The Allied air raids on France destroyed a total of 50 railway junctions, severely damaged 25 railway junctions, blew up 74 bridges, blew up 18 of the 24 bridges on the Seine, blew up 1,500 of the 2,000 locomotives in France, blew up 16,000 train cars, and caused a 62% drop in rail traffic.

On May 26, all rail traffic from Paris to the coastal areas was completely interrupted, and coastal areas such as Normandy became completely "islands" without railways. The Germans had to replace it with car transport, but during the day, under the heavy attack of the Allied air forces, it was simply not possible to organize effective transport.

It was precisely this air blockade that greatly affected the German army's construction of coastal defense fortifications due to the lack of steel bars, cement, and other raw materials, and forced the German army to divert the 26,000 laborers originally used to build coastal defense fortifications to rush to repair the railway, so that the progress of coastal defense fortifications was very slow and never met the predetermined requirements.

Li Mo didn't pay attention to other areas, he could do whatever he could, but in the Normandy area, no matter how the Allies bombed, there were always countless trucks at night to send all kinds of building materials and all kinds of supplies, for which Li Mo mobilized more than 10,000 trucks.

After paralyzing the railway and road communications in northern France, the Allies established two more air blockades, focusing on blocking the reinforcements of the German Fifteenth Army. The second stage, which began in late May, consisted mainly of blockading the Seine and Loire rivers and preventing German reinforcements from crossing them. During this phase, the Allies flew 30,000 sorties and dropped 60,000 tons of bombs.

Under such circumstances, it was impossible for Li Mo to reinforce the German troops on the Atlantic barrier line, and on the surface, the Allies had completely achieved the set tactical objectives, and they not only caused serious difficulties for the German army to resupply, but also greatly restricted the movement of the German army, unable to maneuver during the day, and carried out covert air defense all day long. During the night due to the disruption of the railway. Roads have been destroyed in many places, and due to the lack of trucks and other means of transport, many troops can only march on foot or by bicycle or animal power vehicle, and the pace is extremely slow. This will seriously affect the performance of the German army's combat effectiveness.

Moreover, in reconnaissance versus counter-reconnaissance battles. It was precisely because of the excellent performance of the Allied fighter forces. German planes were completely prevented from reconnoitring and harassing the Allied landing force in the area where the landing force was concentrated, and the Germans flew 525 sorties in six weeks, most of which were forcefully intercepted. Only a very small number of them flew to the British Isles, but they were unable to conduct reconnaissance when they were chased by Allied fighters, depriving the Germans of aerial reconnaissance, the most important source of intelligence.

The Allied navy and air force also carried out a joint offensive and minelaying off the French coast from April 17, 1941, and before the landing, a total of 2 minelayers and 6 torpedo boat detachments were dispatched under the cover of the air force to lay as many as 6,859 mines to blockade the port between Emuiden in the Netherlands and Brest in France, so as to prevent a possible sortie by the German navy. Now it is impossible for the German Navy to go to the English Channel to help, and the Allies have made meticulous preparations for the landing.

In early May 1941, the Allies organized their last large-scale joint exercises, under the command of British Admiral Ramsay, commander of the Allied Navy. The exercise was held at the training base of the US military, and except that it did not cross the strait, all other aspects were the same as actual combat.

The exercise was very successful, and after the exercise, the officers briefed the soldiers on the combat situation under strict secrecy measures, first explaining the tasks of their units and the landing position, and then combined with the photos of the landing beachhead and the sand table model, explaining the specific tasks, how to clear the mines, how to solve the German firing points, and which places to occupy.

With such an introduction, the soldiers fully understood their tasks in battle, and through training they mastered the methods of coping, so that they were confident in the landing battle, neither strange nor afraid.

The Allied forces paid more attention to the training of airborne troops, but the high-ranking generals of the Allied forces had different opinions on airborne operations, and some advocated the implementation of airborne parachuting in depth to contain the German reserves; Some advocated scattering and landing near the shallow rear of the beach to carry out a large-scale attack.

Others, such as the commander of the Allied Air Force, Admiral Mallory, believed that the airborne operation would suffer serious casualties, and simply advocated the cancellation of the airborne. Eisenhower believed that behind Normandy Beach was a swamp with only a few passable roads, and that if they could not be controlled in time, the landing force would be trapped on the beach, and that the German armored forces were deployed in shallow and deep depths, and that if they could not occupy key points to block them, the landing force would be in danger of being driven into the sea.

These two vital tasks, in turn, must be completed at the same time as the landing, which only the Airborne Forces can do. Therefore, Eisenhower decided to use all the Allied airborne forces in Europe - three airborne divisions to seize key areas to cooperate with the landing at sea, even if it was necessary to pay a huge price.

It is precisely for this reason that he paid great attention to the combat training of this airborne unit, which was tasked with arduous but important tasks, and adopted a special training method:

First of all, according to the topography of the planned airborne area, a certain scale of three-dimensional models is created, and the real scene of the simulated aircraft flying over is filmed, and the airborne troops are first shown a black-and-white film during training, and then a blue filter is added to simulate the scene under the moonlight, so that the airborne troops are familiar with and understand the airborne area, and each airborne soldier is required to use the map and sand table model to clarify his own tasks, and also understand the missions of friendly neighbors;

secondly, it strengthens targeted training for aircraft identification and seizure of enemy positions; Finally, an actual combat exercise was conducted to test the combat plan and strengthen the coordinated exercise with the landing force. In order to ensure that the Airborne Forces had sufficient equipment to stop the German armored forces, the Airborne Forces were also strengthened with anti-tank grenades, mines and rocket launchers.

In view of the fact that the first batch of landing troops amounted to 176,000 men and were engaged in combat from the air and sea, the troops were not only trained in the routine landing warfare, such as boarding, sailing, transferring, and landing by surprise, but also particularly strengthened the coordinated operations of the navy, army, and air force, so as to avoid the recurrence of the incident of accidental injuries caused by fratricidal killing during the landing in Sicily.

Pre-war reconnaissance, the Allies began as early as March 1941. Since neither the French Resistance nor Allied agents had access to the landing beaches and therefore no relevant information, aerial reconnaissance became the most important source of intelligence.

From April 1 to June 6, 1941 alone, the Allies flew as many as 45,000 sorties to conduct extensive aerial photographic reconnaissance of northern France, obtaining relatively comprehensive and systematic intelligence. In addition to aircraft, the Allies also used pocket submarines and torpedo boats to go to the landing area at night to gather comprehensive information on hydrology, geology, meteorology, vegetation, and German deployment.

In order to confuse the Germans, the Allies also conducted aerial reconnaissance of the Calais area and a reconnaissance of the beaches of pocket submarines, in which the group that conducted reconnaissance on the beaches of Calais was captured by the Germans on May 17, 1941, further reinforcing the illusion that Calais was a landing area.

Although the Allies obtained a lot of information through reconnaissance by various means, due to various reasons, they were still unable to obtain some important information, which had a certain impact on future operations.

…… (To be continued.) )u