Historical stories about Normandy
1In June, 942, the Soviet Union, the United States and the Soviet Union issued a joint communique, which reached full understanding and understanding on opening up the second front in Europe, but Britain had reservations about the obligations in the memorandum.
1In July, 942, the Anglo-American London Conference decided 1942 to land in North Africa in the autumn, and postponed the opening of the second battlefield in Europe to the first half of 1943. However, at this time, the situation in the Soviet-German battlefield was very serious, and the Germans had advanced to Stalingrad. The Soviet Union strongly urged Britain and the United States to launch landing operations in Europe in order to contain the Germans and reduce the pressure on the Soviet Union. Britain had to send an emergency assault force consisting of 60 18 people to land in Dieppe, and the result was disastrous, with 58 10 casualties, with the casualty rate as high as 96.5%.
1943 65438+ 10, the Anglo-American Casablanca meeting passed the decision to land in Sicily in the first half of the year. Delayed landing on the European continent until August 1943. At this meeting, Britain took advantage of Dieppe's failure and insisted on delaying landing on the European continent, on the grounds that it was necessary to handle the complexity and danger of large-scale amphibious landing carefully. In fact, Britain wants to take advantage of the struggle between the Soviet Union and Germany to reap profits, and it also wants to use the power of the United States to restore the traditional forces of the British Empire in North Africa and Southern Europe before the war. Of course, it was opposed by the United States. As a compromise, Britain agreed to set up the staff of the Anglo-American special plan to make the European landing plan. Captain general Morgan of the British army served as chief of staff. Immediately after Morgan took office, he established "Cosac", which is the English abbreviation of the Supreme Staff of the Allied European Expeditionary Force. The main members are Deputy Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Ray Barker of the United States Army, as well as representatives of the army, navy and air force and all services and arms related to landing. mountbatten vice admiral, commander of the British Joint Operations Command, who is responsible for commanding the sneak attack and harassment on the European continent, is also an ex officio member.
1943 In May, the Anglo-American Washington Conference decided that 1944 would land on the European continent in May and open up a second front. "Cossack" immediately began to make a landing plan, first determine the landing location. According to the experience and lessons of previous landing operations, the landing site should meet the following three conditions: first, the distance between two flights should be as short as possible within the radius of the fighter plane taking off from the British airport, and third, there should be a big port nearby. Then, on the coastline of 480km from Frisingen, the Netherlands to Cherbourg, France, according to this condition, three regions are more suitable: Constantine Peninsula, Calais and Normandy. Further comparison, the narrow terrain of Constantine Peninsula made it difficult to launch a large army, which was rejected for the first time. Calais and Normandy have their own advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of Calais is that it is only 33 kilometers away from Britain and close to Germany. The disadvantage is that the German army has the strongest defense here, the defenders are all elite troops, the fortifications are complete and solid, there is no big port nearby, and there is also a lack of inland communication lines, which is not conducive to further development after landing. Although Normandy is far away from Britain, it has the advantages of weak German defense and open terrain, and can launch 30 divisions at the same time, and it is only 80 kilometers away from Cherbourg, the largest port in northern France. After weighing several times, Cossack chose Normandy, and made a specific plan from June 26th, 1943, with "Overlord" as the battle plan code and "Neptune" as the relevant naval action code. Initially, it is planned to land with three divisions at three beaches with a width of 32 kilometers between Kalandan and Caen, namely Omaha, Kin and Beachhead, and to airborne two brigades at the same time. The second echelon consisting of eight divisions will occupy Cherbourg in two weeks. The biggest problem in the whole plan is the port problem, that is, how to solve the logistics supply problem of the troops before the occupation of Cherbourg. It was stormy in Normandy in May and June, and it seemed to be an insurmountable difficulty that logistics supply could not be guaranteed by landing on the beach. Helpless, Major General john hughes Harriet, the representative of the Cossack Navy, remembered mountbatten's joke at a meeting: Since there is no natural port, let's build an artificial port. Therefore, it is suggested to manufacture parts and assemble artificial ports to solve the problem. There was no other way, and his idea was approved. /kloc-in July of 0/5, Morgan submitted the outline of the "Overlord" plan to the British and American Joint Chiefs of Staff.
1943 In August, the Anglo-American Quebec Conference approved the "Overlord" plan.
1943165438+10, the American-British-Soviet Tehran meeting decided to launch Operation Overlord in May 1944.
1943 65438+In February, US Army General Eisenhower was appointed as the supreme commander of the European Allied Expeditionary Force and arrived in London on 1944 65438+ 10. Eisenhower saw Morgan's plan and thought that the frontal assault surface was too narrow and there was not enough assault force in the initial attack. He proposed an amendment to expand the frontal landing to 80 kilometers, increase the first echelon from 3 divisions to 5 divisions, increase the landing beaches from 3 to 5 (Utah and Sword beaches are added), and increase the airborne troops from 2 brigades to 3 divisions. This idea was supported by the commanders of the three armed forces of the Supreme Command.
1In February, 944, the British and American Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the outline of "Overlord" plan and the revised operational plan, but the demand for landing ships also increased. In order to ensure that there are enough landing ships, the British and American Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to postpone the landing date to the beginning of June and the scheduled landing in southern France to August.
As the landing date (code D-Day) was postponed to early June, the Allied High Command began to determine the specific date and time. This is a complicated coordination problem. Various services and arms put forward different requirements according to their own needs, and the army requires landing at high tide to reduce the time that troops are exposed to the beach. The navy requires landing at low tide in order to minimize the damage of obstacles to landing craft; The air force needs moonlight to facilitate airborne troops to identify ground targets. Finally, after careful consideration, it scientifically worked out a plan that conforms to all services and land between high tide and low tide. Because the tides of the five beaches are different, five different landing times (code H) are specified, and D day is arranged on the day of the full moon. The airborne time is 1 point in the morning, which meets the above conditions. In June 1944, there were only two consecutive landing days.
The purpose of the campaign is to cross the English Channel, seize a strategic landing point in northern France, and create conditions for opening up the second battlefield in Europe and finally defeating Germany. The campaign attempted to land in Normandy and seize the landing site. On the first day of landing 12, the landing site expanded to 100km wide and 100km deep. It is planned to parachute two American paratroopers on the right wing of the landing site, cut off the German reinforcements to Cherbourg, and seize the "Utah" beachhead position with the cooperation of the landing forces, and parachute/kloc-0 British paratroopers on the left wing to seize the Kang En Canal crossing point. Then the first batch of eight reinforced battalions landed on five beaches and established landing sites. After consolidating and expanding the landing site, the follow-up troops landed, the right wing first captured Cherbourg, and the left wing passed the Kangen River to St. Luo. In the second stage, the port city, Baye, Izni and Karantan were captured. In the third stage, we captured Brittany, advanced into the Seine, and went straight to Paris.
Chinese name: Normandy
English name: Normandie
Normandy is located between Paris, France and the seaside, with convenient road and rail transportation, less than 2 hours away from Paris International Airport. Normandy people are good at architecture, so castles, churches and monasteries of various styles can be seen everywhere in Normandy.
In A.D. 1944, the allied landing on Normandy beach made it famous. Normandy landing was the largest amphibious landing campaign in the history of the world, which laid the foundation for opening up the second battlefield in Europe and played an important role in accelerating the collapse of fascist Germany and the post-war situation in Europe.
Within a month, the Allies established a solid front in the western European continent, extending from Caen to Saint Laurent, and all allied landing troops had landed in Normandy. The Normandy landing was the most crucial battle in World War II, which was of decisive significance for opening up the second battlefield in Western Europe.
1944 1 year1October 2 1 day, Eisenhower held the first meeting of the Allied Supreme Command in London, and formally determined the Normandy landing operation plan named "Overlord".
The allied forces involved in the landing were 39 divisions with about 2.88 million people. There are more than 0/5700 planes/KLOC-and more than 6000 ships, including landing ships, warships and merchant ships. At that time, the Germans deployed in the western front were 58 divisions, more than 500 planes, 100 submarines and more than 500 light ships. However, the German high command was deceived by the allied action codenamed "Resolute Plan", thinking that the allied forces would land along the coast of the Calais Strait, so the main force 15 Army was deployed along the coast of the Calais Strait, while the Seventh Army had only six infantry divisions stationed in Normandy and nearby areas, with less than 90,000 troops.
The only problem Eisenhower needed to solve was the choice of D-Day. According to the advice of meteorologists, the number of days that basically met the requirements of landing operations of the three armed forces in early June was only 5, 6 and 7 days. He initially chose June 5 as the landing day. However, the wind and waves were quite strong in early June, and the weather continued to be cruel on the 3 rd and 4 th. Eisenhower decided to postpone the attack for 24 hours, that is, on June 6. On the evening of June 4, Colonel Steiger, the meteorological director, reported that the weather might suddenly improve briefly from the night of June 5, and it would soon get worse by the night of June 6. Shall we take action on June 6, or continue to postpone it? Eisenhower also difficult to decide at the moment. Chief of Staff Smith said: "This is a gamble, but it may be the best gamble"; Montgomery, commander of the ground forces, said firmly, "Do as I say!" Finally, Eisenhower finally made up his mind and made the most important decision in his life. Operation Overlord will be implemented as planned on June 6th. Eisenhower later wrote in his memoirs that after the landing operation was ordered, he drafted two telegrams at the same time, one to congratulate the successful landing and the other to make an announcement to the press who was once forced to retreat. In the second telegram, Eisenhower took all the responsibility for the failure on himself. Fortunately, however, he finally won the gamble.
1in the early morning of June 6, 944, the weather was unexpectedly good, but the Germans did not expect that the allies would choose to land here and now. Rommel, who was in charge of the western defense, even left the front line to celebrate his wife's birthday. On the evening of the 6th, 35,000 troops of the 5th Army of the United States successfully landed on Omaha Beach, and then the allied forces of Utah, Juneau, Gold and Sod successfully consolidated the beachhead position with the support of the navy and air force and developed in depth.
By June of 12, Montgomery's 2 1 army group had established a continuous landing site in an area 80km ahead and13km-19km in depth, and transported 500,000 allied troops, 330,000 vehicles and 6,543,800 tons of combat materials ashore. On June 25th, American troops captured the port fortress Cherbourg.1On July 8th, 8, British troops captured the port city and American troops occupied San-Los Angeles. In this way, within a month, the Allies established a solid front extending from Caen to St. Los in the western European continent, and all the allied landing troops had landed in Normandy. The Normandy landing was the most crucial battle in the Second World War, which was of decisive significance for opening up the second battlefield in Western Europe. Stalin praised, "According to its careful planning, grand scale and ingenious implementation, there is no such precedent in the history of war."