WWII in Color Part 9: Overlord

1944 and on the Eastern Front Hitler's forces were being pushed towards the German border, but Germany was about to face a new threat in the west. Allied forces had been preparing for months to open a new front in northwestern France. Training was already underway, but it was an attack that Hitler had been waiting for for a long time. His problem was knowing when and above all where it would occur. The stage was set for one of the biggest battles of World War II. The Allied landings along the French coast of Normandy from the early years of the Civil War.

After the war, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had always been certain that an Allied invasion of northern Europe would be necessary at some point; his only questions were when and how to test the waters. British forces had already mounted a series of practice operations in December 1941. The commandos attacked the Vago Islands off the coast of Nazi-occupied Norway. It was an attempt to probe German defenses and tie down Hitler's troops in the north. The fish oil factory and coastal defenses were blown up before the commandos withdrew. 8 months later, Canadian and British troops were sent to mount a more ambitious raid on the deep French port, it was also designed to test the defenses and also to provide combat experience to the Canadians, but this time it was a catastrophe when The landing craft approached the main beach and were met with withering fire.

The troops that managed to reach the coast were immediately pinned down behind them. The support tanks were stuck on the shingle. Few managed to scale the sea wall. More than 3,000 Allied soldiers. were killed or taken prisoner Britain had learned an important lesson never try to direct The assault on a German-occupied port, equally important, the Deep disaster reinforced British opinion that an invasion of Europe could not be rushed. Churchill understood that it would require careful planning. Finally, in April 1943, at an Allied conference in Washington, Churchill and American President Franklin Rosevelt agreed a date dday or Operation Overlord, as a maritime invasion of France was previously called, would take place in the summer of 1944, but now the The Germans were preparing for it in earnest since the winter of 1941.

They had been building an Atlantic Wall, it was a huge A series of fortifications had been built along the European coast from Denmark to the Spanish border. Gun imp placements had been built at probable landing sites. The beaches had been mined and covered with barbed wire. Obstacles had been placed in strategic locations to block the landing ships. Hitler had boasted that he was the greatest fortification builder of all time, in the summer of 1942, after the deep attack on the Atlantic Wall, Hitler's work was intensified, in addition, he ordered an increase in the number of troops in the region.

The German commanding general in the West, Field Marshal G. von Runed, had been assigned 15 more divisions, but the coast of Western Europe stretched for some 2,000 miles. He didn't have the numbers to man that length. Fon raned faced a difficult decision about where he should place his overstretched forces to maximize his effect. Faced with bitter arguments within the German leadership, Fon Runet proposed keeping a large force of potbellies in reserve northwest of Paris. He could then send her against an invasion once he knew where it was happening, but the highly respected Field Marshal Irvin RL, commander of the covering troops.

The sector from Holland along the French coast to the lir had a different vision. rl's concern was Allied air power, he had seen it first and when he fought the British in North Africa and it had left a deep impression on him, he feared that any counterattack would be disrupted. by Allied aircraft long before it could see action, Rommel had also inspected Hitler's Atlantic Wall and found much of it deficient, forcing him to conclude that the best place to position the bellies It was as close as possible to the most likely landing sites. That way, an invasion could be repelled immediately before it took hold.

Hitler compromised Runet. He was given a small force that he could keep in reserve, although Hitler himself would have the final say on when it could be used. The rest of the additional troops dispersed. throughout the entire Atlantic, in accordance with RL's wishes, would turn out to be the worst of all solutions: there were not enough reserves and not enough tanks near the coast, but in the fall of 1943 none of this was clear in Great Britain. Britain, Allied planners were also grappling with the location problem of where was the best place to land, their chief planner, General Frederick Morgan, quickly realized that there were two main options: Padal and Normandy.

Pakal was clearly the favorite, offering the shortest sea crossing and offering the shortest sea crossing and more. direct route to Germany, but it was also the most obvious route and Morgan was sure that the Germans were waiting for him, so he decided to go against them. Morgan would land in Normandy; It was the beginning of a great gamble on which the fate of hundreds of thousands of soldiers would depend in the fall of 1943. Allied reconnaissance planes f Moto swept the beaches of northern France. It was

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of a huge planning operation for the maritime invasion of Europe.

The fortifications of the Atlantic Wall were monitored by the French Resistance. The men crawled to shore. Collect sand samples to test whether armored vehicles could be landed. Northern France became the most recognized coastline in the history of the war. It soon became clear that any landing would need some form of port facilities, but the disaster at DM had shown that it was too dangerous to attempt. A direct assault on a German-occupied port British planners were forced to devise an ingenious and giant alternative. In Britain, hollow concrete boxes were built that could then be towed to the French coast, there they would be sunk to form an artificial harbor for which they were known. its code name mures the fuel would be supplied through a pipeline Unrolled from giant reels and thrown to the bottom of the sea it would travel 100 miles the pumping station in the white hallway was disguised as an ice cream parlor but the attack on DM had also revealed a second problem: how to get the first wave of troops off the beaches and through the German fortifications.

The man who was told to resolve that question was General Percy Hobot, one of the pioneers of armored warfare. Hobart devised a series of ingenious devices for troops to use. They called them funes and included such extraordinary machines as flamethrowers and floating tanks, flail tanks for clearing mines, coils for laying firm paths on sand or pebbles, an armored ramp for scaling sea walls, excellent vehicles for tackling ditches and bridge attacks for wider obstacles that Only one problem remained: how to prevent the Germans from sending overwhelming reinforcements before the Allies had established a foothold. The answer was to keep them guessing until the last moment where the invasion would take place.

Operation Bodyguard was a massive and complex deception campaign. Double German. Agents in Britain now began sending huge amounts of carefully coordinated false information to Germany, this emphasized that the main landings would be made on the Pakal, although a weak attack could be launched on Normandy to further muddy the waters. The Allied military created Ed as a fictional army. unit, the so-called first American army group or fusac, was very obviously stationed at Kent bang, opposite the pakal, the man in charge of it was the gun carried by American general George Patton, who had been withdrawn from action in Sicily after slapping the shock troopers. rated by the Germans as the Allies' best attacking general, just the man they expected to command the invasion of Western Europe.

Basher 52, this is Basher 11 on Alpha Radio Transmissions. Mimics military wireless traffic for the benefit of any LT-damped reconnaissance aircraft flying overhead. Britain, the fields of Kent were full of inflatable tanks and carefully faked footprints, there were dummy airplanes made of wood and canvas. The ports along the Kent coast were filled with dummy landing craft, there were even troops, although in reality they were backup units in late 1943. The Allies appointed American General Dwight Eisenhower Supreme Allied Commander for the invasion of Europe . British General Bernard Montgomery would be in overall command of the initial assault troops. D-Day was set for June 5, 1944, 2 months before the landing.

Eisenhower launched an elaborate air offensive. To once again disrupt German ties with the coast, it was carefully planned to give the impression that the Allied objective was the Padal region as the invasion date approached. The number of allied troops in England reached more than 2 million and they were supported by more than 3,000 taxes and 12,000. On the plane, the Germans knew full well that an invasion was imminent, but the Allies had completely fooled them with the false preparations in Kent and were convinced that the most likely landing site was Padal. Everything seemed to be going in the direction of the allies.

The troops were briefed and then the weather. It turned on them, rain lashed visibility was poor and the channel was stormy, however, on June 4, 1944, the assault troops boarded their landing ships and the Navy of over 5,000 ships set sail, but the rain continued lashing and later that day the invasion. had to be postponed the ships returned to port and the assault troops faced a nerve-wracking weight early the next morning the military leadership met with a game the naval commanders were eager to move forward but the air chiefs were DP them There was concern that visibility was still too poor to provide effective air support after a long silence Eisenhower looked up, come on, he said the operation missed the largest invasion Zorn had ever been underway D-Day had begun at 1:15 on the morning of 6 June 1944 British towing gliders arrived over the coast of northern France, then the gliders were released and descended to capture vital bridges over the K Channel in eastern Norway.

The Allies had launched their big bid to invade Hitler's Empire in Western Europe. 50 thousand to the west, American paratroopers descended around the village of S. There was a fierce fire, but 3 hours later the village was in US hands. One of the most crucial battles of World War II was underway. hour later, horrified German sentries along the Normandy coast saw a large Armada appear from the fog they had been in. Without warning, the Allied fleet had sailed under the cover of darkness; Furthermore, Allied countermeasures had confused German radar into believing that the main weight of the attack was approaching the French coast, further east of Pada Cal.

Allied warships off the coast of Normandy now began to hit the defense German. Positions wave after wave of aircraft flew over under cover of the bombardment, the assault troops headed for the coast, but as they approached the German artillery and the machine guns opened fire, several of the landing craft were hit, others fell against underwater obstructions , but at 6:30 in the morning, the first waves of troops arrived on the far western beaches. The 4th American Infantry Division landed near what they called Utah Beach; Within two hours he was joining the American paratroopers who landed at San Mer, next to Omaha Beach it was more difficult the beach was a defenders dream with high cliffs and few paths to land while the US 1st Infantry Division.

The US was waiting on the ground the German machine guns were harassing them to make matters worse the US amphibious tanks were flooded the troops were trapped On the beach disaster loomed, but finally some of the soldiers managed to climb the clips against all odds. The Americans held on to the head of the beach, further east, in the center of the landing area. The British 50th Infantry Division landed on Gold Beach. They too encountered the Savage Five but now the British deployed their funnies the troops soon moved ashore at the adjoining landing point Juno Beach the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division faced a similar situation here too the British funnies were vitalto help the troops leave the beach finally on the far left flank of Sword Beach, the British 3rd Infantry Division only encountered Pache resistance within hours.

His commandos had joined forces with glider-born troops in Channel K. By early afternoon, the Allies had successfully established all the beachheads that the time of the invasion had captured. The Germans, completely surprised, expected the Allies to wait until the weather improved. The German operational commander for the entire northwest coast of France had taken advantage of the bad weather to visit his family in Germany and his immediate subordinate's in Normandy and Brittany. General Friedrich Dolman was more than 100 miles away

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icipating in a war game exercise. Only the German commanding general for all of Western Europe, Marshal G Fon Runet, was at his headquarters, but he needed Hitler's permission to move his reserves from Paner to the battlefield.

Hitler was asleep and his AIDS did not wake him, it was not until noon that the furer finally heard about the invasion, but he did not take it seriously, he was still convinced that the main attack would occur on the pakal Normandy he believed to be simply A failure finally late in the afternoon, when the scale of the invasion was becoming all too clear. Hitler unleashed his reserves, but they were too far away to provide immediate support despite stubborn German resistance. The beaches around Utah, Gold and Juno and Sword, were safe only in Omaha it was a more precarious situation here.

German resistance had prevented American troops from advancing more than a mile on land. By nightfall on June 6, more than 100,000 Allied troops had landed in Normandy. It had been an extraordinary feat of planning. Wit and courage the first time. The day of the Allies' big gamble had been worth it, but it was only the beginning, now they had to prepare to escape and advance towards Europe as the second day dawned on the largest maritime invasion ever attempted, thousands of Allied troops had escaped from Its beach. heads and were moving inward they found the Normandy countryside Hardo the patchwork of forests and small fields provided ideal terrain for German tanks and machine guns the allies suffered many casualties Allied air power They provided crucial support when Von Run's Panza reinforcements arrived .

They were so exhausted by the air attacks that they were unable to mount a major counterattack. German reinforcements were also hampered by French resistance fighters operating behind German lines. They ambushed troop convoys and blew up bridges. As a result, the Dasr SS Panza division took more than two weeks to make a trip that should have taken only 3 days. His troops unleashed their fury against the French civilian population. The village of Oror Sulan and its 642 inhabitants were annihilated after 4. After days of fighting, all of Beach's allied chiefs were finally able to unite, but they still only managed to penetrate 10 miles in line.

Finally, 6 days after the landing, the British commander, General Montgomery, launched a major assault against the strategically important city of Kong the. The British 7th Armored Division, The Desert Rats, advanced, but their spearhead collided with four German Tiger tanks. The Allied Sherman tanks were completely sidelined, their guns out of range and their shells unable to penetrate German armor. They were particularly vulnerable because many ran on gasoline and fuel. susceptible to bursting into flames when the Germans nicknamed the Sherman the Ronson after the cigarette lighter or more likely the Tommy Cook in less than 5 minutes over 10 British tanks were destroyed the attack on K stored outmatched by the German tanks they relied on Allied air power and artillery but it was not enough The Desert Rats withdrew K remained in German hands while further west the American forces advanced towards the equally important port of Sherel it would take them almost 10 days to approach it they were not helped by The weather During the first week of the invasion it had been relatively calm and supplies and reinforcements had arrived through Mury's artificial ports, but now the weather changed.

Gale swept the English Channel. The US port of Mury in Omaha was destroyed. The other mul in the British. The sector was severely damaged it was out of action for several days the flow of reinforcements slowed meaning the port of Cherborg was an even more vital target as American forces approached it the German garrison held out there was fierce fighting between houses. It took the Allies a week to secure the city, but the port had been destroyed by fleeing Germans. It would take another month before it could be returned to service. Meanwhile, Montgomery launched another assault on K.

Storms had turned the fields into a sea of ​​low-lying mud. The cloud meant that air support was impossible to make matters worse, the newly arrived elite German 2nd Panacor SS was thrown into the defense of the city after 4 days, the British were again forced to halt and then when the clouds dissipated, nearly 500 Allied bombers devastated the British troops. They fought their way into the northern suburbs, but the ruins made ideal defensive positions for the Germans. Allied casualties increased after 48 hours. The attack was again called off. 3 weeks later, Monomer tried for the fourth time. The plan was to capture the remaining German fortresses. advance south, deeper into France, after two more days of fighting the city was finally won, the way now seemed open for the British tanks to advance south, deeper into France, but the Germans were waiting with a large force of bellies, the British advance again stopped the Americans.

In the west, however, they were having a better time, the fighting around Kong had absorbed most of the German defenders as the American forces prepared to advance further into France, they faced only scattered opposition, the stage was set. so that the allied forces would finally break out. At 9:30 a.m. on July 25, 1944, more than 1,800 Allied aircraft bombed a 4-mile stretch of the German front line south of Sherbo. It was the beginning of Operation K. The emergence of the United States in France. The size of the assault was such that some of the American soldiers had planned to have the bombers fly from the east parallel to the American front line to minimize the risk of bombing American troops, but most of the planes arrived above the front line.

The bombs from the American lines missed more than 100 American soldiers who were hit and killed, but despite the ferocity of the bombardment, when the American forces recovered and advanced, they discovered, to their astonishment, that a considerable number of troops Germans had survived. The survivors mounted a stubborn resistance. The resistance fighting intensified, it seemed that the Americans would not make it through the German lines, but then the German defenses collapsed the next morning, the American tanks broke through and advanced towards Open Country, now there was almost no German resistance left and the Americans quickly advanced further. In France, Couton Hill fell and then the town of Avon, at the crossroads, as the Allies advanced, they were aided by change and confusion in the German high command in early July, 3 weeks after the landing of the D-Day, Hitler dismissed the German commander-in-chief.

Field Marshal G Fon Runet for Defeatism Fon Runet had made little attempt to conceal his belief that Germany faced an unwinnable struggle. He was replaced by Field Marshal Gon Kuger, fresh from the Eastern Front but with little knowledge of northwestern France, two weeks later, the second most important place. A senior German officer at the front was seriously injured when his personal car was machine-gunned by a British fighter. Then, with a Nazi command already in turmoil, there was an assassination attempt on the life of Hitler on July 20, 1944, a disillusioned aristocratic war hero, Colonel Claus Shank Graph Von.

Stenberg planted a bomb in the planning hut at Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia. Four officers were killed, but Hitler was protected by a heavy solid oak conference table and escaped with only minor injuries. The plot was quickly and brutally put down. Staenberg was shot and his director. Hitler put on a brave face and visited some of the wounded in the hospital, but this further hardened his distrust of his superior officers; Despite his many previous errors in judgment, it would demand even greater control over events on the battlefield in France General George Patton again in charge of an actual fighting force ordered his troops to fan out, they took Ren Mayen and they headed to Lamar.

They were now moving behind the German forces still fighting with the British and Canadians near Cal with the Americans to the south and the British to the north it seemed that the German forces in Normandy would be surrounded. Hitler gave his usual order that there should be no retreat, but as the Allies closed in on them, the Germans began to flee and were harassed mercilessly by Allied aircraft and artillery, the casualties were terrible. Finally, on August 20, 1944, Allied forces advancing from both the North and South encountered the so-called Phes Gap, named after the nearby French village that had been closed.

A large number of Germans were trapped, more than 10,000 more Germans. Caught in the Allied pincer, another 50,000 died and were taken prisoner. The German army in Western Europe was in chaos. Meanwhile, far to the south, on the French Mediterranean coast, near Can, there was a second Allied invasion by sea. American troops landed. virtually unopposed and were aided by paratroopers of the Free French Army who had escaped German-occupied French territory in Europe and North Africa. The British had always opposed the landing, considering it a distraction, but the United States had long considered it an essential part of clearing the territory.

The Germans left France, the troops were greeted by an ecstatic civilian population and were soon advancing rapidly through the Ran Valley. León was liberated on September 3, 1944. Days later, they reached Djon and established contact with Patton's forces advancing from western France. German units stationed throughout the region fled in just three weeks of headlong advance. The Allied invasion of Europe had liberated most of France, which abandoned Paris, where French resistance fighters now rose up against the German occupation. There seemed to be little that could stop the Allied onslaught from continuing to the German border.