Near the seaside town of Abersoch on the Coen Peninsula in North Wales, Private Evan Gallaher of the Irish Army knelt in an open wheat field, blades of grass in his helmet and rifle in his hand. Around him, www.biquge.info paratroopers of the same battle group were crouching or prostrate, and farther away, there were hundreds of soldiers, most of them Irish, paratroopers, marines, and ordinary army soldiers, and a few Germans were the first German marines to land here.

To the east of the wheat field is a north-south gravel road, about half a foot above the wheat field, narrow enough to barely fit two cars side by side, and on the west shoulder of the road has been artificially dug a trench for creeping shots, which is a temporary front constructed by the coalition landing force, but it is now empty. If you look closely, you will see that the trenches dug along the road have been tested by the fire, as evidenced by the charred craters, broken ordnance and various indescribable debris.

The smoke cleared, and the gunfire stopped. The early summer sun bakes the earth and dispels the dampness and cold of the rainy season, and people here have no intention of resting when they are outdoors without a cover. In a short time, someone shouted in German and Irish, "The enemy plane is coming", and the tension was ignited, and almost everyone was prostrate on the ground, their eyes hidden in wheat stalks watching the sky vigilantly. After a while, a roar came from far and near, and I saw two single-engine biplanes painted with ring logos whizzing past from a height of several tens of meters above the ground, and the machine guns on the movable brackets operated by the pilots in the back seat continued to strafe the ground, and at an altitude of three or four thousand meters, more than a dozen war eagles could be seen chasing each other and fighting fiercely.

More than three hours have passed since the Irish paratroopers landed, and the situation on the Cohen Peninsula has developed at two extremes: the start has been unusually good, and the progress has been unusually bad. The paratroopers airborne assault, the fleet fire support, the troops rushed to the beach, the three-plank axe of the coalition amphibious operation was extremely sharp, and it only took one wave to defeat the resistance of the British garrison, and took a number of tactical strongholds, including Abersoch, the British fortress of Aberdalen was also bombed into ruins by the coalition fleet, and the coalition landing troops quickly spread out along the preset route, but the British ground forces in the inland direction were not yet violently attacked, and the British Air Force fighters and light bombers swarmed in. The German-Irish coalition originally invested 76 fighter squadrons and more than 1,000 fighters to support the landing force as an air umbrella, but because the British army mobilized a large number of fighter planes to attack the Irish capital, more than half of the fighter squadrons were temporarily transferred to intercept them, and this left an opportunity for the British Air Force to take advantage of its tactical counterattack in North Wales -- many of the allied ships covering the landing force were damaged and sunk, and the greatest loss was the German dreadnought "Frontier Governor," which once commanded the North Sea, and this battleship that once dominated the North Sea was hit by four aerial torpedoes and a number of aerial bombsIt first ran aground off the southern coast of the Cohen Peninsula, and then when ammunition exploded, the ship burst into flames, and the surviving crew had no choice but to abandon the ship, thus becoming the first large warship of the German Navy to be dismissed in this war.

With a shrill whimper, another plane fell from the sky with a long trail of smoke. Gallaher vaguely heard an Irish Navy ensign say that it was an American-made **** fighter of the British Air Force, which caused a small burst of joy among the Irish soldiers, after all, they did not have absolute confidence in victory like the Germans.

Two single-engine, two-wing, two-seater British light bombers went and never returned, and after a while, there was movement in the calm wheat field, and Gallah did not hurry to his feet, and returned to his previous kneeling position on one knee. To be able to survive the repeated attacks of British fighters, he was first of all thanks to this camouflage combat suit, and secondly, to the Allied fleet, which attracted the main firepower of the British aviation forces. Although his mood at the moment is complicated, he is still relatively optimistic on the whole, after all, the German and Irish aviation forces have an overwhelming advantage over the British Air Force, and the front-line airfields in eastern Ireland to the Cohen Peninsula are not much farther than British planes flying from rear bases. Since the Allied forces landed on the Cohen Peninsula, there are still far more of their own fighters hovering over the heads of the soldiers than British planes, and as the war progresses, the number of British fighters should continue to decrease.

The first noon in England was spent at such a pace, and Gallah did not feel much hunger, so he ate only a little dry rations, but the big machine gunner gobbled up a whole portion of field rations, and his appetite was enviable.

At less than two o'clock, a sharp whistle sounded in the fields, the silent front came alive, the officers' slogans came one after another, the soldiers rushed to the gravel road, and on the eastern horizon, an earthy yellow wave was slowly coming.

"Cavalry? Oh my God, are these conservative Britons still living in the 10s? Didn't they calculate that the cost of raising a war horse for a long time is more than enough to buy a 6-ton armored car. Armored vehicles can withstand bullets and shrapnel, can carry machine guns and infantry into the battlefield, what about war horses? Only a cavalryman in a khaki uniform could be carried to target the machine gun! ”

Somewhere along the way, an Irish lieutenant colonel observed the enemy with a gunner's mirror and complained to the German major next to him in his not-so-pure German. The British troops that came into view were already in battle formation, and it was difficult to accurately estimate their numbers from ground observation alone, and judging by the condition of the skirmishers, the British troops had invested at least divisional strength in this section.

The German major, about 40 years old, poked his head out of the trench wearing an M20 steel helmet and held a pair of binoculars in his hands. The British cavalry could indeed be seen in the field of vision, but at best it was only four or five hundred cavalry, less than the number of a standard cavalry regiment, and they were divided into four or five cavalry teams, which should only be reconnaissance cavalry for outposts for large troops.

"Vehicles consume fuel, and Britain itself does not produce oil at all, and if the war goes on for several years and the British Navy is unable to break the blockade, then Britain's oil reserves will be depleted, and from this point of view, a small amount of cavalry is still necessary...... See? Behind the cavalry were chariots, covered in camouflage, like moving bushes! ”

The Irish lieutenant colonel responded: "See, those guys are not big, maybe the Vickers light tank is the head, but there must be a more powerful cruiser or infantry fighting vehicle behind it." Captain, we now have too few weapons to deal with the chariots, and we need to call for air support immediately, and we must get the chariot troops who have landed to come as soon as possible, otherwise this line of defense will not be able to hold at all. ”

The German major did not reply, but turned his head and beckoned to his communications officer, summoned him to give a few commands, and then said to the Irish officer beside him: "I don't think it is likely that the British will attack us before the sun goes down, in which case they will have to break through not only our defenses, but also our aircraft bombardment and naval bombardment." ”

As he spoke, the roar of planes was heard in the sky, and the reason why there was no warning in advance this time was because these were coalition planes. As far as the eye could see, thirty or forty monoplanes and more than twenty biplanes flew in several formations from the direction of Ireland, with monoplanes covering at medium and high altitudes and biplanes attacking at medium and low altitudes. In a short time, they whizzed over the coalition positions, and the aerial bombs carried by the biplanes were clearly visible.

Looking at this exciting scene, the tone of the German major was still as calm as a mountain: "The biggest problem now is that the pontoon trestle bridge we prepared in advance was destroyed by the bombing of British planes, and the heavy weapons can only be carried ashore one by one by landing ships, even if the situation is very smooth, there are at most two battalions of chariot troops that have landed before dark." Although the British railway junctions and railway bridges in North Wales were also heavily bombed by our air force, we are not sure of the damage to the enemy's facilities or their ability to repair them in wartime, and the number of tanks that the British army put into the attack tonight may be several times or even ten times that of ours. ”

The Irish lieutenant colonel frowned: "In this way, it's hard to say if we can survive tonight." If we're unlucky, we could be thrown into the sea by the British? ”

The German major turned his head to look at the Allied officer of his age: "I mean, we need to prepare for the worst, and let the soldiers know that this battle today may be very hard, and it may cost a lot to hold the line, so everyone must do their best, not leave it to chance, and always feel that the air force and navy can help us with everything." ”

The Irish lieutenant colonel muttered, "Perhaps you are right, we must try to rely on our own strength to survive the most crucial night, and by tomorrow many difficult problems will be solved." ”

Before the German major could speak, the fire flashed and thunder rushed in the distance. A fifty-kilogram aerial bomb is powerful enough to rival the bombardment of a field howitzer. More than 20 warplanes dropped bombs one after another, and the impact of the explosion could be felt from more than 10 kilometers away.

Looking at the dust and smoke that obscured his vision, the Irish lieutenant colonel suddenly became optimistic again: "If our planes bombed repeatedly throughout the afternoon, we would not have to wait until it was dark, and the British troops who had assembled to attack would have lost their combat effectiveness!" ”

The German major hesitated: "I hope so, too." ”

After entering the trench, Irish paratrooper Evan Gallah placed his rifle in front of him, and spent the rest of his time digging trenches in order to fight for the best possible chance of survival under enemy fire, except for a brief pause in the spectacular spectacle of his own fighter formations flying over and bombing the British troops. It wasn't until he dug his bunker position to a depth of more than half a meter, basically reaching the standard of a single bunker for kneeling shooting, that he stopped for a moment and looked intently ahead.

The British on the other side have not moved for so long, could it be that they were blown up?

No, they are doing the same thing: digging trenches!

After the new battle order was issued, the coalition forces that landed on the Cohen Peninsula officially started a trench digging competition with their opponents. However, this was bound to be an unfair game, as the allied fighters bombed every 30 to 40 minutes, and the British fighters attacked at intervals ranging from five minutes to half an hour, but the latter was much less than the former in terms of the number of sorties and bombs, and the casualties suffered by the British ground forces were correspondingly larger.

(End of chapter)