my battlefield my company

Chapter 220 Normandy, Omaha Beach

As the war drew nearer, the soldiers of E Company became restless, and they felt more and more that Lieutenant Mark Sobel would lead them to the devil's pocket.

For Sobel's goodwill when he led the soldiers and the independent company to march this time, the vast majority of soldiers in E Company thought it was Sobel's flashback.

So the sergeant majors of Company E called an emergency meeting and demanded that Sobel be replaced.

Under the pressure of the imminent war, Colonel Xin Ke transferred Captain Meehan of Company B to Company E as the company commander.

Winters performed very well in the independent company. Under his training, the soldiers' skydiving skills became more and more mature, and Colonel Xinke was reassigned to E company to serve as the platoon leader of the first platoon.

Under the training of Yan Zhi, the soldiers of Company E have made a qualitative leap in both physical fitness and fighting skills.

Other allied countries also often invite Yan Zhi to give lectures in their camps, which rapidly improves the quality of their soldiers.

The 116th infantry company was transferred to the German battlefield.Their poor performance at the McCall military training base and their repeated defeats by the Chinese Independent Company humiliated the 442nd Japanese Infantry Regiment. On the subsequent battlefield, the 116th Infantry Company was almost wiped out.

Although it was the E company that first broke the world marching record held by the Japanese, the performance of the independent company was still shining. Therefore, President Roosevelt strongly supported China's war of resistance, strengthened the scale of the Flying Tigers air force in China, and enhanced the friendly military exchanges between the two countries. .

The footsteps of the war were getting closer.

The Independent Company and the 101st Airborne Division camped in the west of England, about ten miles from the west coast, where the best paratroopers from the United Kingdom and the United States gathered.

Here, all the soldiers can eat whatever they want, without any scruples, and can drink and eat as much as they want.

The soldiers of Company E believed that this was fattening before slaughtering pigs.

In the assembly area, there are troops wearing German military uniforms and carrying German weapons everywhere, wandering around, in order to let the soldiers of the attacking troops get familiar with the appearance of the Germans and the weapons used by the Germans.

During this period, all the equipment of the soldiers has been in place. Their paratrooper suits are simply a small marching backpack. There are pockets on the legs, arms, chest, waist, waist and back of the clothes, which are filled with Soap, razor blades, socks, toiletries, flashlight, map, motion sickness medicine, three days of K-level dry food, ammunition, compass, anti-personnel grenade, an anti-tank mine, a smoke grenade, and a high-strength bomb, Each soldier was distributed two packs of cigarettes.

The thoughtful thing is that the 101st Airborne Division has prepared an emergency hunger bag for each soldier, which contains chocolate, chewing gum, coffee powder, sugar, and matches.

The soldiers of the independent company pickled Chinese pickles by themselves, including dried radishes, dried salt beans, salty peppers, pickled sword beans, cowpeas... After eating big fish and meat in the United States for a long time, they began to miss the pickles of the motherland .It tastes like home.

Winters had already taught the soldiers how to use these equipment, but they brought too many things, and because the soldiers of the independent company were generally short in stature, they put on loose skydiving suits and brought these materials, each of them looked like a bloated Short and fat, it is a bit difficult to walk, not counting the pistols, rifles, machine guns, bullets and other weapons they must bring.

The most important point is that each soldier received a small metal cricket signaler, which can be used to identify each other by making a unique "kaba, kaba" sound when pinched.

Holding the cricket signal device and pinching it a few times, Zhao Fugui muttered to himself: "Is there any difference between frogs and toads in Europe and ours in China?"

Before the battle, Fan Xiaosi, who was a little nervous, said: "The Europeans are all female frogs and toads, and they can't understand your male's cry."

Zhao Fugui: "..."

When wearing equipment for training exercises, the soldiers of the independent company will try to reduce their carrying items as much as possible. When they are about to enter the battlefield of life and death, the soldiers should bring as few unnecessary items as possible and make room for more ammunition.

The U.S. military is not as stingy as it is at home in terms of ammunition supply, as long as you can move it.

Parachute jumping from a safe place is completely different from skydiving over a battlefield where guns are rumbling.

I parachuted in a safe place and could breathe freely in the air, but when I arrived in the war zone, I was surrounded by only the sound of bullets swishing and the sound of calling for help that I was hit.

Just before all the troops were assembled and ready to attack, General Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied forces, gave the attack mission order to all the attacking Allied forces.

The U.S. First Army under the command of Omar Bradley is composed of the 7th Army and the 5th Army.

The 7th Army consists of the 101st Airborne Division, the 82nd Airborne Division, and the 4th Infantry Division;
The 5th Army consisted of the 1st Infantry Division and the 29th Corps Division.

Eisenhower's task for the First Army was to establish beachheads on either side of the entrance to the Duva River.

The French coastline forms a right angle at the mouth of the Douveau River, with the coast of the Calvados department to the east and the base of the Cotentin Peninsula to the north.

The task of the 5th Army is to capture the coast of Calvados
VII Corps would capture the base of the Cotentin Peninsula.The area that lands on Utah Beach will be on the easternmost side of the East Road area, and their front will be as long as 7 kilometers, which is the most difficult area to attack among all landing forces.

Eisenhower wanted to provide enough width for the eastern combat troops to invest enough infantry divisions in the first wave of attacks to form an overwhelming advantage and build fortifications behind Hitler's "Atlantic Wall".

The place to be conquered by the 101st Airborne Division was near the beaches of Omaha, where there are cliffs rising from the ground, as high as 200 to 300 feet, where an artillery position of the German defenders is stationed. This position can directly threaten the Allies. Once the landing ships let this artillery position continue to fire, the losses of the Allied forces will be unimaginable.

It is extremely difficult to airborne in this area, because a large number of machine gun positions and artillery positions can be arranged near Omaha Beach.

The Germans knew the importance of the artillery position on the cliff, and they were sure that if the Allies wanted to capture this artillery position, they had to be airborne.

So the German army filled the open space around Omaha Beach with anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft heavy machine guns.

Therefore, this difficult task was handed over to the 101st Airborne Division.

As for which unit of the 101st Airborne Division landed in this area, it has not yet been determined.

So Eisenhower ordered that no matter which unit of the 101st Airborne Division landed near here, the artillery positions and heavy machine gun positions around Omaha Beach must be cleared to ensure the smooth passage of planes carrying other units of the Airborne Division.

General Eisenhower personally called Maj. Gen. William C. Leigh, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. If his troops failed to clear the German artillery and machine gun positions around Omaha Beach, the Allied losses would be severe.

So Major General William Lee of the 101st Airborne Division decided to send the E Company and the Chinese Independent Company to parachute to Omaha Beach.

(End of this chapter)