556

After the start of the landing battle, command was transferred to the High Command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, which was headed by American General Dwight Brown. David. Eisenhower conducted. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The Normandy landing plan, codenamed the "Overlord" campaign plan, has been identified as the main attack plan, while the southern French landing plan, codenamed the "Dragoon" campaign plan, has been identified as an auxiliary attack plan for the Normandy landing.

The purpose of the "Dragoon" campaign plan was to respond to the landing force in Normandy, first clear the German army in southern France, and capture the port of Marseille, the largest seaport in France.

In this way, it can not only provide logistical supplies for the Anglo-American forces in the European theater, but also attack from south to north by taking advantage of the situation, forming a north-south flank attack on the German army in France.

According to Eisenhower's decision, the Normandy landings and the southern French landings should have taken place simultaneously.

Later, due to the huge scale of the Normandy landing plan, in order to ensure its implementation, it was necessary to prepare a large number of sea and air transports.

It would have been difficult to raise so many ships and aircraft for a time when a landing campaign at the army group level was to be carried out in southern France, so the "dragoon" landing plan was postponed until September 18, 1941, after the Normandy landing campaign.

The entire "Dragoon" landing campaign was planned to be organized and implemented by the US 7th Army. The 7th Army was led by Alexander? Lieutenant General Patch commanded.

It has 7 infantry divisions, 5 armored divisions, 1 motorized division and 1 airborne division from the United States, Britain and France, with a total of more than 1,000 tanks, more than 4,700 combat aircraft, more than 850 ships and a large number of transport vessels.

The target of the battle was the German 19th Army stationed in southern France, with a total of 8 infantry divisions, 1 tank division, more than 120 tanks, more than 200 aircraft, and more than 30 ships.

The Germans had a great shortage of personnel and equipment, their combat effectiveness was not strong, and many of the main forces had already withdrawn, and the Allies had an absolute advantage in terms of overall strength.

In particular, on the front line of the landing ground chosen by the Allies, about 90 kilometers from Saint-Rafal to the port of Toulon, the German 19th Army deployed only five battalions, and the coastal defense was very weak.

The "dragoon" landing plan stipulated that the Allied landing force would seize a landing ground west of Cannes with a frontage width of 90 kilometers and a depth of 25 kilometers, capture Toulon and Marseille, and then develop an offensive to the north.

When considering the battle plan, the commanders and staff officers of the 7th Army estimated that due to the weakness of the frontal German coastal defenses, after the landing campaign began, the German coastal troops might retreat in depth and resist layer by layer.

The German forces deep in France could also use the convenient roads and railways to support the coastal defense forces with rapid mobile forces.

Although the German forces in southern France were already weaker due to the transfer of some of them to Normandy, it was quite possible that they would carry out a fierce counterattack against the wide Allied landing grounds.

How can we effectively stop the retreat of the German coastal defense forces, and at the same time stop the counterattack of the German inland troops on the landing site? This is indeed a problem that is very nerve-wracking for staff officers.

If a force could preemptively capture the road and rail transport hubs in the depth of the landing site, the problem would have become much simpler, and such a difficult task, of course, would have been best accomplished by the airborne troops, and the "Dragoon" airborne task force was born.

The staff officers had planned a division-sized airborne operation, but several Allied paratroopers and glider units in the Mediterranean were scattered at the time, and in the Normandy area, the three main Allied airborne divisions had suffered a devastating blow and were still being rebuilt.

The commander of the 7th Army, General Patch, took great pains to bring together the scattered airborne troops and formally form an airborne division (tentatively formed airborne task force) for use in the "Dragoon" landing campaign. Major General Frederick served.

The airborne task force was a mixed group of Americans, British, French, and even Japanese-Americans.

It included two companies of the 509th Paratrooper Regiment, the 517th Regiment, the 1st Battalion of the 551st Regiment, the 550th Glider Infantry Regiment and the 463rd Artillery Regiment, as well as the 2nd Brigade of the British Separate Paratroopers, the 1st Regiment of the French Paratroopers, two 75-mm artillery battalions and 1 anti-tank artillery battery.

The airborne contingent was accompanied by more than 400 transport aircraft and more than 500 gliders. Major General Frederick commanded directly.

Allied naval support was provided, including the French battleship Lorraine, the British battleship Lamiy, and the American battleships Texas, Nevada, and Arkansas, as well as more than 50 cruisers and destroyers. Seven Allied escort aircraft carriers, as well as land-based fighters based in Corsica, will provide air cover.

More than 94,000 soldiers and 11,000 vehicles landed on the first day of the operation, and many German troops had already retreated, and several battalions of German troops on the beachhead only slightly resisted and ran quickly, which made the Allied "Dragoon Operation" extremely smooth.

The landing was quickly victorious, and within 24 hours 20 miles inland, the 20,000 German troops defending Paris, under Rommel's orders, immediately retreated to the edge of the Ardennes Forest at night and settled at the fortress of Liège.

Located at the confluence of the Meuse and Urte rivers, bordering the Dutch border to the north and the Ardennes Forest to the south, the Liège Fortress was the choke point for the German army to attack France through Belgium.

There are 12 forts built around the fortress, the circumference of the annular fort group is more than 50 kilometers, the forts are separated by 3~6 kilometers, 400 guns of various kinds are deployed, and each fort is built with a thickness of 2.5~3 meters of reinforced concrete permanent fortifications. The Fortress of the Sun was a very famous large fortress during the First World War, on a par with the fortress of Namur.

Immediately after the landing, the Allied forces were reorganized into the U.S. 6th Army, the U.S. 7th Army, the French B Corps (later renamed the "French 1st Army"), the 1st and 2nd Armies, and the 51st Logistics Medical Corps.

The two Allied armies began a pincer offensive and attacked Paris, France, which was already an empty city without a single German soldier to defend it, and they had taken over Paris on September 20.

The Allies recaptured the French capital without firing a single shot, and Eisenhower immediately held a grand entrance ceremony for the sake of propaganda and morale.

The enthusiasm of the French people, who were on good terms with Germany, immediately showed their enthusiasm for the Anglo-American forces, and they poured into the streets to warmly welcome the Allied forces that had liberated them, perhaps it was the nature of the French!

But a very unfortunate thing befell some French women, that is, all the French women who had had affairs with German officers, were arrested.

In the eyes of France and the Allies, the German fascists had been defeated, France had been recovered, and the people did not forget the humiliation of the country when they celebrated the victory.

So after driving out the Germans, they vented their revenge on the women who had lost their integrity: they shaved their heads, stripped their underwear, smeared their bodies with tar, performed Nazi salutes, and then were paraded naked in the streets.

(This is true, and it is not a leaf fiction.) Discussion: When a country is defeated, should the army and the government bear the responsibility for this defeat, or should it be borne by the women of the enemy-occupied areas) (To be continued). )