December 26, 1914, 11:57 p.m., Port-Caen, France.

Countless searchlights illuminated the entire harbor, there was no noisy whistle when the ships usually left the port, and there was no crowd holding flowers and small flags to bid farewell, under the vigilant gaze of the German sentries at the pier and the port, ships of different styles began to move slowly, and the sky above the harbor was soon shrouded in a faint black smoke cloud, and the bright starry sky gradually became blurred.

On the 4,200-ton French freighter Conch, which uses coal-fired boilers, the rumble of its engines and the sound of snoring fill the hold. The Conch carried the 812 officers and men of the Leedel Assault Battalion of the German 8th Army's Mixed Panzer Division, including its commander, Major Leddle, most of whom slept in makeshift bunks and improvised hammocks, and only a few officers were able to enjoy the beds vacated by the captain and crew.

Battalion-sized troops, such as the Leddle Assault Battalion, which launch a landing attack directly on the beachhead, generally carry equipment such as two Stone I or Stone II tanks, four armoured combat vehicles, 35 light machine guns and eight mortars, and will receive an additional six armoured personnel carriers and 15 trucks after the follow-up equipment of the entire army group is brought to the beach.

The squadron centered on the "Conch" also included five small barges, four A-type landing ships and two B-type landing ships for the landing of the Ledell assault battalion, and five special infantry landing boats converted from small wooden fishing boats and light ferries. Landing ships, already loaded with tanks and armored vehicles, will be towed through the straits by freighters or barges, while the landing ships will follow the fleet to the landing site under their own power.

The German Navy Type 1914A landing ship has a total length of 14 meters, a width of 4.5 meters, a full load displacement of 25 tons, and a draft of 1.2 meters under full load conditions. The boat is equipped with two 100 hp Daimler engines and has a range of 70 nautical miles at 8 knots. The hull is made of semi-metal hull, and the landing ladder, engine, fuel tank, etc. are protected by armor plates. The crew of the ship is 3 people, the control area is located at the rear of the ship, and the weapon is a Makqin water-cooled heavy machine gun, with a standard reserve of 1,000 rounds. Each Type A landing ship can carry two 9-ton Stone I tanks, or one 11-ton Stone II tank plus 50 heavily armed soldiers, and can number 180-200 men with only infantry.

The Type 1914B landing ship is an improved version of the Type A, which has three watertight compartments in the bow, amidships and stern, with a total length of 21 meters, a width of 7.5 meters, a full load displacement of 52 tons, can carry 4 tanks or armored vehicles, can reach 300-350 people when loading infantry, 8 crew members, and is armed with two Makqin water-cooled heavy machine guns.

During the entire landing operation, there were dozens of landing squadrons composed of medium- and large-sized cargo ships and small landing ships like the "Conch," whose task was to send one assault battalion after another directly to the beach. Together with more than 200 medium- and large-sized cargo ships carrying non-beach-grabbing troops and heavy equipment, the huge landing fleet set sail from Caen and Le Havre at 12 midnight on time.

Shortly after the landing fleet set sail, the five airship temporary bases near Cherbourg became busy and noisy. Due to the slower speed of the airship, the airship unit carrying out the airdrop mission will depart before the aircraft unit.

"Each platoon boarded its own airship according to the predetermined plan! Row 1, you are L-85; Row 2, L-86; Platoon 3, L-88, everyone move quickly, everyone remember to check if they have their own equipment! ”

A lieutenant company commander stood next to an airship and commanded his soldiers in a loud voice, and across the open field, dozens of huge airships were silently waiting for the parachutes to board the boat. A total of 181 zeppelins will take part in this airborne operation, and they will fly to the other side of victory with more than 2,500 soldiers from one airborne regiment.

There were 860 planes participating in the airborne landing, of which 4 fighter squadrons and 100 fighter-bombers were responsible for providing fire support to the airborne troops, and the remaining 760 transport planes and bombers transported 5,000 soldiers from 2 airborne regiments to designated places for airdropping.

Sending 7,500 soldiers across the Channel hundreds of kilometers at a time, the nascent Luftwaffe had a terrifying airlift capability in this era, all of which was inseparable from the "Thomas Post Office" created by Germany before the war. Seventy percent of the transport planes participating in the airdrop were civilian aircraft with a range of 120-180 kilometers and a crew of 3-10 people provided by the "Thomas Post Office." As for the "Owl" bomber, which reached the limit in size, take-off weight and range in the era of wooden-skinned aircraft, one can carry 20 airborne troops after a slight modification.

When mankind entered the age of all-metal aircraft, these data would become insignificant, but the airborne operation of 1914 would forever be written into the annals of this world because of its epoch-making nature.

German workers also played a very important role in this airborne operation. It was these hard-working workers who worked overtime that enabled the airborne division to obtain 20,000 parachutes of acceptable quality in early November. Tens of thousands of young men from all over East Prussia made a great contribution in the course of a month, using their young hands, more than 200,000 special whistles similar to cuckoo calls, which were to be distributed to the paratroopers and the soldiers of the landing force for use at night when distinguishing friend from foe.

Brave German paratroopers also worked hard to get their hands on the ground, and when they had enough parachutes, they would practice parachuting from airships and airplanes in the safest part of East Prussia, weather permitting. By the time the landing operation was launched, each paratrooper had practiced at least 10 parachute jumps.

During these airborne trainings, a total of 49 excellent German airborne troops gave their precious lives due to parachute failure and other reasons, but the others did not deter from this, and everyone redoubled their hard training until they became a qualified paratrooper. After the first wave of airborne landings, another 12,500 airborne troops of the airborne division will participate in subsequent airborne operations according to the specific conditions of the battlefield.

The Luftwaffe G-1 Airborne Division is currently at full strength of 21,000 men, and the division is organized into eight airborne regiments and one reserve. The standard strength of each airborne regiment is 2,500 men, which is a little more than the average German army unit. The airborne regiment did not have heavy weapons above rapid-fire guns, and each ordinary paratrooper carried a Mauser 1898 rifle, a Luger 08 pistol and three grenades, and carried 50 rifle rounds and 20 pistol rounds with him; Each regiment has 125 "Firebird" light machine guns and 30 mortars, each machine gun has 1,500 rounds of ammunition and 50 mortars when airborne.

At 1 a.m., the last airship carrying airborne troops untied its cable and slowly rose into the air. With a not-so-noisy buzz, the massive airships began to fly north.

At this time, the English Channel is calm.

Even if the weather is bad, it is nothing more than pushing back the landing time by a few days, and it seems that even the heavens are unwilling to do such pointless obstruction.

At midnight, England had already fallen asleep, and under the light of the stars, the sky over the land was shrouded in dense war clouds that could not be seen. The lively atmosphere on the other side of the Channel alarmed the British spies lurking in the shadows, and King George and many British generals who received the news suddenly fell asleep, and the defensive lines along the southern coast of England immediately entered a state of maximum alert, and the soldiers of the entire British front-line troops slept with their pillows and guns, and the British warships in Plymouth Harbour were all on fire and anchored at any time.

In the northern waters of Scotland, the guns of the German battleships "Elector" and "Oldenburg" slowly turned to the port of Rodell on the island of Lewis, and the transport and patrol fleets of the British Special Fleet all took refuge in this harbor, and they were protected by the naval fortress of Rodel, which consisted of five batteries.

"Fire!"

With the order of Sheppel, the roar of the cannons broke the silence of the sea, and the shells that were accelerated to 800 meters per second by the ****** flew towards the harbor with the unbearable enthusiasm of the British, and the strange whistle-like roar terrified the British sailors who had experienced the over-the-horizon shelling of the German fleet. In the face of long-range shelling by German 50-fold 305-mm naval guns, the 150-mm heavy howitzers, 280-mm fortress guns and large-caliber mortars in the British batteries looked helpless. However, in the absence of reconnaissance aircraft at night, the hit rate of the Hillel fleet was far less high than during the day, and although smoke continued to rise from the harbor, few British ships were actually concentrated, and most of the high-explosive shells fell on the hillsides and houses near the docks.

Although the range was out, the large and small guns of the British fortress opened fire one after another, and in this emboldened return fire, all the British shells fell more than two thousand yards from the German fleet. The shelling of both sides did not cause much substantial damage to the other side, and to the surprise of the British, the Germans stopped the shelling after only three salvos. By the time they ventured to send a convoy of torpedo boats out of the harbor, Sheppel's fleet was long gone.

In fact, this was the usual trick of Sheppel, who had been bombarded by the port of Sézisfjörður in Iceland in order to attract the French fleet, and he had also hit and run in the dark of night, and the raiding fleet had made a circle at sea and then carried out another harassing artillery bombardment, which could not only avoid the torpedo attack of the opponent's small warships, but also keep the opponent's spirit in a constant state of tension. This time, he also kept U-062 and U-053 on surveillance outside the harbor to ensure that the British fleet could not escape at night. After daybreak, the threat of the British mine-striking ships to the German fleet will be greatly reduced, and with the Dönitz submarine force that is approaching, it will be difficult for the British munitions ships to fly.

Urgent telegrams flew from Port Rhodel to the British Admiralty one after another, causing headaches for King George and others, who stayed up all night waiting for the opening of the Anglo-German War. The British Navy was simply unable to break the siege, and the existing British aircraft were basically deployed in England, and most of them were fighters that did not have the ability to attack ships. The freighters laden with munitions seemed to be left to fend for themselves, but neither the Admiralty nor the War Office were willing to give up, and Churchill's last few British submarines became their last hope.

When the telegram was received from home, Churchill and his submarine HMS Sea Thorn were on their way to Port Rodell with four other British submarines. The sudden disappearance of the German raiding fleet, which had been wandering outside the port of Rodel, once again plunged Churchill, who was hoping for a perfect revenge, and Rahr, a young man who hoped to become famous in the first war, to the bottom of disappointment, because they could only determine their direction and carry out torpedo attacks at night through the sound and fire of the German battleships' shelling, otherwise, unless the German fleet passed under their noses, the British submarines without any sonar devices were helpless against the German fleet wandering around the vast sea.

But to everyone's surprise, a very dramatic scene occurred. Because the surface speed of the German U-boat was slightly higher than that of the "Holland II" submarine, Dönitz's U-039 and three other German submarines unknowingly caught up with the "Sea Thorn", but because of the poor vision in the dark night, and the fact that other submarines on both sides were also moving in the direction of Rodel, Dönitz was on his side with more than 20 other U-boats of the second submarine formation in the Atlantic, while Churchill was on the side of the two "Cholera II" submarines that had fired torpedoes not long ago and sank the three battleships. Therefore, neither side discovered the identity of the other party in the first place.

In this way, Dönitz, who was standing on the U-039 conning tower, and Churchill, who was standing on the conning tower of the "Sea Thorn", were moving in the same direction at a distance of more than 200 yards. These two people, who would have become super-heavyweights in their respective countries more than 20 years later, met in this environment.

Above their heads, the Black Vulture Cross and St. George's Cross were flying.

The first to signal the inquiry was Dönitz's U-039. After seeing the signal from the German submarine, the signalman of the "Sea Thorn" was still wondering whether the other party had sent the wrong signal or remembered the wrong signal, and when the poor fellow went to inquire about Rohr and Churchill, the British realized that the situation was not good. After a long period of delay, Dönitz and the sailors on the U-039 finally sensed that something was wrong.

At this time, the difference in the quality of the commanders and sailors of the two sides was once again manifested. Rohr and his sailors were only novice to submarines, Churchill had never commanded submarines, and Britain did not even have the most basic experience in submarine offensive tactics; Dönitz and his sailors were amazed in the Baltic Sea at the beginning of the war, and then moved to the North Sea and the Atlantic, participating in no less than 30 battles without tasting defeat, and basically encountered all kinds of unexpected situations, U-039 and all the crew can be called the trump card of the German Navy's submarine force.

While the British were preparing flares, Dönitz's sailors were quickly preparing the ship's rapid-fire guns and machine guns. About half a minute later, a flare rose from the Sea Thorn, illuminating the other party and itself at the same time. Churchill saw the German naval flag, which symbolized victory, and also saw the muzzle of the gun.

At such a close distance, coupled with the flares fired by the British themselves, it was natural that Dönitz's sailors would not miss this great opportunity.

At two o'clock in the morning on December 27, 1914, the landing fleet was assembled and sailed to the south coast of England under the protection of the escort fleet, while the paratroopers of the 2nd and 3rd Airborne Regiments had boarded the 30 airfields in Cherbourg. The airport was brightly lit, with red guide lights on both sides of the runways, and the propellers of hundreds of planes began to turn. The first to take off was the 23rd Air Force fighter-bomber squadron 20 "Sky X" attack aircraft, which was also the first large-scale night combat operation of the Luftwaffe, before which all pilots had conducted 3-4 night take-off and landing training, with good lighting conditions and excellent pilots, and the loss rate of less than one percent in the training was within the acceptable range of the Luftwaffe.

There are plenty of open flatlands in the south of England, and the kilometres of wilderness around Woodtown are just a very ordinary one. This town of just over 100 inhabitants is like a snow-covered paradise, and there are few traces of cars and horses walking in the snow around the town. More than 100 pairs of big feet crunched muffled in the snow, and the group that quietly appeared in the south of the town did not disturb the good dreams of the inhabitants, and the poor Englishman had no idea what would happen here in a few hours.

The German commando team led by Cullen stopped half a mile from Woodtown, and he called the communications corpsman, "Send a telegram to Command, we have arrived at the intended location!" No British troops have been spotted nearby, but we haven't met the 3rd Commando yet! ”

At the time of the Signal Soldier's report, Cullen surveyed his surroundings again, there was not even a single light nearby, and the snow and the town were in a peaceful silence under the starlight. According to the intelligence of the "British Sleepers", there are two British infantry companies and a militia company stationed in Wood Town, plus three police officers in the town police station, and there are less than 500 British armed men within a radius of 5 kilometers. The nearest barracks to here is the barracks of the Bonemouth garrison, more than ten kilometers away.

Like all the commandos, Cullen was half-crouched on the ground, and he took out his binoculars to look at the town of Wood not far away, but only the outlines of some houses could be seen in the faint starlight.

Halim slowly moved from the back of the group, "Captain, should we go to the town first to find out the situation, and by the way, kill the British troops inside?" ”

Cullen put down his binoculars and turned his head to look at Halim, "Not now, it's better to wait until we meet up with Commando 3!" Remember, the code for the joints with them is 'Firebird' and 'Stone'! Now, lieutenant, take 20 men to the west of the town, and be careful not to be discovered by the British, let alone to engage in an exchange of fire with the British! Regardless of whether or not Commando 3 is found, it must be back here in 1 hour! ”

"Yes!" Halim then ordered 20 commandos to set off, and their figures quickly disappeared into the snow.