Chapter 47:
Chapter 47
‘Ah, I should have brought the Mammoth.’
Rommel and Lütjens stood on the bow of the flagship of the fleet, the Tirpitz, and looked at the coast of Britain that appeared ahead.
Rommel secretly missed his Mammoth.
For the deception operation, he had entrusted his Mammoth to his double – who was actually a shoemaker from a poor suburb – and secretly left. But he longed for that cozy car.
The British bastards make good cars, don’t they?
“It’s about time the British Air Force came to greet us… right?”
Lütjens spoke awkwardly, trying to make some conversation.
Rommel just nodded.
The distance between Britain and France under German occupation was so close that Britain came into sight shortly after they departed from the port of Brest in northern France.
They didn’t need the protection of aircraft carriers.
The planes that took off from land were already destroying the coastal defenses.
The Churchill cabinet had already lost the trust of the people.
When some yellow press reported that they had failed to prevent the fall of Gibraltar and Alexandria and had fallen for the deception operation, the newspapers eagerly copied that article as if they were blowing trumpets.
<German spies in the cabinet>
<Spies in the Admiralty, a pro-German spy quintet from prestigious universities!>
<Prime Minister Churchill, dementia or incompetence?>
All kinds of articles were created from the journalists’ brains and decorated the front pages.
The people didn’t believe everything, but they didn’t deny everything either.
They just thought that Churchill had made a mistake, that Churchill had made a wrong judgment and made them eat poorly and guard the empty coast for nothing!
And that wasn’t even a completely wrong perception.
“Speak of the devil?”
In the distance, they saw Hurricanes and Spitfires closing in rapidly.
The German Air Force’s Bf109s and Bf110s also crossed the horizon and approached with a sonic boom.
It was clear to see, even from this far away, that there were many more planes coming from behind.
G?ring Marshal had directed a very effective sporadic bombing operation against Britain.
Actually, it was more like his chosen air force commanders did well. But whoever it was, G?ring Marshal rolled his huge belly full of ambition and poured out massive support for the air force, and his subordinates screamed happily and took full advantage of the opportunity.
Thanks to that, Rommel, who had successfully finished Africa and the Mediterranean, was only grateful.
He felt sorry for the top brass of the army who had been dragged to the Eastern Front and had their scarce resources eaten by the navy, air force, and British Expeditionary Force.
‘Actually, not so sorry…’
To be honest, he didn’t feel that sorry.
The Prussian Junkers with von in their names bragged about their careers and family honor.
Frederick the Great did this and Emperor Wilhelm did that and Hindenburg did this… Bastards!
In the end, he was the one who got the marshal’s baton, a commoner who didn’t even graduate from war college.
Ah, he wanted to see the faces of those generals who gossiped behind his back that he was going to fight with savages in Africa on his Mammoth.
And also that soldier who shoved a gun into Rundstedt’s mouth!
Damn it, if he ever met that soldier, he would give him a two-rank, no three-rank promotion with his authority as marshal.
And he would always keep him as his escort.
He would amuse himself by listening to his story of putting a gun in Rundstedt’s mouth whenever he felt bad.
“Everyone! Battle stations!”
Lütjens seemed to have given orders while he was not paying attention.
The fleet signaler flashed and broadcasts from the bridge ordered them to go into battle mode.
Rommel was startled and slipped on the railing.
Lütjens glanced at him and Rommel felt embarrassed.
He pretended nothing happened and shouted loudly.
“Wow~ The wind is refreshing!”
The battleships and cruisers began firing in unison.
Sand pillars that were clearly visible even from this distance rose up.
The anti-aircraft guns fired at the fighters and bombers, and the main guns of the fleet continued to spit fire.
From Rommel’s perspective as an army man, this kind of artillery support was not something he had experienced much.
A 5-inch gun, which is 12.7cm in army standards.
This kind of gun was a medium gun operated by division or corps artillery units, but the navy used 5-inch guns on destroyers.
The 38cm main guns of the Tirpitz, with a caliber of 52, were almost unheard of in the army, or barely operated by a few units in the entire army.
The 20.3cm guns of the Admiral Hipper class, the 38cm guns of the Bismarck class, and the dizzying giant guns fired overwhelming barrages at the coast of Britain.
As the coast approached, the landing craft carrying tanks and troops began to advance from behind the fleet.
The fleet provided fire support from a distance from the coast, and if they could break through the coast in an instant and secure the port facilities, a full-scale landing would be possible.
The main force of the first wave of landing troops was heading for Portsmouth.
The port facilities in this area were sufficient to unload large amounts of troops and supplies, and it was also close to the French coast, making it the best stronghold for Germany to aim for.
The ‘prefabricated port’ facility, which was ordered by the Führer himself, was also following up, so they could safely land the troops that would arrive in the second wave.
And from Portsmouth to London, it was only about 100km away.
If they attacked with armored divisions, they could blockade London in no time.
The British army on the island, which could stop them, was in poor condition, and the veterans of the African Corps sneered.
“We can do this with our eyes closed!”
They were confident that this was easy for them, who had conquered two continents.
The latest tanks assigned by the Führer were not very agile, but they were enough to march 100km and pierce the heart of Britain.
They would capture and destroy Portsmouth and London, and crush the last remnants of the British army.
They would sweep over Britain and fly the German flag over Buckingham Palace!
They would pay back their defeat in the last war many times over.
As they had avenged what they had suffered at Versailles. Rommel’s teeth clenched.
The years of humiliation, oh!
The long years of subjugation and shame.
“Now… it’s time for revenge!”
The British troops on the coast fought heroically.
And in this era that was not an era of heroes, they died and joined the ranks of heroes.
The ‘coastal fortresses’, which were hastily constructed with concrete bunkers and neglected for a while due to supply and administrative problems, were shattered by the salvo of a dozen battleships.
The people inside them too.
Nevertheless, those who remained resisted bravely.
Some of them had held guns in the last war, and some were middle-aged men who were old enough to see their grandchildren, but they had the same will to prevent those filthy fascist armies from stepping on this land.
Old carbines or Enfield rifles, or at best American Browning machine guns were their weapons against battleship cannons and Nazi’s latest Panzer V tanks.
There were very few who surrendered.
There were few who could surrender.
In aerial combat, Britain’s fighters were miserably defeated.
Germany’s ground attack aircraft, Stukas, poured machine gun fire on the coast, and tanks that advanced under their cover fired high-explosive shells and machine gun bullets at torchkas.
Even if they surrendered, they were torn apart so badly that it was better to die.
“Damn it! How do we deal with those!”
Many of the remaining British army ‘remnants’ were scattered around the country to suppress protests that were erupting nationwide.
Only the remnants of those remnants could be reinforced to stop the massacre on the south coast. But they lacked many things.
“Anti-tank gun! Give me an anti-tank gun!”
Thud.
The 2-pounder anti-tank gun bounced off the tank hopelessly.
The heavy monster tanks fired high-explosive shells at where anti-tank guns fired from, and that was enough.
The British army lacked anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks.
They had almost no mechanized units that could stop high-speed flanking and encirclement.
The British fighters who had been chased away desperately came back with more aircrafts, but the newly landed fleet had already deployed 8.8cm anti-aircraft guns on land to fend them off.
The versatile 8.8cm anti-aircraft gun showed its value here as well.
It was good to shoot at sky or enemy troops and torchkas.
It didn’t hit targets very well, but it was enough to break their will to fight with overwhelming firepower.
Psychologically as well, Germany was overwhelmingly superior.
The boys of 6th SS Division Hitler Jugend stabbed bullets and swords into British chests with their hands that had been eating candy and chocolate until yesterday without hesitation.
From their mouths that sang military songs innocently came curses and mad battle cries.
“Hail Führer! Hail German Empire! Hailiiii!!!”
“Glory to Aryan race! For the Führer!!!”
“Damn it… How can those kids…”
The old soldiers were afraid. What made them like that? When they came to the answer that it was themselves, they were only stained with guilt and madness.
The Italians, who had always been rated as a weak army, were not so at least for now.
The Folgore Parachute Division, the Ariete Armored Division, and the Bersaglieri Division, which had reinforced the Bersaglieri Regiment, composed of the best veterans who had endured all over Africa, were united by their sense of competition with each other and with the Germans.
The division commanders subtly encouraged the competition of who would go ahead, and the corps commander even offered rewards and urged aggressive advances.
They were lucky to land in an area with less resistance, but it was the 2nd Battalion of the Folgore Parachute Division that first seized the port facilities of Portsmouth.
As if they could not give up their appearance even on the battlefield, they wore black shirts that symbolized the Italian Fascist Party under their uniforms and put on berets of the airborne unit.
They hung the division flag of the Folgore Parachute Division on the port administration office.
“Woooooo!”
As the Axis troops cheered, the British troops looked back in disbelief and lost their morale.
They saw troops waving the flag of the Fascist Kingdom of Italy and the parachute flag of the Folgore Division everywhere, shouting.
The enemy in front of them was just the tip of the iceberg.
They were surrounded by fear, which eroded their courage.
Some who lost their courage surrendered. Some who lost their rationality went into a fanatical fight to the death.
“Die, you fascist bastards!!”
One British soldier who shouted and fired his machine gun was shot by concentrated fire and turned into a corpse rolling in blood.
The cowardly ones raised their hands high and surrendered, but a Hitler Jugend soldier – who had just lost his comrade – stabbed his chest with a bayonet.
“Huk, huk, huk.”
When stabbed in the chest, a person cannot breathe and cannot even scream. Blood spurted out like a fountain, as if the bayonet had pierced an artery, but the Hitler Jugend soldier, who wore blood as a helmet, shouted as if he had become a berserker of Norse mythology.
“Woooooo!!!”
In the training course of Hitler Jugend, they were taught old Norse myths instead of traditional Catholic or Protestant faiths.
In their immature minds, the Führer became Odin, the god-king, and they became berserkers and Einherjar who fought for the god on earth.
And secretly, they thought they would be promised a heavenly Valhalla under the guidance of Valkyries when the living space of Aryan race came.
This perception was subtly encouraged and spread among Hitler Jugend soldiers.
“Hail Führer!!!”
As if by conditioned reflex, Hitler Jugend soldiers around him responded with thunderous cheers. Hail Führer!
Hail German Empire! Glory to Aryan race!
The Italian soldiers looked at them with disgust, but soon forgot and advanced.
At least I had to go ahead of that damn Lombard or that tasteless Neapolitan peasant, or that frozen Emilia-Romagna bastard.
“Italians! Advance! Advance!”
The engineers who would seize the port facilities were carefully moved to the most heavily armed armored vehicles.
If they were a day late in seizing the port, our troops would arrive a day late.
And one more day of our blood would be spilled in vain.
Like shooting fireworks, 8.8cm anti-aircraft guns drove away British fighters and protected their march.
Flashing signals and radio messages poured out from the fleet.
<Operation successful. Report victory to homeland!>
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