At the Joachim military airfield in the western suburbs of Dublin, soldiers of the 1st Irish Royal Paratrooper Battalion boarded military transport planes spray-painted with shamrocks or iron cross logos in the bright red morning sun. Out of secrecy www.biquge.info it was not until before departure that the junior officers and soldiers were told where they were going - not the Isle of Man, as most people suspected, but the Cohen Peninsula in North Wales.

On the map, the Coen Peninsula and the island of Anglesey, which are not far away, seem to be the two tentacles of Wales jutting into the Irish Sea, and the closest point to Ireland in the southwest of Britain, only 120 kilometers from Dublin to the northwest coast of the Coen Peninsula, a short distance that can be flown by new transport aircraft in less than 20 minutes.

Beginning in the mid-to-late 10s, for more than a decade, the British military spared no effort to build their Channel defense line against military threats from the European continent. This costly defensive line stretched from Kingslyn in the east of England to St. Just in the southwest of England, like a hard cuirass protecting the south coast of the British mainland. With 14 large fortresses as a strategic fulcrum, it blocked every coast that might be chosen by the enemy as a landing site with heavy artillery, machine guns, trenches and barbed wire, England's well-developed railway network allowed the various fortresses to support each other, and some of the traditional weapons relying on the railway were also exploited and carried forward by the British - it is believed that more than 500 guns were converted into train guns and armored trains, which were scattered and hidden in remote railway branches, hiding in woods, abandoned freight yards, or factories and warehouses. Once the enemy is informed, they can rush to the front line within a few hours.

Due to the close alliance between Germany and Ireland for a long time, the British had to be careful to guard against threats from the west. They also built a large number of fortifications in the west and southwest of Scotland and in North Wales, which were closer to Ireland: at Aberdalen, at the southwestern tip of the Cohen Peninsula, the British established coastal forts and air airfields; In Poorhale in the south of the peninsula and Persian Madog in the southeast, the British built artillery forts, barracks, anti-aircraft positions and speedboat bases, and the railway network in North Wales basically covered the entire Cohen Peninsula, and the British army could quickly transport troops and weapons and equipment to any military position here, so it was not easy for the German and Irish armies to gain a foothold on the Coen Peninsula compared to the Isle of Man in the north-central part of the Irish Sea.

As in the offensive operation on the Isle of Man, the Airborne Forces are only the advance force, and the real backbone is still the Marine Corps. Just after the British declared war, the Royal Irish Navy's Task Force 2 sailed out of Dublin under the command of Home Admiral David Bronner and sailed with the German Task Force 4 to the waters of North Wales.

The Irish fleet, commanded by Rear Admiral Bronner, with the new heavy cruiser Nuada as its flagship and the Fiona-class light cruisers Diarmed-O-Delian and Carter Ronan, as well as four Hunter-class, two Agni-class and one Wind-class destroyer, was tasked with escorting the large troop carriers "Finn", "Orca" and "Horn Whale" to the Coen Peninsula, with two suitable beaches to the southwest, one in Redlin, about ten kilometres east of Abedalen, with its six-kilometre-long stretch of smooth sandy beaches, is a popular tourist destination in the height of summer; One is in the seaside town of Abersoch, just three kilometres from Redleyne, which is a station on the North Wales rail network and has an arcing beach of more than five kilometres long.

The heavy artillery deployed at Aberdalen could cover the two beaches of Redlin and Abersoch, and in case of an enemy landing, the British established a relatively concealed artillery position south of Abersoch and stationed at least two companies of infantry nearby - information obtained earlier by Irish spies. In the months leading up to war, the British army further strengthened its military defenses, and preset trenches could be seen near the beachhead.

At about 10 a.m., the latest battle reports from the Isle of Man showed that the German army and the Irish troops who had subsequently entered the battle had swept the British positions around Porterryn Beach, Portemarieport, and Douglas, the capital of Man, and it seemed that it was only a matter of time before the entire island was occupied. As the signal flags fluttered on the tower of the Hubert military airfield, the roar of the engines soon merged into a surging wave, and countless propellers raised a huge cloud of dust and smoke. Today, German paratroopers mainly use two types of transport aircraft: the Ju-26 light transport aircraft with a crew of 12 people and the He-28 medium transport aircraft with a crew of 19 people, both of which are single-wing, twin-engine configurations, and have a cruising speed of 263 and 272 km/h respectively when flying at full load. The size of the Irish Airborne Forces is less than a quarter of that of the Germans, and it was established a little later than the German paratroopers, but in the late 20s and early 30s, in several airborne operations that caused a sensation around the world, the Irish paratroopers belonging to the Royal Irish Guard were mostly involved, but for political and diplomatic reasons, the Irish government never recognized it in public, thus casting a veil of mystery over the Irish Airborne Forces.

The 1st Royal Irish Paratrooper Battalion was formed by the Airborne Commando of the Royal Irish Guard, with only 560 personnel, including 19 officers, 81 non-commissioned officers and 460 soldiers. In addition to the German-made Ju-26 and He-28 transport aircraft, they are also equipped with the IK-25, an upper monoplane developed in the mid-to-early 20s, which is widely used in the air passenger, cargo and sports fields, with short take-off and landing distances, strong adaptability and ease of operation.

In the cabin of one of the IK-25s, which began to taxi, 11 heavily armed Irish paratroopers sat in their own positions, most of them using short rifles modified from the rugged Hubert-II rifle, which was constructed more from the characteristics of the British Enfield rifle, with fast reloading, high shooting accuracy, and the same type of ammunition as the German Mauser rifle, which was very convenient to replenish. The 11-man combat team had three automatic/semi-automatic weapons, a Browning M1911 pistol for the lead non-commissioned officer, a T-Beretta 28 submachine gun for the Senior Private, and a 9 mm Browning M1918 for machine gunners, a Hubert 22 light machine gun manufactured under license purchase in Ireland.

The ugly-looking Browning M1918 is known for its reliability in harsh environments and powerful burst firepower, but it is not easy to carry a weapon weighing more than eight kilograms on the battlefield, and it usually requires a strong machine gunner, who often has a thick neck and a loud voice. No, as soon as the plane left the ground, the voice of the machine gunner overpowered the noisy engine and reached the ears of the paratrooper companions: "The day has finally come!" Let's avenge the 1.2 million Irish who died in ******! ”

Sitting next to the Heavy was a well-proportioned young man with a delicate face, who chimed in: "Our ancestors have been oppressed by the British for generations, and it is finally our turn to overturn the British to the ground!" ”

"Let the Anglo-Saxons taste what it was like to be ruled by the Celts!"

"Let the Englishman, who calls himself a lion, taste the beating!"

The paratroopers waved their fists and shouted loudly. The non-commissioned officer, who sat with his back to the cockpit door and facing everyone, silently watched his soldiers vent their emotions. Since the independence of the Kingdom of Ireland, the nationalist and patriotic education to enhance national cohesion has been carried out imperceptibly, these paratroopers are all Irish native youth in their twenties, they lived under the rule of the British when they were young, and witnessed the Irish War of Independence and the rapid development after the war in their youth, and their love for the country and the king are the strongest, and the confidence in defeating Britain and fighting for honor is also the fullest.

The bumps of the plane's rapid taxiing suddenly disappeared, and with it, the plane's climb was overweight, and the paratroopers invariably quieted down and began to pay attention to the scene outside the porthole.

"Listen to me, gentlemen!" "We're going to North Wales, and we're landing on a peninsula full of farmland and pastures, and the terrain is very open," the sergeant said. Optimistically, it is unlikely that we will meet strong resistance at first, that a considerable number of German paratroopers will land with us, and that Irish and German marines will follow us on the attack. The first objective of the coalition was to capture the British fort in the southwest of the peninsula, which should be no more than five kilometres from where we had landed, and if we took it, we would be able to enjoy a good noon in North Wales, and then prepare for a decisive battle - the British troops stationed elsewhere in Wales and England would surely come quickly and try to drive us out to sea, and we would thwart them under the cover of the fleet! ”

"That's right, they didn't succeed!" "I'm going to funnel every British soldier in front of the crosshair until they turn around and run away with their butts at us." ”

The crowd burst into laughter.

Immediately afterwards, the lanky submachine gunner asked: "Then who is the commander of this battle, and is it our Majesty Joachim who personally commands it?" ”

The non-commissioned officer shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, I can't answer this question because no one has told me the answer, but it's almost certain that as long as our side doesn't leak the news in advance, the British won't expect us to land in North Wales." I heard that we will divide the British army on the British Isle in two, and then keep cutting their lines, destroying them one by one, and maybe the British home army will collapse in less than two months. ”

Another paratrooper responded: "My cousin, the famous Watford sharpshooter Bateman, killed twenty British soldiers in khaki uniforms during the Revolutionary War. He told me that Britain's best soldiers had gone to the navy, and that in the army they were a bunch of straw bales with no honour or guts, and that they would flee if they suffered more than a third of the casualties in a battle. ”

The non-commissioned officer paused: "Okay, guys, I think we'll know soon...... Will the butt of the British soldier affect our appetite for lunch? ”

(End of chapter)