The Allied airborne troops were about 10 to 15 kilometers away from Normandy, and the distance between the two was less than 20 kilometers, and throughout the day, the Allied airborne troops were indeed very rampant, and once night fell, these four complete German armored divisions would teach these Allied paratroopers how to behave.

……

On 1 June, the first landing force began to assemble at 15 ports in southern Britain. The original plan was to set sail on June 3 and land on June 5. Due to bad weather, the landing was delayed for twenty-four hours. At 22 o'clock on 4 June, the U-formation, which had landed on Utah Beach with the farthest voyage, set sail first, and the other formations then set sail one after another as planned.

On 5 June, the landing formation began to cross the English Channel, and all the ships departing from 15 ports first met up in the south of the Isle of Wight, codenamed "Zone Z", and then divided into five formations and sailed along five safe lanes that had been cleared of mines to five beachheads.

During the voyage, the Allies dispatched a large number of anti-submarine aircraft and warships to carry out strict anti-submarine vigilance, and also sent 95 bombers and 375 fighter planes to serve as air cover. Thanks to the well-prepared and well-organized Allied forces, there were no losses during the entire crossing.

In fact, the main reason for the safe and smooth passage of the Allied forces was that bad weather helped a lot, and the German meteorologists were not able to accurately predict the short period of good weather on June 6 as accurately as the Allied Stagg meteorological team, and issued a weather forecast that would be stormy for several days, so that the German high command judged that it was impossible for the Allied forces to launch a landing in such weather. The German alert in the Normandy area was so low that even routine patrols by some aircraft and ships were canceled, leaving the Germans unaware of the Allied landing formations.

At 2:30 a.m. on 6 June, the huge landing fleet arrived at the transfer zone 11 nautical miles from the French coast, and the soldiers descended from the transport ship along the rope net to the landing craft, which then formed a boat wave and slashed at the landing beachhead. The landing time varies depending on the tide of each beachhead, with the earliest being 6:30 a.m. at Utah Beachhead and the latest being 8:00 a.m. at Juno Beachhead.

Preparations for fire began at midnight on June 5, with the first batch of about 1,000 heavy bombers dropping about 5,000 tons of bombs on targets such as German communications hubs, command centers, and coastal artillery positions. A second group of about 1,600 medium bombers dropped about 4,200 tons of bombs on German defensive positions at 5 o'clock on June 6. A total of 2,775 sorties were made during these two aviation fire preparations. 9276 tons of bombs were dropped. On the front of the landing, an average of about 96 tons of bombs were dropped per kilometer. The third group of fighters mainly used low-altitude strafing to directly cover the landing craft and seize the beach.

At 5:30 a.m., a naval artillery fire support fleet consisting of 7 battleships, 24 cruisers, 74 destroyers, and 2 shallow-water gunboats prepared for 40 minutes of fierce naval artillery fire on the 80-kilometer landing front. And when the landing craft approached the coast, the fire of the naval guns began to extend to fire support. Direct fire preparation was then undertaken by artillery landing craft and rocket artillery landing craft among the landing craft. Shooting continued at the landing beachhead. Cover the landing craft to rush to the beach. The whole process of preparing for fire, intensive, violent. Lasting, basically suppressing the German firepower, creating conditions for the landing force to go to land smoothly.

Utah Beach is a 14.5-kilometer-long stretch of beach on the east coast of the Cotontan Peninsula from south of Quinneville to the north of the mouth of the Carentan River, it is a sand slope with a small slope, the Germans have several obstacles on the sand slope, behind the sand slope is a dry sandy beach, and then a sand dune 90 to 180 meters wide, the Germans have built concrete fortresses on the sand dunes, and behind the beach are swamps ranging from 1.5 to 3 kilometers wide, only a few roads are passable, and the US 101st Airborne Division wants to capture four of them. The Germans deployed 28 artillery batteries in depth, 8 of which were concealed in the fortifications of the bunker, with a total of 111 guns, the largest caliber of which was 210 mm among the 111 guns.

Landing here was the 4th Division of the 7th Army of the United States, the commander of which was Brigadier General Roosevelt Jr., the youngest son of President Roosevelt, and the U-formation under the command of Rear Admiral Moon transported the division. Arriving at the transfer area at 30 a.m. on 6 June, the transfer began at 4:05 a.m., and the soldiers climbed from the transport ship to the landing craft along the rope net. In order to ensure uninterrupted fire support for the landing force, eight tank landing craft were arranged in the first wave, carrying a total of 32 amphibious tanks.

Due to the strong wind and waves, the tank landing craft arrived at the intended launch of the tank half an hour later than planned, and if the slower amphibious tank was still launched as planned, it would have arrived at the beach later than planned, and the role of providing timely fire support would have been lost. So the commander on the command boat decided to let the tank landing craft continue sailing until it was only 1 nautical mile from the coast before launching the tank.

At 5:05 a.m., the German shore guns began to fire at the Allied minesweepers, and at 5:25 p.m., the Allied naval guns fired back 25 minutes earlier than planned, and then about 300 B-26 bombers flew in to drop about 1,000 tons of bombs on the German positions, and then the "Spitfire" planes arrived to provide calibration for the naval guns' firepower, and at 6:10 a.m. they released smoke to cover the landing craft to seize the beach. Unexpectedly, one of the planes that were emitting smoke was shot down, causing a gap in the smoke to appear, which just exposed the destroyer "Corey" and immediately became the target of concentrated bombardment by German shore artillery.

The landing craft were affected by a strong southeasterly tide, which moved the beach to about 1,800 meters south of the expected landing point, an accident that brought unexpected good fortune to the Allies: there was a German regiment at the intended landing point, and two artillery batteries could suppress the beach with firepower. The actual landing site of the Germans was only one company, and the defense was weak. General Roosevelt immediately ordered this place to be used as a landing point, and also erected a huge sign to mark the landing point. The underwater blasting team quickly cleared the passage.

At 6:30 a.m., the landing force went ashore, at 8:30 a.m., the first echelon vanguard regiment broke through the German defense line and advanced inland, at 9:30 a.m., the regimental landing field was initially established, and at 10 a.m., the strength of two regiments had been landed, basically clearing the German defenders in this area, the 709th Division, plus the airborne troops had seized four roads, ensuring the rapid advance of the landing force.

By sunset, all three regiments of the 4th Division had landed, with a total of 21,328 men, 1,742 vehicles, and 1,695 tons of supplies, and a consolidated divisional landing field with a frontage of 4 kilometers wide and 9 kilometers deep, and the vanguard had reached the road from Carentin to Saint-Meyr and joined the Airborne Forces. On D-Day, the 4th Division suffered only 197 casualties, 10 percent of the projected casualties, and the losses were minimal, the smoothest and smallest of the five Allied beachheads.

…… (To be continued......)

PS: Acknowledgements:

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