Want to be a lawyer but join the army
Todd sweeney never wanted to be a hero. But history made him a hero: before the outbreak of World War II, the young man born in Bryce, a small town in the north of London, was bent on becoming a barrister, so he hardly listened to anything outside the window except reading. However, the German gunfire shattered the young man's dream of becoming a lawyer. In his sophomore year, he was drafted into the army like thousands of young people in Britain. After all, there is no country without a small family.
At first, the officers of the Royal Army didn't look at Todd with a bookish face at all, so he was first assigned to the reserve force. However, after a round of military training, the officers of the Royal Army were surprised to find that the boy really had some talent for military command. In addition to mastering military skills quickly, he is also particularly good at organizing and commanding and mobilizing the enthusiasm of the collective. During the war, since he was a good soldier, the Royal Army naturally wouldn't give up easily, so he was transferred from the reserve force to the active force by a paper order, and was directly promoted to the lieutenant officer of the second airborne battalion, the most elite airborne force in the British army, at 1942. The Royal British officer was right. Todd soon became an excellent officer in the Airborne Battalion, and was immediately taken in by the most elite D company in the Second Airborne Battalion to command the first platoon.
1at the end of April, 944, Captain Todd Sweeney, who was already the first platoon leader of Company D of the Royal Second Airborne Battalion, had a strong hunch that the first platoon of Company D under his command would definitely play an extraordinary role in future tasks! This is not Captain sweeney's wild guess: for a whole month, officers and men of a platoon were ordered to hold various exercises day and night, but the purpose of the exercises was exactly the same.
How to grasp two adjacent bridges intact? During the exercise, the platoon leader said where to take the troops, and the British Ministry of Defence immediately dispatched trucks and planes to take them. You know, this is the most critical moment of World War II, and any transportation resources are precious, which shows that the Ministry of National Defense attaches great importance to D Company and Row. Of course, at this time, Sweeney, the platoon leader, his company commander, his battalion commander, and even the commander of the Royal Airborne Force did not know the real purpose of repeated drills to seize the bridge, but only knew the importance of these two bridges.
Captain sweeney is good at leading troops: he can keep the morale of a platoon high all the time. Every time a platoon completes a military exercise, Captain sweeney will give all the platoon a day off to have a good sleep. Captain sweeney's practice is unheard of in the Royal Army. However, this also made the morale of a row of officers and men unprecedentedly high. In the words of Captain sweeney, "Nothing is prouder than being able to sleep in bed when the soldiers of other troops rotate day and night."
At this time, the brothers of a platoon, like all the Royal British officers and soldiers, mainly relied on the Royal Air Force and Navy to fight German fascists two years before the war began, so a relaxed atmosphere appeared in the Royal British Army. How to maintain the high morale of officers and men has actually become the number one task of commanders. Captain sweeney is a smart move. Besides knowing how to show compassion for soldiers, he also asked the officers and men of a platoon to actively participate in various physical exercises: every morning, five kilometers of armed cross-country is an essential event, followed by regular drills and emergency marches. After dinner, he will have a long-distance cross-country race or a football match, and all officers from the platoon to the private will participate. Adequate physical exercise not only makes the 2nd Airborne Battalion Company D the strongest unit in the Royal Army, but also makes the whole platoon's unity spirit unparalleled in other units. All this has become an important factor for the British Ministry of Defence and the Supreme Allied Command in Europe to regard it as the first sharp knife platoon of the first commando in the Normandy landing campaign. Of course, it is impossible for Captain sweeney, who is still a small platoon leader, to know the intention of the high command.
At the end of April, Airborne Company D was expanded from the standard three platoons to six platoons, and the first platoon under the command of sweeney was also greatly increased: a large glider was equipped to accommodate the whole platoon of brothers, and five brothers of the Royal Corps of Engineers were added to operate the glider. The exercise plan was also changed from ground bridge grabbing to glider airborne bridge grabbing.
At the end of May, the whole airborne company was transferred to the Royal Air Force Base in Luston. Captain sweeney finally knew the real purpose of his practice day and night with his brothers: to attack the European continent and become a sharp knife force! When Captain sweeney finally announced the news to his brothers, the brothers of the first airborne platoon who had been suppressed for two years screamed, and in the words of Captain sweeney, "Our first airborne platoon was chosen as the first sharp knife for the allied forces to attack Europe, and the brothers felt extremely proud and excited. It was like being selected for the national football team! "
Rewrite the history of World War II in 26 minutes
The opportunity to show the real skills of Captain sweeney and his brothers finally came.
1on the night of June 5-6, 944, the allied forces began to attack Europe. Twenty-six minutes later, the Allies made their first punch. The brothers in the first platoon of D Company, the 2nd Airborne Battalion of the British Royal Command by Captain sweeney, captured the French Caen Canal and two bridges over the Orne River, which were of strategic significance to the Normandy landing campaign.
The action of seizing these two bridges was as accurate as usual: when the glider of Captain sweeney and his brothers landed in an open space about 20 meters away from these two bridges, the German soldiers guarding the bridge heard the movement, but they ignored it: Caen, where the Germans were heavily concentrated, was too close to the bridge, and only a fool would hit the door and die. That action must have been caused by the allied night attack plane falling down after being shot down by German artillery. In addition, the Caen Canal Bridge is far from the French coast. Why did the Allies attack here first? So, when Captain sweeney and his brothers touched the two bridges, most of the German guards guarding the bridges were still sleeping in the underground bunkers. When the officers and men of the airborne platoon called on them to surrender, many sleepy German soldiers thought their companions were joking with them!
The successful capture of these two bridges by the sweeney brothers means that the allied forces attacking Europe have finally laid their first foot on the mainland. Captain sweeney immediately sent a secret telegram to the Allied High Command in Europe. In order to prevent the highly skilled German monitoring forces from intercepting information, Captain sweeney and the Supreme Commander of the European Allied Forces have already agreed on the code name of the action result (if the two bridges are successfully captured, a call of "Ham and Jim" will be issued; If only Caen Canal Bridge is successfully captured, or Yi 'an River Bridge is successfully captured, then a call of "Ham" or "Jim" will be issued. At 00: 26, just half an hour after Captain sweeney's glider crossed the French coastline, he called "Ham and Jim" to the high command! Only one soldier and one officer were killed in the whole operation.
What is more difficult than the task of occupying the bridge by surprise attack is how to hold these two bridges. In the early morning of June 6th, Captain sweeney commanded the whole platoon of officers and men to miraculously resist the fierce attack of German tanks and reinforced infantry troops, and successfully held the bridge. What moved the platoon most was that in the fiercest battle, a soldier was seriously injured. Captain sweeney braved the bullets to carry the wounded back, regardless of the bombing of German tank guns and the crazy shooting of machine guns.
Historical justice is detached from people's hearts.
After the war, Captain sweeney's British army won the highest medal of honor "Cross Military Medal" for its outstanding performance in the war, and continued to serve in the British army silently for more than 30 years. During this period, he was also sent by the British government to Cyprus, Myanmar and Indonesia to participate in the disgraceful wars of suppressing colonies and striving for independence. After returning to China, he served as the senior military adviser of the British Military Advisory Group to the United Nations from 1966 to 1969, and retired from the position of vice-principal of the Royal Infantry School in 1974, and was considered to have left the Royal Army. Since then, he returned to Bryce, 600 kilometers north of London, with his wife Gillard, two sons and a pair of daughters, and lived a quiet civilian life.
Why did sweeney never keep silent about the significance of commanding the first platoon of D Company of the Second Royal Airborne Battalion to capture and hold two bridges? Is it because of modesty or other reasons? Many people won't believe it. The reason why sweeney didn't want to mention this heroic war history until his death is really related to some subtle factors: the US military, bent on highlighting the role of the US military in the Normandy landing war, never mentioned sweeney and the British airborne troops under his command for more than 60 years; The British government, which is bent on pleasing Big Brother, has never said a word, so that few British historians of World War II know this historical fact, let alone sweeney. As for films such as "Saving Private Ryan" made by Hollywood directors in the United States, the contribution of the US military in the Normandy landing campaign was hyped up, and even the role of British soldiers was not seen.
However, true history cannot be erased. On June 6th this year, the 57th anniversary of the Normandy landing, American and European historians, military analysts and even American military strategists finally affirmed the strategic significance of British airborne troops under the command of Captain sweeney occupying two bridges. They agreed that if sweeney failed to attack the bridge, or failed to hold the bridge after capturing it, the allied forces landing from Normandy would not only be unable to occupy the city of Kahn, but might even repeat the tragedy that the allied forces in Dunkirk were driven into the sea by German tanks, machine guns and artillery three years ago. Colonel Wan Luke, head of the German 2nd1Tank Division192nd Regiment, revealed after the war that if the British airborne troops failed to hold the two bridges, his heavy tank regiment could directly reach Normandy beach and welcome allied soldiers to land on the beach with tank guns. If so, then the result of Normandy landing may have to be rewritten!
Of course, we can't know how these final and fair evaluations feel about the late sweeney, the real hero of Normandy. Perhaps he has been indifferent to all this, just as his family said in the obituary of the London Times according to his last wish: veteran Todd sweeney is dead!