"Very well, continue to extend the shooting, let the radar pay attention to the sea situation." Admiral Forbes, commander of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet, stood on the armored bridge of the battleship Nelson and gave orders to the captain, Colonel Mills.

Then the commander picked up the coffee offered by the orderlies and walked slowly to the porthole by the bridge. Looking at the flotilla in the distance that was charging towards the port of Dunkerke, Admiral Forbes's heart was full of doubts.

Admiral Forbes had reservations about the plan drawn up by the Admiralty's chiefs of staff from the outset. This vast plan is full of assumptions and imaginations, and it would be foolish for a battle-hardened Navy veteran to execute a plan that has been put on without rigorous analysis and long-term preparation.

Naval warfare is full of changes and accidents, and any small negligence can lead to the destruction of a battleship or even an entire fleet, which the naval staff officers must not have been unaware of, but they still passed the plan with all their might, which is the point that Admiral Forbes is most puzzled.

Although Admiral Forbes was dissatisfied with the plan of this operation, for this old navy, the belief of the Royal Navy is loyalty, no matter what he thinks, orders are orders, and as a naval officer, he should obey unconditionally, so he still took on the responsibility of the commander of the entire operation.

Letting the elite giant ships of the Royal Navy's home fleet enter such a narrow channel is full of adventure in itself, and I don't know what those Admiralty guys think. The current shelling channel was swept out of a minefield and traversed the entire Strait of Dover, where it intersected perpendicular to the Dunkerke supply channel that had been cleared some time before, forming a cross.

But the channel was too narrow, only about two thousand meters, and the length of its own huge ships was more than two hundred meters, and the fleet had to keep sailing on the center line of the channel, and if it was attacked by German submarines here, these ships would not even have room to turn around and maneuver evasively. And the explanation given to themselves by the commanders of the Admiralty was that under the cover of a large number of destroyers, the fleet would not be threatened by German submarines. Hopefully they were right, but the horror of German submarines was not something that those who did it in the office could imagine, and Admiral Forbes was still a little worried about the threat of submarines.

Admiral Forbis had not yet found anything wrong with the shelling of German Army positions by his warships. The admiral was confident that his warship would be able to accomplish this task. Because according to the intelligence of the Admiralty, the most powerful artillery of the German artillery is the 210 mm heavy howitzer used by the army, and the intelligence says that the maximum range of that kind of artillery is about 18 kilometers, so those Admiralty staff officers set the shelling route 20 kilometers from the shore, and those German artillery cannot threaten their warships at all. And the longest firing range of their own battleship artillery can reach 25,000 kilometers, and it is powerful, it can be said that those German artillery and their own naval guns are not of the same level at all, and it is very simple to suppress them.

According to the plan, their own battleships ceased their actions as soon as they entered the shelling positions in the shelling route, anchored and fixed their positions, and then used as a solid floating battery at sea to carry out precise and fierce suppressive shelling of German positions. The admiral also had little opinion on this, which was the most standard procedure for the British Navy for shelling the shore. The other side is not a coastal fortress, and it is not dangerous to bombard it outside the range of the other party.

Now their own destroyers have begun to conduct anti-submarine patrols in the vicinity, and as long as there are no submarines diving into the defensive circle, then there is nothing to threaten their own warships.

Forbes did not pay any attention to the attack of the German planes, and so far no battleship has been sunk by the opposing planes. What's more, their own warships are equipped with enough anti-aircraft guns, and the Royal Air Force has also arranged a wing of fighters to escort its fleet, and under such a tight defense, German planes may not even have the opportunity to fly above their heads. Even if any German pilot who was not afraid of death rushed through the air defense network, Forbes did not believe that the small bomblets mounted on those German planes could cause any damage to his battleships with heavy armor of more than 300 millimeters.

Now the admiral was annoyed that he had not received any accurate information on the position of the German artillery positions until the time of departure. He now finally felt that his captains were right, that the Army's intelligence was run by a bunch of waste. After all these days, they had not been able to get information on any of the valuable targets in the German positions. It is inconceivable for the navy that those expeditionary forces have been bombarded by the enemy for three days, and they still do not know where the shells came from.

What the hell are those Army Commanders doing these days? The Admiral felt that if the encircled armies were really that stupid, then even rescuing them would be of little use in defending the Empire. The British Empire must ultimately be defended by the heroic Royal Navy, and Admiral Forbes has always believed this.

Now his own strike fleet did not have the coordinates of the enemy's troops, did not have detailed and exact intelligence, did not even have an English-language map of the area where the enemy's positions were located, and now he had on hand only a military map of the French army printed by the French. And which Germans also seemed to understand that they were now at a disadvantage, and they even endured their own three salvos without returning fire with their artillery, revealing to themselves the position of their artillery. Now because they could not find the positions of the German artillery, the elite warships of the home fleet of the British Royal Navy could only use the most stupid method to crush the German positions inch by inch with shells, only to blow up those German artillery positions.

"Boom ......"

The loud roar of the ship's guns sounded very dull through the thick bridge armor. The sheer force of the salvo of the guns made the battleship's massive hull tremble with it. Forbes looked at the mighty cannons and felt very satisfied, this is the pride of the British Empire, as long as the British Empire still has these cannons, no enemy can defeat her.

Forbes used the high-powered telescope on the bridge to observe the German position on the opposite side, twenty kilometers is not a small number, even the high-power telescope can only see a little outline of the German position, and now the salvo shells just now have not yet fallen on the opposite position, and the general waits patiently. Finally, a few seconds later, he saw what he wanted to see in the telescope, countless fireballs rose from the German position, all kinds of debris and earth and rock were blown up all over the sky, and then the whole position was covered in dust and smoke, and the admiral heard the dull explosion in the distance.

"Yes, keep fighting like this, if they are still unwilling to fight back, then simply let us slowly tear it apart." Forbes happily said to Captain Mills: "It seems that their artillery is not afraid to open fire, the threat to those small ships has been halved, and today's operation should be said to have gone smoothly so far." ”

"Yes, General." Mills replied on the side.

Forbes turned his telescope in the direction of Dunkerke, and he began to observe the charge of the boats. This is the only thing that worries him in the plan drawn up by the Admiralty, although the threat of German artillery has been eliminated for the time being, but the threat of the Luftwaffe is still there, and if the fierce Luftwaffe now intercepts the small ships that are explaining to people what it means to be sluggish, those small boats will be eaten alive by the Luftwaffe in half an hour.

If the boat is destroyed, the whole plan will be meaningless, and it will be useless to bombard the entire German position by then. If the Luftwaffe really went out, their own artillery would not be able to help those small ships, and the only thing they could rely on at that time was those Royal Air Force planes.

This time, the Royal Air Force also invested a lot of money, for this operation, they threw in all the planes that could be used, and divided them into several batches, ready to cover their warships and those retreating ships 24 hours a day.

Now this batch is the first batch. Forbes thought as he pointed his high-powered telescope into the air, but his view was blocked by the bulletproof baffle on the porthole. Forbes put down the high-powered telescope, opened the side door of the bridge, walked to the observation platform by the bridge, and used the large observation telescope on the platform to start looking at the group of fighters hovering over the small boat.

The other officers on the bridge followed him to the platform outside the bridge, and they also looked into the sky over Dunkerke with their binoculars. Now, in addition to following the general everywhere to see the scenery, they can only stay in the bridge and look at the charts in a daze. Now it was not a naval battle, the whole fleet was only used as a floating battery in this operation, and the shelling was the work of the gunnery officers, who had nothing to do after they brought the fleet to the shelling position.

"Luftwaffe planes, they're at high altitude!" An officer shouted.

Forbes also saw that a large swarm of black dots like locusts in the sky high in the direction of Dunkerke was speeding towards the British fighters circling over the fleet. And now the British fighters apparently found out about the situation, they shook their wings, began to form countless formations, and then met the group of black dots at high speed.

"They've already exchanged fire with the Royal Air Force, there are hundreds, and I can't tell who's who."

"Oh my God, it's spectacular!"

Even the battle-hardened Admiral Forbes couldn't help but marvel at what he saw. High above Dunkirk, countless fighter jets of all shapes and sizes are fighting together. In that airspace, which is only five or six kilometers in radius, at least about 300 planes from both sides are concentrated. They flew up and down and strangled together, and there were planes that continued to fall with black smoke or explode into a fireball in the air, tragic and gorgeous, cruel and elegant, bloody and spectacular would appear in a space so harmoniously, which left a deep impression on all the people who witnessed the air battle at that time.

Admiral Forbis watched nervously as the planes rolled in the air, circling, sprinting back and forth, and tangling in circles with each other. He sweated for the Royal Air Force, and now it seems that the most critical task of this operation has indeed fallen on these air forces. Now the fighting in the air has entered the white-hot stage, and from time to time a parachute will bloom and slowly fall over the port of Dunkirk, and near it there is usually a firefire with smoke in tow, and a hurricane or messerschmitt tumbling down. Although it is not yet clear who will win in the end, the RAF is a bit of a disadvantage in the current situation. Admiral Forbes did not dare to think of what kind of massacre would have been done to the small ships that had stormed the harbor if the air forces had failed to withstand it, and it would have been the greatest tragedy in British history. Admiral Forbes watched the air battle through a telescope and prayed in his heart for the final victory of the Royal Air Force.

At this time, the turret began to sound, which signaled that the next salvo of the battleship was about to begin. Admiral Forbis and the officers hurriedly hid in the bridge. In the case of a salvo of naval guns, the tremendous sound and air pressure can cause damage to anyone and equipment in the vicinity, especially for the "world's largest shallow water gunship" with nine main guns on the foredeck, and those 406 mm guns sometimes do more harm to themselves than the enemy can inflict. The muzzle storm caused by the C turret firing from the side and rear caused damage even to the bridge, as a result that the turret was not allowed to turn to that angle at any time.

"Boom...... With a loud roar, another row of giant shells flew towards the German positions. Admiral Forbes immediately leaned on the porthole and looked at the German positions, and he loved the feeling of watching his heavy shells explode violently on the German positions.

"Well, it's very good, their positions along the coast should have all been destroyed, now continue to shoot, pay attention to the small hill behind their position, there seem to be several large fortifications, it may be one of their observation posts, order all the warships to aim at that hillside and bombard." Forbes gave the order as he watched.

"Yes, General." Captain Mills picked up the phone on the wall and gave orders to the turrets and communications men.

Forbes was excitedly waiting for the next salvo of his fleet, when suddenly, through his telescope, he noticed a puff of white smoke rising from the rear of the German position, and for a moment the white smoke almost covered the entire German rear position.

"Start casting smoke to thwart our shelling? Haha, did the Germans think that this would stop me from flattening their positions? What an idiot. ”

Forbis laughed, but after five seconds he thought he might be wrong, because the smoke had risen so fast and was now dissipating rapidly.

"Could it be...... Was it the smoke from the firing of German artillery, and the artillery of the Germans finally couldn't help it? Hahaha, Captain, immediately shift the target and let all the battleships fire at that smoke area, and we finally found their artillery positions. ”

"Yes, General." Mills responded to Forbes's order briefly and forcefully, still with the same serious expression, and he picked up the phone and began to convey the order.

"They may be firing at those small boats, God forbid those small boats will not lose too much, anyway, those Germans will only have this one chance to shell." Forbes put down his binoculars and smiled at the officers next to him.

At this moment, a violent explosion suddenly came from the sea outside the bridge.

"General, destroyer......"

An officer pointed out the window and shouted. Forbes, also startled by the sudden explosion, quickly turned around and looked in the direction of the officer's finger.

The sight in front of him stunned the admiral.

The six destroyers that were patrolling the German side of the battleship group were now each surrounded by numerous huge columns of water stirred up by the explosion of shells, and it appeared from the black smoke and fireballs rising from the destroyers, and the constant sound of explosions, that each ship had been hit by more than one shell. "It's a cover shot! The artillery of the Germans on the shore gave us covered fire!" An officer shouted.

But the admiral did not think so, and he took the telescope and searched the sea around him.