December 27, 1914, 4 a.m.

English Channel, wind force 3, wave height of 0.5-1 metre, visibility less than 6 nautical miles, about 2 hours before the high tide on the south coast of England.

Although the Scheer battlefleet temporarily stopped shelling, the sea was not calm. Inshore artillery detachments consisting of 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers were firing at the beach with 120 mm and 150 mm naval guns 5 nautical miles from Bonemouth Beach, with the aim of luring the remaining British artillery to open fire, so that the battlefleet could then carry out the next wave of heavy bombardment of the exposed British gun positions.

However, the British did not seem to be fooled, and only German warships were still engaged in shooting demonstrations on the sea.

By this time, the huge landing flotilla had already stopped behind the shelling fleet.

"Hurry up, everyone, but don't let yourself or your equipment fall into the sea!"

The loud voice of Major Ledell could be heard from the deck of the freighter "Conch", the commander of the assault battalion, who was directing his infantry to climb down the mesh ladder on the side of the ship, leaning on the side of the "Conch" on either side of the two landing ships of the 1914A, and several other landing ships and landing ships were not far away waiting to carry the landing soldiers.

The empty sea was now crowded with countless ships, and there were star-like navigation lights and lights everywhere, but they did not have to worry about being spotted or shelled by the British, because it was still 12 nautical miles from the coast, and the fleet was flanked to the north by the firepower of the German battlefleet. The British on the beaches of Bonemouth have been silent for a long time, and there are probably only a handful of British soldiers still moving like rats.

Private Kartwasser and his companions were crawling to the landing ship below by the light of the ship's side, and although the waves were not high, the freighter and the landing ship were clearly up and down, and the distance between them was sometimes large and sometimes small, which could not help but make Kartwasser, a sweaty duck, a little worried, and if he accidentally fell into the icy water, the landing campaign would probably be over for him.

When Kartwasser climbed to the bottom of the ladder, the soldiers on the landing ship stretched out his right hand and pulled him over, and the landing ship seemed to shake more than on the freighter, but his nervous heart was much calmer. Looking at the equally relieved expressions of the other soldiers who had already boarded the ship, Kartwasser knew that many of them must have had the experience of falling overboard during training and exercises, which is why the cooking team would prepare several large pots of hot soup during each training and exercise, and a large number of medical soldiers and the blankets in their hands were also on standby at any time. After all, the best place for these German soldiers to play was land.

Poor Kartwasser had two such tragic experiences, once during training outside the port of Dunkirk, and once during exercises in Calais, when the bitter and biting sea water poured into his nose and he felt that he was about to die, but fortunately the men on board fished him up with a wooden pole with a net like a fish.

Kartwasser and his companions had no complaints about the arduous training day after day, and they always believed that the generals would lead them to victory along with the whole of Germany. It's just that these brave German soldiers were trained in land warfare from the first day of their enlistment, and the sea and the methods of warfare related to the sea were completely alien to them. It had been more than a month since the French surrendered, and the East Prussian Kartwasser and other soldiers had been on the French coast for a full month, and they would have been glad to let these German soldiers stay on the beach for a month in the summer, but now the cold, tingling waters have kept them in their hearts.

The sudden sound of a motor at the tail of the landing ship pulled Kartwasser back from his memory, and the ship was now full of 50 soldiers and their equipment, all of whom carried some bulging backpacks containing a day's worth of dry rations, blankets to keep out the cold, and a small jug of spirits, though the officers cautioned the crowd that the jug should only be drunk in case of imminent freezing or other critical situations, and that it was better to use blankets to keep warm in the slightest wind chill. Kartwasser didn't quite understand how this worked, but he and the other soldiers followed it very carefully.

The 50-man Type A landing ship was a little cramped in its cabin, and the only mortars and two boxes of shells occupied a significant position. Kartwasser felt that the space would be much more relaxed on the Type A or B landing ships that carried tanks and armored vehicles, because if the armored vehicles were loaded and crowded with people, the landing ship would only have to move forward at the speed of a turtle, if it could still float.

Due to the high landing ladder in front of the landing ship, the soldiers in the cabin could not directly see the sea in front of them. It seems that the sound of landing craft motors is all nearby, and there must be countless landing craft on the sea at this time, which must be a spectacular sight. Kartwasser turned his head to glance at the crew in the control area at the rear of the landing ship, they must have had a good view, the three men only poked their heads out from behind the armor baffle, one appeared to be the pilot, and the other two were the machine gunners of the ship's Makqin heavy machine guns. Kartwasser couldn't see their expressions clearly in the dark, but their positions were no safer than those of the landing soldiers in the landing battle, and they might be hung up by a stray bullet.

It didn't take long for the landing ship to stop moving forward and the motors to go quiet.

"Let's rest in the cabin! We're going to have to wait here for another two hours before heading out to the English beach! "The commander of the landing ship conveyed the orders of his superiors to the soldiers preparing to land, and they did so by waiting for all the other landing ships to load and assemble the predetermined soldiers and equipment, and by waiting for the favorable time of high tide.

After a while, the sound of other motors around the landing ship gradually faded away, and looking around from the landing ship's control area, there were landing ships and landing ships that rose and fell with the waves.

All the soldiers had to do now was wait for two hours calmly.

On the bridge of the Frontier Governor, the flagship of the Scheer fleet, Tatsuten was finally able to breathe the freshest air. The sea breeze in the English Channel blew away the sour smoke from the ship, and many of the gunners working in the turret also climbed out to breathe. To the north of the battlefleet were cruisers and destroyers firing shells rapidly, and the airships that stayed over the beach also dropped flares again, and the whole beach was still the most noisy area, and to the south were the landing ships that were moving and gathering, and the lights on the sea were faintly visible, and it seemed that only the sailors here in Chentian were enjoying a moment of silence in this sea area.

"Your Highness, the reconnaissance airship has sent back a report that no British military activity has been detected in Beach Area A and Beach B, but signs of military activity have been detected near the town of Bonemouth, 2 miles north of the beach, in an ominous number! The scout airship asks if to fire flares there to determine the specifics! Hoffman was calm and spoke at a moderate pace, and everything seemed to be expected.

"Don't fire flares at the town of Bonemouth just yet, lest you scare away the timid Britons! Anyway, in half an hour, we're going to have an extended shot there! "Tatsu did not know how many troops the British would have assembled in the town of Bonemouth, perhaps a battalion, perhaps a division, but in any case it would be unwise to station heavy troops only two miles from the coast. Dozens of heavy high-explosive shells passed, and the town of hundreds of families was almost wiped out.

After Hoffman left, Chen Tian did not tidy up his collar that was a little messy by the wind, but held a telescope to observe the sea in the distance. In the dark of night, with the exception of the burning beaches of Bonemouth, the coastline of the rest of the world is just a hazy black line. There is also a huge black shadow on the sea more than ten nautical miles east of the fleet, which is almost invisible to the naked eye, that is, the famous British Isle of Wight, which is also the British county of Wight. This large island is 36 kilometers wide from east to west and 22 kilometers long from north to south, with an area of 381 square kilometers, a population of less than 100,000, and a garrison of about 20,000 people. It was also the third target of the German offensive after Bonemouth and Dover, because the airfield established on the Isle of Wight could easily cover a large area in southern England.

In addition to a large amount of flat land for aircraft to take off and land, there are also several important ports, and the shipbuilding industry here was also very developed, but during the German Navy's two-month "Broken Roots" operation in October and November, several major shipyards on the Isle of Wight, together with Pusmouth, which is just across the water from the Isle of Wight, were devastated, and carrier-based aircraft taking off from German aircraft carriers bombed these shipyards and ports seventeen times, dropping a total of more than 200 tons of bombs and incendiary bombs. More than 20,000 British soldiers and civilians were killed in the bombing, and most shipyards have not resumed production until now. In order to prevent a direct landing of German troops in the harbor, the British government went to great lengths to block the entrances to the ports of House, Nelon, Vinneau, and Prussia with sunken ships, declaring that the ports would not be restored until the war was over.

If these ports were still intact, the German landing strategy might have changed, because there were no strong forts and forts on the Isle of Wight, there were many palaces of British kings, and with the long coastline and excellent sandy beaches, the Germans could have used it as a bridgehead for landing on the British mainland, but it would take a lot of time to clean up and repair those ports, and the ships could not send heavy artillery and fuel to the Isle of Wight for a short time, and the meaning of the bridgehead would be lost.

"After we land, a very important and urgent task is to capture and repair Pusselmouth Harbour, and then the British army trapped on the Isle of Wight will naturally surrender without a fight!" Chen Tian stared in the direction of the Isle of Wight for a long time, maybe he could build a palace for himself on it in the future, after all, it is a famous resort mecca, and it is said that many beautiful scenery is breathtaking.

"Until then, they will have to rely on them for air support near the shore!" Scheer pointed to the wisps of black smoke coming from the south of White Island and said, the aircraft carrier group from the mainland also arrived on time.

"Oh, Super Duck Mother, Lisa, and Prince, they're like my children!" Chen Tian eagerly awaited to see the huge shadows beneath those clouds of smoke, and his Königsberg shipyard was the only place in the world where an aircraft carrier had ever been built, and this record will be held for a short time. After the launch of the "Prince", out of consideration for the current situation, Germany did not have a new aircraft carrier construction plan before the end of the war, and the battleships originally planned to be built were also reduced to a certain extent, and the strengthening of economic construction after the war was put in the first place of the national policy, and militarily it was to sum up the advantages and disadvantages of various weapons and strive to expand technological superiority as the primary task.

When the aircraft carrier formation approached, Chen Tian had a bitter smile, the destroyers escorting the three aircraft carriers actually reached 28, and they were all new standard class and hunter class, they almost surrounded the aircraft carrier three layers inside and three layers outside, in addition to the formation There are 8 minesweepers and 5 large supply ships. It can only be said that the Kaiser and the Admiralty have offered these aircraft carriers as treasures, and Chen Tian feels that for a country's naval ships, the old ones do not go to the new ones, and they would rather be sunk by a battleship like the Americans in World War II, and the shipyard in the rear immediately launched three ships, rather than nest the Yamato-class battleships like the Japanese, it is said that Yamamoto 56 used the Yamato as a mobile office back then, because there are advanced air-conditioning equipment on it, As a result, the Japanese Navy did not send the Yamato and Musashi until the situation was irretrievable, and the two battleships were hung up by American planes without much power.

Such a tragedy, Chen Tian definitely does not want to happen to Germany, as for Yamamoto, the big gambler, he is probably still a gangster on that ship at this time.

The aircraft carrier group that had come from afar soon joined the Scheer bombardment fleet, and the anti-submarine forces around these large warships suddenly increased a lot. At this time, if any British submarine dared to come and attack, it would be tantamount to a pig entering a piranha pond.

The British near Bonemouth Beach were ignorant of what was happening in the distance, and even during the day, the Scheer fleet was at the end of the view of the beach defenders, and the aircraft carriers and landing flotillas further south could not be in the eyes of the British even in broad daylight, and as for the noise of the aircraft carrier formations and landing flotilla, the cruisers and destroyers that were shelling provided them with good cover.

At this time, the British can only regret their lack of air power, as for why those British fighters did not attack for a long time, Chentian does not know, maybe King George is making the same mistake as the Japanese, maybe the British are worried that their planes will not be able to return to the ground after taking off, it is better to have planes than no planes, just like the existence of a fleet.

Brighton Beach, United Kingdom.

When the heavy German shelling, which had lasted for more than two hours, finally stopped, and the British Private Weil shook his head, and a large pile of dust shook off his head, making him cough for a long time. Despite hiding in a deep bunker, the German shells made him feel terrified, these more than 2 hours were more than 2 years for him, and he almost fainted from the violent shaking when the German artillery fire was at its most intensive, and at this time the whole bunker was very stuffy, and Will's thick winter coat was almost soaked with sweat, and several times he thought he was going to suffocate here. But the nightmare was over, and he and the dozen or so other British soldiers in the bunker were finally alive until the moment when the Germans stopped shelling.

"Will, go to the observation post and see what's going on outside!" The commander in the bunker commanded while scratching the dust on his head.

"But a sergeant, calling people everywhere! Hum! Will lazily picked up his rifle and climbed up the ladder, and he could only vent his frustration by this whispering of which, if heard by the sergeant, he would inevitably be punished again.

The observation post at the top of the bunker was even hotter than below, and the dirt at the observation mouth was even a little hot, and the monocular high-powered telescope placed there naturally did not survive the ferocious shelling, and the lenses had long since shattered to the ground, and Vir could only look out with the naked eye. Brighton Beach at night was full of fires that were still burning, and by the light of the fire, Weil found that the beach was as potholed as the surface of the moon, and they were all large craters with a diameter of several meters or even more than ten meters, and the 4-meter-high breakwater was also incomplete.

Thinking of this, Weir couldn't help but be a little afraid, it is said that the Germans also used a 420 mm giant howitzer larger than the caliber of the naval gun on the battlefield in France. He felt fortunate that the British navy had lost the naval battle, otherwise he might have had the same dismal fate as the British Expeditionary Force that first went to France.

After looking at the beach, Weir looked at the sea in the distance, the smoke and the black smoke in the chimney of the German battleship formed a huge cloud of smoke over the sea, together with the explosion and burning smoke over the beach, the original brilliant starry sky has dimmed a lot, but the sea is still dotted with wonderful, those should be the lights on the German ship, but Weir feels that something is very wrong, he is fortunate to have experienced the German battlefleet before the two shelling of Brighton Beach "Immortal Little Power", The German fleet never seemed to have so many lights as it does today, and the lights of a large area did not seem to be emitted by a dozen battleships.

"Sergeant, sergeant, come and see!" Will finally realized something, and he shouted loudly down.

"What roar, do you see God?" The sergeant angrily began to climb the wooden staircase.

"No, I'm afraid it's the landing fleet of the Germans!"

As soon as Ville finished speaking, there was a muffled thud below, and the poor British sergeant fell off the ladder with a limp of his hands and feet.

"Quick, report to Command!" The sergeant was on all fours like a flipped turtle, and his mouth was still shouting, "The Germans are coming, the Germans are landing!" ”