Overlord - Planning and Exercise

Adrenaline Дата публикации: 26-09-2020 2:21:00 Просмотров: 405

On June 6, 1944, British-American-Canadian troops landed in Normandy and opened the Second Front. The landing is now loudly referred to by the Americans and their hangers-on as the "Greatest Battle of World War II."

When considering this, so to speak, "battle" more closely, then all the husks that are inflicted by Hollywood films and computer games (both are preferred by teenagers of the puberty period) flies off.

Planning

The US military began to develop a plan for the invasion of occupied France as early as 1941. The operation was called " Round up " (surround or round up English). On December 31, 1941, the command of the American and British armies held a joint meeting in Washington, where the British convinced the impatient Americans not to break headlong into Europe, but to gradually build up their forces, bringing the army ground to 8 million people. According to the plan "Bolero", which was approved at the meeting, the American army with senior officials began to move to the British Isles.

From that moment on, in foggy Albion, heated disputes broke out between representatives of the British and American commands about the landing in France. Over time, the British managed to convince the Americans to land in French Africa and Italy. In addition, according to the British historian M. Hastings, if it were not for pressure from the Americans, the landing in Normandy would have occurred no earlier than 1945.

In January 1942, a joint headquarters of the High Command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces was established in England. And from that time until the beginning of 1944, this headquarters developed the landing operation in Normandy, which received the name "Overlord" (eng. - Overlord).

The operation plan was divided into two main stages. The first, called "Neptune", provided for the landing and capture of coastal territory. The second stage, called "Cobra", involved the advance in France, the liberation of Paris and access to the Franco-German border.

In addition to the main stages, Operation Overlord included several operations to misinform German intelligence about the day and place of the landing.

On January 13, 1944, the general plan of the operation received approval from the commander of the headquarters, D. Eisenhower, and began to be polished. By the end of March, the final plan of the operation was approved and the troops were on the move.

Preparation

To conduct Operation Neptune, the allied command decided to conduct large-scale exercises on the coast of England, one of the stages was called the Tiger. Beaches similar to those where they were to land were chosen. The settlements that were located on the coast were completely resettled. In total, about three thousand people were evicted. Everything was done to maintain secrecy.

A stretch of beach called Slapton Sands on the coast of Devon was very similar to the Utah site, where the actual landing was planned.

The exercises, which were scheduled for April 22-30, 1944, went down in history as ... exercises with the largest number of dead .

The first few days passed in a fairly calm atmosphere. The landing was practiced, American soldiers ran ashore and captured the fortifications. But the command, represented by the future US President D. Eisenhower, decided to complicate the task and give the soldiers a sniff of gunpowder. They were ordered to issue live ammunition to the British, who portrayed the defending Germans. And also instructed to shoot exclusively over the heads of the advancing American soldiers. In addition, the English cruiser Hogins, half an hour before the landing, during the approach of landing craft to the coast, was supposed to fire at the coast from the main caliber at the provided coordinates, that is, blindly.

Despite the very dense Allied naval patrols, several German torpedo boats leaked to the exercise site in the morning twilight. Seeing a large flotilla, the Germans fired torpedoes at it and, having sunk two landing ships, left safely. The remaining landing craft, increasing their speed, arrived at the landing site in advance. American soldiers, unaware of the imminent shelling of the coast by the allies, landed 35-40 minutes ahead of schedule.

Having come under fire from the 190-mm cruiser, the Americans rushed forward "to the fortifications of the Germans." As it was envisaged by the scenario of the exercises, the “defenders” began to shoot towards the soldiers running at them. That's just not on top of the heads, but on the soldiers themselves.

The result of one day of exercises was the death of about 450 American soldiers and about one thousand wounded. The dead were buried right on the beach in mass graves.

True, no one has officially confirmed the data on losses.

On the night of April 27-28, LST landing ships, which were about 120 meters long, being in T-4 convoy, moved out to rehearse the landing to Lyme Bay near Devon. On board the ships carried equipment, officers and soldiers for training. The convoy was guarded by two British ships: the corvette Azalea, which was in the forefront, and the destroyer Scimitar, which closed the convoy. During the campaign, the destroyer collided with one of the landing ships and was forced to return to Plymouth. Due to the lack of communication between the British and the Americans (different radio frequencies were used), the message was not transmitted to the landing ships that the rear of the convoy was not covered.

In Lyme Bay, 9 Kriegsmarine torpedo boats approached the convoy from the rear . The darkness did not allow to determine the type of ships, but the German schnellboats attacked the convoy. Having sunk two landing craft - LST 507, in which 202 people died, and LST-531, 424 American soldiers died. The third was attacked by LST-289. However, the ship did not immediately go to the bottom, but caught fire, and then washed ashore. Losses amounted to 123 people. The corvette and other landing ships opened fire on the enemy, but did not inflict any damage on him. But friendly fire covered another landing ship LST-511.

The number of dead and injured as a result of the exercises is still unclear. The US leadership did not officially remove the secrecy stamp from documents about the events of those days.

They were first mentioned in 1969 by the British hotelier Ken Small, who reported that many American soldiers died on the coast of Devon. According to his book, 946 American soldiers died. Since there are no official data on losses, it is believed that 749 military personnel, including 551 soldiers and officers of the US Army and 198 sailors of the Royal Navy of Britain, were killed in the attack on the convoy, about 200 were injured.