What does Operation Overlord look like?
As early as July 18, 1941, Stalin raised the issue of opening a second battlefield in Europe to Churchill. Due to various reasons, it was not until 1943 that the Allies had the conditions to open a second battlefield. . But because attention at the time was still focused on North Africa, followed by a heavy attack on Sicily, Atlantic weather only allowed landings in the months before and after the summer. In this way, the leaders of the United States and Britain had to postpone the implementation of this action that determined the course of the war until the summer of 1944. In May 1943, the United Kingdom and the United States named the combat operation across the English Channel "Operation Overlord" at the "Trident" conference in Washington.
On June 4, 1944, the long-awaited Operation Overlord began. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the Allied Forces, issued a statement saying: "Under the cover of powerful air forces, the Allied navies began to Allied troops were sent to the north coast of France. "The day passed slowly, but it was never announced how many people landed. But gradually the location of their landing became known. Many landed near Caen, 65 miles southeast of Cherbourg. A German Gazette stated that the men landed at the mouth of the Seine. Four groups of liberation fighters were led by thousands of paratroopers. They jumped from C-47 transport planes, with ammunition and equipment strapped to their backs or chests. Some paratroopers would serve as infantry behind enemy lines. Others were engineers who would capture German airfields. If that fails, they will establish new landing airfields. More than 900 tractors and gliders from the Troop Transport Aircraft Command of the 9th Air Force Division sent the first batch of soldiers ashore. The attacking troops waded through the last few yards of water to the beach, carrying weapons and military equipment on their backs and soaked with seawater and sweat. Marching beside them were jeeps, cannons, and huge gasoline barrels. The third and fourth batch of liberation fighters are scheduled to arrive tonight and tomorrow. As the Germans fortified their defenses, the soldiers faced a tougher fight, and just as Eisenhower and another commander had predicted, the Nazis began to retaliate. As expected, 2 to 3 percent of Allied aircraft were shot down. The Germans increased their searchlights, and 20mm cannons were brought in to deal with the troops one after another. Machine guns formed the Nazis' primary ground defense weapon, but some of their combat tools were primitive. Union forces discovered numerous sharpened wooden stakes buried on the beach battlefield. Eisenhower addressed the people of Western Europe via radio on the morning of June 4, 1944. Most of what he said was addressed to the French, whom he admitted would bear the brunt of this joint attack. He praised their troops and then turned his attention to the French people, declaring: "Citizens of France! Since the first landings took place on your soil, I repeat my gratitude to the other occupied countries of Western Europe. The message of the people is to follow the instructions of your leaders. A premature insurrection by all Frenchmen at this critical moment will hinder the maximum assistance to your country. Be patient and prepare... This landing is only for the war in Western Europe. The beginning. A large-scale battle is still to come. I call on all freedom-loving people to stand with us."
In order to ensure the smooth progress of the campaign, the Allied forces stepped up their march from the British and American mainland through the Atlantic. The landing site transports troops and military supplies. Therefore, protecting lines of communication became the main task of the Allied navy. To this end, the Allied forces increased the number of troops defending the communication lines by 15 to 20%, including 103 escort aircraft carriers, 1,066 escort destroyers and fleet destroyers, 515 frigates, and more than 3,900 other patrol ships and minesweepers. There are more than 100 submarines and 3,959 aircraft. At the same time, it also strengthened its vigilance against convoy convoys, tightly blockaded German submarine bases, bombed German shipbuilding industry centers, and launched limited attacks on German maritime transportation lines, further curbing the German navy's combat operations.
By early June 1944, the German Navy had eight submarines stationed at Brest, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, La Palise and Bordeaux bases in the Bay of Biscay. detachment, about 100 submarines. During the Battle of Normandy, the German army sent submarines to the English Channel to participate in the anti-landing operations. Due to the small number of submarines invested by the German army, their deployment was too late, their technical performance was low, and they lacked support from other forces, they had no obvious impact on the entire anti-landing campaign. In August, when the Allied forces were advancing inland from Normandy, the German Naval Command ordered some submarines from French coastal bases to move to bases in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Norwegian coast. On August 25, the German army withdrew the Western Naval Group headquarters in France. After that, German submarines had to enter the Allied navigation zone from Germany or Norway north of Scotland and Ireland, and Britain deployed a strong anti-submarine defense belt in the Orkney Islands-Shetland Islands-Iceland waters. This allowed German submarines to stay in the sea for an average of 37 days and nights, and only 9 days and nights could be active in the designated sea area. Moreover, because German submarines were concentrated in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and Norwegian bases, they were often bombed by the Allied air forces. It can be seen that the German submarine warfare in the Atlantic was restricted to a certain range by the Allies, and it was no longer capable of carrying out effective sabotage operations against the Allies' Atlantic lines of communication.