Britain+7

= = __ **Britain 7** __ (Fernando Padovani,Jeremy Bmedia type="file" key="Germany InvadesPoland-France and Britain Declares War_1.wmv" width="307" height="307"aptista, Gregory Vazquez, David Timman) *Roles for topic

-**Policy of appeasement before the war**. *(**David T**.)

In late 1938, Britain attempted to appease germany, and avoid another world war by signing the Munich Pact. This gave Germany "permission" to invade the contested Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. When Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia a few months later, it was clear that this attempt at appeasement did not work. In March 1939 Britain announced that it would support Poland if Germany invaded it. Germany invaded anyway. (In secret, Hitler and Stalin had signed an agreement dividing up Poland between the two powers.) On September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. This marks the beginning of World War 2 in Europe. In May 1940, Britain got a more aggressive war-time leader -- Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister.

That same month, on May 26, 1940, in the face of a large-scale German offensive, British troops on the continent were forced into one of the largest evacuations in history -- the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk on the Belgian coast. From July to October 1940, the English people suffered under the Battle of Britain intense German bombing. But the Royal Air Force valiantly defended its homeland from the German Luftwaffe, and the Nazis were unable to crush British morale. In March 1941, the U.S. began giving direct support to the British in the form of arms and ammunition through the Lend-Lease Act. After Pearl Harbor, in December, America would become directly involved in aiding the British in Europe. In January 1942, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to establish a Combined Chiefs of Staff and to the make defeating Germany their first priority. (Winning the war in Europe would come before winning the war in the pacific) After three more long years, the Allies did win the war in Europe. Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945. All told, Great Britain lost over 300,000 fighting men and over 60,000 civilians in World War II.

-**Declaration of war** *(**Jeremy B**.)

When France fell with such rapid speed in June 1940 ten months after the outbreak of World War Two and six weeks after German invasion, Germany believed it had achieved an unprecedented triumph in the most extraordinary conditions. To a large degree, of course, it had. Traditional enemies and apparently strong opponents had fallen with ease and dramatic speed - not only France, but Poland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Luxembourg had been over run and Britain's army had been outflanked and ejected in late May from Europe with the loss of most of its heavy weapons and equipment. But to Germany's surprise, Britain, although apparently defeated and certainly painfully exposed and isolated, did not surrender. It did not even seek to come to terms with Germany. This was a puzzling state of affairs for the Germans who now had two options: to lay siege to Britain and to wear it down physically and psychologically through limited military action and through political and propaganda warfare, which would include the threat or bluff of invasion; or to actually invade. Both these options demanded that preparations for invasion be launched, whether a real or bluff invasion only time would tell. So, on 16 July 1940 Adolf Hitler issued Directive Number 16. It read, 'As England, in spite of the hopelessness of her military position, has so far shown herself unwilling to come to any compromise, I have decided to begin to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion of England... and if necessary the island will be occupied.' The Germans, surprised by the speed of their military success in Europe, had no detailed plans for an invasion of Britain with the man made responsible for the venture, General Franz Halder, now having to start from scratch. But this absence of a plan did not prevent Hitler from announcing on 16 July that an invasion force would be ready to sail by 15 August. The operation was given the codeword Sealion. But by the end of July neither the threat of imminent invasion nor offers by Germany of 'honourable' peace had done the trick. It appeared that Germany would actually have to execute one of the most difficult military operations imaginable: an invasion, launched across at least 20 miles of water, culminating in a landing on a fortified and desperately defended coast line. It was immediately clear that this could not even be attempted until the Royal Navy - still one of the most formidable fighting forces in the world - had been either destroyed or diverted and after the Royal Air Force had been eliminated. The first reaction of Hitler and the German high command, when it appeared that a real rather than a bluff invasion would have to be organised, was to change the schedule. On the last day of July Hitler held a meeting at the Berghof. He was told of the difficulty in obtaining barges suitable to carry invasion troops and about the problems of massing troops and equipment while the German navy argued for the invasion front to be reduced from the proposed 200 miles (from Lyme Regis in the west to Ramsgate in the east) and for a postponement of the invasion until May 1941. Hitler rejected these requests that, if granted, would have undermined the invasion as a political threat, but the start date was postponed to September the 16th. There is evidence that, during this meeting, Hitler decided that the invasion of England was effectively a bluff operation and that resources should be diverted to the east in preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union. But, for the bluff to work, the build-up for invasion had to continue and Britain had to be kept under military pressure. So, after the 31 July meeting it was decided that the Luftwaffe should tighten the screw by attempting to clear the channel of British warships and the skies over southeast England of British aircraft. Hermann Goering saw no problems. The attack was due to start immediately, but bad weather delayed the German air offensive against Britain until 12 August.

//**Ironside**//

Meanwhile in Britain anti-invasion defences of all types had been planned and executed with incredible speed since late May. At the same time a new force had been organised to help defend the country. The Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) had been raised on 14 May 1940 and comprised men too old or too infirm to join the regular army or in protected trades and thus exempt from conscription. On 23 July, the force became known as the Home Guard, after Churchill coined the phrase during a BBC broadcast. By the end of July one and a half million men had volunteered, a huge figure which reveals the seriousness with which ordinary people took the threat of invasion in the summer of 1940.

On 27 May Churchill had put General Sir Edmund Ironside, Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, in charge of organising Britain's defence. Ironside acted quickly. He had a large force at his disposal, but one that was poorly armed and equipped and generally poorly trained. In the circumstances, Ironside's only option was to set up a static system of defence which, he hoped, could delay German invasion forces after landing and so give Britain time to bring its small mobile reserves into play. If the Germans could be delayed on the beaches and then delayed as they pushed inland their timetable could be thrown off balance, they could lose impetus, direction and initiative and the British army might be able to counter attack effectively. The key to Ironside's pragmatic plan was defence in depth. Southeast England was to offer a series of barriers or stop-lines formed by concrete pillboxes, gun emplacements, anti-tank obstacles, trench systems, minefields and barbed wire entanglements and utilising natural and man-made features such as rivers, canals and railway embankments. They were to ensnare and delay the German forces. The Germans, of course, had their own script for the battle and their detailed air reconnaissance of Britain in early 1940 meant that the stop-lines would have held few surprises for the attackers. But, whatever happened, Ironside was determined that this would be a battle of attrition. At the very least the Germans would be made to bleed before they achieved their objectives. By 25 June, Ironside's anti-invasion plan was complete and presented to the War Cabinet as Home Forces Operations Instruction Number 3. This Instruction gave detail to Ironside's defence theory. There was to be a coastal 'crust' that was to consist of a thin screen of infantry deployed along the beaches. This crust was to disrupt enemy landings long enough to allow the arrival of local reinforcements. Behind the coastal crust a network of stop-lines of various strengths and significance were constructed to slow down and contain or channel any German advance. The final and main position of resistance was the General Headquarters Anti-tank Line (the GHQ stop-line). This was the backbone of Ironside's coordinated defence plan. The line was planned to stretch from around Bristol in the west then east to Maidstone and running south around London passing just south of Guildford and Aldershot, then northeast to the Thames Estuary. Then beyond that, through Cambridge and the fens and up the length of England, running inland parallel with the east coast but able to defend the major industrial centres of the midlands and the north, and up to central Scotland. An auxiliary GHQ line was also to be established around Plymouth.


 * A revised invasion plan**

During August, as the stop-lines were nearing completion, the Luftwaffe's battle for the control of the air over England and the channel continued. But the assault on the RAF started to go awry as Goering changed the emphasis of attack from radar stations and airfield to aircraft factories and more peripheral targets - thus giving RAF front line squadrons a much needed breathing space. While what became known as the Battle of Britain started to reach its crescendo, the debate about Operation Sealion also continued to rage during August between the German navy and the army. A meeting on 7 August revealed irreconcilable differences: 'I utterly reject the Navy's proposals [for landing on a narrow front],' exclaimed General Halder. 'I might just as well put the troops through a sausage machine.' Eventually a compromise was reached. On 13 August, Hitler agreed that the invasion front should to be narrowed, with the most westerly landing area being around Worthing. This meant that the only one German Army Group - Army Group A - would carry out the invasion. The revised invasion plan was issued by the German High Command on 30 August.

The attack group of the 9th Army (Part of Army Group A) was to leave from Le Havre and land in the Brighton-Worthing area of Sussex. The first assault wave was to secure the beachhead. The second wave packed the real punch for it was made up of two Panzer Divisions - each composed of tanks, artillery, mobile troops and Panzer grenadier assault infantry - and one motorised division. The role of the panzers was to break out of the beachhead and then sweep west towards Portsmouth. The attack group of the 16th Army (also part of Army Group A) was to leave from the Calais-Ostend-Antwerp area and land in the Folkstone-Dungeness area around Rye and at Bexhill-Eastbourne. The first wave here was to consist of two infantry divisions, while the second wave was to include two Panzer Divisions that were to break out of the beachhead and advance north - to destroy the main reserves of the British army and establish crossings over the River Medway. These landings were to be supported by parachute troops, who were to drop on the Downs above Brighton, to assist in the securing of the beach head for the Brighton-Worthing assault group, and north west of Folkestone in Kent to seize the Royal Military Canal of Napoleonic war vintage. The Germans saw this canal, which had been built to stop French invaders storming across Romney Marsh on their way to London, as a significant anti-tank obstacle that could, if not bridged, stall the advance of their panzers.

The ultimate target
The initial objective for both assault groups was to establish a front from the Thames Estuary to Portsmouth. Then the build-up would begin with additional supplies and troops being brought in. When the build-up was complete the panzers of the Brighton-Worthing assault group would attack towards Basingstoke, Newbury and Oxford to secure crossing points over the Thames and to encircle and isolate London and the southeast in a great pincer movement. The remaining German forces, located around the Medway and on the Thames estuary, would then thrust towards London - the ultimate target of the invasion force.

General von Runstedt was in command of Army Group A, which was to be the main tool of invasion. As it happened, Von Runstedt had little faith in Halder's Sealion plan. He observed that Napoleon had failed to invade and the difficulties that confounded him did not appear to have been solved by the Sealion planners. Probably von Runstedt observed that one of the plan's main weaknesses was the small scale of the initial assault and the slow build-up. The first wave assault was to be carried out not by nine complete divisions but only their leading echelons numbering in each case around 6,700 men. So only the equivalent of three divisions - around 60,000 men - would have been involved in the first wave assault. About 250 tanks and very little artillery would have supported them. An added factor worrying von Runstedt would no doubt have been the amateur and ad-hoc nature of the sea transport. The consequence would be troops landed at the wrong place or at the right place at the wrong time - or not landed at all if British sea and air power had not been completely destroyed. And these same problems of transport would apply to and slow down the build-up of reinforcements unless a number of major ports were captured quickly and intact - which was highly unlikely.


 * Bristish in normandy **

Four years after the dramatic escape of the British Army at Dunkirk, the Brits returned to mainland Europe as part of the largest invasion the world had ever seen. With their new allies, the Americans, and after years of planning, the last stronghold in Europe was ready to go on the offensive against the Nazis. The attack plan for D-Day called for a massive amphibious landing in Normandy and divided the landing zone into five beaches. Two were assigned to the British and given the code names Gold and Sword. Although most histories of D-Day focus on the American action at Omaha Beach because it was the most dramatic and bloody, the British efforts were just as important to the overall plan. The attack on Gold Beach began with a massive bombardment from aircraft and surface ships in an attempt to knock-out the German defenses. At 7:30 am, the infantry began hitting the beaches. However, the sea was crowed with mines and other obstacles. A score of landing ships struck mines and suffered damaged of various degrees. Specialist teams of underwater demolition experts were forced to struggle through the water while disabling mines and blowing the other obstacles, all under heavy sniper fire from the remaining German defenders. Some people say that the British had a relatively easy time getting ashore at Gold, and certainly that is true when compared to Omaha, but that should not lessen the sacrifice of the 400 British soldiers killed or wounded at Gold. Their blood helped clear the road that would allow 25,000 allied troops to land by the end of the day. At the same time, the Brits were also landing at Sword beach. At Sword the air and naval bombardment had been less effective. Although the landing ships had an easier time putting men ashore, the infantry were faced with a number of obstacles to overcome while enduring constant machine gun and artillery fire. As part of the defences, the Germans had set up mine fields, concrete sea walls and anti-tank ditches. Here British ingenuity came into play in the form of Hobart's Funnies. These odd looking tanks had been specially designed to overcome such obstacles. Some used giant rolling pins on the front of the tank that whipped around heavy chains. These could be driven through mine fields with the chains safely detonating the mines as it went. Other tanks boasted special bridges carried on top or in front of the tank which could be laid over walls or across ditches. These tanks proved tremendously helpful in overcoming the obstacles laid out at Sword beach. Still, the British paid with blood. Over 600 men were killed or wounded during the attack on Sword Beach. By the end of the day nearly 30,000 allied troops had landed at Sword Beach.

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-**Dunkirk** *(**Gregory V**.) The Luftwaffe's principal modern fighter, the Messerschmitt Bf109E (Me-109), had limited range and was operating from bases some way from Dunkirk, making the German bombers very vulnerable to the most modern RAF fighters. This was a foretaste of the problems that they would soon face over Britain itself, and during the operation they lost 240 aircraft to the RAF's 177. German loss in the Battle of France was also heavy - 30 per cent - and the German aircraft industry was already falling behind the Allies in aircraft production.

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In the summer of 1940, the German Luftwaffe attempted to win air superiority over southern Britain and the English Channel by destroying the Royal Air Force and the British aircraft industry Although the fear of a German invasion was real, it was perhaps unfounded, however, as German plans were in fact somewhat amateurish - when planning the air attacks they made the mistake of regarding the Channel as a relatively minor obstacle, little more than a wide river crossing.======

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There were plenty of indications that the Luftwaffe might face real problems in accomplishing their initial step towards the conquest of Britain. The first came during the evacuation of Allied troops from the Dunkirk beaches at the end of May.====== The Battle officially began on 13 August, with an all-out assault on //Adlertag// ('Eagle day'). Five waves of bombers and fighters were sent against nine airfields - from Eastchurch to Portland.  RAF pilots waiting to be called into action [|©] The RAF's high performance fighters were the Hawker Hurricane, the mainstay of its effort, and the Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire was faster and more manoeuvrable but the Hurricane carried slightly more ammunition, was a more stable gun platform, and was absolutely lethal against the German bombers.


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Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. His father was the prominent Tory politician, Lord Randolph Churchill. Churchill attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, before embarking on an army career. He saw action on the North West Frontier of India and in the Sudan. While working as a journalist during the Boer War he was captured and made a prisoner-of-war before escaping. In 1900, Churchill became Conservative member of parliament for Oldham. But he became disaffected with his party and in 1904 joined the Liberal Party. When the Liberals won the 1905 election, Churchill was appointed undersecretary at the Colonial Office. In 1908 he entered the Cabinet as president of the Board of Trade, becoming home secretary in 1910. The following year he became first lord of the Admiralty. He held this post in the first months of World War One but after the disastrous Dardanelles expedition, for which he was blamed, he resigned. He joined the army, serving for a time on the Western Front. In 1917, he was back in government as minister of munitions. From 1919 to 1921 he was secretary of state for war and air, and from 1924-1929 was chancellor of the exchequer. The next decade were his 'wilderness years', in which his opposition to Indian self-rule and his support for Edward VIII during the 'Abdication Crisis' made him unpopular, while his warnings about the rise of Nazi Germany and the need for British rearmament were ignored. When war broke out in 1939, Churchill became first lord of the Admiralty. In May 1940, Neville Chamberlain resigned as prime minister and Churchill took his place. His refusal to surrender to Nazi Germany inspired the country. He worked tirelessly throughout the war, building strong relations with US President Roosevelt while maintaining a sometimes difficult alliance with the Soviet Union. Churchill lost power in the 1945 post-war election but remained leader of the opposition, voicing apprehensions about the Cold War (he popularised the term 'Iron Curtain') and encouraging European and trans-Atlantic unity. In 1951, he became prime minister again. He resigned in 1955, but remained an MP until shortly before his death. As well as his many political achievements, he left a legacy of an impressive number of publications and in 1953 won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Churchill died on 24 January 1965 and was given a state funeral.

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**Royal Air force(fernando p.)** These pages catalogue the official reports of the most important event in Royal Air Force history, the Battle fought over Britain between the 10th July and 31st October 1940. For the first time, the complete Fighter Command Operational Diaries for the period have been published in full, day by day over the whole period the Battle. Supporting this official text are a series of pages detailing such facets of the Battle as the Commanders, the Aircraft and the changes in Tactics on both sides as the situation developed. Although some of the Fighter Command claims of the time (I.e. numbers of German aircraft shot down etc.) have since been provd to be greatly exagerated on some days, it nevertheless does give a unique insight into the RAF's perspective of the Battle of Britain ======

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At 12:05 AM on June 6, 1944, three gliders carrying an element of the British 6th Airborne Division silently cut loose form the their tow planes and drifted towards the Pegasus Bridge, one of the few bridges that led over the Seine towards Normandy. The British paratroopers inside landed and stormed the bridge with heavy casualties. By 2 AM Normandy was alive with antiaircraft fire. Dakotas carrying the American 101st, 82nd and British 6th Airborne came under fire as soon as they hit the coast. Pilots struggled to keep their unarmed and unarmored craft stable long enough to drop their stick of eighteen paratroopers. Some drowned in Rommel’s flooded fields, some overshot the Peninsula and landed in the Atlantic. Twenty-five British paratroopers landed inside the German Fifteenth Army Headquarters.======

In late 1938, Britain attempted to appease germany, and avoid another world war by signing the Munich Pact. This gave Germany "permission" to invade the contested Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. When Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia a few months later, it was clear that this attempt at appeasement did not work. In March 1939 Britain announced that it would support Poland if Germany invaded it. Germany invaded anyway. (In secret, Hitler and Stalin had signed an agreement dividing up Poland between the two powers.) On September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. This marks the beginning of World War 2 in Europe. In May 1940, Britain got a more aggressive war-time leader -- Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister.

// Having received the [|“Neptune” Initial Joint Plan] from the joint commanders of the Allied expeditionary forces, the British Second Army prepared, as required, its own plan outlining its role in the establishment of an Allied lodgment area in [|Normandy]. The extracts reproduced below from this outline plan (which was drafted in conjunction with the Number 83 Group of the Royal Air Force's Second Tactical Air Force) commit the Second Army to securing areas around Caen that might be used for airfields; beyond that, the Second Army has no intention to make a significant advance inland until the U.S. First Army to the west has secured the //// port //// of //// Cherbourg //// and swept into //// Brittany ////. // // As modest as these goals may seem, some of them proved to be beyond the greatest efforts of the Second Army on the day of the invasion. The cities of //// Caen //// and //// Bayeux ////, for instance, were expected to fall on the evening of D-Day. Bayeux was indeed taken, only one day behind schedule, but //// Caen //// was to remain beyond the Second Army's grasp for more than a month. // __ OBJECT __ 1. (a) The ultimate object of Second British Army is to protect the flank of the U.S. Armies while the latter capture CHERBOURG, ANGERS, NANTES and the BRITTANY ports. There is no intention of carrying out a major advance until the BRITTANY ports have been captured. (b) The immediate object of the operations envisaged in this Outline Plan is to secure and develop a bridgehead SOUTH of the line CAEN 0368 - ST LO 5063 and SE of CAEN in order to secure airfield sites for the rapid establishment of air forces in the bridgehead, and to protect the flank of the First US Army, while the latter captures CHERBOURG. __ METHOD __ . . . 3. __Main Tasks__ (a) 30 Corps right, and 1 Corps left, will assault beaches between PORT-EN-BESSIN 7587 and the R ORNE, and will advance to secure PIERRE D'ENTREMONT 8027 - CONDE-SUR-NOIREAU 8831 - FALAISE 1436 and the high ground to the NORTH of it - ARGENCES 1761 - DIVES-SUR-MER 2279. (b) After completion of landing of two assaulting Corps, 8 and 12 Corps will land in succession, and will be prepared to develop operations in a SE direction. . . . __ GENERAL POLICY __ 5. The two assaulting Corps will advance by bounds (set out in the phases detailed below) from firm base to firm base. The maximum amount of offensive action by mobile forces will be carried out in advance of these firm bases. The speed of the advance from firm base to firm base will depend upon the rate of Build Up. The depth to which offensive action by mobile forces can be carried out in advance of these firm bases will depend upon the amount of enemy resistance, and the success achieved in establishing air forces in the bridgehead. 6. The intensive fighter effort required over the beaches can only be maintained for a short period by air forces based in the UK. It is essential therefore, to operate air forces from airfields on the Continent as early as possible after the assault so that the effort required can be maintained. To this end, by D plus 14, ten airfields must be built, and protected at a depth sufficient to prevent them being subjected to harassing artillery fire, in order that No. 83 Group RAF can be built up to full strength by that date. __ PHASE I - THE ASSAULT __ __ SECOND ARMY __ 7. (a) 30 Corps will assault with 50 Div on a two brigade front and will secure BAYEUX 7879 by the evening of D Day. 1 Corps will assault with 3 Cdn Div right on a two brigade front and 3 Br Div left on a one brigade front and secure CAEN 0368 by the evening of D Day. The capture and retention of CAEN is vital to the Army Plan. One SAS Tps is allotted to 1 Corps. This unit will land on the night D - 1/D Day with the task of delaying the movement of enemy reserves towards CAEN from the EAST and SE. (b) The domination of the area OUISTREHAM 1079 - CABOURG 2179 - TROARN 1667 - CAEN is necessary for the security of the left flank, and to ensure that the beaches immediately WEST of OUISTREHAM may be used for maintenance. The following tps are allotted to 1 Corps for this purpose: (i) One Para Bde (four bns) (ii) 1 SS Bde (less one Commando) The primary task for the para bde is the capture of the bridges at BENOUVILLE 099748 and RANVILLE 104746. The primary task for 1 SS Bde is to secure coastal defences, FRANCEVILLE 1578 - CABOURG 2179. (c) The remaining Commando of 1 SS Bde is allotted to 1 Corps to deal with OUISTREHAM, and on completion of this task to rejoin the rest of the bde. (d) 4 SS Bde is allotted to 1 Corps for the task of clearing up the area between 3 Cdn and 3 Br Inf Divs as early as possible on D Day, and with a view to the destruction of the coast arty btys at HOULGATE 2480 and BENERVILLE 4111, if necessary, during night D/D + 1. __ 83 Group RAF __ 8. 83 Group must be ready by dusk, D Day, to take over the control of night fighters operating over the bridgehead on the night D/D + 1 and also be ready to undertake the forward direction of day fighters on D + 1. __ PHASE II __ __ SECOND ARMY __ 9. (a) 30 Corps will advance and secure the centre of communications at VILLERS - BOCAGE 8157, gaining contact with 5 US Corps at CAUMONT 7059. (b) 1 Corps will pivot on CAEN and maintain contact with 30 Corps. As a basis for planning, it is considered that the rate of Build Up will not permit this advance before D + 3/D + 4. __ 83 Group RAF __ 10. The operation of sqns from two refuelling and re-arming strips will commence from one R & RS on D + 3 and from a second on D + 3 or D + 4. These strips will be located in the vicinity of ST CROIX-SUR-MER, 9383, and BAZENVILLE, 8982. __ PHASE III __ __ SECOND ARMY __ 11. (a) 30 Corps will advance and secure the high ground BOIS DU HOMME 7151 - Pt 361 7250 and MONT PINCON 8345, gaining contact with 5 US Corps in the area immediately SOUTH of FORET L'EVEQUE 6348. (b) 1 Corps will advance and secure the high ground immediately NE of BRETTEVILLE-SUR-LAIZE 0553 and the high ground immediately EAST of ARGENCES 1761. As a basis for planning it is considered that the rate of Build Up will not permit this advance before D + 7/D + 8. . . . (c) The capture and retention by 1 Corps of the two areas described above is essential for the construction of the airfields SE of CAEN. If these areas are not secured it is doubtful if ten airfields can be developed by D + 14, as required by the overall air plan. __ 83 Group RAF __ 12. (a) The operation of sqns from five ALGs (including two converted R and R strips) will commence from D + 7/8. The three additional strips are: CAMILLY 9476, VILLONS LES BUISSONS 0075, COULOMBS 8926 __ PHASE IV __ __ SECOND ARMY __ 13. (a) 30 Corps will advance and secure the high ground PIERRE D'ENTREMONT 8027 - MONT DE CERISE 8125 and CONDE-SUR-NOIREAU 8831, gaining contact with First US Army at VIRE 6331. (b) 1 Corps will pivot on ARGENCES 1761 and advance and secure FALAISE 1436 and the high ground to the NORTH of it. As a basis for planning it is considered that the rate of Build Up will not permit this advance until D + 12/D + 17, by which time 8 Corps and possibly 12 Corps will be available in reserve. __ 83 Group RAF __ 14. (a) A further five ALGs, making a total of ten, will be in operation by D + 14. These additional ALGs will be located as follows: Two in area AUTHIE 9871 - CAEN/CARPIQUET 9769 Three in area ESCOVILLE 1271 - FRENOUVILLE 1162 If, for tactical reasons, it is not possible to use the area ESCOVILLE 1271 - FRENOUVILLE 1162, it may be possible to develop alternative sites in the following area: (i) Area LONGUES 7896 - SOMMERVIEU 8381 - MARTRAGNY 8676 (ii) Area BENY-SUR-MER 9880 - BIEVILLE 0674. http://www.britannica.com/dday/article-9400220 http://www.britannica.com/dday/browse?browseId=237179 []

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