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Historically, the German army was not only weak, but there were always differences among high-ranking generals about the policy of resisting the landing. Field Marshal Rundstead, commander-in-chief of the Western Front, advocated the deployment of the main forces in depth and the use of counterattack tactics to resist the landing;

Field Marshal Rommel, commander of Army Group B, advocated deploying the main forces on the beachhead and relying on beach fortifications to annihilate the enemy on the beachhead. In the end, they had to adopt a compromise approach, with part of the troops deployed on the beachhead and part of the troops in depth, which could not form a superior force whether on the beachhead or in depth, and could neither prevent the landing of the Allied forces on the beachhead nor organize a counterattack. Lay the groundwork for future failures.

More seriously, due to the disagreement between the two men on the use of armored forces, Hitler was furious and transferred the four elite armored divisions of the mobile forces of the Western Front, which were originally under the command of Rommel, to the command of the Supreme Command, a decision that actually deprived the generals of the Western Front of the command of the armored forces, and deprived Rommel of the most terrifying counterattack force of the Allies, and in this case he could not be defeated.

Because of the resurrection of the British fleet, and the addition of the American fleet, although the German Navy took the initiative several times to attack the Allied transport ships, the result was heavy losses, and the submarines suffered the same heavy losses because of the British invention of sonar.

Since then, the Allied forces have won a complete victory in the anti-submarine escort in the Atlantic, ensuring that a large number of supplies and personnel transported from the United States to Britain can safely cross the Atlantic. Britain was almost a large barracks with nearly three million troops from eleven countries, and every airfield was full of planes. Every port was crowded with ships. According to incomplete statistics, more than 5.3 million tons of various materials were transported from the United States to Britain.

Of all the materiel, the most important was the landing craft, and in order to guarantee a sufficient number of them, the Allies not only delayed the landing by a month. In disregard of the Navy's strong opposition, Marshall, chief of the US Army General Staff, transferred a batch of landing craft from the Pacific Theater, and was able to scrape together enough landing craft.

In order to fill the gap between the firepower of the naval guns and the landing of the troops, the Allies creatively loaded artillery and multiple rocket launchers onto the landing craft and converted them into fire support boats, which accompanied the landing craft to attack. Provides uninterrupted fire support.

For a quick breakthrough of German minefields and defensive positions. Major General Hobart, a tank expert in the British army, proposed to develop special tanks and form special armored units to land before the landing of sappers to suppress German firepower. Clearing mined areas. Destroy obstacles. Act as a trailblazer.

Chief of the British General Staff Allen? General Brooke approved his proposal and tasked him with the specifics. After several months of hard work, Hobart has successfully developed a variety of special tanks, such as amphibious tanks, "rotoral" tanks for paving roads, mine-sweeping tanks, Spitfire tanks, bridge-building tanks, and engineer assault vehicles. And trained a group of special tank drivers, on the basis of which the British army formed the 79th Panzer Division and appointed Hobart as the division commander. The division conducted exercises on Norfolk Beach in England, which resembles Normandy, and the results were remarkable.

The British army invited the US military to watch the exercise, but Bradley, the commander of the US 1st Army, did not recognize the important role of these special tanks and did not purchase special tanks. As a result, in the face of the same strong German fortifications, the British landed smoothly, and the American troops suffered heavy casualties, for which Bradley was criticized by many people after the war.

Of all the preparations, the biggest project is the artificial port. It was in charge of British Rear Admiral Tennant. A total of two artificial harbors were built, codenamed Mulberry A and Mulberry B. First, 146 hollow concrete caissons, each 61 meters long, were built in eight different sizes depending on the depth of the sea water at the sinking site, with a minimum displacement of 1,772 tons and a maximum displacement of 6,044 tons. The caisson contained a crew compartment, as well as 2 anti-aircraft guns. There is a floating tank that can be floated, and there is a sea valve to sink it, which can be sunk to the designated position in more than ten minutes after opening.

The caisson will not be able to propel itself, so it will be towed across the strait by a tugboat and sunk on the 5.5-metre isobath one nautical mile offshore, forming a breakwater about 9,000 metres long. The caissons required a total of 600,000 tons of concrete and 3,100 tons of steel to build, and the construction time was only half a year, almost exceeding the capacity of British industry after four years of war, but Britain did everything in its power to complete the project, with 500 officers, 1,000 soldiers, more than 20,000 workers and many shipbuilding units involved.

Of the 146 caissons, 57 were built in the only eight dry docks, 41 were built on floating docks and slipways, and the remaining 41 were nowhere to be built, and in a hurry, Tennant dug 12 deep pits near the River Thames, then built the foundation of the caissons in the pits, and then filled the pits with water to complete the rest of the construction in a floating state. Secondly, 23 straight piers were built for vehicles from landing ships to drive directly to the beach.

The pier is made up of 61 meters long, 17 meters wide, 18.4 meters high and 5,000-ton steel tanks with a displacement of 5,000 tons. Finally, in view of the strong winds and waves in the English Channel in May and June, it was decided to sink three old warships and 56 old merchant ships outside the concrete caisson breakwater, and moored a number of 61-meter-long cross-shaped steel components about half a nautical mile outside the wreck, and anchored them in two columns to the 18-meter isobath to form a breakwater about 7,000 meters long.

In this way, the artificial port composed of caissons, straight wharves, wrecks and cross steel components, with an area of about five square kilometers, is a relatively complete wave-proof water, which can berth 7 large ships with a draft of 10 meters, 20 offshore transport ships, 400 tugboats and 1,000 small boats at the same time, and is expected to have a daily cargo throughput of 12,000 tons. Once the various components of the artificial harbour were built, up to 400 parts with a total weight of about 1.5 million tonnes would need to be transported from the construction site to the south of England for assembly and finally towed across the Channel by tugboats.

The entire project was finally completed in early June 1941, and it was in fact a complete seaport, the size of the British port of Dover, through which the Allies could unload all their supplies without taking the port.

In addition to the artificial port, the Allies also had a pioneering project - a submarine oil pipeline. This is due to the fact that a large number of mechanized troops will participate in the war after the landing, and the demand for fuel is huge, so in order to ensure the supply of fuel, the Allies have set up a special agency responsible for the submarine oil pipeline, which is also led by Tennant. A total of four mild steel pipes with diameters of 15 mm and 25 mm were laid, from the British shore to the moorings in the sea and then to the landing beachhead. It can deliver 600 tons of fuel oil per hour from the UK to the beachhead, which can basically meet the requirements.

For example, in view of the fact that the first airborne troops were composed of soldiers from several countries, and that at night, with different clothing, equipment, and language barriers, in order to solve the difficult problem of identifying friend from foe, the officers and men of the airborne forces were each given a "cricket" toy worth only a few cents, which was the size of a lighter, and made a "kaba" sound when pinched by hand. The identification method prescribed by the Allies was one "kaba" as an inquiry, two "kaba" as an answer, and a small toy of a few cents solved the big problem. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point () to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support, is my biggest motivation. For mobile phone users, please go to read. (To be continued......) R1292