At 22 o'clock on the evening of July 7, the Allied airborne assault guidance group took the lead in the operation - 26 transport planes, each carrying an airborne guidance group of 13 people, were airborne from a height of 150 meters in their respective predetermined areas.

At 3 o'clock in the morning of the 8th, the first wave of airborne troops of the three divisions of the Allied First Airborne Army, about 17,000 people, took off from three airfield groups in Britain 200-250 kilometers away from the airborne area by more than 1,200 transport planes, and headed for Normandy......

At 5 o'clock in the morning, 1,136 aircraft of the British Royal Air Force carried out air strikes on the German coastal artillery positions between Le Havre and Cherbourg, and 1,083 bombers of the US 8th Air Force began to strike at German coastal fortifications.

At 5:30 a.m., the Allied surface fire support ships, five naval artillery fire support groups consisting of seven battleships, two shallow gunboats, 24 cruisers, and 74 destroyers, began to carry out a naval artillery fire attack on the 80-kilometer landing front off the coast of Normandy.

At 6 o'clock, a huge fleet of more than 6,000 ships of the Allied navy advanced toward Normandy, and many landing ships, under the cover of minesweepers, bypassed the reef and broke through the dangerous shoals, gradually approaching the beachhead.

At 6:30 a.m., Li Junhao, commander-in-chief of the landing operation on the amphibious command ship, issued an order: The beach-grabbing operation has begun!

The Navy's landing fleet was organized into two task forces, the western and the eastern:

Task Force West, commanded by U.S. Rear Admiral Kirk, was responsible for transporting the 1st Army to the west on the Utah and Omaha beachheads;

The Eastern Task Force was commanded by British Rear Admiral Vian, and was responsible for transporting the 3rd and 5th Armies to the east at the three beachheads of Gold, Junot, and Sword.

The Allied Expeditionary Force was keeping an eye on the battlefield situation, and the Command's war staff was constantly reporting on the situation at the front, while two special communications teams sent these reports to 10 Downing Street and the White House in the United States...... It can be said that this largest landing battle in the history of the world has attracted the attention of the whole world at this time!

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At 6:45 p.m., the Western Task Force, which was composed entirely of American ships, first arrived at the shores of Utah and Omaha and began to strictly implement the latest combat plan formulated under the auspices of Commander-in-Chief Pan Sen.

First, 4 battleships, 10 cruisers, 30 destroyers were the first to join the shelling;

Then, the 9th Air Force of the US Tactical Air Force, which had completed the escort mission in the Strait, took over the 8th Air Force, which had run out of ammunition, and continued to attack the German defensive positions on the coast;

At this time, the 280 auxiliary warships of various types in the fleet began to fly 350 armed attack Huey helicopters, which were low-altitude strike forces accompanying the offensive of the land, sea and ground forces;

More than 1,700 landing ships began to move forward, large landing ships released amphibious tanks and combat vehicles, and small and medium-sized ships began to speed up and rush to the beach......

Faster than the small landing craft, the latest equipment brought by the naval and land forces themselves - small high-speed armored speedboats, these small guys with a displacement of only 25 tons, but equipped with two twin 25mm rapid-fire cannons, their task is to cover the small landing craft with weak protection capabilities, and suppress the beachhead at close range......

This is the beach-grabbing landing tactic formulated by Li Junhao, using the three-dimensional space combat method to destroy, contain, suppress, and prevent all defenders' counterattacks! ——

A little later, the Eastern Task Force also arrived at the designated position and began to execute the landing plan, and it did well!

The flotilla consisted mainly of British warships, with a total of 3 battleships, 13 cruisers, 30 destroyers, 302 other warships, 2426 landing ships, with air cover provided by the 2nd Air Force of the British Tactical Air Force.

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The course of the Normandy landing operation exceeded everyone's expectations - the speed was fast, the casualties were small, the progress was large, the speed and results were far beyond expectations, and the landing combat capability of the sea and land shocked all the generals!

In the three and a half years since the plan was formulated, revised, supplemented, and perfected, the "Overlord" battle plan has been very perfect, and the final official version alone has more than 3,500 pages of documentation, and various scenarios for the landing have been planned......

The most optimistic of these is to capture five beachheads within 24 hours and advance 10 miles inland to establish an initial landing site......

On the twelfth day of the campaign (in actual history, from June 6 to August 25, it took 81 days) to expand the landing field to a frontal depth of 100 kilometers so that the subsequent nearly 3 million army forces could land on the European continent!

But now the actual result is that in only 15 hours, the first wave of marines who landed captured all the beachheads, advanced 130 kilometers inland, and built a huge landing field, which exceeded the task!

Before the war, the commanders and staff of the Allied forces agreed that the most difficult place to capture was Omaha Beach, because the beachhead here was less than 200 meters wide, and there was no shelter on the beach, there was no breakwater, and it was the easiest place to defend and difficult to attack......

In the previous life, the impact of the "Bloody Battle of Omaha" in the Normandy landing campaign was too great, and there were countless materials, film and television works, and Li Junhao knew it well for a long time!

Shortly before the war, under the inspection and guidance of Rommel, the German garrison built three reinforced concrete barriers in the shallow water in front of Omaha Beach on the basis of the original defensive facilities, and laid mines between the obstacles; A large number of forts and trenches were built on the coast capable of strafing the beachhead, and a large number of mines were laid on all the access routes for the possible landing of Allied forces......

In addition, Rommel also transferred the more combat-ready 352nd Motorized Infantry Division, one regiment of which guarded the Omaha beachhead, and two regiments were deployed in Bayeuux, a few miles from the beach, to support them at any time......

Thus, in the entire Western Front, Omaha became a real "Atlantic rampart"!

This information was not originally discovered by the reconnaissance department of the Allied forces, but at this time it was different, and the existence of Li Junhao made these situations transparent.

In the original history, the 1st Division of the U.S. Army and a reinforced regiment tasked with attacking Omaha Beach fought a bloody day with more than 3,000 casualties, 27 amphibious tanks and nearly 70 amphibious armored vehicles, and finally landed successfully and opened up a beachhead less than 2 miles deep.

This time, Li Junhao made full use of the resources at hand, dispatched the three strongest main brigades of the First Army of the Navy and Army to undertake the heavy task of attacking Omaha, and made special arrangements for its tactics and equipment to ensure that every detail was targeted, and did not give the defending German army a chance to counterattack!

(End of chapter)