Chapter 103 The Dunkirk Tragedy

On April 9, 1938, when Northern Europe had just passed the middle of winter and was preparing for the arrival of spring, the German army suddenly launched Exercise Witherberg Jihua and invaded Northern Europe, scaring away the spring in Northern Europe and plunging it into the winter of death under German rule.

Denmark and Norway found the German blitzkrieg attack, which was perfectly interpreted by the modified Schlieffen Jihua, with the cooperation of German Leopard tanks and Junker fighter-bombers.

The Germans claimed that this was to prevent Britain and France from occupying Norway, an otherwise neutral country, in the first place, thus cutting off Germany's import of minerals from Sweden. The British navy was still so large that the Germans were terrified, and they successfully blockaded the Norwegian ports and landed in Norway, forcing the Germans to retreat into the Norwegian hinterland and hold on accordingly. However, the British Army's combat effectiveness was too weak to clear the German army, and the German army launched a full-scale blitzkrieg on the Western Front, and the British had to retreat subsequently, so Norway was occupied by Germany, and the German army also occupied Denmark by the way.

On May 10, 1938, the German army adopted the modified Schlieffen jihua, also known as the Manstein jihua. Divided into three armies, A, B, and C, they bypassed the Maginot Line and invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France. On May 13, the German Army Group A entered France through the weakly defended Ardennes area of Liliang by Manstein, and the British and French Allied forces were completely unable to organize effective resistance in the Ardennes because of the surprise attack of the German army.

Soon, the German tank division forced the Maas River and captured the strategic location of Sedan in southern France, while at the same time, the German Army Group B, with the cooperation of airborne troops, invaded the Netherlands and Belgium to attract and contain the main forces of the British and French Allied forces in the Belgian plain. This allowed Army Group A to pass more smoothly from the vicinity of northern France through the flanks of the main Anglo-French forces to form a large encirclement in Mansteinjihua.

The British, French, Belgian, and Dutch allied forces originally had 147 divisions, with a total strength of more than 3 million. Far more than the 2.1 million German troops, but in less than half a year after the start of the war, the German army was scattered, and finally the 400,000 allied troops on the border of Belgium and France were forced by the Germans to retreat in the Dunkirk area, only 50 miles from the English Channel, leaving only Dunkirk, a small port of only 10,000 inhabitants, as a sea retreat.

The situation is critical, and the port of Dunkirk is a highly vulnerable target to constant bomber and artillery fire. If 400,000 people retreated from this port, under the heavy fire of German artillery, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The British government and navy mobilized a large number of sailors. Mobilize the people to rise up and rescue the army. Their jihua is trying to evacuate 30,000 people.

Just then, a strange thing happened, the German armored forces were already approaching the northern French port of Dunkirk. But at this time he received an order from Hitler to stop advancing.

This order was obviously a fatal mistake, but the Germans had to comply with the order, and watched as the encircled British, French and other armies began to carry out the "dynamo jihua", that is, the Dunkirk retreat.

Far away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the Chang'an Daming Palace. Zhang Meng kept an eye on the war in Europe. When the Germans launched a blitzkrieg against the French military, he knew that there would be an oolong event called the Dunkirk retreat.

If the Tang Empire had not been involved in the Second Shijie War, Zhang Meng would never have interfered in this matter, but now that the Tang Empire has been involved in the war and has been forced to form an alliance with Germany, then he will not allow another oolong time like the Dunkirk retreat.

It's just that what Zhang Meng doesn't understand is that he was still talking to Hitler on the phone a few hours ago. Exchanging views on the complete annihilation of nearly 400,000 allied troops of Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, Hitler clearly patted his chest and promised that he would definitely destroy them. But why did you suddenly change your mind?

Zhang Meng's incomprehension was quickly answered, and an intelligence urgently sent by Tan Jincheng showed that a senior secretary next to Hitler was a British spy lurking beside him, and this spy stole Hitler's warrant at a critical moment to order the German army to stop the offensive, and Hitler himself was also taken hostage by this spy, so that the German headquarters did not dare to move, and the two sides were in confrontation and secret negotiations.

This is a thing that is unknown to history, and Zhang Meng also knows it for the first time, so he understands that even children know what to do in such an oolong incident as Dunkirk, and it is impossible for Hitler not to understand the seriousness of the problem. It turned out that they were taken hostage, no wonder the Germans stopped. This is a scandalous thing, even a few people in the German army know about it, fearing that once it is announced, the German army on the front line will not care about Hitler's life and death, and will definitely strangle the British and French forces with all their might, so the people around Hitler secretly blocked the news and tried to rescue Hitler.

The reason why the agents of the Tang Dynasty were able to get the news was that because of the military alliance of Tang and Germany, there were military liaison officers of the Tang Dynasty in the highest conference room of Hitler at all times, so that the two countries could keep in touch at any time.

Zhang Meng knew that Hitler would escape the catastrophe, so he was not worried about Hitler's life and death, so when the German army stopped attacking, Zhang Meng issued a special order, and the Datang strategic air force was dispatched to temporarily stop the strategic bombing of Japan, and all 112 Great White Crane strategic bombers urgently flew to the air base in Portugal, and then replenished fuel and ammunition, and flew to Dunkirk without stopping.

At this time, there was an odd fleet in the sea near Dunkirk, with brightly colored French fishing boats, tourist boats carrying passengers, maintenance boats, small escort boats, minesweepers, trawlers, destroyers, British airdrop rescue ships, radar sentry ships...... Probably, everything that could float in England went to Dunkirk.

This extremely bizarre and indescribable fleet was piloted by all sorts of British and French. Among them were bankers, dentists, taxi drivers, speedboat drivers, dock workers, teenagers, engineers, fishermen, and civilian officials...... Among them were the delicate-skinned Sea Scouts and the bronzed-skinned old man with pale hair. Many of them were visibly poor, they had no coats, they wore shabby sweaters and sanitary shirts, they wore cracked galoshes, they were drenched in the sea and rain, and they were hungry in the bone-chilling wind.

Thousands of ships of all types have gathered in Dunkirk, and the first batch of about 30,000 people is being evacuated.

As a result, the German artillery and planes did not attack them, and they were just glad for a while, but the next moment they found a huge roar in the sky, and the Tang Army's Big White Goose strategic bomber, which made them frightened, suddenly came into the air.

"Oh my God, it's the big white goose of the Tang Army here, just come and kill me with a bolt of lightning! I don't want to be burned alive! A soldier suddenly wailed, because he had read the newspaper and knew about the terrorist attack of the Tang Army's Great White Crane strategic bomber in Spain, and those who died under the white phosphorus bomb were extremely terrifying, and even those who survived would not be able to wave away the shadow of pain for the rest of their lives.

At this time, weapons of mass destruction such as white phosphorus bombs were indispensable, because the target of the Tang army was 400,000 troops of the opposing side, and 400,000 living people were absolutely not allowed to leave France alive.

With a burst of sharp whistling, the big white crane bomber began to drop bombs, when one aerial bomb after another fell all over the sky, the entire sea surface boiled in an instant, all kinds of ships full of people were hit, exploded, burned, and burned one after another, and the people on it were either blown up, or burned to death by the flames, or bombed into the sea by air waves, and in the blink of an eye, the entire retreat sea area was a sea of fire, scorching the sky, and thick smoke covered the sky and covered the sea.

112 Great White Crane strategic bombers, each carrying 12 tons of aerial bombs, including 1 ton of white phosphorus bombs, 7 tons of incendiary bombs and 4 tons of blasting bombs, a total of 1,344 tons, the number of which was as high as tens of thousands, was dropped in an instant, like a heavy downpour, and no ship was able to survive such a dense bomb drop.

What made the Anglo-French coalition forces collapse even more was that after the bombing of the Tang Army planes was over, in addition to retaining the fuel to fly back to the Portuguese base, all the remaining hundreds of tons of aviation fuel were dumped on the retreating sea, adding fuel to the fire, causing a monstrous fire in the entire sea area, and the first batch of 30,000 people who retreated were all engulfed in the fire, and it was difficult to escape.

When the bomber group of the Tang Army left, the sky around the entire Dunkirk seaport for dozens of kilometers was covered with black smoke, corpses were floating on the sea, and the wreckage of the bombed-out ships continued to disintegrate and rush to the beach under the lapping of the waves.

The people who had complained about not being able to catch up with the first group of retreats were now standing on the beach with a look of fear, glad they didn't go up.

The Tang Army's sudden bombing campaign completely destroyed the attempt and hope of the British and French forces to retreat, and more than 1,000 rescue ships were blown up and more than 30,000 soldiers died at sea. The British government was unable to raise ships for the rescue operation in a short period of time, and the Germans were aware of the retreat of the Anglo-French forces, and although they were not ordered to move on, the Luftwaffe arrived to participate in the bombing operation.

Three days later, under the joint bombing of the air forces of Tang and Germany, Dunkirk was razed to the ground, and more than 300,000 of the 400,000 British, French, Belgian-Dutch troops were killed and wounded, and only 100,000 wounded soldiers surrendered voluntarily.

What began as a great retreat from Dunkirk turned into a tragedy, the worst loss for Britain and France since the end of World War I, which made them saddened.

A week later, Hitler's men finally succeeded in killing the British spy and rescuing Hitler. Since the British spy didn't know what was going on outside, he never dared to kill Hitler, which gave Hitler's men the opportunity to rescue him.

Naturally, the rescued Hitler did not dare to speak out, and the news was tightly sealed, and only a few people knew about it. Hitler became timid and suspicious after this, and he began to look for a stand-in, just in case.

However, to his relief, the Tang Army suddenly intervened and prevented the retreat of the Anglo-French army, which made Hitler somewhat relieved. However, because of the British espionage, Hitler hated the British to death, and originally did not plan to attack the British mainland immediately, but now Hitler immediately ordered to prepare to attack the sea lion Jihua in the British mainland. (To be continued......)