INVASION OF ENGLAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23316, 27 September 1945, Page 5

INVASION OF ENGLAND

GERMANY’S PLANS IN 1940 Doubt? Landing With 22 Divisions By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn -Copyright LONDON, Sept. 25. Newly-discovered documents in Berlin reveal that the Germans in the autumn of 1940 were preparing to strike against Southern and South-eastern England with 22 divisions, with 17 in reserve, says Reuter’s correspondent in Berlin. Although no one was prepared to say for certain that the documents contain the exact final operational order, it appears to have been the general plan that two army groups, A and B. were to carry out the invasion. Group A, made up of the 16th and 9th Armies, was to land between Margate and Hastings and between Brighton and.

Portsmouth, supported by airborne landings between Folkestone and Hastings and around Brighton. Group B was to follow up with landings at Weymouth Bay, west of Bournemouth. The landing forces of the two army groups would have consisted of 11 infantry, two mountain, six armoured, two motorised, and one SS division. The Germans even had a six-barrelled mortar ready for the invasion. The plan called for Group A to link up from two beachheads with the first main objective line running north-east from Portsmouth to Aidershot, through Leatherhead, Caterham and Tilbury. The enemy planned to smash the British and Canadian forces in the hedgerow country of Kent, Sussex and Surrey, and then drive on to the second objective line between Colchester and Bristol, cutting off London. Strong mobile forces would then have broken through and occupied the important coastal towns and the industrial areas of the Midlands. Reuter’s correspondent adds: “If the Germans had invaded under this general plan, they would have employed a land force of about the same strength as the Allies used at Normandy. MajorGeneral A. G. McNaughton at the time commanded the south-eastern ’ antiinvasion forces, which were extremely thin throughout the area.