The Fording River Bridge, south of England.

When the first rays of sunlight fell on the ground, German paratroopers in gray airborne uniforms were cleaning up the bodies on both sides of the bridge and on the bridge deck. At this time, there were intermittent explosions on the railway line to the south, which also meant that the ZHA medicine planted by the engineer company under the railroad tracks was detonated by a timer, and the railway would have to go through at least half a day of emergency repairs if it wanted to open to traffic again.

The battle for the bridge more than half an hour ago lasted only ten minutes, and 2,500 German airborne troops defeated 1,000 British defenders. After touching the British checkpoints along the seven railway lines in a row, the 1st Airborne Regiment led by Lieutenant Colonel Garris and Cullen approached the double-track railway bridge with a length of more than 150 meters, and according to the information obtained in advance, the British deployed thousands of troops to defend the bridge here, including nearly 200 cavalry patrols along the railway.

The German offensive began from the east of the bridge, and the British troops defending the bridge were basically half east and half west of the bridge. While Garris's Airborne Regiment was preparing for the attack, probably because of the lack of contact with the various posts along the line, the British bridge guard sent a group of cavalry to the south, accompanied by a few communications soldiers on bicycles ready to check the telephone line. Seeing this episode, Garris immediately gave the order to attack, and the two dozen or so unlucky cavalry and communications troops immediately fell under the dense fire of the German airborne troops.

Taking advantage of the defenselessness of the British troops defending the bridge, half of Garris's soldiers immediately charged to the east side of the bridge, and the 30 mortars of the whole regiment also bombarded the garrison barracks and sandbag fortifications on the east side of the bridge. Due to the suddenness of the incident, the British soldiers who were shelled were either disheveled or empty-handed, and the brave soldiers wore a pair of pants and rushed out of the barracks with rifles and bullet belts on their shoulders, and they were greeted by German rifles, pistol bullets and grenades, Luger pistols also played a huge role in this battle, and some people said after the war that the paratroopers equipped with Luger 08 were as effective as 3-5 ordinary soldiers in close combat and melee.

From shooting the first cavalry to capturing all the garrison fortifications and barracks east of the bridge, Garris's assault team only took 5 minutes, but the first group of paratroopers who tried to rush across the bridge were blocked by several heavy machine guns on the west side of the bridge, and the paratroopers' machine guns and grenades for fire suppression tactics did not work, and the battle once fell into an unfavorable situation for the Germans.

The battle that followed was not all smooth sailing, as the vanguard of the Garris Airborne Regiment had just crossed the bridgehead when it was attacked by British cavalry from the west of the bridge, and a considerable number of casualties of the Airborne Regiment were incurred in the process. The British cavalry, also disheveled, armed with sabers, whips, or barefoot, even stormed the bridge at one point, but the bravery of these cavalry did not escape the combined blows of German machine guns and grenades, and more than 200 cavalrymen were martyred along with their horses. After this, the remnants of the British army quickly retreated westward, and Garris's airborne troops did not continue the pursuit, and the battle for the Fording River Bridge was declared over. A total of 76 German soldiers were killed in the battle, the British lost more than 700 men, and the more than 200 British soldiers who fled ran west without looking back until they disappeared from the sight of the German soldiers.

"Lieutenant Colonel, what about the townspeople?"

Cullen and Lieutenant Colonel Garris stood on the roof of a barracks on the east side of the steel bridge, which the paratroopers had set up with sandbags to turn into a machine-gun fire point. The town of Fortin, which is only a little larger than Wood Town, was built almost next to the Fording River Bridge, and there are some houses on the east and west sides of the bridge, and there are three or four hundred houses in the whole town, and it seems that there are no less than a thousand inhabitants here. In this fierce battle, the residents of Fortinbridge Town seemed to be quite cooperative, until the end of the battle did not go to the bridge to help, most of the residents who were awakened by the sound of gunfire just watched the battlefield from afar, after dawn a few brave guys tried to approach the bridge, and after seeing that the bridge was surrounded by soldiers in striking gray German uniforms, these people immediately turned around and hid in their homes to lock the gate.

After carefully observing the surroundings of the bridge, Garris decided to let his soldiers enter the town.

"There aren't too good fortifications around this bridge, we should extend the defenses to this town! The first battalion used the bridge as a base for defense, the second battalion entered the urban area on the east side of the bridge and used the houses as a defensive position, and the third battalion went to the urban area on the west side of the bridge! As long as the townspeople don't resist, we won't embarrass them, but if anyone dares to resist, we can use force if necessary! Also, the engineer company began to bury zha medicine on the piers and bridge decks, ready to detonate the bridge at any moment! If you blow up a section of railway line, the British can repair it in a day, and if you blow up this bridge, the British will not want to let the train pass for a week! ”

"Lieutenant Colonel, excuse me for asking, how long are we going to hold out here?" Cullen knew that whether or not the defenders of the bridge who had escaped before were released, the British army would launch an attack on this place in the near future, although there were a lot of ammunition in the ammunition depot here, but there was very little ammunition that could be supplied to the paratroopers, and the caliber of the guns of the two sides was different, so the airborne regiment could only rely on the ammunition it carried to fight, until the airships and planes dropped the follow-up paratroopers and ammunition, or the landing force came to respond.

"As long as you can!" Garris said with a stern expression, this sentence also means that the airborne regiment is likely to hit the moment when it runs out of ammunition and food. He and his soldiers would have been speechless if they had known that the British intended to have a million-strong army rally on the outskirts of Bonemouth Beach by the bridge before dark, and that a million British troops would be able to blow them back to Germany with even one breath.

Plymouth Military Harbour, south of England.

More than 200 kilometers away, Bonemouth is under fire, but this military port is like a paradise without worrying about being invaded by the invasion of war, the naval officers and men on the docks and warships have no passion for fighting on their faces, and more people just have to get by and waste their time, as for the boilers that have been lit since midnight, it seems that they are only used to warm the sailors. There was still a lot of snow left on the top of the warship's turret, superstructure, docks, trestles, and the city, and the black smoke coming out of the warship's chimney did not bring much life to the port, and there was a deathly silence everywhere.

Lord Fisher, the current British Lord of the Admiralty and Home Fleet, had moved his command to the fleet's flagship, the armored battleship Endeavour, an old battleship launched in 1904 with a displacement of only 14,000 tons, and its main guns were 305 mm guns on two twin turrets, although it could reach a speed of 21 knots, but the armor of the warship was not worthy of the title of "armored battleship" at all, and a 280 mm or 305 mm German armor-piercing shell could make its main gun dumb. A 533-mm German torpedo could immobilize it, and even Fisher himself had to admit it.

Fisher naturally had his helplessness to choose such an old-fashioned warship that would be transferred to the Pacific region to scare the people of Asia and the Americas after the appearance of such a dreadnought. Although there were 8 other battleships, 7 cruisers, 16 destroyers and mine-striking ships in this military port at this time, these were all old warships, one older than the other, and most of them used old coal-fired boilers, which were extremely polluting to the environment, plus the French fleet forced out of the port to severely damage two British battleships, sink and damage one cruiser and a dozen small ships, and the British naval strength after suffering two heavy losses in the North Sea did not recover over time, under the strict blockade of the German Navy, Now there is an acute shortage of spare parts and supplies for the repair of warships.

Fisher glanced at the piles of telegrams on his desk, but his head was a mess. The special fleet exchanged for two valuable colonies basically couldn't catch up with this anti-landing operation, and what was worse was that even the fat man Qiu who claimed to be a world leader in a few years was unknown in life and death. As soon as dawn came, the German Hipper raiding fleet resumed shelling the naval fortress in the port of Rodel, and the commander of the Rodel fortress sent three telegrams in one breath to report the urgency, and the situation there became worse with the German fleet firing again and again. In the last telegram, the commander even claimed that he would soon be forced to abandon the fortress, so that the Hilper fleet would be able to sail closer to the harbor and drop the shells directly on the transports laden with munitions in the harbor.

The situation at Bonemouth was even worse, and although Fisher was unable to make an accurate judgment, he was puzzled and despised by the foolishness of the Army to transfer the main force to Brighton, and Haig personally called and asked Fisher to lead a fleet to launch a surprise attack from the belly of the German landing fleet.

"You know, there was half a high seas fleet and three German aircraft carriers, and the Germans must have had a lot of submarines in the English Channel at this time. In such a sunny day, our last few poor battleships were probably blown up and sunk by the enemy's planes and submarines before they could see the shadow of the enemy's warship! Fisher was angry and amused at Haig's request, and the German fleet should have snickered if it hadn't come and sunk Plymouth Harbor. Eventually, however, he agreed to launch an attack on the German army and navy near Bonemouth under cover of darkness after dark, but there was no guarantee that the attack would be effective.

General Haig on the other end of the phone looked confident, as if he had seen a million army and navy join forces to make a landing in Germany, to which Fisher could only smile wryly, such an action would undoubtedly drain the last drop of blood of the British Imperial Navy.

"Lord, there's a telegram from Port Rodel!" The Communications Officer hurriedly walked in from outside, and this was already the fourth hypnotic telegram.

"Read!"

Fisher looked at the calm harbor outside the porthole with his hands behind his back and expressionlessly, how he wished that time could be turned back, even if it was to let him go back to four months ago, at least at that time the Navy would not have to hide in the harbor so aggrievedly.

"Half an hour earlier, the Rodel patrol fleet had sent 12 mine-striking ships to attack the German fleet, and in the face of 2 German battleships, 3 cruisers, 5 aircraft, and an ominous number of submarines, this brave and great attack had unfortunately failed miserably, and none of the mine-striking ships survived! At present, the German fleet is still shelling our fortress, and our military fortifications are seriously damaged and our firepower is insufficient, and I am afraid that we will not be able to continue to hold our positions! At the end of the reading, even the communications officer had a surprised expression.

"It seems that the Germans have eaten our munitions ships!" Unable to recover, Fisher decided to give up, and although there were 100,000 troops stationed in northern Scotland, they could not swim across the icy sea to Lewis Island, let alone defend themselves against the artillery of the German fleet with rifles. The British mainland was like a seemingly tight fence at this time, but in fact it had been pierced by the Germans and was full of holes.

Bonemouth Beach, South of England.

The most spectacular and fierce landing operation had just begun, and the distance from the beachhead to the breakwater had been reduced to about 70 meters due to the high tide on the flat beach of more than 700 meters wide at the westernmost point of Bonemouth. At this time, the British firepower on the breakwater basically came from those Indian Asan, the main force of General Cosmo's defenders was still on the way from the temporary camp to the beach, and Casper's reserves were crushed under the onslaught of the German 2nd and 3rd Airborne Regiments, and the so-called reserves were only less than half of the combat strength left, and the reinforcement of the beach was even more utopian.

After the landing ship numbered 129 stopped at a distance of 20 meters from the beachhead, the bow landing ladder that was suddenly lowered slapped heavily into the half-meter-deep seawater, and the icy sea water was splashed several meters away.

"Forward!"

Amid the rumbling engine and the sonorous sound of tracks, a "Stone II" tank slowly drove up the landing ladder, the thick steel plates silently bearing the 11-ton steel behemoth, the tank's tracks and load wheels began to contact the seawater, when the tracks touched the mud and rocks on the bottom of the sea, the sea water on it just did not cover the entire load wheels. After leaving the landing ladder, Stone II drove through the slightly soft beach without stopping.

Ensign Sarches, who only poked his eyes out of the turret, watched the spectacle with wide eyes, the bullets flying by barely posed any threat to the tank's hard armor, and the poor Indian soldier did not know what an anti-tank gun was. After the landing ships arrived at the coastal beaches one after another, more and more tanks and infantry landed on the beach, and in a short time, there were already dozens of landing ships that successfully sent the landing soldiers to the beach, and nearly 2,000 German infantry and more than 20 tanks waded ashore and then advanced rapidly.

Compared to the fast-moving infantry, the tanks were a little slower, and despite the steel wheels trying to guide the tracks to turn, the rear of the tank was constantly lifted by the tracks, but in this terrain conditions, the speed of the "Stone II" was only 12 kilometers per hour, and the speed of the "Stone I" was only a pitiful 8 kilometers per hour, but fortunately, they were all like tortoises in a tortoise and hare race.

"Aim at the target and get ready to fire!"

With Saches's order, his tank stopped its advance, and the place where the tank muzzle pointed was the first barrier encountered by the landing force - the breakwater that had been cut into more than 1 meter high by the shells, and on one of the machine gun positions made of sandbags, a water-cooled Maxim was roaring desperately, and the German infantry who were constantly charging with guns were hit by its bullets, and the attacking queue was less than 20 meters away from the breakwater. Before a few attacking German soldiers could throw the grenades in their hands, they regretfully clutched their chests and collapsed. Through the telescope, Second Lieutenant Sachers could clearly see the hideous faces of several Indians in turbans behind the Maxim, as if they were venting the ravages of them and their companions by the gunfire of the German battleships.

"Damn Indians, go to hell!"

The familiar sensation of the tank, from the barrel to the tracks, as well as the white smoke emitted from the muzzle and chamber, made every tanker's blood boil. At a distance of 60 meters, it took less than 0.1 seconds for the shell of the 37mm tank gun to accurately hit the British machine-gun position, and after a non-violent explosion, the Maxim heavy machine gun was gone, and a small section of bloody turban fluttered in the air.

The shell casing made a crisp and pleasant sound when it landed on the bottom plate of the tank, and the gunner shoved the next high-explosive shell into the chamber as quickly as possible. Instead of getting back into action, Sacches's tank turned its guns to another place on the breakwater where rifle fire was intensive. Seeing that the artillery on the opponent's steel monster was aimed at him at such a close distance, several Indian soldiers there stared blankly.

A crimson explosion of flames was followed by several bloody turbans falling from the sky.

After the landing tanks cleared the beaches and breakwaters of British fire at close range with their tank guns, the infantry's attack regained fluidity, and the grenades flying to the top and rear of the breakwater could even be described as flying in the sky, and with the mortars firing from the beach one after another, the first line of defense on the western beach of Bonemouth, which was guarded by Indian soldiers, finally collapsed completely.

When the German flag fluttered in the wind planted the broken breakwater, the generals on the "Border Governor" applauded the soldiers who fought bravely on the front line. Guderian, who was commanding the operation at the front, did not relax in the slightest, the battle to attack the central slope of Bonemouth was still going on, and it was also very important to be able to completely occupy the small pier on the east side of the beach, otherwise the engineering troops would need to spend at least half a day to build a new trestle, and it was still unknown how many counterattack troops the British army could put into the first time for the German landing force.

The first batch of 40 attack planes, led by Lieutenant Colonel Madonny, flew over the battlefleet and the landing fleet, and the landing force was encouraged by the German warhawks flying at low altitudes, but the attack planes did not stop over the beach, but went straight to the British troops behind the beach.