Chapter 110: A Christmas Story in the Three World Wars (6)

ps: The order of the previous chapter is wrong, it should be [Chapter 109, Christmas Story of the Three World Wars (5)], here I revise and apologize. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

When the western tip of Eurasia, where the light of civilization that once shone on the island of Great Britain, is gradually extinguished in hunger, chaos and fighting; At the eastern tip of the Eurasian continent, the people of the Japanese archipelago are also in the midst of death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, and they have ushered in the bloody dawn of a new era.

Late at night on December 24, 1946, Tokyo Bay, Sarushima Fortress

Sarushima, a small island of about five square kilometers, is located at the exit of Tokyo Bay, just over a kilometer away from the bustling street markets on the shore. If you stand in Mikasa Park in Yokosuka, you can see it from afar. It is surrounded by sea water on all sides, and is the only naturally formed island in Tokyo Bay. With its lush greenery, insects and birds, and beautiful beaches, the island is a recreational destination for tourists in another world.

However, in this era, Sarushima was a heavily guarded military stronghold - because Sarushima held the exit from Tokyo Bay, it was the first checkpoint of Tokyo's coastal defense, equivalent to Humen to Guangzhou, Wusong to Shanghai, and Incheon to Seoul. Therefore, as early as the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate ordered the construction of the first modern coastal defense fort in Japanese history on Sarushima Island in order to prevent foreign ships from sailing into Edo Bay (Tokyo Bay).

From the end of the Edo period, Meiji, Taisho to Showa, the successive governments that ruled Japan spared no expense, spent money on building fortifications on the island, placed giant cannons, and finally turned the entire island into a giant warship that could not move, a tunnel made of red bricks winds around the island, and there are small doors in the tunnel leading to a shelter deep in the mountain, with independent generators and deep wells, and the island defenders can store ammunition in the caves in the mountainside. Materials, stationed soldiers, long-term adherence to the war.

However, although the Japanese Empire spent a lot of money and overcame many technical difficulties to build the fortress in order to defend the capital Tokyo, the fortress never played a positive role in any war until the capital Tokyo was reduced to a wasteland.

On the contrary, when the fortress of Sarushima ushered in its first offensive and defensive battles, it became the last stronghold of foreign invaders in Japan......

-- The acrid smoke of gunpowder filled the sea breeze, and the rumbling sound of cannon echoed on the surface of the sea...... Large and small craters have blown up the island to the ground. The dense vegetation that once covered the entire island had been burned to the point that only charred wooden stakes remained. On the beach, which is constantly being beaten by the waves, there are also mutilated corpses everywhere. In the shallow waters around the island, you can also see the wreckage of a bombed-up amphibious tank and landing craft. But despite this, a tattered Star-Spangled Banner blackened by gunpowder smoke and pierced by bullets still fluttered in the wind over the fortress of Sarushima.

When the calendar turned to December, after the Soviets who were "anxious for justice and justice" threw 12 atomic bombs on their heads, the more than 300,000 Allied troops defending the Boso Peninsula had collapsed, and the vast majority of the officers and soldiers who had not been killed surrendered one after another in a state of despair. As for the rest, they wandered about like lonely ghosts, or hid in some desolate and unobtrusive melancho, unable to form an organized resistance. Of course, the Japanese army that regained the lost ground was also very afraid of nuclear radiation, and did not dare to go deep into the area near the center of the explosion in a short time, which invisibly gave the Allied stragglers a certain breathing space. But no matter how long these small remnants of the defeated Allied forces can survive in the ruins and barren mountains of nuclear contamination, it is completely meaningless for the current grand Third World War.

However, this did not mean that the gunfire on the Japanese battlefield had completely subsided - although it was true that the Allied forces on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture had collapsed and no longer posed a threat, and the Allied forces in other places had already withdrawn on their own initiative before that, and even the commander-in-chief, General Patton, had fled by submarine. However, in late December, about 7,000 Australian troops remained at the fortress of Sarushima, located at the entrance to Tokyo Bay, and continued to resist stubbornly. Since the fortress of Sarushima is a key strategic position at the exit of Tokyo Bay, if this nail is not removed, ships entering Tokyo Bay from the open sea risk being shelled, and it is really impossible to ignore it. Therefore, after the failure of throwing leaflets and broadcasting to persuade the defenders of Sarushima to surrender, the Japanese army's wartime base camp launched the "last battle to recover the mainland" against Sarushima, but unexpectedly, it was repeatedly defeated, broken and sunk, and it was difficult to get down for a while!

Unlike the low-lying coral islands in the Pacific Ocean, Sarushima, which guards the exit from Tokyo Bay, is hilly, and the entire island is fortified, and instead of an airstrip, it is full of artillery fortifications, and even a permanent fortification of Gibraltar of the same strength!

As a result, the wartime base camp of the Japanese army exerted the strength of the native fleet, dispatched four light and heavy cruisers and nine destroyers, and carried out a continuous artillery bombardment of the fortress of Sarushima for two days and nights, and also dispatched a large number of bombers to bomb this fortified island more than 1,000 sorties before and after, causing the surface of the island to be torn out and burned with bricks and earth. However, this fortress island, which the Japanese Empire spent a lot of money to build, is indeed worthy of this huge amount of work, and it is as hard as a walnut in the face of the indiscriminate bombardment of aircraft and naval guns. Even though every inch of the island had been ploughed by artillery fire, and craters could be stepped on with every step, not a single tree of the slightest decentness was still alive - the endless flames of artillery fire, like volcanic lava, rampaged through the whole island to the ground. However, the Australians who were hiding in the tunnel fortifications survived and resisted desperately.

The Japanese marines, who were ordered to seize the island, made three attempts to forcibly storm the beach and land on Sarushima, but they were all repulsed by the Allied forces who were defending the island, and as many as 2,000 people were killed and wounded. Even the Japanese fleet, which provided fire cover for the landing force, had two destroyers and one heavy cruiser sunk by the Allied-controlled Sarushima Battery, two destroyers were hit by heavy guns, and two landing ships were damaged by mines and exploded and sank.

In this way, this coastal defense fortress built by the Japanese Empire to defend the capital has become the biggest obstacle to the complete recovery of the land by the Japanese army.

After three failed attempts to land on Sarushima, the Japanese had to temporarily abandon the idea of a quick victory, and only sent warships to cruise around the fortress, shelling a few shells from time to time, but due to the insufficient caliber of the ship's guns and the fragility of the hull itself, they suffered a great loss in the confrontation with the fortress's coastal defense guns -- all the battleships of the Japanese Navy were not on the mainland at present, and the only heavy cruiser had been sunk by the defenders of the fortress.

Therefore, several Japanese destroyers and light cruisers, which had been urgently transferred to take charge of the attack on Sarushima, had to linger outside the range of the fortress guns, occasionally approaching to fire a few shots, and then quickly retracted like cats touching red hot coals.

At the same time, Japanese planes continued to carry out bombing missions, blowing up new craters on Sarushima, which was already riddled with holes.

The Japanese Army on the shore also found a position where they could see the fortress of Sarushima, and set up artillery of various calibers on the seashore to carry out saturation shelling of Sarushima Island day and night - after all, the island is only a little more than a kilometer from the sea, and even mortars can hit it.

Moreover, it is a fixed target on land, and the target is still so big, if it fails to hit again, then the entire artillery group can apologize.

Although the Australian artillery in the fort was equally ruthless in their counterattacks, blowing up the Japanese Army's artillery positions in Yokosuka several times in a row, the Japanese now had an absolute advantage on the battlefield, and no matter how much artillery and ammunition were lost, they could quickly regroup again.

As a result, shells of various calibers and weights of bombs roared repeatedly on such a small island of only five square kilometers, playing an uncoordinated, but absolutely murderous symphony of war. After half a month of continuous shelling and bombardment, the topography of Sarushima has been seriously changed, and when you look down from the air, there are dense craters everywhere, and the counterattack of shore artillery is getting weaker and weaker, and several batteries have been muted one after another.

However, despite this, in the midst of the stormy shelling and bombardment of the Japanese army, the underground fortifications of the fortress of Sarushima, which cost a lot of money, withstood the test and were generally unharmed. At present, the thousands of Australian officers and soldiers who are hiding in the underground shelter of the Sarushima fortress are also patiently hiding in the tunnels, ready to start a new fight with the Japanese at any time. Although they all knew clearly that there was no hope of victory for them now, and it was only a matter of time before they were destroyed, they still fought with such fanaticism and high morale.

Because these remnants of the country are no longer fighting for victory, but in pursuit of a vigorous death and destruction!

These Australians now know that their homeland of Australia has now become Japanese land. The cruel samurai of the Yamato nation are just like the white people massacring the natives back then, and they are collectively exterminating the white Australians like pests, and even if they surrender, they will be homeless, and even in danger of being cleaned up on the spot. Even their spiritual homeland, Britain, has now been wiped out in the mushroom cloud of nuclear explosions.

-- The huge contrast between the four years of trekking through mountains and rivers, sacrificing life and death, enduring countless hardships and paying tragic sacrifices, only to lose everything is a huge contrast that these self-proclaimed iron-blooded Australians cannot bear at all: the home that needs to be guarded by themselves already belongs to someone else, and the relatives who are waiting for their return to reunite are dead. In that case, what's the point of living? Like a dog, kneeling in front of Japanese elves and licking their shoes, begging each other to leave them a way to live? The cowards who are willing to do so have long since fled from this desperate island. The rest are hard bones who would rather die than give in, and they only want to get a heroic death and live up to their name as warriors.

The Japanese and Soviets, who were enemies of them, also "generously" fulfilled their wishes......

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Today is Christmas Eve, and I don't know if it's because the Japanese are also celebrating Christmas, the enemy ships that had been wandering in the nearby sea have disappeared since noon, and the Japanese artillery on the shore has also stopped bombarding the fortress of Sarushima, and there is no trace of Japanese planes overhead.

In this way, in the confusion of the officers and soldiers guarding the island, for the first time since the start of the war, the fortress of Sarushima ushered in a peaceful day.

As the sun sets and night falls, the fortress of Sarushima, which has remained silent during the day and looks like an uninhabited island, finally begins to become noisy. One after another, many dirty Australian soldiers came out of various parts of the island, and then collapsed on the beach with no energy at all - after all these days of hard fighting, their clothes were about to turn into pieces of cloth, and their eyes were sunken, exhausted, numb, and dull, and they only wanted to come out and look at the night sky and the stars, and breathe a few breaths of fresh air.

After all, life in the underground tunnels is really difficult, in such a small space, there are so many people crowded, and there is no ventilation at all, the air is turbid, and it is as dull as the bilge of a slave ship, and some people even suffocated to death in it because of poor breathing. Not to mention the suffocation of a rush hour train train, and listening to the enemy's shells fall overhead like hailstones, shaking off a puff of dirt and rubble...... Many of the hapless Australian soldiers were sealed underground along with the bombed-out dugouts, dying in extreme pain: suffocating breath, chest and lungs under tremendous pressure, bulging eyeballs, and the last thing they saw was darkness - the deep cavern both protected them and buried them at the end.

Even those soldiers who survived, after staying in the tunnels for so long, were all gray and unkempt, like mummies that had just been dug up from graves, and the only hope in their hearts was to go out and breathe fresh air, even if they stepped on an unexploded bomb and died.

Therefore, seeing that the enemy seemed to be temporarily away and the battlefield had calmed down, these Australians, who had been forced to burrow for many days, could not wait to go out to breathe and look at the sky. Even if you can't see the blue sky and white clouds, and you can't bask in the sun, it's good to be able to see the starry sky a few times in the evening breeze.

Fortunately, the weather in Tokyo Bay was good tonight, and in the clear night sky, I saw a group of bright stars, and thousands of stars formed a milky white Milky Way, which crossed the middle sky, scattering a crystal soft light, reflecting on the rough sea, dancing up and down with the waves, and disappearing from time to time...... In the sound of the waves, the fresh and cold sea breeze blows in the face, dispelling the gunpowder smoke and corpse stench that originally permeated the island, making people feel refreshed.

Previously, under the enemy's artillery bombardment day and night, a considerable number of Australian officers and soldiers in the fortress of Sarushima had not seen the starry sky for a long time. Initially, they just lay quietly on the beach or on the mound, silently looking at the sea and the starry sky, taking a big breath of fresh air, doing nothing, thinking about nothing...... After a while, some Australians seemed to have had enough of resting and began to light cigarettes and smoke cigarettes, or whisper to each other. Then someone remembered that today's ...... Seem...... It seems like...... Is it Christmas?

And it's likely to be their last Christmas!

As a result, the night of the island became more and more noisy, and the soldiers, who had already given up on themselves, became more and more agitated, and no longer disregarded the constraints of military discipline, they directly looted the food storage of the fortress, took out all kinds of canned food, salted meat, biscuits, sweets, and wine, and had a picnic on the spot under the starlight, eating and drinking - anyway, the island had enough food to eat for at least half a year, and this fortress could not be held for another two months.

All of a sudden, the sweet tooth stuffs chocolate candy in their mouths, the savory ones pry open cans of luncheon meat and ham and eggs, and the drunkards reach for bottles full of whiskey and brandy, and drunken Christmas carols in their mouths.

After they had eaten and drunk, they seemed to wake up suddenly, and suddenly realized the preciousness of life, some remembered their relatives, some remembered the pastures of their hometown in Australia, the rabbits everywhere, and the desert with kangaroos bouncing...... It's a pity that none of this belongs to them anymore, the southern continent discovered by Captain Cook, which was once occupied by the Anglo-Saxon peoples for more than a hundred years, is now forced to spit out of their mouths.

After so many years of dealing with the Japanese, all the Australian officers and soldiers on the battlefield had no illusions about the benevolence of the Japanese conquerors. These yellow-skinned dwarfs will only slaughter or deport the white Australians mercilessly, just as the Yankees exterminated the Indians......

So, they soon fell down again and continued to eat and drink, as if intending to imply to themselves with overeating, that death and destruction were still some time away from them, and that the joy of life was not far away...... However, the war is closer to them!

-- As soon as the morning light rose from the edge of the sky, the ominous sound of the engine came from the end of the horizon. The Australian soldiers, who had been frolicking all night, were also very responsive to this, and hurriedly drilled into the tunnel, making the beachhead, which had been full of people a moment before, empty again. Only a few sentinels ventured to remain in camouflaged posts, observing the enemy in the sky and sea...... However, what they never expected was that in order to congratulate them on the last Christmas in their lives, the Soviets would send such a super large Christmas gift!

First, an unimaginable blazing light lit up in the fortress of Sarushima in an instant, making the sentries on the island who couldn't avoid only feel a sharp pain in their eyes, and then, before they could react, the high temperature and blazing heat that accompanied the strong light of this nuclear explosion directly vaporized their entire body - in the deadly light and heat radiation and shock waves, all the bones, muscles, nerves, and skin of the whole body of those who were directly hit at close range were quickly roasted and burned as if they had entered a microwave oven. Eventually, it is burned into an inorganic substance that resembles charcoal and tree roots.

At the same time, if you look down from the sky, you can see an incomparably bright huge fireball, rising in the sky above the Sarushima Fortress, gradually rising to a height of more than 400 meters, turning into a tumbling crimson cloud of flames, and finally forming a huge fire cloud in the shape of a mushroom. All kinds of deadly rays, particles, nuclear dust storms, and shock waves, accompanied by terrifying loud noises and shock waves, swept away in all directions. In an instant, it swept across the entire Sarushima Island. It was really thunderous and overwhelming, like an autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, violently destroying everything in its path. All the surface fortifications, camouflage posts, artillery forts, and docks were blown by the blast wave of the nuclear explosion like autumn leaves.

-- In order to "help" Australians celebrate this Christmas, the Soviets sent an atomic bomb as a Christmas present......

At this point, with the complete destruction of the Sarushima fortress under the atomic bomb, the war on the Japanese archipelago finally died down and the dust settled.

Over the course of more than a year, the 2.7 million Allied forces that landed on the Japanese archipelago ended in total annihilation. The Japanese, who succeeded in recovering their homeland, also paid the tragic price of the country's major cities being basically reduced to ruins, and 26 million soldiers and civilians dying in the war.

However, while any country can wage war, only the true victor can end it - even if the Japanese have halved the population, the war is far from over, and death and destruction continue, even ...... Growing! (To be continued.) )