Churchill led the people of England to victory in the war against fascism

In 1943, the situation on the main battlefields of the anti-fascist war took a fundamental turn, and the Allies had gained the initiative in the strategic offensive. In order to coordinate the next counter-offensive plan of the Allied forces, Churchill could not wait to visit the United States.

On May 12, Churchill and his party arrived in Washington, and the two heads of state and their chiefs of staff held a secret military conference at the White House code-named "Trident." The two sides agreed to break the potential threat of the Axis powers, strengthen military superiority, and take necessary and practical measures to assist the Soviet Union and China.

The two sides also agreed to carry out large-scale operations in the Mediterranean region to force Italy to withdraw from the war, while preparing to land in France in the spring of 1944 to carry out a decisive attack on Germany.

On 3 July, the Allies began their assault on Sicily.

On July 25, Mussolini stepped down.

On 13 October, Italy announced that it would join the Allied side in the fight against Germany.

In order to discuss the acceleration of the war process and the arrangement of the post-war world, the foreminars of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union met in Tehran from November 28 to December 1, 1943. For the first time, the "Big Three" of roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, heads of state of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, sat around the conference table in Tehran "like a family."

Churchill said the conference "perhaps symbolizes the largest gathering of world forces ever recorded by mankind."

One of the main contents of the discussion at the meeting was to open up a second battlefield, that is, to implement the "Overlord" plan. Stalin declared that the Overlord plan should be implemented as early as May 1944, with the support of the attack on southern France, and the Soviet Union launched an offensive on the eastern front to prevent the Germans from moving to the west. Churchill agreed to conduct operation Overlord. It was decided that Operation Overlord would begin in May of that year.

The meeting also exchanged views on the establishment of an international organization for the maintenance of peace and security in the world after the war; held preliminary discussions on how to deal with Germany after the war, and the three countries proposed different partition schemes; and the three countries unanimously agreed to rebuild independent Poland after the war, with its borders moving westward and incorporating parts of eastern Germany into Poland.

The meeting also discussed the Soviet War against Japan. The Soviet Union said it would participate in the war against Japan after the end of the War in Europe and offered to return the entire sakhalin island on such terms.

The meeting signed the Declaration of Tehran of the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain and the Agreement of the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain. The three countries said that in the future, they will "work together" and "strive for cooperation among all countries, large and small." wholeheartedly with the sincerity of the elimination of tyranny and slavery, persecution and repression".

The Tehran Conference was the first direct meeting of the heads of state of the three allies of the Anti-Fascist Alliance in World War II. Together with the subsequent Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference, it played a certain positive role in promoting the course of the war and the formation of the post-war world pattern.

Most of the "Overlord" operation discussed at the Tehran conference was held by the US military, and Roosevelt selected Eisenhower, who was emerging in North Africa, as commander-in-chief of the Northwest European Expeditionary Force, but then Churchill won part of the command for the British, that is, the "Overlord" operation was initially led by Montgomery.

Much of the Mediterranean region was fought by British or British-controlled armies, with Churchill appointing Wilson as commander-in-chief. While still in England, Churchill fell ill with a severe cold and was relieved by taking medicine. After a series of meetings and travel fatigue, when he flew to Tunis on December 12, he became seriously ill, diagnosed with pneumonia, and suffered from atrial fibrillation, so he slowed down his work and was told to him by his daughter reading Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, and his wife flew from London to take care of him. After the 27th, he went to Marrakech for three weeks to discuss his work with domestic and foreign visitors.

On 21 January 1944, the Allies landed at Anzio, 40 km south of Rome, but their advance was hampered, and as Churchill said, "it was a wild cat that was hoped that we would have thrown ashore, and it turned out to be a stranded whale", and it was not until June 4 that rome was attacked.

Preparations for Operation Overlord are in full swing. Allied anti-submarine measures were increasingly effective, and radars on aircraft could spot submarines before they surfaced. Britain carried out large-scale air strikes against Germany, and the U.S. Air Force concentrated on eliminating German fighter jets. Bombers from both countries also destroyed German "drone" launch bases and raided France's transport network, including railways, roads and airports, to prevent the rapid movement of German reinforcements after Operation Overlord began.

At the suggestion of Duncan Sands, Churchill's eldest son-in-law, the Minister of Parliamentary Coordination of the Quartermaster General, the Air Force carried out heavy bombardment of several test bases for German secret weapons. Through these strategic bombings, the German military, industrial and economic system was destroyed and disrupted, and the morale and morale of the German army were destroyed.

Churchill presided over a weekly meeting to discuss the implementation of the Overlord action plan. The landing site was chosen in Normandy, where the terrain was open, twenty or thirty divisions could be placed at the same time, and it was closer to the main ports on the southwest coast of England, which was convenient for transporting troops to transport supplies, and the German troops here were also weak, and the favorable conditions were better than those in Calais. Calais is close to the British coast and far from the British seaport, and is also a key British fortification.

The disadvantage of Normandy was that there was no good port, and Churchill proposed the idea of replacing it with a man-made port, and summoned engineers and technicians to design. Man-made ports are made of more than a million tons of reinforced concrete to build a number of huge docks, which are placed on the beach and float to the surface of the sea at one end of the sea. It was then covered by a concrete structure that had sunk into the water and a shipwreck that formed a huge arc of breakwater on the periphery. In this way, despite the high currents and strong winds, ships with deep drafts can also berth and carry, and landing craft can freely travel to and from the beach.

In order to confuse the enemy, they also extensively adopted suspicious tactics to make the German army unable to find the direction of landing. Churchill coined the phrase "Bodyguard Action" at the Tehran Conference, where "truth is often accompanied by falsehood as bodyguards."

At Churchill's suggestion, a fake fleet was assembled on the kent seashore, sent out a large number of telegrams, and let the American General Patton, known for his bravery, wander the streets of Kent, landing in Calais, across the sea from Kent. On the eve of the offensive, British aircraft had sprinkled a large amount of tin foil, and to the German coastal radar, it looked like a fleet was sailing east along the English Channel to Calais.

Moreover, as Britain still had to rely on U.S. military assistance, particularly landing craft, Churchill admitted that he had to "seize the right moment to play a flattering role" against the assertive Roosevelt. Thousands of calls, the "Overlord" operation is finally about to begin. The whole of the south of England was turned into a large barracks, gathering 2.87 million Officers and Men of the Third Army and logisticians, 11,000 aircraft and 6,000 ships.

On the eve of the Normandy landings, the 70-year-old Churchill visited the Allied commander-in-chief Eisenhower and asked to join the battle with the British ship "Belfast", but Eisenhower did not agree.

Churchill said: "Although the troops participating in the war are under your command, the number of people involved in the war is not determined by you. Eisenhower nodded.

Churchill continued: "Well, I can sign the war in the name of the British sailors, and the general cannot stop it. ”

Eisenhower smiled helplessly and said, "That being said, but Your Excellency, Prime Minister, you will add a heavy responsibility to my shoulders by doing so." Churchill was determined not to change, and Eisenhower had to send his chief of staff, General Smith, to the King. George VI said: "Churchill's problem is up to me. He summoned Churchill and said, "If you are determined to fight, I am also obliged to join you in the battle." Churchill had to give up.

At about 1:00 a.m. on June 6, the British, American, and Canadian armies under Montgomery's command, with three paratrooper divisions parachuted into the rear of the landing positions as a precursor, after a large number of bombers and warships exploded and shelled the German artillery positions and fortifications on the coast, at dawn, the army sent by the transport ships switched to landing craft and small attack boats, and used the man-made port to be dragged to land on the beach of Normandy.

Because the coast of this area was guarded by Nazi miscellaneous troops, coupled with the fact that the English Channel had a few days before the landing, they were even more careless in taking precautions, so the "Atlantic Barrier" from Norway to Spain, which had not yet been fully built by the German army, was quickly broken. On the 6th alone, the Allies dispatched 1. 460,000 sorties, 17 divisions and 20,000 military vehicles landed on land.

By the 12th, the five occupied beachheads were connected, and nearly 300,000 people and more than 50,000 military vehicles and more than 100,000 tons of supplies had landed in Normandy, and the German army had more than 160,000 casualties.

Late on the night of the 11th, Stalin telephoned Churchill and Roosevelt and said:

In terms of its scale, its grand layout, and its outstanding execution of the plan, there has never been a comparable cause in the history of war. Only our allies have gloriously and triumphantly realized the vast plan of crossing the strait. History will record this achievement as one of its highest achievements.

Both the airborne landing and the infantry landing were very successful. The Germans organized a counteroffensive, but on a limited scale, unable to drive the Allies into the sea. Moreover, the follow-up troops of the Allied forces came from one source, the supply materials continued to increase, and the beachheads gradually expanded and gradually developed in depth. With the strong advance of the Allies, France was quickly liberated.

Meanwhile, Soviet forces had already marched into Central and Eastern Europe in the summer of 1944. At the end of 1944, however, the Western Front was unfavorable to the Allies, and the Germans counterattacked in the Ardennes, breaking through the Allied lines and advancing 90 kilometers.

This situation forced Churchill to appeal to Stalin for help on 6 January, asking the Soviet Union to launch a powerful offensive on the Eastern Front.

The Soviets inflicted heavy damage on the Germans on 12 January, and the Germans had to abort their offensive on the Western Front. This time the Soviets attacked an area only 70 kilometers from Berlin.

The defeat of the German authorities was assured, and Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met again in February 1945 at Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula of the Soviet Union. The meeting decided that the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union would occupy Germany and set up a control committee in Berlin.

The heads of state also reached agreement on the Polish border and the composition of the Government. Finally, resolutions were also made on the establishment of the United Nations and on the participation of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan.

On 16 April, the Soviets launched a campaign against Berlin.

On the 25th, the Soviets surrounded Berlin west of Potsdam and met with U.S. divisions in the Torgau area southwest of Berlin.

On the 27th, the Soviets entered Berlin. On the 30th, Hitler committed suicide.

On 2 May, the Berlin garrison surrendered, as did the Germans everywhere. On 7 May, the German representative signed a instrument of surrender with Eisenhower, and on 8 May, he signed a surrender to Marshal Zhukov of the Soviet Army in Berlin. The anti-fascist war on the battlefield of Europe ended in victory.

Exhausted by the war, the British people finally waited for the day to celebrate victory. On May 7, the crowd gathered in front of Whitehall to witness Churchill passing through the crowd in a joyous car.

Churchill led the people of England into battle, made a significant contribution to the victory of the anti-fascist war in Europe, and also laid the foundation for britain's position after the war.