The Allied airborne troops were about ten to fifteen kilometers away from Normandy, and the two were about twenty kilometers apart. During the day, the Allied airborne troops were indeed very rampant. Once night fell, these four complete German armored divisions would teach these Allied paratroopers to be human.&{}..{}

...

On June 1, the first batch of landing troops began to gather at 15 ports in southern England. The original plan was to set sail on June 3 and land on June 5. Due to the bad weather, the landing was postponed for 24 hours. At 22:00 on June 4, the U formation with the farthest voyage landing on Utah Beach first set sail, and other formations later set sail one after another as planned.

On June 5, the landing formation began to cross the English Channel. All ships departing from 15 ports first met in the code-named "Z" south of the Isle of Wight, and then divided into five formations to drive along five safe channels where mines were cleaned and mines were cleaned to the five beaches. After crossing the central line of the strait, each formation changed from one channel to two channels for fast ships and slow ships to maintain the formation of the formation.

During the ferry, the Allied forces dispatched a large number of anti-submarine aircraft and warships to implement strict anti-submarine surveillance, and also sent 95 bombers and 375 fighter jets as air cover. Due to the Allied forces' well-prepared and well-organized, no losses were suffered during the entire ferry process.

In fact, the main reason for the safe and smooth cruising of the Allied forces was that bad weather helped a lot. The German meteorological personnel failed to accurately predict the short and good weather on June 6 like the Allied Stager meteorological team, and issued a weather forecast that would be storms for several consecutive days, making the German commander judged that the Allied forces could not initiate landings in such weather. The German alert state in Normandy was very low, and even the routine patrols of some aircraft and ships were cancelled, which made the German army unaware of the cruising of the Allied landing formations.

At 2:30 am on June 6, a huge landing fleet arrived at the transfer area 11 nautical miles from the coast of France. The soldiers went down the rope net from the transport ship to the landing craft, and then the landing craft was woven into boat waves, cutting the waves and rushing towards the landing beachhead. The landing time varies due to the different tides at each beachhead. The earliest was 6:30 am on the beachhead of Utah, and the latest was 8:00 am on the beachhead of Juno.

Fire preparations began from midnight on June 5. The first batch of about 1,000 heavy bombers dropped about 5,000 tons of bombs at the German communication hub, command center, coastal artillery positions and other targets. The second batch of about 1,600 medium bombers dropped about 4,200 tons of bombs at the German defensive positions at 5:00 on June 6. A total of 2,775 aircraft were deployed in these two aviation fire preparations. 9,276 tons of bombs were dropped. The average of about 96 tons of bombs per kilometer was dropped on the front of the landing. The third batch was mainly used to directly cover the landing craft with low-altitude strafing.

At 5:30, a fleet of 7 battleships, 24 cruisers, 74 destroyers, and 2 shallow water gunboats formed a naval gunfire support fleet, and implemented fierce naval gunfire preparation for 40 minutes on the 80-kilometer landing front. When the landing craft approached the coast, the naval gunfire began to extend and turn into fire support. Direct fire preparation was then undertaken by the artillery landing craft and rocket launcher landing craft in the landing craft. Continue to shoot at the landing beachhead and cover the landing craft to rush to land. The entire fire preparation process was dense, fierce and lasting, basically suppressing the German firepower, creating conditions for the landing troops to land smoothly.

Utah Beach is a 14.5-kilometer-long beach on the east coast of the Cottonin Peninsula from south of Queneville to north of the Carontan River estuary. It is a sand slope with a small slope. The German army set up several obstacles on the sand slope. Behind the sand slope is a dry beach, and then a sand dune 90 to 180 meters wide. The German army built a concrete fortress on the sand dunes. Behind the beach is a swamp ranging from 1.5 to 3 kilometers wide. Only a few paths can pass. The 101st Airborne Division of the US Army wanted to seize four of them. The German army deployed 28 artillery companies in depth, of which 8 were hidden in the fortifications, with a total of 111 artillery pieces. The maximum caliber of the 111 artillery pieces was 210mm.

The 4th Division of the 7th Army of the US Army was the 4th Division commanded by President Roosevelt, the youngest son of President Roosevelt. The U formation commanded by Rear Admiral Moon. On June 6, 30:00, the transfer began at 4:05. The soldiers climbed from the transport ship to the landing craft along the rope net. At that time, the wind and waves were strong at sea, and the landing craft was very bumpy. However, after many drills, the transfer was still relatively smooth. A total of 26 boat waves were organized and sailed to the beach. In order to ensure uninterrupted fire support to the landing troops, 8 tank landing crafts were organized in the first boat wave, carrying a total of 32 water and land tanks.

Due to the strong wind and waves, the tank landing craft arrived at the tank's scheduled launch site half an hour later than planned. If the slower aquatic and land tanks were still launched as planned, they would arrive at the beach later than planned, and they would lose the role of providing timely fire support. Therefore, the commander on the command boat decided to let the tank landing craft continue sailing until the tank was launched only 1 nautical mile from the coast.

At 5:05, the German shore artillery began to fire at the Allied minesweeper ships. At 5:25, the Allied naval artillery fire support warships fired 25 minutes earlier than planned. Then about 300 B-26 bombers flew to drop about 1,000 tons of bombs on the German positions. Then the "Spraying Fire" aircraft rushed to provide a calibrator for the naval artillery fire, and fired smoke at 6:00 to cover the landing craft to grab the beach. Unexpectedly, one of the aircraft that launched the smoke was shot down, causing a gap in the smoke, which just exposed the "Cori" destroyer and immediately became the target of concentrated bombardment of the German shore artillery. When evasion, the "Cori" mistakenly entered the sea area where the mines were not cleared and sank.

Due to the influence of a strong southeast tide, the landing craft moved about 1,800 meters south than the expected landing point. This accident brought unexpected good luck to the Allies: at the scheduled landing point, there was a German regiment of troops, and two artillery companies could use firepower to suppress the beach. In fact, the German army had only one company, and its defensive power was weak. General Roosevelt made a quick decision and ordered this place to be used as a landing point, and also set up a huge sign to indicate the landing point. The underwater blasting team quickly cleared the passage.

At 6:30, the landing troops were on the landing ground, at 8:30, the first echelon regiment broke through the German defense line and developed inland. At 9:30, the regiment landing ground was initially established. At 10:30, the forces of the two regiments had already been on the landing ground were basically eliminated, and the 709th Division of the German defenders in this area were also seized by the airborne troops, ensuring the rapid advancement of the landing troops.

By sunset, all three regiments of the 4th Division were landed, with a total of 21,328 people, 1,742 vehicles, and 1,695 tons of supplies. A consolidated division landing ground with a width of 4 kilometers and a depth of 9 kilometers was established. The vanguard had arrived at the road from Carontan to Saint-Mer and met with the airborne troops. On the day of the day, the 4th Division had only 197 people killed, which was 10% of the expected casualties, with extremely small losses. It was the smoothest and least losses of the Allied five beachheads.

… (To be continued, please search Piaotianwen, novels are better, updated and faster!

ps: Acknowledge:

f斯 efox1 voted 1

Fengzhi Fate voted 2 votes

a1355008900 voted 1 vote

The Marine Guards voted 1 vote

I voted for the fish you are watching the wind
Chapter completed!