Chapter 568: Strait Battle
China's aid to Britain was not just lip service, and the speed of action was also very astonishing; China quickly took out the three escort aircraft carriers that had been mothballed, the Yangwei, Zhenhai, and Guangyi, and at the same time selected one from among the newly launched escort aircraft carriers, and selected a number of old warships, carrying 100 anti-submarine aircraft, to form a powerful aircraft carrier formation, and the crew and pilots were all sent by China.
In addition, China has organized 20 large cargo ships carrying medicines and munitions urgently needed by Britain to go south to the Strait of Malacca, and according to the plan, Britain's Far East Fleet will send a large number of warships to escort this batch of vital weapons through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar to the British Isles.
Aircraft carriers and anti-submarine aircraft ships will only join the Atlantic route as soon as possible to help Britain deal with the German Seawolves, freeing the British aircraft carriers and being able to concentrate all their efforts on dealing with Germany.
Churchill initially hoped that the greatest support would come from the United States, but unfortunately the American political system dictated that they could not act decisively, and so far Roosevelt could only get the United States to provide Britain with more food, steel and other materials.
Although these supplies were important, what Britain needed more now was direct arms aid and a way to quickly confront Germany, and the British knew very well that the next decision was a matter of months, and if Britain could not withstand the first German attack, they would be doomed.
Although China opened its mouth at such a juncture, it still came up with real material and at an astonishing speed, so that Churchill had a clearer understanding that dealing with dictators is far easier than dealing with democracies, and that a single sentence can often decide major matters without procrastination.
This may also be the reason why the West, which later flaunted freedom and democracy, supported a large number of dictators. However, the situation in the UK at this time is definitely not good. Ten days after the start of the war, the Anglo-French army was besieged at Dunkirk. There is a danger of destruction at any time, the British can not care about the lives of the French, but they cannot care about the lives of their own people, these hundreds of thousands of people are the essence of the British army. If they were all wiped out by Hitler, Britain would lose most of its ability to resist.
Therefore, Churchill gave the death order, and all forces must be mobilized to rescue all the trapped people. The British were not very optimistic at first, and they conservatively estimated that they could only save 30,000 men, but the German army seemed to hesitate and made a strange stop, which made everyone feel inexplicable.
"The Germans are starting to make mistakes, and they are all evil, it seems that Hitler has not learned the art of war well!"
When Qiao Yu first visited Germany, he once gave Hitler a translation of Sun Tzu's Art of War, and it is said that Hitler liked it very much and always read it before going to bed. Jiang Baili said this at this time, it was just a joke. Some things are just talk, Qiao Yu absolutely did not believe that Hitler would really study the Chinese art of war, it was just a friendly rhetoric.
"The attack on France went so smoothly that Germany was already on a dizzying high ground, and as the so-called high ground was too cold, Hitler began to make stupid moves, and perhaps their mistakes would continue one after another, and finally they would fail completely......"
This time Qiao Yu really wronged Hitler, he didn't want to let go of the British, the problem was the air force, because the German attack was too fast, and the air force airfields had no time to be renovated, so the army and air force were disconnected, and the armored troops without air force support were very vulnerable.
Therefore, Hitler out of his preference for his own armored forces, in addition, Paris in France has not yet been captured, and the German side believes that there may be a big war next, so in order to preserve its strength, it slowed down the attack, and Goering repeatedly assured that the German air force will soon be able to dispatch and completely destroy the British army, but as Göring promised in the past, it is very unreliable.
Beginning on May 20, the British frantically withdrew their troops from Dunkirk, filling the English Channel with countless ships, and this retreat lost its concealment from the beginning.
When the German reconnaissance planes discovered the British attempt, they immediately reported to the commander, Hitler got the news, he was furious, of course he knew the terrible consequences of the tiger's return to the mountains, and immediately ordered the storming of Dunkirk, at the same time the air force must also be dispatched, a large number of bombers, fighters were sent to the front line, and the British ships and ports were bombed overwhelmingly.
At this time, Britain also tried its best to resist the German attack, the Royal Air Force fought hard, it can be said that from the beginning of the war to the present, this is the most desperate time for Britain, perhaps they also know that if they don't fight hard, there is only a dead end, and the British army shows a very tenacious style under the threat of death.
The dynamo plan was well underway, and the shipwrecks withdrew towards the British Isles, the soldiers were already in disarray, they had abandoned all their heavy equipment, and many of them did not even have guns, and Churchill knew very well that the British with their bare hands could not resist the fierce German army.
Therefore, in addition to directing the operation of the generator, he also made a request to China, hoping that China could provide suitable weapons, including tanks, armored vehicles, coastal defense artillery, field artillery, heavy machine guns, submachine guns, rifles, and other materials, in addition to a large number of anti-aircraft weapons.
This time, the British put forward a very simple request, that is, to be durable, simple to operate, easy to maintain, the British in India with Chandra for many years, has a considerable understanding of Chinese weapons, Chinese weapons have no outstanding indicators, such as shooting accuracy, range, power and so on are not special.
But Chinese weapons have found the most important balance between power, operability and productivity, allowing relatively low-quality soldiers to exert maximum combat effectiveness, and Britain has trained colonial troops for many years and has a fairly deep understanding of the rationale.
Now that Britain was about to face a German invasion, what they needed was to quickly build up a sizable force to protect the British Isles, and everything else was secondary.
This request is also in Qiao Yu's arms, China rushed to come up with the Lend-Lease bill, but it is not to compete with the Americans for the name of internationalism, what China needs is real interests, for many years China has been focusing on the development of armaments, the arsenal has been frequently updated, there is a large amount of surplus arms.
If it can't be consumed, it can only be slowly turned into scrap metal, and as the war progresses, a large number of new weapons will emerge, and selling them to Britain now is definitely the best option.
Of course, in line with the principle of never suffering losses, when Qiao Yu agreed to the British request, he also put forward a new request, that is, China should provide training for the British army in Burma to help them quickly become familiar with Chinese weapons.
This seems to be a very reasonable request, there is a big difference between Chinese and British weapons, training is necessary, and China cannot easily send a large number of advisers to the UK, so let the British troops in India be trained first, and then they will return to China and bring the learned technology back to the UK.
Anyway, in order to defend the British Isles, these people have to be transferred back to Britain, although the Far East still needs Germany's ally Japan, but after all, Japan has not launched an invasion, and under the watchful eyes of the two major powers of China and the United States, Britain has no room for interference, and it is a very correct choice to transfer all the main forces back to the mainland.
However, through the fair and honest reasons, behind it is a robbery with open fire, and China is going to take over the land of Myanmar!
You must know that Chandra is still making trouble in the UK, and Myanmar is also one of his base camps, isn't it even more difficult to train the British army here, and if you want to do this, you must first restore law and order, so who can restore law and order, it is obvious that China needs to take action.
As long as Britain is British, the Chinese army can enter the long-coveted Burma region with dignity, as long as the Chandra forces are eliminated, this is China's territory, what a shrewd figure Churchill can see through China's intentions at a glance, but can he refuse?
At this time, the generator plan had been carried out to the fifth day, more than 100,000 British troops withdrew from the European continent, Churchill did not dare to relax in the slightest, the German army in the first two days after hesitation, quickly resumed the fierce attack, every day over Dunkirk had to withstand tens of thousands of bombs, in addition to German submarines also frequently entered the English Channel, launched attacks on the British fleet, dozens of ships sank every day.
Britain was able to afford these losses, and what really frightened the British was whether the German aircraft carriers would appear in the Strait.
In fact, the British fears were very reasonable, the Tirpitz was fatally attacked by the Swordfish plane, and the damage was so heavy that it took half a year to repair, while the Bismarck's injuries were not serious, except that a piece of the left deck was missing, and some equipment was out of order.
Hitler had already ordered the shipyard to repair the Bismarck as soon as possible, and the sooner the better, Dönitz was also very eager for the aircraft carrier to appear on the battlefield against France, so he personally ran to the shipyard to supervise the work, the Germans did not take conventional repair methods at this time, but demanded speed first.
They first repaired the hull to ensure that the deck could be used normally, then transferred the pilots of the Tirpitz to fill the gaps, and finally they began to repair the problems inside the warship, and it only took half a month before and after to miraculously restore most of the Bismarck's combat effectiveness.
When Dönitz saw this, he couldn't wait to ask Hitler for battle, believing that as long as the Bismarck could appear on the English Channel, it would cut off the British retreat route and trap the remaining British troops on the mainland.
At this time, Hitler already had an almost superstitious feeling about the aircraft carrier, and he immediately agreed to Dönitz's request, and the Bismarck was once again put on the battlefield, and under the protection of the escort ships, it swept towards the English Channel! (To be continued.) )