At 7 p.m. on April 26, Tokyo time, Sminik Air Force Base in the south-central part of Kuye Island welcomed another group of "guests", 127 Douglas-27 transport planes landed on a wide and flat runway, these behemoths that can carry 5 tons of weight and continue to fly 2,000 kilometers have brought more than 2,000 heavily armed soldiers and some emergency supplies, and when they return home, they are ready to take the same number of wounded. Although this figure did not play a decisive role in the brutal front-line battlefield, the arrival of reinforcements let the German officers and soldiers throughout Kuye know that they were not alone.

Against the backdrop of the night, this group of reinforcements that had just flown in from Qingdao had an unparalleled natural protective color. They belonged to the 19th Infantry Regiment of the German Far East Dispatch Army, a young but glorious team that made them famous during the Battle of Tsingtao in 1914, and they had a resounding name with the other black soldiers stationed in Tsingtao - Black Storm.

"Sir, German Army Colonel Otto Cooke has come to report with the 19th Regiment of the Black Storm!"

The voice of a black officer came from a black officer, and the unobtrusive military salute, the keen eyes like a cheetah, and the neat military appearance, coupled with the undiscounted rank of colonel in the German Army, all surprised the white German officers who came to receive them. After a while, the officer returned the salute and extended his right hand.

"Hello, Colonel Skuk! General Loeb asked me to receive you, according to the arrangement of the command, your troops will now go to our barracks for a night's rest, the truck is ready, please get your soldiers on board! ”

"Mr. Lieutenant Colonel, my soldiers and I are fully prepared and ready to go into battle at any time!"

Skuk held his head high, his eyes level.

It was enough to be surprised to see a purely black army with his own eyes, but the other party took the initiative to ask for help as soon as he got off the plane, and the white lieutenant colonel in charge of the reception was a little at a loss for what to say.

"But...... But the above arrangement ......"

"If the war calls for it, we want to go to the front line immediately! But......" Skuk still held his head high. But there was no arrogance in his tone, "But if the superiors still want us to recuperate, we will carry out the order without any mistakes!" ”

"Alright then, I'll ask!" As he spoke, the lieutenant colonel turned and walked to the communication van not far away, and he sighed softly at the fact that he was lonely or that these black soldiers admired war and violence.

After waiting for the bell, the lieutenant colonel returned to the black officer named Othoth Cook.

The fact that his team had remained as motionless as a forest during this time, and had not made even the slightest noise, was somewhat admirable.

"Colonel Skuk!" The lieutenant colonel saluted the other party seriously, "Your regiment is now heading for Atmouth Harbor, where the garrison needs to be strengthened urgently, and although we have not yet received definite information, we are very worried that the Japanese army will land there!" ”

"Yes!"

There was a flash of excitement in Skuk's eyes, and then he regained his usual composure, and he turned around and shouted in his loud voice, "All of you!" Ahead. Battlefield! ”

The black woods then moved. The soldiers quickly boarded the nearly 100 cars prepared for them, and the convoy left the airport and headed for the silent but soon focused.

Atmouth, a port in the southeast of the island of Kouye. Medium-sized, it is the throat of the long and narrow Kuye Island connecting the north and south, from Atmouth to the west coast on the opposite side is only a few tens of kilometers, it can be said that once the Japanese army lands here, it can easily cut off the connection between the north and the south of the German army, and the more than 20,000 German officers and soldiers who stick to the southern beach will be in an extremely disadvantageous situation, while in the north, although there are still 30,000 defenders and a wide depth, it is difficult to compete with the swarming Japanese landing force!

The commanders of both warring sides attached great importance to such strategic locations, the confidence of the German generals was based on the mines deployed along the coast of the Ortsk Sea and the sturdy land-based bomber forces, and the coastline near Atmouth had few beaches suitable for landing.

Shore-based radars, which are installed every 20 kilometers, are also closely monitoring the offshore area.

The Japanese Army base camp had previously conducted a detailed study of the situation in Atmouth and the surrounding area, and had come to the conclusion that, despite the fact that the German minefields were not dense and limited, the Army would consider a forced landing from this flank only after the failure of the first phase of the landing operation. As a preliminary plan, a landing fleet consisting of 2 first-class coastal defense ships, 10 old armored battleships, 5 destroyers, and more than 300 various types of sailing ships and small and medium-sized transport ships was assembled in the waters off Totoji Island in northeastern Hokkaido, carrying 9,000 army soldiers and 1,000 marines. By dusk on April 26, the landing fleet had reached 120 nautical miles southeast of Atmouth.

The defeat on the first day did not make the Japanese generals give up, on the contrary, they began to carry out a larger-scale landing operation after finding out the German defensive deployment and firepower configuration, and at midnight on April 26, thousands of transport ships reappeared on the narrow Soya Strait, and the artillery fleet composed of the battleships "Owari", "Yamashiro", "Aki", and "Kawachi" also began to shoot a huge suppression, as the pinnacle of the battleships of this era, "Owari" The 10 410mm naval guns made everyone present deeply feel the terrifying power of the giant ship's cannons, and every shot of this super battleship could make the German positions in the south of Kuye Island tremble in the explosion, although no one here was afraid of fighting, but such an imposing shelling still made the German officers and soldiers in the bunker feel depressed.

Under the moonlight, the eagles painted with the Iron Cross logo were dressed in silver, and in the rumbling roar, 343 fighters, 271 dive bombers and 120 torpedo bombers stationed in the south and central part of Kuye Island flew away from the airfield.

In the port of Korsakov, the heavy cruiser "Scharnhorst", which has been regarded as a "hero" by the officers and men, once again passed through the minefield of the port to attack the Japanese ships approaching, although the cruiser led by the Japanese battle cruiser "Hiei" was waiting in front, but this successful sortie once again made the "Scharnhorst" and the entire ship's officers and men legendary - with advanced radar and fire control systems, this ship with a displacement of 210,000 tons, The super-heavy cruisers, armed with three triple 280-mm guns, not only managed to maneuver around the Japanese fleet, but also sank and damaged one Japanese light cruiser at the guns of the "Hiei". It did not cause much damage and shock to the Japanese landing fleet and landing force, and it was not until dawn that the heavy cruiser, which had more than 20 bullets but still had no reduced combat effectiveness, sailed back to the port of Kolsakv under the angry eyes of the Japanese army.

After the war, the German Navy decided to build an improved version of the Scharnhorst-class heavy cruisers in batches, and after the defeat of Japan, this class of heavy cruisers gradually replaced the battleships and battlecruisers that were expensive to build and maintain as the backbone of the German overseas fleet, and the Scharnhorst's legend continued here.

In desperation, the Japanese military department made a bold and helpless decision: to implement the "poison dart" action plan. The No. 7 fleet was to carry out landing operations in the predetermined area, and the No. 9 and No. 10 fleets, which were additional reserve forces, were sent north for reinforcements.

The 19th Regiment of Black Storm arrived at Atmouth in the early morning, the warm spring sun shining on the icy ground that was gradually loosening, the waves gently lapping the long and winding coastline, the birds not scattered because of the impending crisis, a few motorized torpedo boats and some dilapidated wooden sailboats were parked in the harbor without a characteristic character, the fishermen were bored in the sun because of the ban on leaving the port, and the fierce fighting hundreds of kilometers away seemed to have nothing to do with it.

However, the false tranquility was only temporary, when cruising radar alert aircraft spotted the Japanese convoy approaching from the southeast. The relentless sound of sirens shatters any unrealistic illusions. Followed by. An incident that made the German commanders helpless happened, the Japanese forced their way into the German mine area with modified sailboats, and the German mines were limited due to the vast area of the sea. At the cost of more than 100 deep-drafted sailing ships, the Japanese army "crashed" into a narrow sea route, and the Japanese landing convoy headed by the two coastal defense ships "Asahi" and "Mikasa" immediately approached the coast through a minefield. Due to the fierce air attack launched by the Japanese troops in front of the army at the right time, the German army could only send a small part of the air force to intercept it, and the German shore artillery units deployed in Atmouth were also suppressed and shelled by the "Asahi" and "Mikasa" 365-mm heavy guns, and in less than three hours, the situation on the front line of Atmouth became extremely critical. At 8:110 p.m. on April 27, the first Japanese landing force landed on the beach from south of Atmouth, and in response, the Japanese army began a third wave of aggressive attacks from the southern landing site of Kuyo Island.

As a mobile unit for the command of the defenders of Atmouth, Cook and his black infantry regiment were soon transferred to the Japanese landing area to strengthen the defenses. At 10 p.m., the two sides exchanged fire seven kilometers south of the Harbor of Atmouth, and after 15 years, the soldiers of Black Storm stood face to face with their old rivals once again in the dueling arena.

"Avoid the beach line and build a defensive line in the deep hills!"

After arriving at the intended area, Skuk gave the first order to enter the battlefield. The two Japanese coastal defense ships and the old armored cruisers that accompanied them, although they were both products of the First World War, and their guns were not to be underestimated, and after a winter of rearmament, these old warships finally came to good use during the attack on the other side. In front of the 105, 150-mm field guns of the German defenders. Even the four 203-mm guns of the "Asama" were very arrogant, and the old armored cruisers such as "Azuma" and "Izumo", which had lost their glory, finally found an enemy weaker than themselves, and at this time they were also frantically tilting shells towards land. With their fire support, the Japanese landing force was initially met with no stubborn German resistance, taking advantage of the few narrow mudflats south of Atmouth to reach the coast, but as they advanced inland, the German infantry superiority began to flourish.

This is not Qingdao, but there is a better defensive terrain than Qingdao, in the rolling hills, every mountain, every forest, every small stream has become the best fortification for German soldiers, especially like the 19th Infantry Regiment of the Black Storm such a well-equipped, rigorously trained, tenacious force, many black soldiers did not complete primary school, but this does not kill their military talent, black officers are all selected through layers of selection, strict assessment, They have won the recognition and respect of their white counterparts with their strength, and their fearless, calm and courageous characteristics have been praised by the German generals. On this strange island of Kuye, they had a better performance than their opponents, and the Japanese army, who were also unfamiliar with the terrain, quickly lost themselves among the hills, and any forward action had to pay a heavy price. In the absence of mountain artillery support, a Japanese squadron (194 to 250 men) often felt helpless against a German infantry platoon (about 50 men) equipped with GG semi-automatic rifles.

As time passed, more than 10,000 soldiers from the Japanese No. 7 fleet landed on more than a dozen beaches south of Atmouth, while two landing convoys of similar size were rapidly approaching Atmouth after entering the Ortsk Sea, and the pressure on Skuk and his black soldiers increased before the arrival of German reinforcements. Gradually, sporadic hand-to-hand combat unfolded on the top of the hill at the forefront, although the black soldiers were much larger than the Japanese soldiers, but the ants bit the elephant to death, and within half an hour after the loss of the first position, the German officers and men, who had been overloaded with ammunition, lost a series of hills in the easternmost part one after another, and the remaining troops began to move to the defensive belt of the second line.

Skuk smoked silently, and although his soldiers had suffered minor losses, there were no pre-set permanent or field fortifications, and the hastily dug trenches barely concealed their bodies. Because it was an emergency airlift, the black soldiers of the 19th Infantry Regiment did not carry regimental artillery, and the largest caliber weapon in their hands was a 50 mm mortar, fortunately, the advantages of small arms technology and the backward tactics of the Japanese army under the guidance of the bushido spirit helped the German army a lot, and the Japanese army was often unable to break through to the German positions before all the bullets were fired, but the consumption of ammunition in the fierce battle was very alarming, and after the most adequate preparations, now his soldiers did not have much ammunition left.

"The enemy is coming!"

The sentry in front shouted, and the soldiers, who had just been resting, quickly entered the battle mode.

After the previous battle, the Japanese seemed to have figured it out, they no longer shouted for the German officers and soldiers to surrender, nor did they use grenadiers with limited range as a verbal threat, and as far as the eye could see, a large shadow in the darkness was moving towards the hill.

Skuk pressed the cigarette butt to the ground and ordered: "Signal man, fire the flare immediately, and then fire the flare in half a minute!" Everyone be ready to fight, but no one is allowed to attack without my orders! ”

With a few bangs, a series of green signal flares rose one after another, and before the flares set fire to the earth, a buzzing roar approached rapidly from high altitudes, and when the waves of Japanese troops in front of them were exposed to white light, the German Dornier 101 bombers carrying incendiary bombs had already found their target.