The evasion policy of the Allied Indian Ocean Fleet did not have much effect, and the Japanese side could not find the Allied fleet, so they reached out to the supply ports of the Allied Indian Ocean Fleet.

The Japanese first launched another attack on Allied cargo ships in the Bay of Bengal. In just one day, under the leadership of Rear Admiral Jizaburo Ozawa, the Ryuchamp sank a total of 23 ships along with six other cruisers, and more than five ships were sunk by Japanese submarines off the west coast of India.

Subsequently, the 1st and 5th Air Fleets of the Japanese Nagumo Fleet and the 2nd Air Force converged and moved to the Indian Ocean.

The Nagumo Fleet dispatched carrier-based aircraft to attack the Colombo and Trinkeriland bases of the Indian Ocean Fleet in the Gulf of Ceylon, and under the siege of four battleships led by the Nagato, the British heavy cruisers Dorsetshire, HMS Cornwall, the aircraft carrier USS Athletic, and the destroyer USS Vampire were sunk.

However, due to a series of deceitful factors, the Japanese fleet did not find the main Somerville fleet that was close at hand, so it only entered the Indian Ocean and returned to the Pacific Ocean after a circle, thus avoiding the fate of total annihilation.

After the war, the remnants of the British fleet were withdrawn to the ports of Aden in Yemen and Mombasa in British Kenya, giving up almost all of the northern Indian Ocean.

Having disabled the Allied Indian Ocean Fleet, Nagumo Tadaichi did not continue to chase the remaining Allied main fleet, but joined up with the Combined Fleet. Because the next offensive was about to begin, and the remaining Indian Ocean fleet of the Allies did not have much combat effectiveness. It is already impossible to threaten Japan's power in the Indian Ocean.

Japan has been playing its part in the Indian Ocean, and in the European theater, the war has not ceased for a moment.

The most striking thing was that the German fleet, which had been docked in the Mediterranean, began to set sail to force the Allied naval forces in the Mediterranean. Forced by a lack of strength, the Allied command gave the order to retreat and not engage the German fleet, so as not to be completely annihilated.

The naval forces of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean retreated again and again, and the navy belonging to France was withdrawn directly to French Algeria. And the British Navy withdrew directly from the Mediterranean. They wanted to use this to distract the forces of the German fleet, but Germany was not fooled.

The German fleet did not bother with the French fleet, but went directly through Gibraltar and pursued the British fleet. The French fleet followed, leaving Algeria and also out of the Mediterranean.

On land.

In October '40, Finland rejected the Soviet Union's near-aggression territorial demands, and a military conflict ensued, culminating in the signing of the Moscow Peace Agreement in March '41 with concessions from Finland. Although France and Britain had declared war on Germany, they still tried to help Finland against the Soviet invasion, which was eliminated by the League of Nations. The League of Nations, Stalin did not care, with real interests, what is the use of breaking the League of Nations.

In February 41, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a separate German-Soviet Trade Agreement, under which the Soviet Union provided various raw materials in exchange for German military and industrial equipment, and Germany was able to circumvent the Allied blockade of raw materials......

In Western Europe, Britain began to deploy its troops to the European continent, but because British troops never had a military conflict with the German army, this period was also called "fake war". It was not until April 41 that the Germans engaged in a large-scale invasion.

In order to prevent the Allies from blocking the route of Swedish iron ore to Germany through Operation Wilfried, Germany decided to invade Denmark and Norway to ensure the transportation of raw materials. Denmark surrendered immediately, and despite Allied assistance, the Germans captured Norway within two months.

In May '41, Germany began planning an invasion of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and within a few days the Germans had successfully captured the Netherlands and Belgium with blitzkrieg tactics. The Maginot Line was set up by the French, who believed that the natural barrier would prevent German armoured vehicles from penetrating, but the Germans attacked the weaker Ardennes and then attacked the Allied flank in Belgium.

Guided by more than 4,000 tanks, the 136 divisions of the German army bypassed the Maginot Line and attacked Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Luxembourg and other Western European countries with two army groups A and B. The Germans were directed at Army Group A on the left flank, commanding a strong panzer force to attack at the northern end of the Maginot Line, the rugged and forested Ardennes Mountains, which had been considered impassable by tanks. This greatly disappointed the Anglo-French forces that marched to Belgium to meet Army Group B on the German right flank, and in just over ten days, German armored units crossed the French mainland and penetrated directly into the shores of the English Channel. The coalition forces in the north were in fact encircled in the Flemish region of northern France. At the end of May, the Belgian army surrendered, and the 400,000 British and French troops began to retreat to Dunkirk.

The English Channel to the west became the only hope for the coalition forces to survive. But will Germany let them retreat as they wish?

At 18:57 p.m. on 26 May, the British Admiralty ordered the start of the "dynamo" plan, and the situation was even more dangerous than when the plan was made, as only Dunkirk could be used by the three French ports that had been intended for use, and Buren and Calais were already occupied by the Germans.

The only way for 400,000 Anglo-French troops to survive is Dunkirk and its nearby 40 kilometers of coastline, Dunkirk is an ancient castle with a long history, since the 9th century AD has been an important port in northern France, the third largest port in France in terms of throughput, with 7 deep-water berths for large ships, 4 dry docks and 8 kilometers of wharves, the port channel has been dredged, large ships can enter and exit freely, and the perfect breakwater and convex pier can effectively withstand the wind and waves of the English Channel, If these port facilities had been fully utilized, 400,000 Anglo-French troops could have safely boarded the ship in just a few days with all their equipment, but for two weeks the area had been heavily bombed by the Germans, destroying all four docks, reducing the eight-kilometre-long pier to rubble, and even half of Dunkirk being razed to the ground in air raids. The only thing that can also be used for ships to moor is only an east embankment less than 1,200 meters long, and it is also made of wooden piles and planks, which is very simple, the width can only be up to 8 people at the same time and side by side, only on the sea side there is a concrete pillar, with a lighthouse, there are some wooden piles around the embankment, and the ship can also be moored in an emergency, but the current is relatively fast, and the ship is dangerous when docking.

There are no port facilities or breakwaters along the nearby coastline, and there is a deep-water channel parallel to the shore not far from the coast, which is connected to the Dunkirk port area, but this channel is turbulent and full of reefs, making navigation quite dangerous.

There were three routes from Dunkirk to the UK, the first of which had the shortest range of only forty nautical miles, but it was blocked by German artillery and could not be used. The second route was a little longer, fifty nautical miles, but the British had laid a number of minefields along the route, which would be difficult to clear and unusable for a short time. The only thing that could be used was the third route, which had the longest range, nearly 90 nautical miles, and the entire journey took almost six hours, and although there was no threat of German artillery fire, the danger of the air threat from German aircraft was greatly increased.

On the evening of May 26, the first night of the "Dynamo" program, the first batch of more than 1,000 Allied soldiers, mainly logistics units, left Dunkirk and returned to England thanks to naval efforts. As soon as the retreat began, there could be no more secrets, and the situation was urgent, the British Admiralty began to requisition ships along the coast and along the Thames, and even called on all those who owned ships to go to Dunkirk through the radio, and these shipowners knew very well what the withdrawal of the expeditionary force meant to Britain, so they actively responded to the Admiralty's call, barges, tugboats, cargo ships, passenger ferries, fishing boats, motorboats and even private yachts, all of which went to sea and sailed to Dunkirk. Nearly 1,000 British ships and 200 French, Dutch, and Belgian ships, totaling more than 1,000 ships of various kinds, joined the rescue procession, and they mainly set out from six ports in the south of England, namely Hillness, Magat, Dover, New Haven, Folkestone, and Ramsgout, and returned to Britain after receiving British and French officers and soldiers at Dunkirk.

On 27 May, the Luftwaffe's 3rd and 2nd Air Forces, as well as the 1st Air Force, which consisted entirely of H-2s, launched a massive bombardment of the Dunkirk port area and beaches, dropping a total of 35,000 high-explosive bombs and 30,000 incendiary bombs, and Dunkirk was almost flattened.

The British Air Force flew 200 sorties from the mainland and did its best to cover the boarding points on the beach and the ships on the transport mission, although the British aircraft could not stop the German aircraft from attacking Dunkirk, but they dealt a heavy blow to the German aircraft, and the German 2nd Air Force alone was shot down 23 planes, 64 air crew members were killed and 7 wounded, and the losses exceeded the original ten days combined! Therefore, this day was called "a day of disaster" by the German army. British aircraft lost 11 aircraft.

Churchill also took advantage of the record of shooting down German bombers in the First Air Battle to give a speech: We must be extremely careful not to overshadow this retreat with victory, because the war is not won by retreat. …… The Germans tried desperately to sink thousands of ships laden with warriors on the sea, but they were repulsed, they were defeated, and we will withdraw the soldiers of the expeditionary force intact! …… He stated that Britain would be determined to continue fighting:

Even though the vast lands of Europe and many ancient and famous countries have fallen or may fall into the clutches of the secret police and the criminal organs of Nazi rule, we are unwavering and undeterred.

We will fight to the end. We will fight in France, we will fight at sea and in the oceans, we will fight in the air with more and more confidence and more and more power. We will defend our islands at any cost. We will fight on the beaches, we will fight at the places where the enemy has landed, we will fight in the fields and streets, we will fight in the mountains.

We will not surrender, even if this island or a large part of it is conquered and starved, which I have not believed for a minute, and our Imperial subjects abroad will continue to fight under the armed protection of the British fleet, until the new world, in such time as God thinks fit, with all its strength and power, to save and liberate this old world.

(To be continued)