| 60 years since the opening of the second front On Sunday, June 6, the West will mark the 60th anniversary of the most famous Allied military operation in World War II. In 1944, on this day, the landing of American, British and Canadian troops in Normandy began - the anti-Hitler coalition opened a second front. For the Allies, this date is perhaps the second most important event of the war after V-Day, Victory Day, celebrated there on May 8th. All over the world, June 6 is most often called by a very similar abbreviation - D-Day, although we, who graduated from Russian schools, are hardly familiar with this name. In textbooks, the landing in Normandy was mentioned in two sentences. Which is understandable - it’s, in general, someone else’s wedding, and a late one at that. By that time, our country had already been fighting off the Nazis for three years, had lost half of its European territory and had not yet even managed to push the Reich beyond its pre-war borders. But nevertheless, in the history of the second world landing of the allies it took its place of honor.
Moscow had been demanding a second front from its allies since 1942, but the British and Americans were in no hurry to invade the continent. Firstly, then they were simply not ready for a full-scale war in Europe. Secondly, even without a second front there were enough worries: there was a war with Rommel’s Nazi armies in North Africa, the Americans were competing with Japan for control of the Pacific Ocean, the British, after the start of air raids on Britain, were fighting with the Luftwaffe for air superiority. In 1943, the Allies launched an operation in Sicily, and the landing in France was again postponed. Only at the Tehran Conference at the end of 1943 did Churchill and Roosevelt promise Stalin to open a second front - in May 1944 at the latest. In exchange for this, Moscow promised to launch an attack on the eastern front and enter the war with Japan after the defeat of Hitler.
However, D-Day, which began Operation Overlord, did not occur until June: the Allies intended to begin landings only when maximum readiness was achieved. The advanced units were supposed to land from the sea on the coast of France and seize a bridgehead, where the rest of the troops and support services could then be transferred. At the same time, it was necessary to create superiority in “manpower and equipment,” deceive the enemy, overcome defensive fortifications and quickly capture at least one port. The situation was complicated by the fact that the Allies’ intentions to sooner or later start a war on the continent were no secret to Berlin, and the Nazis created a powerful fortified area in Flanders and France. The shore was turned into a fortress, the approaches were mined and protected from tank attack by reinforcements. However, the Reich did not have enough troops to reliably protect the entire line of defense, and the most combat-ready units were transferred to the east, where Operation Bagration began in June 1944 - Soviet troops drove the Nazis out of Belarus with heavy fighting. As a result, selected Allied formations, having landed in Normandy, often encountered Hitler’s “reserve” units, which consisted, for example, of recently drafted youths.
It was possible to deceive Rommel and Rundstedt, who commanded the defense of the western borders of the Reich. The Nazis expected that the main blow would be delivered in the Pas de Calais area, where the strait between Britain and the continent narrows as much as possible. But the landing force was landed further south, in Normandy, in the area between the Cotentin Peninsula and Cannes. The time of the landing was also kept secret: Field Marshal Rommel planned to spend June 6 not in the army, but at home in Germany - to celebrate his wife’s birthday. However, in fairness, it should be noted that literally the day before, the commander of the Allied group, American General Eisenhower, was not yet sure that he would be able to launch Overlord. Forecasters gave a bad forecast, and good weather was required to support the landing from the air. In addition, the landing craft needed a high tide to land soldiers closer to shore. The final decision to land the largest 156,000-strong landing force of the entire war was made just a day before the start of the operation.
In the spring, the southern part of England was turned into a military camp, where hundreds of thousands of soldiers, 11,590 aircraft and almost 13 thousand ships were transferred. Most of the naval armada was intended to transport troops; moreover, two artificial harbors were made from old merchant ships, tugs and caissons. They were supposed to moor to the captured bridgeheads and speed up the transfer of additional troops. On the night of June 6, Allied ships began shelling coastal fortifications. In addition, German positions came under air attack. It is believed that it was the massive support of naval artillery and bombers that ensured the success of the operation. If the number of Reich ground troops in the bridgehead and landing area was comparable, then in the air and at sea the Allies had a multiple advantage. At 6:30 a.m., the landing of troops began in five areas.
By evening, at most of the bridgeheads, the landing force managed to capture the first line of defense and advance several miles from the coast. Surprise worked perfectly: although not everything went smoothly and not all units managed to land, the Allied troops successfully cleared the mines, dug in and occupied the initial bridgehead. In the evening of the same day, floating harbors set off for Normandy: by June 17, conditions had been created for a regular approach of reinforcements. It is believed that it was after the Germans failed to drop troops into the sea within 24 hours after D-Day that the success of the operation was, in principle, a foregone conclusion. In five days, by June 11, 326 thousand soldiers and 54 thousand tanks, armored personnel carriers and cars landed in Normandy. On June 24, the port city of Cherbourg was surrounded, and on July 8, the Allies took Cannes. In August, the attack on Paris began, and on August 25, the French capital was liberated.
The total Allied losses during the first landing on June 6 are estimated at 10 thousand killed and wounded, with at least two and a half thousand soldiers and officers killed. No matter how cynical it sounds, we can say that thanks to excellent preparation and the surprise factor, the Allied command managed to carry out the largest landing operation with relatively “little bloodshed” and avoid a big meat grinder. The most fierce battles took place on the Omaha bridgehead, where the American landing ran into a particularly powerful defensive line of the Nazis. There, the US Army lost about two thousand people, while in the Utah section of comparable size, the total number of dead, wounded, captured and missing Americans did not exceed 200 people. The British troops, advancing on three bridgeheads, lost 2,700 people during D-Day, the Canadians lost about 950 soldiers and officers. Most of the dead and wounded were from parachute units dropped several miles from the amphibious landing site. The losses of the German troops defending the Norman fortifications are impossible to accurately calculate; the figures given range from four to nine thousand people. Vladimir DZAGUTO |
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