Chapter 26 Chapter 5 Betrayal for the Motherland (The Allied Forces Landed in Normandy, Restoring Western Europe)

Since June 1940, after the British and French allied forces retreated in Dunkirk, there has been no war on the Western Front, and German fascists have almost monopolized the entire Europe.Britain, known as the "Empire on which the sun never sets", can only fight alone in the sky over Britain and on the Atlantic Ocean, and the European continent, which is stripped of water, seems so far away. When the Soviet-German war broke out in June 1941, the Soviet army suffered a crushing defeat and was beaten to the ground by the German army. It seemed that the game was about to be over.So in September, Stalin proposed to Churchill that he hoped that the British army could land in Europe and carry out a strategic attack on Germany.At this time, Britain was still in shock and did not have this ability at all, so Churchill did not dare to agree rashly.

In June 1942, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued a joint communiqué, reaching a consensus on opening a second front in Europe.At this time, the situation on the Soviet-German battlefield worsened, and it was the time when the German army was advancing triumphantly. Therefore, the Soviet Union strongly urged Britain and the United States to carry out landing operations in Europe to reduce the pressure on the Soviet army.Stalin said that our Soviet Union is fighting against 300 German divisions, and you, the United Kingdom and the United States are fighting against less than 10 German divisions. Do you think this is appropriate?

In order to encourage his allies, Churchill, who had always been anti-communist and hoped that Sood would fight for both sides, bit the bullet and acted.This time the landing site was chosen in Dieppe, France. In August 1942, Britain sent 6,000 commandos across the English Channel, preparing to land in Dieppe and establish a base. What was the most surprising thing about this landing?Before landing, the British army used radio to call on the French underground resistance organization to stand up and support the British.The British army's broadcast was heard by the French and the Germans, so the French felt that the British were careless or something, and they actually broadcast before the war to tell them where we are going.So the French underground organization did not cooperate with the British army in Dieppe, you are stupid, we are not stupid.

The British army did not go well during the voyage. The landing transport ship encountered the German destroyer along the coast, and the landing completely lost its suddenness.After the British army landed, they found that there were no members of the French underground organization on the shore, but heavily armed German troops. They beat the landing troops with tanks, planes, cannons, and machine guns.More than 6,000 British troops were trapped on a narrow beachhead, with no bunkers, lack of ammunition, and the retreat was blocked by the Luftwaffe.In the fierce battle until evening, a major general of the British army was killed, and almost all the British troops who landed were wiped out. Only a very small number of people fled back to the mainland, and the casualty rate was as high as 96.5%.

One thing worth mentioning is that the troops that landed this time were mainly Canadians and Poles. With this disastrous defeat, Churchill had something to say to Stalin. On the one hand, he tested the landing, which was really bad, but he tested it with other people's children.Some people also said that this was what Churchill did. After feeding other people's children to wolves, he told Stalin that it was really impossible to land. With the United States fully entering the war, the balance of World War II began to tilt in favor of the Allies.After the victory of the North African War, the Allied forces have successfully landed in Sicily and the Apennine Peninsula.All this shows that the time has come for the Allied forces to open up a second front in Western Europe.

In January 1943, the United Kingdom and the United States held the Casablanca Conference. The United Kingdom used the failure of the Dieppe landing as an excuse. It believed that large-scale amphibious landing operations were dangerous and must be carried out with caution. It suggested that the landing time be postponed to August 1943.In fact, Britain wanted to take advantage of the Soviet-German struggle and reap the benefits of the fisherman. Therefore, Churchill tried his best to postpone the landing time, but was opposed by the Soviet Union and the United States.Stalin’s reaction was very strong. He said to Churchill, before May 1st in 1944, if you do not open up a second front, the Red Army will not need your help. We will liberate our territory, Poland, Germany, France, and the red flag into the English Channel.When Churchill heard that the next step was to liberate Britain, he had to agree. At the end of November 1943, the three giants of Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union decided at the Tehran Conference to open a second battlefield in Europe in May 1944.

After weighing several times, the Allies chose Normandy as the landing site. From June 26, 1943, the Allied Forces began to formulate specific plans, using "Overlord" as the operational code and "Sea King" as the relevant naval operation code.The preliminary plan is to use 3 divisions to implement landings on 3 beaches 32 kilometers wide, that is, the later "Omaha", "Gold" and "Juno" beaches.Simultaneously airborne 2 brigades.The second echelon consists of 8 divisions and is expected to occupy Cherbourg within two weeks. The biggest problem in the entire landing plan is the port, that is, how to solve the logistical supply problem of the troops before occupying Cherbourg.In May and June in Normandy, there were high winds and rough waves, and logistical supplies could not be guaranteed just by landing on the beach.This seemed to be an insurmountable difficulty, and finally the Allies decided to build an artificial port to solve the problem.

In December 1943, U.S. Army General Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the European Allied Expeditionary Force.Eisenhower arrived in London in January 1944 to take office.At the same time, the Allied forces successively assembled as many as 2.88 million troops. At this time, the main force of Germany was busy dealing with the Soviet Union. In May 1944, the German army had 179 divisions and 5 brigades on the Soviet battlefield on the Eastern Front, accounting for about 65% of the total German army strength.In France, Belgium, and the Netherlands on the western front, there are only 58 divisions, including 33 coastal defense divisions, 15 infantry divisions, 8 armored divisions, and 2 paratrooper divisions.Even with the addition of the two armored divisions of the strategic reserve under Hitler's personal command, there are only 60 divisions in total, with about 760,000 people.The troops under the Western Front Command were organized into 2 army groups, with a total of 4 army groups. Army Group B was commanded by Field Marshal Rommel and stationed in northern France. It consisted of 39 divisions and was the main force of the German army on the western front.Under the jurisdiction of the Fifteenth Army and the Seventh Army. Army Group G, commanded by General Blaskowitz, stationed in the area west of the Loire River in France, has a total of 19 divisions.Under the jurisdiction of the First Army and the Nineteenth Army.

In addition, the German Navy has a total of 561 small and medium-sized warships, which is very weak.The Air Force is the Third Air Force, with about 450 combat aircraft, including 160 fighter jets.Compared with the number of Allied combat aircraft, it was at an absolute disadvantage of 1:30. The defenders in the Normandy area consisted of 6 divisions and 3 regiments belonging to the German Seventh Army, with a total strength of about 90,000 troops.The fortifications are relatively weak, and only a few independent support points of reinforced concrete have been built. Most of the fortifications are field fortifications, and only a few anti-airborne obstacles are set up in depth.

In March 1944, the German armored forces deployed in France had only one fully staffed armored division, the 21st Panzer Division.Hitler judged in April 1944 that Normandy would be the landing site for the Allied forces and demanded additional troops.According to this instruction, Rommel transferred the 352nd Infantry Division to Normandy. It was this newly transferred elite division that dealt a fatal blow to the US troops landing on Omaha Beach in the future. In order to resist the Allied landing, Germany began to build permanent coastal fortifications as early as December 1941.After Rommel took office as the commander of Army Group B, he attached great importance to the defense construction of coastal areas, requiring forward defense to be pushed forward to the sea, mines were laid in the deep sea, and obstacles were set up in the shallow sea.The wooden piles inserted obliquely into the sea arranged by the German army were called "Rommel's asparagus" by the Allied forces. On the beach were jagged concrete pyramids, tank traps, and a large number of mines were laid in between. firepower.In the open area behind the beach, a large number of anti-airborne wooden stakes were laid out.

The deployment of these explosives and obstacles by the German army was a huge project. When the Allied forces landed, only part of it was completed, but even this caused great difficulties for the Allied forces to land. Before the Normandy landing, the British resorted to their housekeeping skills - deception. In order to confuse the German army on the timing of the landing, London's intelligence service carefully designed a dramatic deception operation.In this book, we have repeatedly talked about the deceitful actions of the British in the war, and also said that this is a housekeeping skill that they have practiced for hundreds of years.This deception has been given much romance and is popularized by the "Montgomery's Ghost" legend. On March 14, 1944, Lieutenant Colonel Reed, the deputy director of the British Special Warfare Committee, accidentally saw a photo of a lieutenant who looked exactly like Montgomery. , was published in the London Newspaper.There is also a sentence written next to it: "You are wrong-his name is James!" Lieutenant Colonel Reed had an idea after seeing this photo, why couldn't James play Montgomery to induce the Germans to make wrong judgments? "Operation Meat" is to borrow a corpse, this time it is to borrow a living person.Reed immediately went to Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower and told him what he thought.Eisenhower appreciated this bold idea very much and immediately agreed.Thus, a scheme of deception—"Operation Copperhead"—was launched, in which an unknown pawn played the role of the army's commander-in-chief. This was the last large-scale deception operation of the Allied forces before the Normandy landings. According to the plan, James would pretend to be British Field Marshal Montgomery, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in Northwest Europe, and under the direction of the British intelligence department, he would go to Gibraltar and Algiers for an inspection at the end of May 1944. The director had two purposes for this arrangement. One was to encourage the Germans to believe that the Allied forces would not launch a landing operation if Montgomery was not in the UK, based on the mentality of the German High Command that the commander of the British landing force was none other than Montgomery.The second is based on the German intelligence agency's surveillance of Montgomery's whereabouts, prompting it to judge that Montgomery is commanding troops on the southern front, so that he can contain the four German armored divisions south of the Loire River. James' superb performance and vivid imitation not only convinced the German spies, but also fooled the British soldiers who had seen Montgomery.Seeing Marshal Montgomery visit the front line, many British soldiers were so excited that they burst into tears. They didn't know that this was a double, but actually a lieutenant, whose military rank was not as high as many of them. "Operation Copperhead" was a major success, and Hitler was once again fooled by the British.