The intelligence shocked the British Cabinet, and Churchill ordered immediate verification. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info The next day, spies in Italy also sent news that German troops had indeed disappeared, with a total number of about 30,000, the exact number of which is unknown.

"Didn't you say that the Germans were just bluffing and wouldn't really come to land? Didn't you say that the German fleet would soon be withdrawn? At an emergency meeting in the basement of the Prime Minister's residence, Churchill exclaimed, "What are you going to do now that the intelligence is like this?" ”

In fact, "bluffing" was Churchill's mantra, and in the past two days, he has expressed his position in public, as if he knew everything and had insight into the overall situation, but he did not expect that when the matter came, he himself doubted it first.

"Prime Minister, we are not sure whether this information is true or not." Brooke, who couldn't laugh or cry, said with an accentuated tone, "Take a step back, even if it's true, a force of this size is 50,000 people, so you don't even have confidence in the army, right?" ”

Churchill's old face turned red, but he refused to admit defeat: "Didn't you say that putting troops and heavy equipment in the south would be vulnerable to enemy attacks?" And then you persuaded me to move my troops to the north? I'm afraid you won't have time to react! Once the Germans had found a foothold, there was big trouble to follow. ”

"That's not going to be the case, we have at least 350,000 troops in the south, and whatever direction the Germans come from, it won't be a problem for 2-3 days." Brooke sighed, "I'm worried that the Germans won't come." ”

"You!" Churchill was furious, but he could not see the same as Brooke, so he changed the subject and asked, "Well, you analyze, where might the Germans land?" Is Plymouth to the west? Portsmouth in the middle? Or Dover to the east? ”

Without waiting for the other party to answer, he seemed to remember something again, and asked, "By the way, how is Dover, have those damn railroad guns been destroyed?" ”

"We're trying to ......," the Chief of the Air Staff, Admiral Charles Poter (since Churchill was also the Minister of Defence, the Chiefs of Staff of the Air Force, the Supreme Commander of the Royal Air Force) reported.

The railway cannon in Churchill's mouth is the one that Germany has, the number of up to 16 280mm caliber K5 train guns, this kind of artillery has appeared in the attack on the Strait of Gibraltar, and then it has not performed much, this time there are 6 suddenly appeared in the French Calais area, the improved 43 type 255 kg ordinary grenade has a range of up to 63 kilometers, if the range of the 248 kg rocket extended range is nearly 87 kilometers, it can cover the periphery of Dover when launched from Calais, although the power is not as good as the V2 rocket, However, the victory lies in the high accuracy of the landing point and the low cost, which poses a great threat to the British side.

There was an opinion in the General Staff that the Germans were to land near Dover, and that these railway guns were intended to be used to attack the beachhead and cover the German landing, and the basis was quite sufficient: there were only more than 40 kilometers between Calais and Dover, and the landing craft could go back and forth in 4-5 hours, which was very convenient, and the British also saw that there were quite a few ground troops and landing craft in the direction of Calais.

Another sound derived from this is that Germany did not run out of rockets, but used them together in concealment and waiting for landing, and used them to isolate the possible support from the rest of the country to Dover after the outbreak of the landing campaign, and launched them at London just to test the effect in advance - this argument is very marketable, and Brooke and others also believe that it cannot be completely ruled out, and in the end even Churchill himself became suspicious.

In order to nip the risk in the cradle, the Royal Air Force dispatched thousands of sorties of Mosquito, Blenheim and other medium bombers to deal with suspicious rocket launch positions and train artillery bases, and even used Lancaster 4 heavy bombers to carry goblet bombs to blow up at the expense of precious fuel, but these guns have extremely strong concrete bunkers, ordinary bombers do not work on them, and the goblets are not accurate, coupled with the fierce air defense system of the Luftwaffe, the Royal Air Force has suffered heavy losses.

In the past two weeks, the Royal Air Force has lost more than 1,000 aircraft and more than 200 pilots in air raids on its home territory (some of which were destroyed at manufacturing plants and on the ground), more than 700 aircraft and nearly 600 pilots (some lucky ones escaped across the channel or fell into the strait and were rescued), and more than 100 twin- and four-engine bombers were lost here in Calais alone, and the Luftwaffe losses were much smaller.

The bombing effect against the V2 rocket company was slightly better, but only limited success, and the British did not understand that the real value of the V2 rocket was the rocket body and the manufacturing plant, and the launch bases and facilities they painstakingly bombed were not rare, but wasted fuel and aircraft. With the entry into service of a large number of Do-412s, the loss rate of mosquito bombers, which have been flying high and flying fast since the beginning of the war, has also begun to rise sharply, although there is no particularly good way for air defense to harass mosquitoes at night, but the British can not find a rocket launch base at night, so even if the losses are large, they can only attack during the day.

"Waste, waste......" Hearing the news that the bombing was not effective, Churchill cursed a few words, and then ignored Admiral Potter, and just asked Brooke, "On what basis do you judge that the Germans will not land there?" ”

"If it was a landing at Dover or Portsmouth, there would be no need to go to great lengths to transfer troops from the Mediterranean, and it would be enough for the Germans to push their troops directly to the Low Countries and then get on board." Brooke patiently explained, "I'm worried that they're going to fight Iceland or Ireland. ”

"You agree with Nimitz's analysis?"

"Your Excellency, the Americans' analysis is not unreasonable, if there is no fleet to help defend Iceland, can the more than 80,000 troops and hundreds of planes on the island stop the German landing? Or do you think that 60,000 American troops and more than 20,000 of our troops can withstand 50,000 wolf-like German troops? ”

Churchill was speechless, and he wanted to scold Brooke for his argument that he would destroy his prestige, but he knew that it was the truth—the situation in Iceland was not clear to the British people, and did the British top brass not know what the virtues of the Americans were? "Italians on our side" was the first to be shouted by these high-level leaders.

But even so, the British could not drive the American troops away, on the contrary, they had to pinch their noses to welcome the Americans, say good things about the Americans, and hype up the Anglo-American friendship -- if the American troops did not come, Iceland would have to be defended by the British Empire itself, and the necessary materials and equipment would have to be solved by the British themselves. Naturally, they could only endure the pain and be supported by the American tyrants, and even the commander of the Icelandic garrison was replaced by Americans, and more than 20,000 British troops were also under the command of the Icelandic command.

Churchill knew very well that Iceland's location was very important, and it was the key to jamming the Anglo-Canadian route, so he had to pay attention to it, once Iceland fell, he did not dare to say that the Anglo-Canadian route fell 100%, at least the loss rate would rise to more than 80%. Now the loss rate of 50% is too much for Americans to bear, and 80% of the words will basically be declared over.

Brooke concludes by stating his concerns: "With the exception of Iceland, I am particularly concerned about the Germans landing in Ireland, which are not very friendly to us at the moment, and which Hitler has been co-opting the Irish. ”

There is a deep consensus that Hoffman's vision of the European Union, which clearly states that Northern Ireland is an integral part of Ireland and that Great Britain's occupation of Northern Ireland is an act of colonial rule, should be corrected. This made the whole of Ireland rejoice, and it had spiritually regarded itself as a member of the Axis powers, and it also made all the efforts of Britain and the United States to further win over Ireland to naught, and neither the British nor the Americans dared to explicitly promise to give Northern Ireland to the Irish.

In fact, in the first two years after the outbreak of the European war, the relationship between Germany and Ireland was very strange, and the German army believed that Ireland would sooner or later be used by the British, so it not only sent bombers to drop bombs on four cities in Ireland, but also bombed Dublin twice, and refused to apologize afterwards - this made Hoffman express his indignation at the brain-dead actions of the Third Reich, knowing that after Hitler's suicide in history, only Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera went to the embassy as head of state to pay his condolences, If such a proper hardcore ally did not hurry to win over, could he still hope to gain the understanding of the British?

It was only after the defeat in the Battle of Britain that the Third Reich revisited its relations with Ireland – the Irish did not do well after bombing each other several times, so they apologized privately and tried to ease relations.

Ireland also faced British pressure and sanctions when facing German military risks, because before the outbreak of the European war, the Irish government explicitly forbade any British warships, submarines and aircraft from entering Irish territory, and the angry Churchill withdrew his maritime protection of Ireland and launched an economic war, and also drastically reduced the export of food to Ireland on the grounds that Britain itself was not enough, and secretly prevented Ireland from maritime trade with other countries - Ireland's food supply has always been problematic, and the reason why the Irish do not like the British, It was because of the great famine that swept the country that so many people died in Ireland.

At this time, Germany wanted to win over Ireland again, promised to provide materials and weapons to help Ireland resist British pressure, and volunteered to send troops, but the Pearl Harbor incident interrupted this process, the United States agreed to provide Ireland with weapons and equipment, food and all industrial raw materials, and verbally promised to support Ireland to end the partition, on the condition that the port was open to American warships for replenishment, although de Valera was reluctant, but in view of the British and American sea power and Germany could not do anything he could not refuse. By 1942, Ireland had become the strangest country in Europe, and although its heart was towards Germany, it had to facilitate Britain and the United States due to internal and external difficulties, and at the same time it was at odds with Britain.

Hoffman quickly changed the situation through the European Union, and dispelled all the rumours that the Führer had been waiting for Anglo-German cooperation, and that he was determined to bring Ireland to his side.

ps: Haha, I only owe one chapter to add more, and the monthly passes hurry up to keep up......