Chapter 20: The British Saboteurs
When his feet touched the cold, solid ground, Ensign Tobias's heart finally steadied. When he was in the air, he saw the constant flickering of fire in the southern sky, his black trench coat and gray parachute flickering with the world, and it was not difficult to spot these paratroopers if you looked closely from the nearby ground. Thankfully, there were no British troops for a few miles nearby, at least not yet.
Second Lieutenant Tobias and his men were a very fortunate group of men, having parachuted into French soil during the Air Service Regiment of the 8th Army, and this time they landed on British soil as part of the Air Force's newly formed G-1 Airborne Division. As German soldiers, they were proud and proud to have participated in such a great act that symbolized courage and honor.
Soldiers in black trench coats landed one after another, the first group to land took out their rifles to guard the area without waiting for the parachute to close, and the soldiers who landed later were responsible for retracting the parachute. When there were no parachutes in the air, the soldiers began to gather towards Tobias.
After the airdrop of the commandos, the German special airship formation continued to fly north without stopping, and they would drop the bombs they carried near London in order to confuse the British as to the purpose of the airship formation's trip.
Soon, two British officers on bicycles appeared in the view of the airborne troops.
"Sir, there's a situation!" A soldier shouted in a low voice, and dozens of rifles were aimed at the two fast-moving figures at once.
The two British officers walked straight in this direction, their flashlights still flashing rhythmically, and Tobias watched carefully for a moment, then took out his flashlights and signaled response.
"Don't be nervous, they're here! Hurry up and pack your parachutes, everyone! ”
Only then did the airborne troops put away their guns, and the non-commissioned officers ran back and forth to gather their soldiers. Tobias took off his black trench coat and dressed as a standard British Army second lieutenant.
The two British officers stopped in front of Tobias, and from the rank they saw that one was a captain in the British Army and the other was a sergeant.
"Hello! We are the British Sleepers, and we have been ordered to come and join you! The British captain saluted a standard German military salute and spoke fluent English, which seemed awkward.
"Hello! I am Second Lieutenant Tobias, the commander of the special commando! Tobias returned the German military salute and spoke English with a slight London accent.
"Are you all here?" The British captain glanced behind Tobias, where the paratroopers had put their parachutes away, were taking off their trench coats and counting the numbers.
"It's a little windy today, so there shouldn't be a problem!" Tobias glanced back, and it seemed that it would be a little longer before he knew the outcome, so he looked back at the two "English lurkers" in front of him. The name sounded loud, and the two officers looked young and handsome, and the success rate of using the beautiful man's trick must be far higher than that of the mediocre-looking self.
"You can call me Siggett, and Captain likes to be called Karen!" It was the British Second Lieutenant who spoke, but these were not their real names, and the name was just a code name for them to disguise their identity.
"Oh, nice to meet you!" Tobias shook hands with the two of them one by one, "Sorry, I wonder where our parachutes and trench coats are going to hide?" ”
"There's a wooded area over there, and we spent most of the day digging a big hole, so it shouldn't be a problem to bury all the parachutes and backpacks!" Sigurt pointed to the east, but from here it was dark.
"Understood!" Tobias replied that he always felt strange that two men in British uniforms were talking to each other, especially when he was wearing this yellow uniform, and that kind of flat-topped brimmed cloth military hat was very unaccustomed to wearing on his head.
After a while, an officer came running from behind, "Report, all 126 members of the special commando team have arrived, fully equipped, and no one is injured!" ”
"Good!" Tobias nodded in satisfaction, and then he saluted Captain Cullen, "Report to the sir, the special commando team is assembled and ready to go!" ”
"Excellent! Ensign, let your soldiers come with us! ”
Soon, a standard British Army unit set off. Perhaps, many of the British regulars were not as well equipped as they were, and Tobias's soldiers each had a Wilbury revolver hidden on their bodies to increase their firepower in close combat.
You know, due to the shortage of weapons, many people in the newly formed British army still have all kinds of old weapons, and some militiamen have old rifles that can be put in museums. Under these harsh conditions, the British seem to have burst out with a unique patriotic fervor, and many small factories have voluntarily switched to military products regardless of the cost, and regardless of the quality of the weapons produced by these factories, the shortage of resources alone is enough to keep this huge war machine jamming.
After about a quarter of an hour's march through the fields, Tobias and his assault party came to the woods of which Siggett had spoken, and the soldiers threw parachutes, trench coats, backpacks, and everything else that might reveal their identities into the pit, because they were using British standard weapons, and they had little to worry about ammunition.
While the soldiers were filling the pit, Tobias took out his flashlight and a map and studied it.
"Captain, where are we going next?" For the English map, Tobias still felt a little tired and uncomfortable when he looked at it.
"Uh...... Here, to the south of us, the town of Lumbus, is about 4 miles away, passing 5 British outposts on the way! Captain Cullen said and glanced at Tobias, who, as expected, was surprised at the number of British posts.
"God, 5! What are we going to do there? ”
"According to our intelligence, a squadron of British fighters is stationed there, and they are the focal point of Brighton's defense system! If it can be terminated, the British planes will be much less of a threat to our landing force! Cullen explained.
"Passing through 5 British outposts to bomb a group of British planes, we are afraid that we will face a hundred times our British soldiers!" Tobias was a little embarrassed, this was even more exaggerated than the last airborne support armored reconnaissance team, once there was an accident, I am afraid that his more than 100 people would have to face a large number of British soldiers to exchange fire.
"Blowing up a British ammunition depot, raiding a British division headquarters, and robbing a heavily guarded vault are no easy tasks! Ensign, mentally prepare your men in advance! "For spies like Karen, danger is the tone of their lives.
"Robbery of the vault? But how do we get the gold away? Tobias was astonished that the wealth of the British was indeed coveted by people all over the world.
"No, we're not trying to rob the gold, and we're not going to make sure there's any gold in it. If there were, we threw them out into the streets and let the British go mad and grab them; If not, we just need to report to our superiors! Cullen said calmly, then looked back at the soldiers who filled the pit, "Cover the top with dead leaves and old soil next to it!" ”
"Captain, are the other three missions you mentioned that we are going to complete?" After bypassing the gold, Tobias remembered that the other two were not easy tasks either, and let more than a hundred people complete them, unless these people were all invincible Iron King Kong.
"Not necessarily, maybe we'll all hang up before we finish the first task." Cullen glanced at his watch, and out of professional custom, he didn't continue.
In the sea south of Brighton, the shelling of the Scheer fleet was still raging. During the two-hour confrontation, the Brighton fortress and coastal fortifications were bombarded, and the previous shore-ship confrontation had turned into a one-sided artillery bombardment by the German fleet. The British guns were either destroyed by German gunfire or chose to conserve ammunition with little success, during which only the battleships "King Albert" and "Hesse" were hit by several British shells, and the two battleships dragging light smoke were all the fruits of the counterattack of the British coastal defense forces.
"There is a situation!" In the sonar room of the German destroyer "Vancet", the sailors in charge of listening to the sea situation suddenly discovered something from the sounder, and soon the active sonar also tracked down a submarine in the water west of the fleet, a submarine that had not sent an identification signal for a long time.
"British submarines!" The officer on duty sounded the alarm for the discovery of an enemy submarine, and the entire crew quickly ran to their respective combat positions to prepare for battle. Although the sailors were wearing inflatable life jackets, no one wanted to get up close and personal with the waters of the English Channel on such a cool day.
The "Vancet" quickly sent the location of the submarine it had detected to the other destroyers, and four other German destroyers sailed out of the fleet to converge on the submarine.
On the aft deck of the "Wansai", the sailors put 150KG depth charges on the drop rack one after another, which was welded with angle iron and mounted on the stern, which had a small slope to the stern, so that the depth charges automatically rolled into the water by their own gravity. The operator can control the depth charges to roll down one by one and keep them at a distance from each other, creating a continuous zone of detonation.
"Prepare for depth charges, set at a depth of 25 meters, and fire ...... six rounds in a row"
With the officer's order, the cylindrical depth charge fell into the water in the most primitive way.
More than ten seconds later, with a somewhat dull loud noise, two tall water columns rose dozens of meters behind the destroyer. In a few moments, depth charges dropped from four other destroyers made the sea boil.
In the sonar room, several sailors put on their microphones again after the first wave of depth charges were dropped, but it seems that there was a lot more noise in the water after the explosion of the depth charges, and they had to make out the sounds very carefully.
"How? Did the submarine react in any way? ”
"Passive sonar No. 1 has lost its target!"
"The No. 2 active sonar spotted the target, which is currently about 500 yards behind the right rear of our ship."
"It seems that the British submarines have stopped advancing!" The officer on duty then picked up the phone and asked the destroyer to turn to throw a second wave of deep-water station orders.
A few minutes later, five destroyers dropped a string of depth charges side by side, and when the water column fell, a huge bubble rose on the surface of the sea, followed by various wreckage emerging from underwater, and this time the British submarine did not escape the fate of being sunk by the German Navy.
After sinking the British submarines, the German destroyers returned to the ring around the battlefleet. At this point, Scheer gave the order for extended fire, and the British artillery position that Siggett had previously discovered was immediately covered by heavy artillery fire. The British artillery bunkers, modeled after the guns of the French Seine Line, were simply unable to withstand the bombardment of large-caliber naval guns, and the flames and loud noises of the explosions of the falling German shells and the detonated British ammunition were intertwined, and the British artillery suffered heavy casualties in this rolling explosion.
In this "symphony," which is reaching its climax, Tobias and his "E Company of the British Fore Infantry Regiment" walk down a country road north of Brighton. Captain Cullen was at the front of the line, while Siggert was at the end, and despite the fact that Tobias's soldiers all spoke English, Cullen told them not to talk as much as possible, lest their English with a German accent attract the attention of the British.
Not far from the woods, Cullen and the others came across a British patrol hurrying north. Both teams stopped, and Tobias made a quick estimate that the British patrol had about 40 soldiers, half of whom appeared to be Indian, and the Indian turban stood out.
"Lieutenant, where are you going?" Cullen walked up to the commander of the patrol and saluted a standard British military salute.
"Captain, we are a patrol of the 4th Garrison Regiment in Brighton, and some villagers have reported to us that they have spotted something strange dropped by a German airship in front, and we have been ordered to go and check it out!" The British officer politely replied, "May I ask who you are......?"
"We are soldiers of the Fore Infantry Regiment, newly transferred here from the north of England. We had received the same report before, so we searched the nearby area, and it turned out to be some garbage thrown from German airships, and those German pigs are so hateful! Cullen's tone and movements were typical of a mid-level British officer, although he was upset by Tobias and others when he said "German pigs."
"Really? The villagers also said it was a very large thing! It seems that the Germans have already used this place as a dumping ground for garbage, and one day we will make them regret it! The British lieutenant thought for a moment, "But let's go over there and search, it's an order from above!" ”
"That's good! Good luck to you! By the way, we've already cleaned up all that garbage, and if there's nothing missing, you're afraid you won't see anything. Cullen said as he motioned for Tobias and the others to get out of the way.
"That's good! If we have the chance, we'll teach you a lesson about the littering German pigs! The British lieutenant gave a military salute and continued north with his patrol.
"A bunch of idiots!" Cullen muttered to the British's back.
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