After arriving in Vienna, Edward flew to Munich on the 13th, where he met his wife and two children, who had fled Italy, and reappeared in Salou, northern Italy, on August 23. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Edward, with the support of Rommel, began to gather the old troops and fight back against the putschists, and finally Edward's troops and five or six German divisions advanced to Rome, the capital of Italy, and immediately expressed their support for Edward, and the putschists fled abroad when they saw that the general situation had gone.

The Anglo-American conspiracy collapsed, and their attempt to drag down the German army in Italy through a coup d'état in Italy had failed. However, the Anglo-American coup plot still had a certain impact on Rommel's subsequent strategic arrangement. Stalin, who was on the Eastern Front, was also under pressure from Britain and the United States, and mobilized more than two million troops for a major counteroffensive, and the Soviet-German direction was also fighting fiercely.

Britain and the United States also tried their best to land in France, and although they ultimately fell short, Italy was still firmly on Rommel's side, but this coup caused Rommel a lot of trouble.

Eddie was heroically welcomed in Vienna and Berlin, and he became an overnight celebrity. Radio stations across Europe were broadcasting news about the rescue, his name appeared in the newspapers in the largest bold font, and even Churchill mentioned Eddie's name in his speech to the House of Commons, saying that "it was a sign of bravery...... This undoubtedly shows that in modern warfare there are many such opportunities to show the bravery of people. ”

Although the rescue of Edward itself was not of great strategic importance to Germany, the German propaganda department was well aware of the enormous propaganda effect of the operation.

Under their vigorous play, Eddy became a household name in Germany, Goebbels was ready to send a film crew to the Great Sasso Mountain to reshoot the rescue process, and Eddie himself was promoted to colonel and awarded the Knight's Cross.

Operation Oak, the most daring rescue operation in the history of the German army, is known as the "devil's masterpiece"

Führer Rommel did not want to control Edward, but needed Edward and his followers to stabilize the situation in Italy and prevent the Italian coup d'état from containing the formation of the 23 German divisions deployed by Germany in northern Italy, because these 23 elite divisions would form a huge encirclement with the Maginot Line and the Ardennes Forest in the future.

Of course, these twenty-three divisions alone were not enough, and the German troops withdrawn from the southern coast of France had their foothold and replenishment point in the mountains of northern Italy.

This is an area that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the Germans have looted a lot of weapons and ammunition from Italy, so those German troops who have retreated from the coastal defense line can rest and replenish their weapons and ammunition here.

As for the soldiers, don't worry, the Italian SS is not something that the pro-British and American governments can control. The number of Italian SS soldiers who remained in Italy was not less than 200,000, except for those sent to fight in the Soviet Union, was not enough for the Germans to replenish the personnel lost in Normandy? It should be enough.

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As early as May 1941, Britain and the United States began to carry out strategic bombing, because Führer Rommel had deployed more than 4,000 planes on the German mainland, and the Allied forces did not achieve any success in the air attack plan to attack the German mainland, but lost a lot of aircraft.

However, there was no way for France's air supremacy, and Rommel did not want to fight with the Allies before the decisive battle, since the Allies wanted to bomb France, he let him bomb, which undoubtedly made the Allied bombing of France extremely smooth, of course, this also made the French hate the Anglo-American coalition even more.

In order to ensure air supremacy in the landing area, the Allies launched a fierce assault on 40 major German airfields within a radius of 200 kilometers from the landing site three weeks before landing, dispatching a total of 3,915 bomber sorties and dropping 6,700 tons of bombs, basically suppressing the Luftwaffe in the theater.

This gave the Allies complete air supremacy, and on the surface, the Luftwaffe lost the ability to organize an effective counterattack and could only carry out some small harassment.

In order to prevent the German reinforcements to Normandy, the Allies implemented an air blockade codenamed "transport operations", which was divided into two phases: the first stage was from early May to mid-August, the bombing of the French railway junction to completely block the communication lines in this area, the Allies flew 20,000 sorties in half a month, dropping 76,000 tons of bombs, of which more than 71,000 tons were used to attack the railway junction and 4,400 tons to attack the bridge.

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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 August 16, all rail traffic from Paris to the coastal areas was completely suspended, 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.

Rommel didn't pay attention to other areas, he could fix whatever he could, and Rommel ignored the Allied bombing of France, and the German planes deployed in France all returned to Germany after a little resistance.

But in the Normandy area, no matter how the Allies bombed, there were always countless trucks quietly delivering all kinds of building materials and supplies at night, for which Rommel 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 phase was mainly to blockade the Seine and Loire rivers to prevent German reinforcements from crossing these two rivers, and in this stage, the Allies made 30,000 sorties and dropped 60,000 tons of bombs.

Under these circumstances, it was impossible for Rommel to reinforce the German forces on the Atlantic rampart, and on the face of it, the Allies had achieved their tactical objectives completely, and they not only caused serious difficulties for the Germans to resupply, but also greatly limited the movement of German troops.

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Thank you brothers for monthly passes, recommendations, rewards, and thank you for falling leaves. (To be continued.) )