What was the process of the Normandy landing campaign?

1944 June 6 to 18 July 6, the allied forces of the United States and Britain carried out a large-scale strategic landing operation in Normandy, northwest France, in order to seize the landing site of the group army, ensure the landing and logistics supply of the main forces, and then capture northwest France, thus creating conditions for opening up the second battlefield in Europe, attacking Germany and finally defeating fascist Germany in cooperation with the Soviet Union.

1941On June 22nd, fascist Germany launched a large-scale attack on the Soviet Union. In September of the same year, the Soviet Union formally asked Britain to open a second front in Western Europe. But at first, Britain took a passive procrastination attitude. With the decisive victory of the Soviet Union in the Battle of Stalingrad and the beginning of the counterattack, the Japanese army was defeated in the Pacific battlefield, and the American and British troops succeeded in fighting in landing operation in north africa. The whole world war situation has undergone fundamental changes that are extremely beneficial to the United States and Britain to open up the second battlefield. 1943 June 65438+1October, British and American leaders held a meeting in Casablanca, Morocco.

At the meeting, it was decided to land in western Europe; In March of the same year, Lieutenant General Morgan of the British army was appointed to be responsible for the formation of the Anglo-American General Staff, and set out to make a large-scale landing plan in France. 1 65438+1October 28 ~ 65438+February1day, the leaders of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union formally agreed at the Tehran meeting that the allied forces of the United States and Britain would land in the northwest of France in May 1944 and make an auxiliary landing in the south of France. Shortly after the Tehran meeting, Roosevelt officially appointed Eisenhower as the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force through consultations between the United States and Britain. Since then, the organization of the Normandy landing campaign has been prepared to enter a substantive classroom.

1June 65438, 944+1October1June 4, Eisenhower arrived in London to take office and set about establishing the high command of the allied expeditionary force. Admiral Smith of the United States served as Eisenhower's chief of staff, and Lieutenant General Morgan of the United Kingdom served as deputy chief of staff; At the same time, the appointment of the commander of the navy, army and air force of the Allied Expeditionary Force was also announced.

On the eve of the British and American landings, German troops on the western front were two army groups, B and G, under the unified command of Marshal Lundstedt. "B" Army Group is under the command of Marshal Rommel, and has jurisdiction over 15 and the 7th Army Group; The "G" army group is under the command of General blasco Weitz, and has jurisdiction over 1 and 19 army groups. The total strength of the German army in the West Line includes 33 coastal defense divisions, 13 attack infantry divisions, 1 armored infantry divisions, 9 armored divisions and 2 paratroopers divisions, with a total of 58 divisions. Judging from the wrong enemy situation, the Germans have always believed that Calais is the most likely area for American and British troops to land.

Therefore, 23 divisions of the main force of the German Second Line 15 Army are deployed on the 400-kilometer coastline of Calais as the main direction of defense; 19 army 8 divisions defended the Mediterranean coast in southern France; 1 6 divisions of the army defended the coastal areas of the Bay of Biscay; The Seventh Army 14 Division defended Normandy and Brittany Peninsula, of which only six divisions were fortified in Normandy. According to the German standard division strength of 1944, at the initial stage of landing, no more than 90,000 German ground troops can be directly used to resist the landing of the United States and Britain.

At that time, the Germans had lost their air and sea superiority in France and other western regions. The air force has only the third group army of the tactical air force, with a total of about 500; The only naval forces that can be used to resist landing are more than 500 small and medium-sized surface ships and 49 submarines anchored in Biscay Port.

In order to deal with the landing of American and British troops in western Europe, Hitler ordered the so-called "Atlantic barrier" to be built as soon as possible along the Atlantic coast from Norway to Spain as early as19412. This is a permanent anti-landing defense line composed of solid support points and field fortifications, equipped with mines and underwater obstacles. Although this line of defense was far from being built before the allied landing in 1944, it has begun to take shape. Especially in Calais, a key fortified area, the Germans built a defensive belt with a depth of 5-6 kilometers along the coast. In this area, dense solid support points composed of coastal gun positions, bunkers, reinforced concrete shields, trenches, tank traps and anti-tank trenches have been established. A large number of mines and other obstacles were buried between the support points. In Normandy, because it was the German secondary defense direction, the defense was weak.

In terms of force layout, all group armies have deployed coastal defense divisions and attack divisions in coastal areas, occupying a solid support point. Conduct position defense; Armored divisions and paratroopers divisions are deployed in shallow depth as mobile reserves, so as to put into battle and win the decisive battle at the beginning of the enemy landing forces' surprise landing. Therefore, the German anti-landing campaign is basically a wide front and a small depth.

At that time, there were two main landing areas in northwest France to choose from, one was Calais and the other was Normandy. Calais is only 20 nautical miles from the British coast, which is convenient for navigation and support, but far from the main ports in Britain, it is a key fortification area for the German army. Normandy is about 65 nautical miles from the British coast, lacking good ports, and there is a river network swamp in the eastern part of Cotan Peninsula, which is not conducive to the action of troops. However, Normandy is close to the landing port and fighter base of the British landing forces, with good beach and inland conditions, and can build a landing field that can accommodate 26~30 divisions at the same time, and the German defense is weak.

After careful consideration and weighing, the allies finally chose Normandy from the mouth of Aon River to the southern tip of Cotan Peninsula as the landing area. The whole landing zone is divided into east landing zone and west landing zone. The western landing area is the landing area of the US military, which is divided into two landing areas, codenamed "Utah" and "Omaha"; The eastern landing zone is the landing zone of British and Canadian troops, which is divided into three landing zones, code-named "Gold", "Juno" and "Sward".

Allied landing forces were organized into 2 1 army group, which had jurisdiction over American 1 army group, British 2nd army group and Canadian 1 army group. The navy is divided into two special mixed fleets, the west and the east. The western task force is divided into "U" and "O" landing formations, which are responsible for transporting the US 1 troops to land, and the 9 th Air Force of the US Air Force serves as air support; The eastern task force is divided into "G", "J" and "S" landing formations, which are responsible for transporting the 2nd British Army and 1 Canadian Army to land, and the 2nd British Army tactical air force is used as air support. Each landing formation has 1 naval gun fire support brigade as fire preparation and fire support.

In addition, two special mixed fleets in the west and east also made follow-up landings. Before the scheduled landing, the Allies will airborne 2 divisions in the US landing area and 1 division in the British landing area. The 2nd Army and the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. The total strength of the allied forces participating in the Normandy landing campaign was more than 2.8 million, with more than 55,000 ships and more than 0.3 million planes/kloc-0.

Commander of the Normandy landing campaign: Eisenhower was the supreme commander, Air Force Admiral A Ted was the deputy commander, Army Admiral W Stiss was the chief of staff, Admiral B Ramsey was the naval commander, Air Force Commander T Leigh Mallory was the British Air Force Admiral, and the commander-in-chief of the landing force was Army Admiral Montgomery.

Before the landing campaign, allied planes and ships conducted extensive reconnaissance in Normandy and other areas for a long time, and found out the German coastal defense system, preparation assembly area, ammunition depot and supply storage area, as well as the positions of transportation hubs, bridges, airports and military production bases within the defense depth, thus mastering more complete intelligence information about German defense. A few months before landing, the Allied Strategic Air Force and Tactical Air Force carried out continuous large-scale bombing of railway hubs, highways, bridges and other important targets in northern Germany and Belgium, which greatly damaged the German transportation system and military production and greatly limited the mobility of the troops. A few weeks before landing, allied planes bombed many important targets such as coastal fortifications and airports in German defense areas, with the aim of destroying its coastal defense system and weakening its air power.

In order to confuse the Germans in the landing place and time, the Allies carried out a series of campaign camouflage. For example, in the east of England, a fictional "American Army Group 1" commanded by American Lieutenant General Barton conducted military exercises and fake assembly, and sent a large number of telegrams to deliberately make Barton stand out in Kent; A large number of fake landing ships, tanks, gliders and material and equipment yards are set up in the British port in the Dover Strait; Before landing, the German defense facilities in Calais were intensively bombed, and the amount of bombs dropped was twice that of Normandy. On the night before landing, some small ships and planes were sent to make a feint, and the huge landing fleet and fleet were simulated with electronic jamming equipment. Through various camouflage measures, the Germans mistakenly thought that the allies would land in Calais before or after landing, thus attracting a large number of German reserves in Calais. In addition, the allies have taken strict security measures. At the time of the surprise landing, the various camouflage activities of the allied forces were mainly to convince the Germans that the allied forces had completed the preparations for the landing campaign in mid-July.

In order to ensure the smooth progress of the landing campaign, the allies made full preparations for material support. From June 65438+1October 65438+1October 365438+1October/May 30, 944, the United States alone transported more than 5.29 million tons of materials and equipment to Britain. In order to speed up the landing and unloading of personnel and prevent the unloading operation from being affected by bad weather, the Allied Corps of Engineers designed and manufactured two artificial ports made of hollow reinforced concrete caissons in the preparation stage of the campaign. After the landing soldiers raided the land, five boat shelters were temporarily built in the landing area. In addition, the participating troops conducted training and simulated landing joint exercises that met the actual requirements.

On June 1944 and 1 day, the divisions of the first echelon of allied landing forces boarded the ship at the port of 15 in the south of England. At dawn on June 3, the landing formation set sail from the local ship port. Meet at the south side of the Isle of Wight and head for the landing zone. Due to the bad weather, Eisenhower announced on June 4 that he would postpone the surprise landing day for 24 hours from the original June 5.

In the early morning of June 6th, three assault echelons of the Allied Airborne Division with * * * 17000 people were parachuted into the shallow depth of the landing area by 1200 transport plane. Parachute landing area: American 82nd and 10 1 Airborne Division is at the southeast end of Cotan Peninsula, and British 6th Airborne Division is near the mouth of Yi 'an River. Its task is to seize the beach causeway and the main bridge, occupy the flank of the main landing area, prevent German reinforcements and ensure the landing of landing troops. After the airborne troops landed, they completed their scheduled tasks to varying degrees. Before the airborne troops landed, the bomber group of RAF Bomber Command prepared aviation firepower for each airborne area. From midnight on June 5th to 5am on June 6th, 2,659 heavy and medium bombers of the US and British Air Forces prepared for air fire, bombed the German shore gun positions and shore defense facilities in the landing area, dropping about 6,543,800 tons of bombs. At 5: 30, more than 100 fire support ships of five allied naval gun fire support brigades began to prepare for the 80-kilometer landing, and then turned to fire support, which effectively supported the landing troops to land suddenly.

On the morning of June 6, the allied landing forces landed in five landing areas according to their respective landing time. In the "Utah" landing area, the first echelon 1 regiment of the 4 th division of the US 7 th Army Infantry raided at 6: 30; At 9: 30, the group landing site was initially established; By the end of the 6th, all three regiments of the 4th Infantry Division had landed, and the division landing field with a front width of 4 kilometers and a depth of 9 kilometers was consolidated. In the "Omaha" landing area, two regiments of the first echelon of the US Fifth Army Infantry 1 Division stormed ashore at 6: 34. After landing, the landing troops encountered prepared resistance from the Germans, suffered heavy casualties and made no progress for several hours. By the end of the 6th, the troops had only advanced 1.6~2.4 kilometers. At the "Gold" landing site, two brigades of the first echelon of the 50th Division of the 30th Infantry Regiment of the British Army made a surprise landing at 7: 25. By the end of the 6th, the whole division had established a landing site with a depth of about 8km.

At the landing site in Juno, two brigades of the first echelon of the third division of the British 1 Canadian Infantry Regiment suddenly landed at 8 o'clock. After the troops landed, they were suppressed by the strong support of the German army and suffered heavy casualties. By the end of the 6th, the troops were 5-9 kilometers away from the task line of that day. "Sword" landing area, the British 1 the first echelon of the 3rd infantry division 1 brigade suddenly landed at 7: 25; Around 10, the second echelon brigade landed, and around 13, the third echelon brigade landed; Apart from some initial losses, the troops made rapid progress and did not encounter stubborn resistance from the Germans. By the end of June, he went to bevil and Norvell and established contact with the 6th Airborne Division of the British Army.

On June 7~ 12, after six days of fierce fighting, the allies established a unified landing point for the army group on the 80-kilometer front. On June 18, the American landing forces cut off the Cotantan Peninsula and prevented the Germans from reinforcing Cherbourg. On the afternoon of the 22nd, launched a general attack on Cherbourg; With the support of aviation and naval gun fire, after several days of fierce fighting, the American vanguard troops invaded Cherbourg on the 25th, and the defenders of Cherbourg were forced to surrender on the 26th. 1 July, Laag Point and the whole Cotantan Peninsula were occupied. The British landing troops advanced slowly under the fierce resistance of the Germans; Caen was scheduled to fall on D-Day, and it didn't fall until July 9th.

By the beginning of July, the allied forces had landed in the US/KOOC-0/3 division, the British/KOOC-0/0 division and the Canadian/KOOC-0/division, with a total of/KOOC-0/10,000 people, 567,000 tons of materials and 72,000 vehicles. Because the landing site is too small, American and British troops have launched an action to expand the landing site. After several days of fighting. On July 18, American troops captured Sanluo, a transportation hub, thus separating the Germans in Normandy. American and British troops arrived in Caen, Comon, Saint Laurent and Les, forming a landing site with a frontal area of150km and a depth of13 ~ 35km. At this point, the Normandy landing campaign ended successfully. In this landing campaign, Allied casualties were 1.22 million, German casualties were 1.654.38+0.7 million, and they were captured.

The 43-day Normandy landing campaign was the largest landing campaign in World War II. It is a typical battle in which the three armed forces work closely together to win by surprise when the allied forces have the air and sea control rights. Its successful implementation played an important role in launching a large-scale attack by the United States and Britain in Western Europe, promoting the armed struggle of the people in Western Europe against fascism and accelerating the collapse of Nazi Germany. It also provides many useful experiences for organizing and implementing large-scale landing operations.