Sunday, August 29, 2021

good morning justin

   











10 May / Friday







Koch Storm Detachment / Captain Koch 

0330 hours:  

Troopers take off from Cologne using

Ju-52s towing 11 gliders -

7 - 8 men within each.

Released in the night unseen and unheard

the unit glides 13 miles to their target:

Eben Emael.


Luxembourg border

 

0430 hours:  

German XIX Corps cross frontier.

Heinz Guderian commander.

1st Panzer Division spearheads

armored column headed for Sedan.


 Ardennes

 

 0900 hours:  

French aerial reconnaissance report -

2 mechanized masses in Ardennes headed to Meuse.

 

Arion     

Abandoned village.

Guderian's armored reconnaissance 

drives off French cavalry unit of 2nd Army.

Esch     

Confused retreat from town.

Desperate civilians mixed among

withdrawing troops. 





 13 May / Monday




 German forces attack French at Sedan


1600 hours

Guderian uses infantry in rubber boats to

cross Meuse.

200 Stuka dive-bombers provide overhead support.

German engineers assemble pontoon bridge at Glaire.

Tanks begin streaming across unimpeded. 


0000 hours:

Guderian's XIX Corps creates bridgehead

5 miles deep on west bank of the Meuse.


Amiens, France

Cars with Belgium plates appear on streets.

Townspeople report hearing sounds of distant gunfire. 

Fragments of bad news begin appearing in the press.




14 May / Tuesday



 

 

 "We Have Evacuated Sedan"

 Paris Midi 


 Allied air assault on Glaire bridge fails.

Heavy casualties result flying into thick

canopy of German antiaircraft fire.


1500 hours:

French counterattack on German thrust repulsed.

3 panzer divisions consolidate advances

west of Sedan.


1745 hours:

        French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud to Churchill:

"The German Army has broken through

 our fortified lines south of Sedan."


Amiens

People shopping, enjoying the weather.

More Belgians are seen on the streets.

Families prepare kids for back to school 

following holiday.

There's talk of evacuating women and children.




 15 May / Wednesday



 

 

 Churchill flies to Paris

 

Prime Minister Churchill given assurance

Sedan breach will be plugged -

General Alphonse Georges, deputy to

General Gamelin, Supreme Allied Commander.


Paul Reynaud is told by his Defense Minister - 

 General Gamelin has no plan for countering

the Sedan breakthrough.


  Guderian's armor defeats the final French defense.

It's open roads all the way to the English Channel.



Amiens

 

Arras was reportedly bombed during the night.

        Cars with license plates from Aisne and Pas-de-Calais

join the Belgian traffic through town.


nightfall:

Report to General Georges, French Field Commander -

50 mile front along Meuse crumbles / 9th Army in full rout.




16 May / Thursday

 




 Gamelin Fired

 

1015 hours:

Allied Commander General Gamelin

discovers his phones have been cut to 

General Blanchard's 1st Army.

 

Guderian's tanks are at the Oise River,

50 miles from Sedan.

The bridgehead now includes General Reinhardt's

2 panzer divisions from Montherme

and the 2 panzer divisions that crossed at Dinant,

led by General Hermann Hoth.


General Gamelin tells Defense Minister Daladier:
 
 "Germans may be in Paris tonight."



Prime Minister Renaud and his cabinet decide to
  
remain in Paris.
 
Leaving now would create a panic among citizens.


2030 hours:

Report to General Gamelin:

"The disorder of this Army is beyond description.

Its troops are falling back on all sides.  The Army

General Staff has lost its head.  The roads are

clogged with routed troops."


Prime Minister Renaud fires General Gamelin.

New Allied Commander General Maxime Weygand 

takes 3 days to arrive from Syria.





Amiens


Phone lines to nearby St. Quentin are cut.

Anxious residents question refugees for news.

The cars streaming out of Amiens now include locals.




 

19 May / Sunday






 Lord Gort plans retreat to Dunkirk


BEF commander ignores order from British Cabinet to attack.

Such ideas are wishful thinking when you haven't the ammo.


Dover, England:

   Bertram Ramsey, Admiral - Royal Navy

          begins organizing ragtag flotilla of Navy and 

   private vessels in order to save their army    

           from capture with a plan named

   Operation Dynamo.




20 May / Monday

 




Closing the Noose 

 

Guderian's XIX Corps arrives in Abbeville,

a coastal town along the English Channel.

He pivots his force to move north toward Dunkirk.


Prime Minister Churchill orders

Operation Dynamo

ready or not.


__________________________________________



love

   dad







©  Tom Taylor


coldValentine










Sunday, August 22, 2021

good morning jacob

  







revolution in warfare.


making quick believers.


scattering the rest.






10 May

 

General Gamelin launches Plan D

British and French forces quickly move to River Dyle.


 Germany invades Belgium and Holland.

German airborne capture bridges before being 

blown up by their Dutch defenders.

Rotterdam and The Hague attacked.





Eben Emael - Belgium fortress of 1,200 men

falls to 89 Germans in 24 hours.  The Allies expected

Belgium's most formidable fort to hold out 3 to 5 days.

Somehow fortress designers didn't provide 

a defense for enemy gliders landing on their roof.

It was almost lobbing bombs down chimneys.


0530 hours:     Germany attacks Belgium, Holland, France.

   

0645 hours:     General Gamelin orders execution of Plan D


Winston Churchill becomes Britain's Prime Minister.

Opposition leaders included in Churchill's War Cabinet.






13 May

 

Armies collide.


The Allies bet on Louvain as where they would meet

the main German attack head on.  Here is where

Gamelin concentrated French and British troops -

80 miles from where a full-throttled armored attack was

soon to take place near the French river town of Sedan.





BEF commander General Lord Gort gets word of the

French Ninth Army's defeat near Dinant by German armor.






13 - 17  May

 

Germany gobbles up French underbelly.


13 May


Churchill tells House of Commons:

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." 


14 May


3 bridgeheads established across the Meuse

at Sedan, Dinant and Montherme.

French troops scattered or destroyed.


Allies outflanked.

German panzers race to encircle 

France and Britain's last best hope.


1900 / 7 pm -    Churchill reports to Cabinet:

French PM Reynaud says his forces in full retreat.





Rotterdam bombed.



15 May


German bridgeheads across the Meuse consolidates

into one, extending 20 miles west from the breakthrough,

heading toward the Somme and the English Channel.


phone call / 0730:    Reynaud to Churchill

"We have been defeated."


order:  "Cease Fire" / 1100:     Holland surrenders.


telegram:    Churchill to Roosevelt

"We expect to be attacked here ourselves in the near future.

If necessary, we shall continue the war alone.  But I trust 

you realize, Mr. President, that the voice and force of the

United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.

You may have a completely subjugated, Nazified Europe,

established with astonishing swiftness, and the weight may be

more than we can bear."

 

17 May


Brussels and Antwerp fall to German forces.

Allies in full retreat towards the channel coast.


General Gamelin gives Paris a two day guarantee of

safety.  Government agencies begin burning documents.






18 May


Allies retreat in confusion


France attempts to form defense along Somme.

General Gamelin is replaced by General Weygand

as Supreme Allied Commander.


British Commander Gort begins planning a retreat to the coast.





 Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, threatens war with France.






21 - 22  May

 

Britain and France unable to coordinate

an attack on flanks of German thrust.


British forces defending the crucial road junction town of Arras

are overwhelmed by four divisions of German armor, 

attempt escape from a quickly materializing encirclement. 





Churchill advises Admiralty to assemble vessels, 

plan evacuation of BEF - British Expeditionary Force,

from French coast using assorted private craft -

Operation Dynamo.







22 May 

 

Dunkirk is all that's left for Britain's army.


Confusion Marks Battle in France

"No newspaper correspondents of any nationality have yet

been permitted anywhere near the actual fighting line." 

NY Times / 21 May


__________________________________

  

love

   dad





©  Tom Taylor


coldValentine