The bright moon in the night sky made the stars look dull. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoOn the sparkling seas, a small but well-organized fleet bypassed the island of Floris, which has been hotly contested by the two sides recently, and quickly approached only 17 from the west. 6 square kilometers of Corvo Island. The highest point of the volcanic island is Godothorn at 777 meters above sea level, where American and British forces set up a radar station after occupying the island, but just two days earlier, dive bombers taking off from the German aircraft carrier Swabian blew it to pieces with heavy aerial bombs.

The artillery flotilla led by the German dreadnoughts "Elector" and "Karl the Great" slowed down about 15 kilometers from the southern tip of the island of Corvo, and they switched arrays, raised their guns, and covered the south-west and south-east coasts of the island of Corvo with 16 destroyers and 28 landing ships carrying 4,200 German officers and men and 1,400 Irish officers and men......

At 3:30 a.m. on October 6, 1933, the Second Battle of Corvo Island officially began. Within 30 minutes, the two King-class dreadnoughts poured a total of 204 rounds of 305-mm and 425 rounds of 150-mm shells on the coastal fortifications and garrison positions in the south of the island, and the heavy cruisers "Freya", "Venata" and "Hansa" fired more than 1,400 rounds of 203-mm shells.

At 4:11, the soldiers of the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division of the German Army stepped on the shoal southeast of Kolvo Island, and 10 minutes later, the "Teutonic Knights" of the tank regiment numbered N-217 directly under the division rumbled away from the landing ship, and all the oncoming bullets were bounced off by the armored body, and the powerful 75-mm tank guns easily pulled out the remaining defenders' firepower near the beach, and the landing force stood firm at a speed beyond expectations, but the American and British troops stationed here did not give up the battle. More than 70 percent of the area of Corvo Island is a mountainous area with rugged terrain and inconvenient accessibility, where the German army built a defense system in depth, and when the American and British troops attacked the island, they destroyed some permanent fortifications, and the garrison blew some up on its own before giving up resistance, but still a considerable part of it fell into the hands of the enemy -- in the process of fighting for the Azores Islands, the American and British troops did not carry out large-scale infrastructure construction as the Germans did when they first entered the country, but renovated, consolidated, and appropriately expanded the original defense facilities. So now Corvo Island is only stronger than before.

In the face of the sudden attack of the Central Powers, the American and British garrisons on the island of Corvo resolutely abandoned their positions at low points and the bombed airfields, and quickly retreated to the fortifications on higher ground -- judging from the reconnaissance information that the Allied troops had in advance, the defenders had at least two large artillery forts equipped with long-range artillery, six fortress-like strongholds equipped with infantry guns or mortars, and 20 defensive bunkers in the mountainous area. If the US and British troops defending the island resolutely and stubbornly resist, the Allied forces will inevitably have to pay a very heavy price for attacking by conventional warfare, and the time of the battle cannot be guaranteed.

At dawn, 20 He-28 medium transport planes, 20 K-type assault ******, and 42 Ju-26 light transport planes were all ready to carry out airborne missions at various military airfields on the islands of São Miguel and Santa Maria, and the soldiers of the 5th Parachute Battalion of the Irish Air Force were boarding one after another under the leadership of officers. Before the transport group took off, more than 700 Allied fighters were divided into three echelons and aggressively slaughtered Texel Island, Flores Island, and Pico Island, and a number of reconnaissance planes modified from Fokker G-51 were mixed in to conduct reconnaissance aerial photographs of Texel and nearby islands and surrounding waters to determine the whereabouts of the main US and British fleets.

Previously, the US and British fleets had moved from their southern berths on Texel Island to the waters off Pico Island, and on this morning, Allied reconnaissance planes searched both waters and found no trace of the enemy's capital ships. With this information, the theater commander still made the decision to launch an airborne operation. With a roar, German-made transport planes and their towed ****** carried 980 Irish airborne troops, including 11 officers, 82 non-commissioned officers, and 887 soldiers, to the island of Corvo, more than 300 kilometers away.

This elite airborne force, officially known as the 5th Airborne Battalion of the Royal Irish Air Force, is formed with the well-known 2nd Company of the 1st Airborne Battalion of the Royal Irish Air Force.

The level of equipment of the Airborne Forces, which has taken the line of elite troops, is inferior to the armies of many countries. The Hubert-IIK rifle using Mauser's standard rifle cartridge is the most basic paratrooper weapon, and normally, every Irish non-commissioned officer will carry a 45 caliber Browning M1911 with him, and each paratrooper squad is equipped with at least one Beretta T-28 submachine gun and one Hubert-22 light machine gun imitating the Browning M-1918, whose melee firepower can easily overwhelm a British infantry squad, while the German-made L-26 50mm light mortar, Equipment such as the IG-18F 75mm infantry gun and the Bobcat-II two-wheeled motorcycle produced by the Limerick vehicle factory were deployed to the Irish Airborne Forces at a high rate.

In this era of dreams, Irish Private Steve Quinn, who is 40 days away from turning 20, is part of the Irish Army's elite paratrooper unit. As the third in his family, Steve was called up to join the Royal Irish Air Force in early 1932, and the following year he took part in the offensive operations on the Cohen Peninsula as a private, and was awarded a Medal of Warrior of the Second Class for his outstanding service, and was promoted to the rank of First Class in the Air Force.

Twelve heavily armed Irish paratroopers sat in two rows in the noisy cabin of the Ju-26, and Steve, leaning on a crash bag with a Hubert-IIK rifle, waited without distraction. The good news is that enemy forces in the airborne area have only a very small number of anti-aircraft weapons, and they are likely to be exhausted by the rotational sweeps of their own carrier-based aircraft.

During the flight, the non-commissioned officer, the leader of this paratrooper squad, told everyone in his loud voice: "Remember, if you find that the wind blows you to the surface of the sea, unfasten the buckle of your weapon, throw away your rifle and ammunition, and blow into this tube, which will allow you to float on the surface of the water after falling into the water, then you will have more time to unbuckle your waist and untie your harness, do not panic, you can get out of the entanglement of the parachute, swim to the nearest shore, or wait for our ship to pass by." ”

When the non-commissioned officer sat down again, the little private next to Steve muttered uneasily, "It's all the sea down there, and if the enemy fighter suddenly emerges from the clouds at this time, we'll be in trouble!" ”

"We have enough fighter escorts around us." Steve relieved, "And we have already crushed the enemy's air force a while ago, so this worry is unnecessary." ”

The private immediately retorted, "If the enemy is so vulnerable, why don't we attack Texel or Floris, but go to the most inconspicuous island?" ”

Steve shrugged: "It's the command's decision which island to attack first, all we have to do is obey and fight, win the victory, and triumph gloriously." ”

The little private continued to mumble, "Come on, man, I just don't want to die in vain. ”

After a while, a strange sound came into his ears through the window, and Steve turned his head and was surprised to find several enemy planes emerging from the clouds in the east, and a small group of Fokker G-51s escorting the aircraft hurriedly turned to meet them. The two sides faced each other head-on, and then you chased me in the air and fought each other.

The little private didn't think about it anymore at this time, but kept drawing crosses on his forehead and chest. Although the sight of the Irish paratroopers sitting in the transport plane was terrifying, under the full protection of the escort fighters, only a few Ju-26s were attacked by enemy planes, and none of them were shot down.

On the other hand, in the US-British Joint Operations Command on Texel Island, senior officers were still arguing over the direction of the Allied attack, and some people felt that the target of the Allied troops was Corvo Island, which was almost leveled by artillery fire, but many people believed that this was just a feint attack by the enemy, and the real target of the Allied army's attack was either Flores Island, which was holding the supply line, or Pico Island, which was located at the junction.

The American and British officers analyzed from different perspectives and ways of thinking, and when they found that the combat report of the transport group flying north was transmitted back to the command, the scope of the debate was finally narrowed down to Flores Island and Corvo Island, but the army and air force generals did not try to look at the battle from the perspective of the navy, and the ultimate goal of the enemy's attack on the island was to seize the island?

In the past few days, the Allied forces have jumped over the nearby islands of the central Azores, thrown heavy troops into the islands of Flores and Corvo, first destroyed the air deployment of the American and British troops on the island of Flores, and then landed on the island of Corvo, which was only defended by a small number of troops, in a surprise attack. This question became a big stone in the heart of Chatfield, the commander of the US-British joint combat fleet, and made him feel unprecedented pressure. At this juncture, he could no longer sit firmly on the Diaoyu Tai as before, and before dawn, he personally led the fleet to leave the waters of Pico Island, where he had temporarily taken refuge, and hurriedly sailed northward -- since he had not been able to intercept the enemy landing fleet halfway before, he simply gave them a big "surprise" while the enemy's landing operation was still in progress.

(End of chapter)