145. Dunkirk 29 II
On May 29, 1940, the British army learned from the experience of the past three days and took many measures to speed up the boarding speed, in order to overcome the tide level difference of up to 4 to 5 meters, all the wooden planks, wooden beams, and even the wooden goalposts of the goal were used as temporary springboards, and the British army also sank trucks one by one on the beach as a temporary trestle extending into the sea. Li Guang scoffed at the brains of the British, and only now remembered it.
This is the same as the role of the Navy's temporary docks, but these temporary passages cannot support heavy artillery or tanks at all. However, the British thought of this idea late, which was not a good thing for Li Guang - the eight landing craft had not had time to load weapons and ammunition.
The British civilian ships had been day and night on this day, which showed that the situation on the periphery was unfavorable to the coalition forces. It has been three or four days since the rescue, and Li Guang has not seen the commander of the Anglo-French forces so far, except for a few commanders and liaison officers on the British naval side. Colonel Tennant could only look at the advance speed of the German army every day, and saw that the blocking position was shrinking back, and the British and French forces seemed to have no counterattack except for the dead shoulder, and the tactics were indeed dull enough.
The fog covered everything, and German fighters could not bomb at all. During the period when there was no air threat, the British held on tightly, a large number of civilian ships accumulated in Dunkirk, and the retreat in the dense fog was quite smooth. The eight landing craft of the Maritime Resistance Force were unable to find a single free space to transport weapons and ammunition.
The weather on the 29th was the same as on the 28th, but the fog was shorter.
Towards noon, the weather began to clear, and the Luftwaffe attacked in a big way, with the posture of making up for the losses of several days. Although it was not their own war, the feeling of this war atmosphere was no less than the experience of going to the battlefield in person, not to mention that the intensity of this air battle exceeded that of any air battle on the Chinese battlefield.
The first sortie of German fighters exceeded a hundred, of which the proportion of fighters was quite high. The arrival of British fighters on the battlefield was still timely enough, but the losses were heavy in absolute numbers.
Due to the desperate efforts of the British Air Force, the German bombers have not been able to accurately bomb ground targets, and although the explosions on the battlefield are loud, the casualties for the British and French forces are not large. There were hardly any bombs falling on the beach where the Navy's troops were located, and the Navy's fighters followed the British soldiers to learn anti-aircraft skills.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, there was a hole in the defense of the British Air Force, and at this moment, the German fighters were ten times more numerous than the British. Under the repeated blows of the Luftwaffe, the British Air Force could no longer support it. The skies over the battlefield became the world of German fighters.
The German fighters, who had taken a good opportunity, naturally wanted to find the most valuable targets, so that the British warships and ships on the sea were unlucky.
On this day, the German fighters achieved brilliant results, sinking 3 destroyers and 21 ships, including 5 large ferries, and severely damaging 7 destroyers, forcing the British retreat commander, Vice Admiral Ramsay, to transfer the 8 most advanced destroyers participating in the retreat back to the mainland, so as to avoid the loss of these new warships and affect the future operation against the German invasion of the British mainland.
This is also the British Navy, if it were another country, the loss of so many warships and ferries would be at the level of a war to destroy the country. Li Guang has few words to describe the battle on the 29th day except for smacking his lips. Britain is really wealthy, and you must know that the total number of surface ships of the Naval Resistance Force so far is only six.
From the fact that the British evacuated eight of the most advanced destroyers, it can also be seen that sinking three destroyers and seriously damaging seven destroyers is also an unbearable pain for the British, otherwise the escort and air defense will be weakened at such a critical juncture of retreat. No matter what the generals of any country, they would not give such an order lightly.
In war, human lives have a price. From the evacuation of eight destroyers from the British, it is clear that the British top brass would rather lose thousands of land forces than preserve their strength. It is cruel to say, but for a general or political leader, the starting point of choice is naked-naked utilitarianism.
Of course, Li Guang's choice was more utilitarian, not to mention two big ships, and even eight landing craft were far away. In this battle, the fighters of the Naval Resistance Army learned a very crucial combat skill, the air defense of warships, not only relying on weapons, but also taking advantage of the weather. British battleships took refuge in cloudy waters after a hole in their air defense.
Although the eight landing craft were not battleships and were not the focus of the German fighters, they also hid under the clouds.
Although this kind of combat technique seems simple, in the early days of World War II, it was the experience that the British exchanged for blood, sweat and warships. The heritage of the British Imperial Navy cannot be underestimated, and Li Guang has a deep understanding of this.
In the afternoon, the military of the Maritime Resistance broke out, and not even a single German fighter plane appeared around the Liberty Wheel.
The situation outside Dunkirk is noticeably more critical. On land, a large number of French troops and French civilians retreated into the Dunkirk defensive ring, and the roads were congested with all kinds of vehicles.
The German offensive became more and more intense, and the area controlled by the British and French forces was shrinking. By evening, German ground artillery fire had reached the beach, the east embankment and the fairway. Although the British army suffered heavy losses, the speed of the retreat was greatly increased because a large number of civilian ships joined the retreat.
It was an eccentric "armada" with brightly colored French fishing boats, tourist boats carrying passengers, maintenance boats, tugboats, small escort boats, minesweepers, trawlers, destroyers, British air rescue boats, radar sentry boats.
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 covered in sea water and rain, and they were hungry in the bone-chilling wind...... This strange flotilla was bombarded by artillery fire, unarmed and unescorted, but the brave people faced the rain of bullets and gunpowder smoke, and moved forward nimbly on the surface of the sunken ship, knowing that hell lay ahead, and they were not afraid.
At the critical moment of life and death for the country and the nation, these British people showed an amazing courage. There are many complaints and quarrels about the impending tragedy. They lashed out at the incompetence and [***] of the upper echelons, scolding and driving their own jobs, but still fearlessly plunged into the danger of evacuating the troops.
There were ships requisitioned by political axes in this fleet, but more often than not, people who spontaneously went to pick up the troops. The British political axe paid these men three pounds per sailor for one trip. But the vast majority of them were not registered, did not receive orders, and were completely spontaneous.
Li Guang was amazed in the face of such a huge scene. The heritage of the British Empire cannot be underestimated, with so many civilian ships, that is to say, so many seafarers, which is beyond the reach of the traditional continental country - China. It was easy to recruit a fleet of seamen in Britain, but it was difficult for the naval resistance to gather enough strength for a battleship.
In this situation, it was difficult for Li Guang to open his mouth and the landing craft would only transport troops for three guano boats. Although the simple wharf built by the Maritime Resistance Army can now bear the load, there is no time to transport weapons and equipment.
But the action of picking up the rubbish did not stop for a moment. When the tattered kings of the Maritime Resistance Army began to move again, twenty-four small tanks dragged the supplies blocking the roads on the outskirts of the beach. This move was praised by the top brass of the Anglo-French coalition forces.
How did they know that this was Yuan Mao, a little trickster, and Qin Zhan, a stupid boldness, that the search range had been expanded to eight kilometers away, and that they had once again discovered a heavy artillery group close to the German offensive vanguard. The reason why the armored company worked so hard to clear the road was to carry supplies.
The artillery was collected a lot for the Naval Resistance Army, but the heavy artillery group they found this time was a real group, not a collection of them one by one like the previous two days.
Among them, only 36 155-mm howitzers of the Naide 1917 model were built. This is an old cannon invented during World War I, but the surname can be good. Although the technology was not advanced in World War II, the total weight was only 1245 kg, the bullet weighed 43.5 kg, and the range was 11.5 km. Its biggest advantage is only one - light. Extremely suitable for infantry use.
Howitzer of the MK-1 type, British howitzer. Caliber 4.5 in (115 mm) thirty-six doors. Made for the 1930 year, the total combat weight is 7264 kg, the shells weigh 25 kg, and the maximum firing range is 19 km. This is a more or less medium-caliber cannon. After all, the howitzer weighs more than six inches, and in addition to the poor range, the power is far enough compared to the six-inch shell. But it's not bad artillery anyway.
Sixteen French heavy howitzers, caliber 6 inches (152 mm), this howitzer is inferior to the German 150 howitzer, but it is lightweight, not only powerful on the battlefield, but also easy to transfer. The total combat weight was 4,204 kilograms, the shells weighed 39-45.4 kilograms, the muzzle velocity of the shells was 430 meters, and the maximum firing range was 10.4 kilometers.
Sixteen French heavy cannons were also found in the 1917 type, which was a heavy cannon capable of bombing Calais, and Li Guang attached the most importance to it.
These more than 100 guns are estimated to be the strategic arms group of the British and French forces, but they are stuck in the quagmire around Dunkirk and cannot move.
The value of these more than 100 guns is simply immeasurable. In the whole of China, there were less than 200 cannons of 105mm caliber or more in 40.
This is an extremely important material for Li Guang, for the Naval Resistance Army, and for China.
For this batch of artillery, Li Guang sent the most powerful general Huang Zhonghua to take charge of the command.
The German attack was not fierce in this direction, and it was not easy to transfer artillery in this direction, and the German tanks naturally avoided this area.
In order to drag these heavy artillery out of the quagmire, Huang Zhonghua commanded five or six small Polish tanks to tow one door. The Naval Resistance Army was extremely well prepared, and each small tank had a few wire ropes, and these heavy guns were gradually transferred to hard ground in the middle of the night.
It was not until the early hours of the morning that these heavy guns were dragged to the sea. At a distance of several kilometers, more than 500 people worked all night. However, the work did not end there, and the fighters found hundreds of truckloads of artillery shells and artillery tools during the towing process.
These gun scopes, artillery tools, and artillery communication equipment are all very valuable things. For example, the simplest six-fold military telescope is more expensive than a rifle in this era. It can be said that with these materials, the Naval Resistance Army will be more than enough even to build a heavy artillery division.
With so many cannons, relying on the pitiful production capacity on the Statue Island, there are simply not enough shells. Under the command of Huang Zhonghua, the fighters worked in succession. Not only the tools of artillery, but even the shells were transported to the beach.
During the day on the 29th, the German offensive was thwarted by heavy fog and light rain.
On this day, the Naval Resistance Army was almost braving the rain of bullets to transfer shells. For this batch of shells, not only these fighters were in action, but all the other fighters, except for the anti-aircraft gunners on the ship, joined the transport.
In one day and one night, thousands of tons of shells, hundreds of heavy guns, all were transported to the seashore. On this day, however, the number of British civilian ships reached its peak.
Very depressed, Li Guang couldn't find time to transport artillery and ammunition.
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