No one remembers when the Gibraltar Mountains were formed, but its recent history is much more concise: in 1604, the British occupied the area, beginning more than 200 years of rule. The area of land that was cut off from Spain under the control of the British army was no more than square kilometers, and it was customarily called "Gibraltar".

The late autumn sun was still shining, and standing on a large rock on the north side of the Gibraltar Mountains overlooking the strait, British Army Captain Andy Churchill was smoking a sullen cigarette. Born in a traditional military family, Andy rarely touched tobacco and alcohol before the outbreak of the war, but the brutal war slowly changed his outlook on life and values, especially after the captain experienced a hasty retreat from Greece and Malta, he felt that life and death are sometimes just a kind of luck to distinguish between good and bad people, and their own efforts seem so insignificant in the face of invisible fate.

Almost 14 months ago, Andy withdrew from his Maltese position with a large number of routs, and at first thought that Gibraltar was just a temporary foothold**, but he did not expect to be stationed until now, and was a member of the garrison of the Gibraltar fortress. His original company was broken up in Malta, and nearly seventy percent of them were "missing" on the British Army rolls - either killed in battle or taken prisoner by the Axis.

The defeated troops, either the officers could not find the soldiers, or the soldiers could not find the officers, and the British command had to disorganize the native troops and the armies of the Union countries after disorganization. Andy was given the position of infantry company commander under a true "union": some from England and Scotland, some from Australia and New Zealand, as well as Canadians, Egyptians and Indians of British descent. When it was first reorganized, the unit had a complex company of just over 100 rifles and two machine guns, and its equipment was not even as good as that of the Sultan's private security regiment, and its morale was even more low. Fortunately, the Franco regime in Spain did not fall into the trap at that time - to be precise, it was influenced by the British Empire's soft and hard diplomacy, neither announcing its accession to the Axis powers, nor allowing German and Italian troops to cross the border to attack Gibraltar, and such neutrality actually became an effective barrier for the British army to continue to control the Strait of Gibraltar.

Just three months after the end of the Battle of Malta, the Japanese Pacific Navy was defeated, the Air Force suffered heavy losses, and the United States was officially involved in the world war. With the formation of the United States Combined Forces, the situation of the Atlantic shipping war finally changed positively, and more and more ships successfully sailed from North America to Britain, bringing a steady stream of supplies and munitions, and also giving hope to the helpless British commanders. In the first two quarters of 1942 alone, nearly 1 million tons of supplies arrived in Gibraltar through the layers of Axis raid ships and submarines, a large number of American-style weapons were substantially improved by the equipment of the "combined" army that was continuously transported here by transport ships, and the large supply of food, tobacco and alcohol gradually boosted the morale of the officers and men, so much so that many people in the grassroots companies began to speculate about the date of the Allied counteroffensive -- with the support of the United States, the once elusive victory seemed to be ahead!

Today, Andy Churchill is still wearing the uniform custom-made by the British Army for Allied troops fighting in the Mediterranean and Africa, and the standard Wibelis Scott **** is inserted in the holster, and every item on his body is made in England, but it is an irrefutable fact that what he digests in his stomach is grain and meat from the distant Americas.

Looking at the distant horizon, Andy's heart was full of melancholy, he was not a cowardly person, but he didn't know why, but now he was afraid of war.

After smoking a cigarette, the captain curled up his legs, and the voices and smiles of his family and the happy life kept flashing in his mind, but the last time he returned to England was in the summer of 1940. Yes, the war provoked by the Germans ruined his life and ruined the lives of countless people. As a result of their naval blockade, communication between Gibraltar and mainland Britain was irregular, and not a single letter was received for months. During that time, Andy had insomnia all night long, and he was only 29 years old, with deep wrinkles carved into his forehead.

After the United States entered the war, more and more ships flying the Stars and Stripes went deeper and deeper into the eastern Atlantic waters, and the transportation and liaison problems of the British army finally improved greatly. In the early summer, the port of Gibraltar ushered in a strong American fleet - although a few cruisers were not even comparable to a detachment of the British Royal Navy in its heyday, but after two important naval battles in 1941, the British Navy's rich family had been exhausted, and the remaining fleet could only be concentrated in the home seas, plus the fall of Egypt, the British army was almost concentrated in the Mediterranean, and continued to control Gibraltar, in addition to avoiding the Mediterranean Sea from becoming an inland sea of the Axis powers, It seems that there is no longer such strategic importance as before!

With a lot of thoughts, unclear and messy, Andy scratched the back of his head in a daze, and was about to get up, but suddenly heard a heart-piercing air raid siren Since the signing of the armistice between Germany and the Soviet Union, the illusion of peace in Gibraltar has been ruthlessly torn apart. Axis bombers from airfields in Italy and North Africa began to frequent, and although ** landed on Spanish territory from time to time, this time Franco's marryhouse responded only with silence, and this also seemed to fuel the arrogance of the German and Italian air forces even more!

The captain jumped up reflexively, and there was no trace of enemy bombers in the sky, but he knew that the new American-made warning radar rarely made mistakes When running past the anti-aircraft gun position, he saw that the officers and soldiers of the anti-aircraft artillery company were seizing the time to prepare for battle, and many of the new anti-aircraft guns deployed in the main positions were new anti-aircraft guns from the United States, and judging from the number of Axis bombers that were shot down in the past few days, these guns should have good performance, but what is even more puzzling is that Far from decreasing by the loss of their companions, the number of enemy planes coming to bomb has tended to continue to increase.

The locust-like scene sometimes makes people's scalps tingle, sometimes terrifying.

There was a distance of about 2 meters from the beach to the barracks, and Andy felt a lot of pressure on his lungs when he ran down - with tobacco and alcohol as a companion and neglected exercise, he could only look for the "feat" of easily carrying weights in his memories when he had just graduated from the military academy, and if he didn't change it in time, even if the Allies launched a counteroffensive, he could only follow behind the troops!

"All into the Hideout!" As he ran, he shouted to his lieutenant, who was only a year younger than him, and the Canadian lieutenant, who was only a year younger than him, was gathering his troops in the open space in front of the barracks.

The new uniforms, new equipment, and soldiers with different skin tones and facial contours reacted quickly, and when they heard their commander's shouts, they quickly ran towards the entrance of the bunker not far away

"You idiot, do you want to die?" Andy Churchill angrily yelled at his lieutenant assigned to him.

"I just want to make sure everybody gets into bunker...... Canadian officer's innocent explanation (.2.) Say.

Andy Baizi glanced at him and gasped for air.

The mournful sound of air raid sirens continued to sound, and a bee-like buzzing sound came into the ears, and it was startling at close range. The two looked up in unison to see several fighter jets with ring-shaped logos on their wings flying over Mount Gibraltar. In good times, it only took an hour for Axis bombers from North African airfields to fly to Gibraltar, but limited by strategic strength and airfield conditions, the British army currently only deployed Spitfire fighters and some naval patrol planes in Gibraltar, and did not have a real strategic counterattack capability.

In the line of sight, the direction of the rising sun can already see some black**. After learning the lessons of the air battle of Britain and the operation on the Eastern Front, the German army has long realized that it needs some aircraft with better defense, bomb load and flight range In Adolf, after the overthrow of the Hitler regime, the new high command is obviously more pragmatic, on the one hand, they concentrate on scientific research to develop new combat models, and at the same time start to upgrade and improve the existing aircraft In the recent combat operations, British technicians have noticed, The German bombers that appeared over Gibraltar were still dominated by Heinker's H and Junkers' J-88, but the performance of these two medium-range bombers had improved significantly compared with the Battle of Britain, and what surprised the British even more was that the F190 fighters, which had been heavily equipped with the Luftwaffe and gradually replaced the BF9 series, were able to escort the whole process of bombing operations, which was also a major reason why the Royal Air Force Spitfire fighters had received few gains in recent times - according to statistics, Of the more than 50 German-Italian bombers shot down by the British, 70 percent were shot down by ground antiaircraft guns and shipboard weapons, and less than 20 were shot down by fighter units of the Royal Air Force.

For the infantry, it was obviously safer to take refuge in an air raid, and Andy Churchill and his Canadian lieutenant soon arrived at the shelter where the soldiers entered, but the two men were not in a hurry to hide their heads as well, but stood at the entrance of the shelter and watched with binoculars. In the sky, the defenders and the attackers soon engaged in fierce battles, but the numerical superiority of the German and Italian air forces was too obvious, nearly 100 planes "ran over" the interception line formed by the Spitfires, and as the enemy planes approached, the ground anti-aircraft artillery of Gibraltar began to threaten, and the medium and high altitudes were soon filled with black fireworks, but these were not enough to stop the crazy attackers. Black **rained**, some exploded all over the fortress of Gibraltar, some landed in the harbor, posed a great threat to the British and American ships moored there, and some concentrated attacks on the airfield in the northern part of the fortress of Gibraltar - although there was no trace of the planes there now!

The massive bombardment lasted for nearly half an hour, and when calm was restored outside, the infantry came out of their bunkers in disgrace, but before they could clean up the mess, they heard a very startling news: the Axis fleet was approaching Gibraltar from the east and west, and it seemed that the posture was preparing for a full-scale attack!