Battle of Normandy and Operation "Overlord" (32 pics + text) Bashny.Net

On Tuesday, June 6, 1944 during the Second World War by American and British troops took place in the history of the largest amphibious operation. "D-Day" entered the century.

In France, on the coast of Normandy landed almost three million soldiers.

Western Front, called us a second front, finally opened.

During Operation "Overlord" misty morning thousands of ships that came from the ports of the south of England, crossed the English Channel and proceeded to liberate occupied by the Germans in France.



Germans knew and prepared. Northern coast of France defended the so-called "Atlantic Wall" - the band of powerful coastal fortifications. Since most of the Wehrmacht fought on the Eastern Front in France, the soldiers were few, and the battle on the coast of the fortified frontiers decided the fate of the Western Front.

The Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy slaboukreplennyh operation was kept secret and terrible effect of surprise has gone.

The landing took place on five Normandy beaches, code names, of course, each student should know (I think American) - Utah, Omaha, Goldie, Juno and Sword.

At Omaha Beach the Germans had put up fierce resistance. The landing of the first echelon has turned into a bloodbath. "Bloody Omaha" has become a symbol for Americans across the Second World War.



Americans have a reason chose this beach for the landing. For many kilometers around the coast is steep cliffs, and only open the six-kilometer strip suitable for landing of people and technology.

The Germans, too, guessed this modest fact, that's why the Americans have been waiting here for eight large-caliber guns, 18 anti-tank guns, machine guns and a hundred. All Beach Beach represented the continuous messivo of urchins, mines, barbed wire, the water piles were driven to prevent the approach of landing craft.



Further, the way American paratrooper was blocked by five-meter sand dune, covered with bushes



and behind it - two hundred meter width boggy marsh



and behind him - fifty-meter height of the ridge of hills that are inaccessible to machinery. She then sat Germans.



But the Americans really needed to land

By five in the morning about six thousand vessels, a giant armada pereskla Channel and part of the Armada under the plan went to the landing sector "Omaha»

If the landing of the British and Canadians in areas "Gold", "Juno" and "Sword" went smoothly, here the Americans went wrong from the beginning - a heavy fog, storm, nasty visibility.

Fierce bombardment of the hills "Omaha" from planes and ships did not bring any harm to the Germans - so reliable were pillboxes. A few kilometers from the coast, Americans have begun landing ships with marines in the light landing craft.



That somewhere was away



At the same time the battleships "Texas" and "Arkansas" tried to turn the German fortifications in messivo, but in vain.

Almost blindly, blindly, landing craft spun on the waves and in the labyrinth of sea urchins and piles. In a panic, I began unloading tanks, amphibious in deep water. Of the 32 tanks sunk with all 29 crew. Only one boat captain disobeyed orders and did not let their tanks. These three tanks that were the sole support of the infantry



... Which still reached the shallow and started planting. Small depth - that's two or three meters, which is logical, a large number of soldiers from the 30-pound ammunition immediately sank

But others waited boiling from the German bullets and shells coastal water.



The site "Omaha" was divided into eight sectors.

Here are the bars, they mean the border areas.



One, code-named "Green Dog", Steven Spielberg immortalized in his "Saving Private Ryan." In fact, as the very "Omaha."

For each sector meet one company.

Eight sections - the first wave of eight companies, 1,450 people.

From these few soldiers escaped.

Picture slaughterhouse showing Spielberg, close to the truth. But it lasted long because the next wave passed over the corpses of his comrades, began to beat the Germans, who, incidentally, was not much.

However, the final loss of the Americans on Omaha have made three thousand people - given the fact that the loss of all allied forces during landing on all five sections accounted for five thousand.

On the "Utah" loss amounted to just 200 people, thanks to the weather - have landed in the wrong place, and two kilometers.

History Private Ryan is the real implications - Niland two brothers were killed in the "Utah" and "Omaha" and the third was sent home to her mother, though no one was looking.

For Americans, Omaha - an important point on the world map.

In addition to the symbol of courage and horrific losses to them (of course, incomparable with the scale of operations of the Eastern Front), here is a military memorial cemetery of dead American soldiers during "Operation Overlord."

Someone a long time stood and just looked at the sea, in the direction of England, to where 65 years ago seemed a fleet of allies.



Cemetery more than impressive

A huge meadow with a neat white crosses



There is 9300 soldiers



Crosses occasionally interrupted by the Star of David



For many American Jews considered sacred duty to enlist in the army to fight against the hated Hitler



Joseph Will. 4 Division. Lieutenant. Pennsylvania. He died June 7, 1944.

All crosses inscription - the name of the deceased, where he served, when and where killed, and the most sacred - the staff. For those years, American birth place - it's like a brand, so he defined the character and mentality of a person.



Patrick Healy. Died June 12, 1944. Texas.



Raymond Tepbelk. He died June 7, 1944. Ohio.

All 48 states are here

And all of these names, the crosses, the date the star of David, states, stretching to the horizon.

Among them is the tomb and Ryan.











And next - a museum. In fact, that neither is on the western sense of the word "museum" - photographs, films, slides, engraved on marble great words.





On the way back we found preserved German bunker. He survived, probably because it was erected a monument winners - the fifth engineering team. And the names of more than a hundred people, who put a team in the assault, and the height of the bunker.



And yet, no. Just below the hill remained one dot.





Inside survived runners for turning large-caliber gun carriage



Here's a glance from eyes that gun bunker. The entire beach at a glance. No wonder that Americans should take expensive at the height of "Omaha».



But the Germans did not save. Within two months of the battle of Normandy was lost, Paris was commissioned by the Germans without a fight, and August 1944, they rolled to the east with virtually no resistance.



In April 1945, American and Russian officers in the town of Torgau on the Elbe for the first time shook hands