At night, the brightly lit and neon-lit cities of the United Kingdom in peacetime are like forgotten ruins, with only a pitiful light to be seen, but these cities have not really lost their vitality. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 Behind the thick curtains, the men were watching the radio, and the women were doing all kinds of manual work under the lamp. During such a special period, most factories were in operation 24 hours a day, but every window was pasted with newspapers to prevent the light in the factories from attracting bombing by enemy aircraft.

At the train stations of these cities, it is difficult to see the bustle of people during the day, but the opposite is true at night. Trains come in and stop, start and leave, or pass by without stopping. Great Britain's well-developed railroad system, which was once the cornerstone of the rise of the world's empire, now plays an active role in defending itself against foreign invasions.

Manchester, one of Britain's most prosperous industrial cities, the economic center and transportation hub of north-west England, has been repeatedly attacked by Allied warplanes since the first day of the war, but it has not been bombed on a large scale like London and Portsmouth, and the familiar landmarks still stand there, and the Mersey River flows through the city without stopping. Several of the shipyards along the river are connected by rail feeders to transport supplies, and they were the only places in Manchester that were not light-controlled that night. Under the bright lights, the machinery and equipment in the shipbuilding area are busy working, lifting the small ships brought by train to the surface one by one, and the soldiers in the uniform of the British Royal Navy board the ships, use the lifting facilities to lift the torpedoes also transported by train, and then fill the ships with fuel, load and store supplies, and after completing all the preparations, they sail from the shipyard into the Moses River.

In Liverpool, on the lower reaches of the Moses River, the number of torpedo boats of all kinds, assembled by rail and river, combined with the light fleet that had been deployed there at the outbreak of war, had formed a formidable lightning strike force. Seven cruisers, 22 destroyers, 137 torpedo boats, plus more than 200 bombers dispatched by the British Navy and Air Force, revealed the determination of the British top brass to win the battle on the Coen Peninsula.

After departing from Liverpool and surrounding anchorages, the massive British Minestrike fleet sailed westward along the coastline, through the Strait of Maunai between Anglesey Island and North Wales, and thus into the northern waters of the Cohen Peninsula.

The German destroyer "Bumrin," which was on guard at the western end of the Manai Strait, spotted the surging group of British ships and immediately sent a wireless telegram to its own fleet. Due to the operational needs of supporting the landing force, the Allied support fleet with "De Fllinger" and "Lützov" as the main force was on standby in the sea near Portkelen at this time, and the German light cruiser "Gazelle" and the Irish light cruiser "Oscar" were in the Nafei sea area closer to the front line, and the two light cruisers used 150 mm main guns to suppress the enemy artillery positions observed by the ground forces.

Upon learning of the arrival of a large number of British ships, Vice Admiral Wilhelm Marchar, who was in command of the "De Fllinger," asked the outpost destroyers to retreat cautiously, and on the other hand, sent seaplanes to reconnoiter the enemy's situation, and quickly assembled the ships that had been scattered and guarded. Half an hour later, he received a seaplane reconnaissance report, which was three times the number of British mine-striking ships that had severely damaged the coalition fleet in the waters south of the Coen Peninsula the previous night, compared to the total number of British mine-striking ships that had severely damaged the coalition fleet in the waters south of the Coen Peninsula the previous night. Twenty years ago, the Deflinger-class battlecruisers were hailed as "superships", but they were no more protective than the King-class dreadnoughts that had sunk the night before.

Fearing the terrifying lethality of the lightning ships in the night battle, Marchar ordered the fleet to take the initiative to retreat to the home seas, and shortly after the withdrawal of the coalition ships, the British ground artillery shelling of the coalition defense line for more than two hours ended, and the ferocious ground offensive began.

In the eyes of the allied officers and soldiers, the British army seems to be equipped with countless "Kitchener" chariots, because when the flares light up the battlefield, the British attack line must be at the head of this indestructible steel beast, and the British's multi-turret monster, known as the "Paladin" heavy chariot known as the Guards Iron Cavalry, also appeared on the front line of the Cohen Peninsula.

This time, the focus of the British offensive was still on the north side of the coalition front, and Heights 64, as the tactical fulcrum at the northern end of the coalition front, soon became the focus of heavy competition between the two sides.

In front of the position on Heights 64, steel horses, concrete dragon's teeth, and mines were deployed as planned, but even the very strong seawalls were limited in their ability to withstand the onslaught, and these obstacles did not last long in the face of the British offensive that the British were determined to achieve. Guided by the flame signals of the ground troops, dozens of British fighters launched a low-altitude bombardment of this high ground, a large number of high-explosive aerial bombs turned the Allied positions into a sea of fire, and the swarms of British heavy tanks were like a group of unreasonable wild boars, they rushed into the minefield fiercely, and the tracks were blown up to serve as a fixed fire point on the battlefield, and the British sappers who quickly followed up also had divine help, they used minesweepers and explosives to open a safe passage in the minefield, and the infantry swarmed up. In a short time, the hillside was covered with the corpses of the fallen British soldiers, and the living men attacked like madness, the first charge was repulsed, and soon a second and third round of charges were launched, until they rushed to the high ground, rushed into the Allied trenches, drove away the invaders with bayonets, and finally the battle flag of St. George with red stripes on a white background flew again on the hill......

While the battle for position 64 was raging, the nearby seaside town of Nafe was also fiercely attacked by the British. It was originally considered the strongest link on the northern side of the defensive line, but the temporary retreat of the coalition fleet under the command of Machar left an unexpected risk in the battle. Under the guidance of the British ground forces, the British cruisers and destroyers engaged in the battle fired fiercely at close range of the Riffy, causing heavy casualties to the Allied forces stationed there. The British ground forces then launched a stormy offensive with dozens of combat vehicles and tens of thousands of infantry, breaking through the forward positions of the coalition forces in less than half an hour. Officers and men from both sides immediately engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat in the town, and although the Coalition forces were equipped with much higher automatic weapons than the British, the British were already in full swing, using bayonets and grenades to capture dilapidated houses and ruins, and encroach on the Coalition positions.

With the loss of High Hill 64 and the urgency of the position in the town of Nafe, the seemingly solid front was shaken by the fact that one of the two main commanders of the Allied landing force, Lieutenant General Maxi Weitek, commander of the German 29th Corps and commander of the 3rd Marine Group, urgently transferred reserves to plug the leak. His decision was in line with normal logic, but it missed the legacy of the retreat of Machar's fleet. North of Heights 64, the Allied forces rushing to the front line encountered the British combat reconnaissance forces, and the British quickly radioed their own ships cruising in the waters off the coast of Nafy. The artillery fire from the sea smashed down on the head and face, which happened to cover the main assembly area of the Allied reinforcements, and the Allied officers and soldiers were caught off guard, and a large number of casualties occurred in a short time, and even the elite tank units of the 5th Tank Regiment of Greater Germany suffered a dark loss.

After losing the last position, the remnants of the army retreated in an orderly manner, only to be attacked by the British Vickers light tank about two kilometers west of the town of Naffei, and the result was that the army was crushed.

Seeing that the battle situation had deteriorated rapidly, Lieutenant General Weitek ordered the field artillery deployed on the left flank of the battle line to bombard Heights 64 with all their might, and on the other hand, he urgently transferred the headquarters of the newly landed 7th Royal Guards Fighting Vehicle Regiment to the front line, and personally led the main forces of the 55th Infantry Division and the 3rd Marine Division to launch a tactical counterattack on Heights 64 and the town of Nafe.

To the west of the town of Nafe, the presence of the advance wing of the German 7th Royal Guards Chariot Regiment saved the remnants of the Allied forces withdrawn from the town of Nafe from total annihilation. In this skirmish encounter, the British Vickers light chariots were defeated by the German lancers, but before the Allied soldiers could catch their breath, a large group of British infantry led by dozens of "Kitchener" drove out from the front, north and south of Heights 64.

According to the usual practice, the German Royal Guards have the highest priority in the selection of soldiers and weapons and equipment, in the Prussian era of all major battles, the Guards Corps has repeatedly performed well, but in the era of the Second German Reich, the rapid development of weapons technology to a large extent offset the gap in the quality of soldiers, the performance of the Royal Guards Tank Regiment in the training exercises is not significantly stronger than the armored forces with the title of "Greater Germany", and the officers from the royal family and nobles are interested in new things, The resistance or slackness of the new thinking limited their personal military advancement. When the main force of the 7th Royal Guards Chariot Regiment arrived on the battlefield, the commander chose to attack on the initiative rather than a more cautious and prudent strategy. More than 40 "Teutonic knights" formed two V-shaped offensive formations, led a small number of motorized infantry to crash into the enemy formation, and they bravely and unusually cut down many "Kitchener", which frightened many British infantry in a panic, but once the impact of the chariot troops weakened, great danger followed. The threat came not only from British tanks, but also from any anti-tank weapon in the hands of the infantrymen who had a chance to destroy the elite German tanks, not to mention the weakly defended armored personnel carriers, which could be wiped out by a single high-thrown grenade along with the soldiers in the vehicles.

(End of chapter)