The Allies also carried out large-scale psychological warfare, in addition to using BBC broadcasts to demoralize the German army and inspire the people of the occupied territories, especially the "Troop News", which regularly airdropped to the German army from April 25, 1941 to report the latest military news and domestic news in Germany, which further shook the morale of the German army.

Meteorology is one of the important guarantees for the smooth implementation of landing operations, so in early May 1941, the Allied High Command appointed Colonel Colonel of the British Air Force and Professor of Meteorology Stagg as the chief meteorological adviser, responsible for leading a meteorological team to report meteorological conditions to the High Command twice a week, and from May 20 onwards it was changed to twice a day to report meteorological conditions. From 29 May to 2 June, Stag reported storms on 5 June, the scheduled landing day, and these reports were worrying for all members of the High Command.

On June 3, the longest-ranging U-formation began to board and depart as planned, and the weather forecast was for strong winds on June 5, so Eisenhower decided to postpone the landing by 24 hours and recalled the U-formation that had already departed. On June 4, the English Channel was stormy, and at 21:30 p.m., the scientists of the meteorological group carefully analyzed that there would be a period of good weather lasting about 12 hours after June 5, followed by severe weather with violent storms and rains.

At this time, Eisenhower, as commander-in-chief, was faced with a difficult choice: whether to land on June 6? If the landing is initiated, the follow-up troops may not be able to land due to bad weather after the landing of the first echelon, and the troops who go ashore will be isolated and helpless;

If the landfall is canceled, then there will be no suitable tides and moonshine until June 18, two weeks later. This will lead to a drop in morale, a chaotic organization of the troops, and more importantly, a secret that will not be kept. That's unimaginable! After some thought, Eisenhower ordered the longest-range U-formation to set off first, and the final order was to be given in the early hours of June 5, when the U-formation would return or continue on according to this order.

In the early hours of June 5, Stagg reaffirmed that there would be a brief period of good weather on June 6, and Eisenhower consulted with the rest of the command, and everyone agreed to land on June 6. Eisenhower pondered for a moment, some recalling two minutes, others four minutes. In the end, he firmly ordered the landing to be launched on June 6. -- It was precisely the accurate meteorological support that helped the commander-in-chief make a difficult choice.

Adequate supplies. Realistic combat exercises, extensive pre-war reconnaissance, accurate meteorological support, made all the senior commanders of the Allied forces hopeful for the victory of the Normandy landings. and so on once the incomparably powerful Allied forces landed in France. That's the result of pushing all the way. Hitler's demise was imminent.

The Normandy landings were a strategic amphibious landing on the mainland, and landing on the beachhead was not a sign of victory. Due to the relatively large depth of the continent, even if you get on the beachhead. The defending side can also bring in reserves from elsewhere to organize a counterattack and drive the landing side into the sea.

The Germans could rely on their quick reactions, swift maneuvers, and resolute counterattacks to suppress the landing Allied forces on the narrow landing beachhead, and without the strong naval and air support of the Allied forces, they would not even be able to hold the beachhead in the projectile land.

The German army in France was very good in terms of reaction and combat effectiveness, and the railways and highways in France were very developed, so the Allies certainly knew very well what kind of resistance they would encounter. Therefore, the key to the success or failure of the Normandy landing lies in withstanding the German counterattack in the first two weeks of the landing and establishing a unified and consolidated landing field.

However, before the Allies occupied the large port, they could only transport 12 to 15 divisions, including 1 to 2 armored divisions, and ensure the supply of food, oil, and ammunition for these troops.

On the other hand, the Germans, although only 6 divisions were deployed in Normandy, could transfer 25 to 30 divisions from all over the country in three days, of which 7 to 8 armored divisions were used for counterattack. With such a large force compared to the inferiority, the Allies had almost no chance of victory.

In other words, victory was only possible if German reinforcements were prevented from reaching Normandy. In order to achieve the goal of preventing German reinforcements, the Allies adopted a two-pronged approach, on the one hand, using a powerful air force to bomb railway and road targets in northwestern France, blocking communications to Normandy, so that German reinforcements could not reach.

On the other hand, it was to carry out strategic deception and camouflage to convince the German high command that after the Normandy landing, there would be another bigger landing, so it did not transfer reinforcements to Normandy. -- This strategic deception was the most secretive part of the Normandy landings, and only some of it was made public in the declassified archives 50 years later, and some of it was only speculated and imagined by future generations.

In February 1941, Lieutenant General Morgan, deputy chief of staff of the Allied High Command, proposed that deception and secrecy measures be developed to ensure the success of the landing. Codenamed Jay, the program involved the British Military Intelligence, the Special Operations Bureau, the Counterintelligence Service, the Double Cross Commission, the Political Warfare Enforcement Service, the U.S. Strategic Intelligence Agency (the predecessor of the CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Allied Army, Navy, and Air Force Intelligence.

The core department is the London Office of Overseers, which is located at 2 Great George Street, the seat of Churchill's wartime cabinet, and is responsible for formulating and implementing strategic deception and reconnaissance operations, and coordinating the British and Allied intelligence services to organize major operations.

Now it has become the organization of strategic deception in the Normandy landings. The motto is witty, cunning and sophisticated, and the coat of arms is a statue of the half-human, half-sheep god of agriculture and animal husbandry, Saturn, an elf in ancient Roman mythology who specializes in making waves. The current Chief of Division is Lieutenant Colonel John of the British Army? Bivan, whose nickname is the Head of Scams. Although his position and rank were not high, he had a lot of authority, and even Churchill and Roosevelt sometimes had to arrange activities or make statements in accordance with his request.

The scope of this strategic deception, the ingenuity of its conception, and the difficulty of this deception are unimaginable.

In March 1941, Project Jay was renamed Project Guardian. Its purpose was twofold: first, to induce the German army to disperse throughout Europe through various means, so as to reduce the German defenders in France, especially in the Normandy area, to a minimum.

The second was to convince the German high command that the Normandy landings were only a feint aimed at inducing the Germans to commit to reserve forces prematurely, so as to create conditions for the next larger-scale main attack.

The latter purpose is the core content of the "Defender" plan, and this content cannot directly fall into the hands of the German army, but must be reversed in an indirect way, so that the German army has spent a lot of effort to obtain such a star and a half, and then according to such clues, it will analyze, reason, and generalize, and draw erroneous conclusions that are in line with the hopes of the Allies.

After listening to Beavan's plan, Allied Supreme Commander Eisenhower wrote an instruction saying "I like all this" and sent Colonel Wilder, director of the "Special Means Committee", a deception expert of the Supreme Command, to fully assist Beavan in his entirety.

In order to achieve the first purpose of the "Defender" plan, that is, to disperse the German army, Bivan implemented the "Zeppelin" plan in southern Europe: At the beginning of 1941, the German army was repelled by the Soviet army for more than 300 kilometers in the winter counteroffensive of the Soviet army, and had approached Romania and Hungary. (To be continued......)