On the chessboard of the Battle of the Azores, the island of Corvo was originally just an inconspicuous intersection, but with the success of the Allied army's blitzkrieg in a three-dimensional operation, the chess board immediately underwent an astonishing change, and the supply line was choked by the United States and Britain like a group of pawns with exhausted energy, and they could only fight desperately for survival, and this kind of resistance was the easiest to be used by the opponent. www.biquge.info No, the U.S. and British fleets, which had just been humiliated by their opponents in the Second Battle of Flores, fought again in succession, first sending the British battle cruiser "Howe" to lead a number of light ships to attack the Allied convoy from Santa Maria Island to Corvo Island, only to be chased around in circles by the Allied bomber group, and then gathered more than a dozen submarines to carry out wolf pack operations, but was soon beaten in disgrace by the anti-submarine network of enemy ships and fighters.

Having mastered the absolute command of the theater and the absolute initiative on the battlefield, Xia Shu displayed his military talents with ease. Only a week had passed since the capture of Corvo Island, and just as the outside world was speculating about how much time the Confederate forces would need to prepare before attacking Flores Island, he waved his flag and launched another blitzkrieg!

Adjacent to Corvo Island, the island of Flores is 18 kilometers long from north to south and 10 kilometers wide from east to west. The volcanic island is bisected by a ridge that runs north and south, with four seaports and nine towns dotted between them, with the largest port, Port Santa Cruz, located at the southernmost point of the island. When Corvo Island changed hands, there were more than 42,000 American and British troops stationed on Flores Island, and then more than 3,000 American and British naval officers and men who lost their ships landed, bringing the total strength of the island's defenders to nearly 46,000, and after six days of preparation, the Allied troops assembled on Corvo Island were only more than 12,000 people, and more than 100 combat planes of various types were transferred to the island.

There are two factors that make Natsuki confidently launch an island attack operation, one is the superiority at sea, and the other is the unity of the soldiers. Italy and Austria-Hungary, which had just joined the war, were sending a steady stream of naval light ships and marines to the Azores front, but the troops attacking Flores Island were still the German and Irish troops, and the German 2nd Marine Division was the trump card for the beach landing, and the 5th Irish Airborne Battalion was the vanguard behind the enemy lines.

After days of wind and rain, the sun finally appeared, and with it Allied bombs and shells. Hordes of dive bombers flew back and forth between Corvo and Flores, fighter jets were also flying out, and almost every half hour there would be a wave of air raids, which was almost impossible to penetrate; Under the air guidance of reconnaissance planes, Allied ships continued to attack military installations on the island with precision artillery fire, many fortifications were uprooted, and the casualties of the US and British troops continued to rise with the rumbling of artillery.

The bombardment and artillery bombardment of the Allied forces began early in the morning and slowed down slightly in the afternoon, and although the American and British commands in charge of the defenders of Flores Island were aware of the enemy's intention to seize the island, they judged that the offensive would not be launched until the next day at the earliest, while the Joint Operations Command on Texel Island believed that the Allied forces had not yet gathered enough forces and that the landing operation might be launched in one to two weeks.

Beginning at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the Ju-17, known as the "Hammer of Thunder," suddenly became powerful, and this kind of dive bomber, which flew at a slow speed and did not have a strong survivability in front of enemy fighters, fully unleashed its advantage in accurate bombing when bombing ground targets, and the heavy aerial bombs dropped in a dive manner were not inferior to those of large-caliber naval guns. In the following two hours, the Allied forces flew nearly 200 sorties of Ju-17s, concentrating on four villages and towns in the north and central part of Flores Island, and at the same time, under the leadership of the giants "Hanover", "Hesse", and "Baden", the main fleet of the Central Powers carried out a carpet sweep of the northern seaport of Delgada on the island of Flores, and when the terrible shelling came to an end, the harbor and all the buildings in sight were completely in ruins.

At dusk, at a time when it was deemed unsuitable for a landing operation, 3,000 soldiers belonging to the German 2nd Marine Division, together with 18 combat vehicles, came to land on the northern shore adjacent to Delgada, and more than 600 men of the elite 5th Irish Airborne Battalion arrived in transport planes and ****** to the wind, cutting off Delgada's retreat to the rear from the interior. The two forces joined forces to launch a strong attack on the harbor, which was still defended by hundreds of remnants.

"Machine gun crew, suppress enemy fire! Others, alternately cover forward! ”

Irish Private Steve Quinn was prostrate on a pile of rubble, staring ahead with blazing eyes, and less than four hundred meters ahead was the outer block of the port of Delgada, which was actually a relatively dense area of more than a dozen houses. Before the German army invaded the Azores, the entire port of Delgada had fewer than 500 inhabitants, and it was only a small seaside village in Europe.

The sound of machine gunfire came from a collapsed house, and the broken walls and beams formed a small space that was used as cover by the surviving defenders. Judging from the sound of gunfire, it was probably the British Vickers-Mark I water-cooled heavy machine gun, which was undoubtedly the clumsiest of all automatic weapons, but the fire continuity was almost the best - it was not a clever way to force a machine gun position, and the Boer War more than thirty years ago had fully demonstrated the terrible power of machine guns as a defensive weapon. With a 37mm gun in hand, the paratroopers could easily sweep away this point of fire, but at the moment they were only the most powerful of the Hubert-22 light machine gun, modeled after the Browning M-1918, except for the few grenades.

"Attention! The fourth shift is responsible for fire cover, and the first and second shifts are advancing alternately! ”

The muffled voice of the command came from Sergeant Tengk, who was seriously wounded during the attack on Corvo Island, and even Lieutenant Angus was seriously wounded, and the four platoon commanders under him were also killed and two wounded, so the senior sergeants were temporarily promoted, and Sergeant Tengk, who performed well, was appointed commander of the fourth platoon. This time, their parachute was located 2-4 kilometers south of the port of Delgada, and although only half of them had been assembled for the attack, it was more than enough to crush the few defenders in the collapsed houses.

After a while, two light machine guns of the third and fourth squads began to fire, and the remaining two squads alternately covered the advance.

"Second squad, the skirmishers are moving forward! 20 meters! The leading non-commissioned officer roared in his familiar, gruff voice.

Without hesitation, Steve jumped out of the hill where he was hiding, still running briskly with his head bowed and bowed in a cautious posture. At this moment, Vickers-Mark, who had been silent for a few seconds, opened fire again, and the flying bullets immediately swept up clouds of dust on the dirt floor.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed that someone had been hit, but Steve didn't have time to care about which guy was so unlucky. Estimating that the distance of 20 meters had been reached, and the terrain in front of him was also a little undulating, he pounced forward with an arrow step, and his posture was like a disarmed torpedo. There is no superfluous movement. The small mound less than 15 meters above sea level became the paratrooper's new "bunker", and he immediately turned his Beretta T-28 sideways towards the window where the flames were constantly bursting into the window.

In no more than three seconds, several paratroopers in the same company also lay down on the spot with their hands and feet, looking for even the slightest natural object that could block the bullet, so as to reduce the probability of being hit by the bullet. The paratroopers began to fire forward with their machine guns and rifles, and the machine gun crews responsible for fire cover behind them fired hard, and the Irish paratroopers successfully suppressed the enemy's fire.

Taking advantage of the temporary mute of the enemy's machine guns, a squad of paratroopers rushed out of their concealed positions, advanced quickly in loose skirmishers, and in a moment ran past Steve. When the enemy's machine guns roared again, the paratroopers fell to their stomachs as quickly as they did.

After so many alternations, the Irish paratroopers had advanced to a distance of thirty or forty meters from the enemy's firepower point, and the two paratroopers with outstanding arm strength threw out the grenades in a lying position, and with two booms, the smoke and dust rising obscured the sight of the enemy machine gunners, and Steve and his companions jumped to their feet, regardless of the roar of the opponent's machine guns, and ran forward desperately.

Rounding the side of the collapsed house, Steve saw at a glance the narrow passage into it, but the winding passage was not conducive to close combat, and another paratrooper who followed took off the grenade pinned to his belt, gave Quinn a "cover me" look, and then pulled out the fuse and threw the grenade diagonally into it, Steve had already taken two steps back and aimed his submachine gun at the entrance of the passage.

There was a bang, a choking puff of smoke and dust poured out of the passageway, and the collapsed building had apparently collapsed further due to the destruction of a supporting structure somewhere, but not to a particularly large extent. The Vickers gun, which was still making a sound, immediately stopped roaring, and a moment later, a figure appeared at the entrance of the passageway, and Steve shouted "Don't move" in English, but the man still walked out, seemingly carrying a pistol in his hand.

Maybe the other party was stunned by the bombing and didn't hear what Steve said, but Steve couldn't risk his own safety and the safety of his companions, so he had no choice but to shoot. A bullet flew past, and the man fell to the ground.

The Irish paratrooper, who had just thrown a grenade, returned to the passage with his rifle in his hand, and he looked at the corpse on the ground: "It's an Englishman!" ”

In the Azores, there was not much difference between British and American soldiers, except that for the Irish, killing the former would give an additional pleasure in revenge, a hatred that came from the ****** of the last century, from the resentment of centuries of oppression, and from the bloodshed caused by the clashes of faith in the mid-to-late 10s and early 20s, for which Britain is credited with being responsible.

"The people inside come out!" Steve shouted inside in English, but he didn't get any response.

(End of chapter)