soldiers falling, and the ships were blown up, and the British troops soon fell into the sea under the blockade of German fire.

The battle lasted until the 12th, when the Allies lost 600,000 dead and 2,700 planes, not even touching the Normandy shore.

Other German positions began to rout, with heavy losses in personnel and equipment, and the fighting continued

On June 13, 1944, the British 7th Panzer Division encountered the German SS 2nd Panzer Division on the way to Villeboges, southwest of Caen, and the two sides immediately broke out into fierce fighting, and the British lost a lot of personnel and tanks and were forced to retreat. Although the British offensive did not progress, it attracted the elite German 2nd Panzer Division to the Caen area, creating the conditions for an American offensive. When the American army occupied Carentin, the German army could not withdraw troops from the Caen area, so the 17th SS Panzer Division was urgently transferred from the Brittany Peninsula to attack the American flank to eliminate the American threat to Cherbourg, and the American army repelled the German army after fierce fighting, and took advantage of the victory to break through the German defense line in the Saint-Sauver area on June 14, 1944, and finally captured Saint-Sauver on June 16, 1944. According to Hitler's instructions, the four divisions in the area had to make every effort to block the advance of the American troops, and then fight and retreat to Cherbourg, holding Cherbourg to the death. Rommel was well aware that these four divisions had been greatly depleted in strength and equipment in the battle for several days, and that they were no longer able to handle the heavy task of holding on to Cherbourg, and even if they retreated to Cherbourg, it would at best make Cherbourg hold out for a few more days. So he asked Hitler to withdraw these troops directly to the Seine and strengthen the defense of the Seine. But Hitler rejected him. When there were signs of a breakthrough in the Saint-Sauvo area, Rommel defied Hitler's instructions and decisively ordered all the troops that could be contacted to retreat quickly to the south, which saved many troops.

On June 18, 1944, U.S. forces captured Barneville in the middle of the Cotonte Peninsula.

On June 19, 1944, the U.S. military made a great use of its mobility, turned around and took Fort Monte, cutting off the Cotentin Peninsula.

On the same day, a storm broke out in the English Channel, with winds of force 8 and waves of 1.8 meters, which caused great losses to the Allies. In the Mulberry A artificial harbor on the U.S. military site, the floating dock disintegrated, the caissons broke, and the cross-shaped steel parts collided with each other and were severely damaged. In the Mulberry B artificial port in the British area, due to the protection of the submarine reef, the damage was small, and only 4 caissons were destroyed. At the landing beachhead, the Allies had a total of 7 tank landing ships, 1 large personnel landing ship, 1 oil tanker, 3 barges, 7 trawlers, 67 landing craft sunk by strong winds, 1 cruiser and 1 ferry ship damaged by collision with each other, and some ships were injured by the surging wind and waves that detonated the water pressure ** laid by the Germans. The storm also threw nearly 800 ships onto land, forcing the Allied forces to suspend their unloading for five full days, preventing 20,000 vehicles and 100,000 tons of supplies from landing as planned. The material damage caused by the storm significantly exceeded the losses in the thirteen-day operation and forced serious difficulties with the logistical supply of the Allied forces. If the German army can seize this once-in-a-lifetime fighter and counterattack, the tide of the war is very likely to be rewritten. Unfortunately, the Germans were barely able to defend at that time.

Although the Germans had transferred from Hungary the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, which had just been withdrawn from the Soviet battlefield and reorganized, the two divisions were unable to arrive in time due to the serious damage to the railways in France and the difficulty in gathering and maneuvering troops, thus missing this excellent opportunity.

On June 20, three American divisions advanced to only 8 kilometers from Cherbourg. Cherbourg is located in the northern part of the Cotuntin Peninsula and is the largest port in northern France. The Germans built concrete field fortifications, used rivers and canals to set up anti-tank barriers, and deployed 20 batteries of artillery in bunkers on the outskirts of the city, 15 of which were 150mm guns, which could fire at sea targets and control inland roads. It was only a shortage of troops, because the fighting in the previous period had already consumed a large amount of vital forces, and the commander of the city defense, General Schlieben, incorporated the miscellaneous personnel into the combat unit, and barely managed to muster the strength of four regiments.

On June 21, 1944, in order to preserve the port facilities, the U.S. military made a radio to urge the defenders to surrender, but the Germans refused. So the American army decided to carry out a strong attack on Cherbourg.

On June 22, 1944, the Allied air forces prepared for the attack by sending 500 sorties to bomb Cherbourg, dropping 1,100 tons of bombs. Subsequently, three divisions of the American army launched a fierce attack from the south, and the Germans resisted to the death. By June 24, 1944, Schley, who had exhausted all his reserves, telegraphed Berlin to demand an airdrop of the Iron Cross, awarding meritorious personnel to boost morale, and was still prepared to defend to the end. In order to capture Cherbourg as soon as possible, the U.S. military urgently needed naval artillery fire support, but bad weather prevented naval artillery fire support until June 25, 1944. The Navy sent 3 battleships, 4 cruisers, and 11 destroyers to form a naval gun support formation to support the ground forces, and Vice Admiral Collins, commander of the US 7th Army, demanded that in addition to providing summoning fire, the warships could only return fire on the German guns that shot at the warships, and canceled all other long-range naval gun fire. The naval warships fired naval guns for seven hours, which was extremely effective in suppressing German artillery fire. With the support of powerful naval and air force fire, the US 7th Army rushed into the city of Cherbourg at dusk on June 25, 1944. The next day, Schlieben and the port naval commander, Rear Admiral Hennick, announced their surrender, but a few strongholds that had lost contact with the main force still resisted stubbornly, and the American forces used tanks and bombers to attack together, gradually reducing the remnants of the German army to the north-west of Cherbourg. On July 1, 1944, the Reeds, the last stronghold, were forced to surrender. At this point, the American army occupied the entire Cotentin Peninsula, and in the battle to capture Cherbourg and the Cotentin Peninsula, the American army suffered 25,000 casualties, and the German army suffered about 36,000 casualties and prisoners.

Cherbourg, though occupied, is in ruins. As early as June 7, the day after the Allied landing, the Germans expected that the Allies would seize Cherbourg, and immediately began to plan to destroy Cherbourg. An engineer expert in the U.S. Army looked at the destruction of Cherbourg and considered it "the most thorough and complete destruction in history." "As soon as the Allies occupied Cherbourg, they sent a large number of engineers, salvage detachments, and minesweepers to carry out the removal work, and it took three weeks to sweep up 133** and salvage 20 sunken ships, which restored the throughput capacity of the port of Cherbourg. On 16 July, the Allies unloaded the first transport ship from Cherbourg. At the end of July, Cherbourg had unloaded 8,500 tonnes per day. By September, the daily unloading volume had risen to 17,000 tons. After another three months of hard work, Cherbourg became the second largest port in Europe after Marseille in terms of unloading capacity. By the end of 1944, a total of 2,137 transport ships had entered Cherbourg, with a total discharge of 2,826,000 tons.

At the same time that the American forces captured Cherbourg, Montgomery commanded the British 2nd Army and launched an operation codenamed "Epsom Racecourse" on June 26, 1944, with the strength of four divisions, to storm Caen. At noon on the same day, he captured Scheckers and continued to advance, but was resolutely counterattacked by the German SS 12th Panzer Division on both the left and right flanks, and the advance was very difficult.

On June 27, 1944, after a hard battle, the British repelled the German counterattack and occupied Laurian, and the vanguard 11th Panzer Division took control of the bridge over the Oden.

On June 28, 1944, the main force of the British army crossed the Oden River and established a bridgehead position with a frontal width of 3,650 meters and a depth of 900 meters.

On June 29, 1944, the German army concentrated five armored divisions to launch a counterattack, and the Allied air force took advantage of the favorable conditions of fine weather to carry out extremely heavy bombardment of the German armored forces, breaking up the German offensive. The British 11th Panzer Division seized the opportunity to occupy the 112th Heights, a strategic point southwest of Caen. The Germans were well aware of the important value of the 112 heights and immediately organized several counterattacks, but they were unsuccessful.

Stalemate

On June 30, 1944, the Germans concentrated all their artillery fire and shelled the 112 heights with all their might. Although the Germans recaptured the 112 heights. However, under the fierce blows of the Allied air forces, it was impossible to concentrate on the use of armored forces, and it was impossible to give full play to the huge surprise power of armored forces, and generally could only use 200 infantry and 15-20 tanks to form a small battle group for a short attack, and it was difficult to achieve victory, and in addition to the loss of about 100 tanks in the past few days, and there was no replenishment, Rommel had to abandon some positions on the periphery in order to ensure Caen, and deployed 700 of the 900 tanks in the suburbs of Caen. After the Allies captured the Kaluk airfield, they were no longer able to advance, and the two sides were locked in a standoff.

On June 29, 1944, Rommel and Rundstedt met with Hitler to report on the current situation of the war. Hitler was greatly dissatisfied with this, and adjusted the high-level command personnel of the German army on the Western Front, replacing Rundstedt with Field Marshal Kluge as commander-in-chief of the Western Front, Eberbach replacing von Schwépenger as the commander of the armored forces on the Western Front, and renaming the headquarters as the 5th Tank Army, and replacing the recently deceased General Dorman as commander of the 7th Army with SS General Hauser.

On July 1, 1944, the Allies announced the successful conclusion of the naval operation "Sea King" in the "Overlord" landing operation. Immediately, the numbers of the Eastern and Western Task Forces were revoked, and some of their ships were transferred to the Mediterranean and Pacific Oceans. The Allies also established two new naval base headquarters in Normanland, one in Cherbourg and the other in the artificial harbor on Juno Beach, to direct the dispatch of personnel, the transportation and unloading of supplies.

By early July, the Allies had landed 25 divisions, including 13 American, 11 British, and 1 Canadian, with a total of 1 million men, 567,000 tons of supplies, and 172,000 vehicles. The Allies still felt that the landing beachhead was too narrow and continued to expand the landing grounds. In order to ensure that the US army could launch a large-scale armored force in the future and obtain a favorable starting position for the offensive, the US 1st Army immediately moved south without stopping after capturing Cherbourg.

On July 3, 1944, the Allies concentrated 14 divisions and launched a fierce attack on about 7 German divisions in front of the landing field. Because of the large swamps and hedged terrain characteristic of Normandy, which were easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the weather was not good, the air force could not be deployed, so the progress was slow, and it only advanced 6.4 kilometers in five days, while the casualties were as high as 5,000. After seven days of bloody fighting, 5,000 casualties were paid to advance 4.8 kilometers. The casualties were so large that the main reason was that the road of advance was swampy on both sides, and only 1 division could be deployed to crush the stubborn resistance of the German army on the road full of ** and obstacles.

On July 6, 1944, the 3rd Army of the U.S. Army, which was directly under the command of the Allied High Command, with extremely strong mobility and assault power, set foot on the European continent under the leadership of the brave and combative Patton.

On July 8, 1944, the rest of the German front collapsed, Li Ming's revolutionary army began a counterattack, Normandy, the Allies had lost 3 million dead and wounded, the British and French fighters lost 7,000 aircraft, the navy was heavily damaged by the Northern Revolutionary Army, and the coalition army basically collapsed, on July 12, the 20th division of the police car unit, plus 17 bomber brigades, launched a fierce bombardment of the port headquarters of the coalition army, 150 warships were sunk, more than half of the commanders of the coalition army were killed, and the rest were killed by the infantry, On the 12th, the German army and the Northern Army formulated a battle plan codenamed the Extermination Plan, a biological and chemical unit of 60,000 people was dispatched, and encountered polar bears in the north, followed by a fierce fierce battle, the Soviet army was attacked by poison gas bombs, killed and wounded 140,000, and the pursuing Soviet troops were then bombed by the Flying Eagle Brigade and three tank divisions were blown into scrap metal.

The 3rd Brigade of the U.S. Cavalry was attacked by bacteriological bombs and suffered heavy casualties, and the British Eighth Army to the west was surrounded by the 1st and 2nd Fronts of the police force, and the police force lost a division, and the British Eighth Army was completely annihilated.

The 1 million Allied troops who landed on August 15 were basically wiped out, and the Allied forces lost 3 million troops in Normandy, more than 4 million on land, more than 40,000 Japanese allied troops, and 8 more police forces.

Finland that surrendered on August 16 was attacked by the German-Chinese coalition forces, and on the 17th, the Flying Eagle Brigade bombed Finland, and began to cultivate a puppet regime, tanks opened the way, Japanese allied army trucks, motorcycles with machine guns, began to strafe, a large number of police arrested on the street, and slowly became a bloody suppression, Hitler ordered the arrest of 2 million people and sent them back to the concentration camp, and killed more than 10 people in the battle.

Then Warsaw began to log back in, and the Germans regained control of iron ore and oil, and as they did, they arrested 3 million people on charges of anti-German, anti-Japanese, and anti-Chinese elements.