|| D-DAY 6th JUNE 1944:OPERATION OVERLORD ||

katakpuruz

Salam..semua.
Aku nak kongsi cerita masa perang dunia ke-2 dan sesiapa yang nak kongsi cerita pasal D-DAY, boleh layan kat `Rumah' ni
Operation overlord...Dalam operasi ini, seramai 3.5 juta `troops', `soldiers', `sailors' dan `airmen' dari British, Amerika, Canada, Australia dan New Zealand, Perancis, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Czechs dan `the Dutch' bersama-sama dengan 13,000 `aircraft`, 3,500 `gliders`, 1,200 kapal perang, 1,600 `merchant ships` dan 4,000 `assault craft` telah digunakan bagi menjalankan operasi Overlord. Antara pantai-pantai yang terlibat dengan operasi Overlord adalah Omaha Beach, Juno Beach, Sword Beach, Utah Beach dan Gold Beach.Antara pantai-pantai terlibat, di Omaha Beach tentera jerman telah memberikan tentangan yang sengit mengakibatkan lebih dari seribu anggota tentera maut dan 3000 yang lain cedera.




OMAHA BEACH
6:30 A.M. The first wave of assault troops approached their landing grounds!! These were the men of the 16th. Regimental Combat Team of the First Division and the 116th. Regimental Combat team of the 29th. Division. The Navy had been shelling the beach for some time prior to the assault, unfortunately the shells and rockets fell way short of any German defences. Similarly the bombs dropped by the American airforce completely missed there intended targets, leaving the German defenders at full strength to oppose the incoming troops. The German 352nd. Infantry Division along with the 716th. Static Division were well dug in overlooking the landing beach.
The American troops were taken by complete surprise, as they expected only minimal opposition. It soon became apparent that a major disaster was taking place, many landing craft were sunk miles from the beach, others hit the obstacles lying in wait beneath the surface of the water, the D.D. Floating Tanks sank like stones!! their crews trapped, perished inside the vehicle.. Only six of these tanks reached the beach!!
Most of the heavy Artillery pieces never reached the beach, sinking in the heaving tides!
The first wave was completely overwhelmed and took tremendous casualties.
More and more troops were landing on the beach and the situation was becoming so serious that General Bradley observing the battle from the U.S.S. Augusta was making preparations to abandon the assault.
12:00 Mid-day: The bluff overlooking the beach had been taken, but at tremendous cost!!





GOLD BEACH
This was the landing ground for the 50th. Northumberland Division. The D-Day objective being, to take the beach and move inland seven miles to Bayeux to meet up with American forces coming off Omaha at Port en Bessin.
Unlike the American landings, the British landed at 7:25 a.m. almost an hour later. The  German defences were known to be of a very high calibre at this location, they included the 716th. Static Division along with the 352nd. Infantry Division. Following a massive bombardment by the Royal Navy the landing craft were deployed from seven miles out from shore, this gave them a lot shorter run in than the Americans who deployed twelve miles from shore.
Due to the heavy seas, it was decided not to launch the D. D. Tanks from their landing craft, but actually run them straight up to the beach head, this was an extremely successful decision, as, unlike at Omaha, the British infantry had the protection of heavy armour landing with them on the beach and this certainly prevented a massacre, the like of which had been experienced on Omaha.





JUNO BEACH   
The Canadian 3rd. Infantry Division were given the unenviable task of securing the stretch of Normandy coastline including, Vaux, Coucelles sur Mer, Bernieres sur Mer and St.Aubin sur Mer, this area was code named "JUNO BEACH".
The Canadian contingent was made up of men not only from Canada but also volunteers from Ireland, Scotland, French Canadians, Poles and quite a few Americans all of which wanted to fight for the freedom they believed in.
The first wave saw the 7th. Brigade Group coming ashore, 50% of the D-D tanks which had been launched to give them cover when they hit the beach had sunk before firing a shot! The tides were horrific, many men died as soon as the landing craft doors opened. The German defences were virtually intact!!
Ten minutes later the 8th. Brigade landed, this time the D-D tanks were transported to the beach on the landing craft, but this caused them to come in late, leaving the infantry  without cover for some time, and therefore adding to the casualty rate.





SWORD BEACH
07.25 a.m. After heavy air and naval bombardment, The 3rd. British Division, 8th. Brigade Group, stormed Sword beach, the D-D tanks were launched successfully and 28 out of 40 landed on the beach to engage the enemy and help clear the beach defences.
French commandos also landed with the British, their brief was to capture the port of Ouistreham a small but important town which lay to the eastern end of Sword.
The infantry can be seen here on the beach, which was under a constant barrage of shelling, mortar and machine gun fire.
Also landing on Sword were the commandos of the 1st Special Service Brigade. Under the command of Brigadier Lord Lovat they were given the objective of linking up with the 6th. Airborne at Pegasus Bridge. Complete with Lord Lovat's personal piper Bill Millin they hit the beach at 08:40.
Piper Bill Millin could be seen and heard marching up and down Sword playing "Road to the Isles" It is hard to imagine, but these men were under heavy fire from German heavy artillery, machine guns, and mortars, the sheer bravery to stand up and play the bagpipes whilst all this was going on is just amazing!!





BERSAMBUNG....


[ Last edited by  katakpuruz at 13-4-2007 08:41 PM ]

alphawolf

Allies mungkin akan hadapi lebih banyak tentangan kalau tak kerana operasi penipuan mereka....

katakpuruz

Originally posted by alphawolf at 20-11-2006 11:29 AM
Allies mungkin akan hadapi lebih banyak tentangan kalau tak kerana operasi penipuan mereka....

Aku setuju...kalau tak kerana berita palsu yang German dapat, aku rasa Allied force takkan dapat tembus Normandy.

katakpuruz

The German High Command were in no doubt that an Allied invasion of France would take place in 1944.
After years of depleting the Western Front in order to strengthen the Eastern Front, it was imperative to try and get up to strength before any invasion took place.
By June 1944 there were up to 56 Divisions present on the Western Front, the strength of these divisions were not as great as they looked on paper, many were well below strength.

alphawolf

Dapat...tapi parah la.....kalau 15th Army kat Pas De Calais dipindahkan ke Normandy.

katakpuruz

Originally posted by alphawolf at 21-11-2006 09:59 AM
Dapat...tapi parah la.....kalau 15th Army kat Pas De Calais dipindahkan ke Normandy.

The main effort by the Western Allies to defeat Nazi Germany began with the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Surprise, essential to success, was complete. The German high command did not even believe it was the main attack. They believed the "real" invasion would come in mid-July about 150 miles northeast of Normandy near Calais on the Straits of Dover. For weeks after the invasion their decisions were based on this false belief, making the Allies' subsequent battle across Normandy less costly than it might have been. British and American intelligence specialists deceived the Germans with an elaborate deception plan, codenamed Fortitude, causing them to mistake the Normandy invasion for an Allied stratagem to draw their forces from the Pas de Calais region. As a result, they kept some reinforcements from Normandy that might have tipped the balance there. Hitler's chief of staff, General Alfred Jodl, called this mistake Germany's "fatal strategic error."

katakpuruz

>>>>>KLIK SINI

The BIGOT maps and documents were created in isolated cocoons of secrecy. One was hidden in Selfridges department store in London. BIGOT workers entered and left Selfridges by a back door, many of them knowing only that they were delivering scraps of information that somehow contributed to the war effort. Others with BIGOT clearances worked on Allied staffs scattered around London and southern England. So restricted was the BIGOT project that when King George visited a command ship and asked what was beyond a curtained compartment, he was politely turned away because, as a sentinel officer later said, "Nobody told me he was a Bigot."

The system occasionally broke down....The strangest breach of security came from the London Daily Telegraph, whose crossword puzzles alarmed BIGOT security officers.

One puzzle, on May 2, included "Utah" in its answers. Two weeks later, "Omaha" appeared as an answer. The puzzle's author, a schoolmaster, was placed under surveillance. Next came "Mulberry," code name for artificial harbors that were secretly being built in England for use off invasion beaches. Then came the most alarming answer of all: "Neptune."

This time the schoolmaster was arrested. Confounded investigators finally decided that the words had been the product of an incredible series of coincidences. Not until 1984 was the mystery solved: One of the schoolmaster's pupils revealed that he had picked up the words while hanging around nearby camps and eavesdropping on soldiers' conversations. He then passed the odd words on to his unwitting schoolmaster when he asked his pupils to provide ingredients for his crosswords.



But nothing was more secret梠r more vital to Operation Neptune梩han the mosaic of Allied intelligence reports that cartographers and artists transformed into the multihued and multilayered BIGOT maps. On them were portrayed details of Hitler's vaunted Atlantic Wall, a network of coastal defenses designed to repel invaders.

To discover what the Allied invaders faced, American, British, and French operatives risked their lives梐nd sometimes gave their lives梚n the process of filling in the BIGOT maps. Revelations about Normandy's undulating seafloor came from frogmen who also got sand samples on beaches patrolled by German sentries. Such BIGOT map notations as "antitank ditch around strongpoint" or "hedgehogs 30 to 35 feet (9 to 10 meters) apart" were often the gifts of French patriots. French laborers conscripted by the Nazis paced distances between obstacles or kept track of German troop movements. A housepainter, hired to redecorate German headquarters in Caen, stole a blueprint of Atlantic Wall fortifications.

French Resistance networks passed on precious bits of information, particularly the condition of bridges and canal locks. Wireless telegraph operators transmitted in bursts to evade German radio-detection teams. Other messages got to England in capsules, borne by homing pigeons that the Royal Air Force had delivered to French Resistance agents in cages parachuted into German-occupied Normandy. Germans, aware of the winged spies, used marksmen and falcons to bring them down. But thousands of messages got through.

[ Last edited by  katakpuruz at 25-11-2006 06:02 PM ]

thamrong

Ada sapa yang boleh memberi Order of Battle Operation Overlord.

katakpuruz

Originally posted by thamrong at 25-11-2006 06:18 PM
Ada sapa yang boleh memberi Order of Battle Operation Overlord.

The order of battle was approximately as follows, east to west:





British sector (Second Army)
6th Airborne Division was delivered by parachute and glider to the east of the River Orne to protect the left flank.
1st Special Service Brigade comprising No.3, No.4, No.6 and No.45(RM) Commandos landed at Ouistreham in Queen Red sector (leftmost). No.4 Commando were augmented by 1 and 8 Troop (both French) of No.10 (Inter Allied) Commando.
I Corps, 3rd Infantry Division and the 27th Armoured Brigade on Sword Beach, from Ouistreham to Lion-sur-Mer.
No.41(RM) Commando (part of 4th Special Service Brigade) landed on the far right of Sword Beach.
Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, Canadian 2nd Armoured Brigade and No.48 (RM) Commando on Juno Beach, from Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer to La Rivi鑢e-Saint-Sauveur.
No.46(RM) Commando (part of 4th Special Service Brigade) at Juno to scale the cliffs on the left side of the Orne River estuary and destroy a battery. (Battery fire proved negligible so No.46 were kept off-shore as a floating reserve and landed on D+1).
XXX Corps, 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division and 8th Armoured Brigade on Gold Beach, from La Rivi鑢e to Arromanches.
No.47(RM) Commando (part of 4th Special Service Brigade) on the West flank of Gold beach.
79th Armoured Division operated specialist armour (Hobart's Funnies) for mine-clearing, recovery and assault tasks. These were distributed around the Anglo-Canadian beaches.

U.S. Sector (First Army)
V Corps, 1st Infantry Division and 29th Infantry Division on Omaha Beach, from Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to Vierville-sur-Mer.
2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions at Pointe du Hoc (The 5th diverted to Omaha).
VII Corps, 4th Infantry Division and the 359th RCT of the 90th Infantry Division on Utah Beach, around Pouppeville and La Madeleine.
101st Airborne Division by parachute around Vierville to support Utah Beach landings.
82nd Airborne Division by parachute around Sainte-M鑢e-Église, protecting the right flank. They had originally been tasked with dropping further west, in the middle part of the Cotentin, allowing the sea-landing forces to their east easier access across the peninsula, and preventing the Germans from reinforcing the north part of the peninsula. The plans were later changed to move them much closer to the beachhead, as at the last minute the 91st Air Landing Division was found to be in the area.

thamrong

Thanks for the information KPz.

topeng perak

ape ape pong this is the turning point in history ...

alphawolf

For me the turning point(s) of WW2 are

Battle Of Midway (June 1942)
Battle of Kursk (July-August 1943)

I don't really consider D-Day as turning point as the Allies are already winning by that time.

Oh one more thing, around two weeks after D-Day, the Russian Army launches Operation Bagration, a massive attack aimed towards the centre of the German Ostfront....Hitler's worst nightmare - now he really have to fight on two fronts.

katakpuruz

"The necessity of invading the European continent as the only way to defeat Nazi Germany" - British.

topeng perak

Originally posted by alphawolf at 26-11-2006 09:08 AM
For me the turning point(s) of WW2 are

Battle Of Midway (June 1942)
Battle of Kursk (July-August 1943)

I don't really consider D-Day as turning point as the Allies are already winning by tha ...

eventhough allies is winning ... tapi what is on the stake is the fate of germany sendirik ... kalo diorang menang diorang akan dapat survive ... then mane tau diowang dapat bangkit balik ... same gak cam kes waterloo

thamrong

Alphwolf is right mate!
The wars on the eastern front( Kursk and Stalingrad) finally broke the Nazi's spine. Battle of Midway was a fluke, the American just got lucky if not because of the last remaining Douglas Dauntlesses dive-bombers caught the  Nippon's Main Body aircraft-carriers at 20,000 feet busy shuffling bombs and topedoes on their deck. Four aircraft-carriers sunk on a single day and the Imperial Combine Fleet sounded the retreat call and limped back to Nippon. By the beginning of 1944 the German army was putting up a fighting retreat, having even lost aerial superiority to the Soviets in 1943. Hitler's most prized units and armies had been lost in the monster battles of Kursk and Stalingrad. His favourite army, the 6th, was one which he personally ensured was endowed with the very best equipment and officers; it was annihilated at Stalingrad. By the time those soldiers were storming up Norman beaches the Nazis were recruiting adolescent boys into their armies to make up for the irreplaceable losses suffered on the Eastern Front. The Soviets, meanwhile, were fully primed for total war and had the men, factories, raw materials and machines to fight for years more if necessary.:hmm::hmm:

topeng perak

haha maybe rite ... heheh

satu lagi turning point in ww2 aku rase ialah operation barbarossa

kalo hitler tak withdraw sebahagian army dia dari barbarossa ntuk tolong italy kat north africa musti result dia maybe changed quite a few ... mane tau kan?

italy sucks ... takder guna langsung

thamrong

Good point. TQ

topeng perak

bro ... u are quite knowledgeable ... sila banyak tunjuk ajar saya ... anda nehh seorg lecturer eh?

katakpuruz

"Adakah sejarah akan berubah, andai kata Nazis well prepared at beaches of Normandy..":hmm:

1. On June 6 1944, Deliverance Day, or D-Day, the allies made an attempt to open another front against Germany. The Germans expected the attack to come at Pas de Calais, but in actual fact it took place on the beaches of Normandy, further west. Paris was liberated on August 25 and Germany itself was now under real threat of an invasion from various fronts, the Russian advance from the east and the British and Americans beginning their move from the west.

Copy the Code

[ Last edited by  katakpuruz at 26-11-2006 12:19 PM ]

alphawolf

But their ladies..sucks, literally....