Chapter 324: The Great Retreat from Dunkirk (1) Bombing
At the same time that the German mechanized units inexplicably stopped attacking, on the north side of the English Channel, some government employees lined up with pen and paper to go to the docks to recruit private fishing boats or yachts.
But when they arrived at the dock, what they saw was an empty and smooth scene, and the usually lively and crowded dock had no ship today.
"God, this ...... What's going on? How do we answer if asked? Did all the ships of the British Empire swallow up the sea? ”
No one answered the questions of the government employees, because these private fishing boats and cruise ships had been requisitioned by the Dragons and the Razors Gang at an early stage, and they were not able to give orders, and they were all headed for Dunkirk on the north coast of France.
"Brave the wind and waves~~~ Pick up our brave boys~~ This defeat does not mean that we have admitted defeat, on the contrary, retracting our fists is to strike more powerfully, and we will never admit defeat!"
On a private fishing boat with a sudden motor, an old gentleman rolled up his sleeves, rode the wind and waves, shouting and singing, while around him, more and more private fishing boats and cruise ships joined in, dense like ants on the sea, converging into a torrent.
Standing on the deck of a luxury cruise ship, Tommy Shelby wears a newsboy hat and a dark gray waistcoat over a white shirt, even when he goes to sea to fight, he still does not forget to be elegant.
Under Zhou Yu's operation, the Razor Party had already borrowed all the fishing boats through private means, and after receiving the signal from the other side, he immediately organized people to start assembling to the south.
This time the task was extremely difficult, not only to risk a German submarine attack, but also to face a blow from the sky.
After a while, the buzzing sound came from far and near, Tommy raised his head and looked into the air, only to see the dense black dots from small to large, until the outline of the plane appeared, he shouted: "Enemy plane~~~~ Everyone is ready to fight~~~!" ”
At his command, all the boats of the fishing boats and cruise ships were removed from the machine guns specially designed for air defense, and they were operated by specially trained gang members, adjusted their crosshairs, fixed their bullets, and made all preparations.
The buzzing sound grew louder and louder, and at first there were only the outlines of a dozen aircraft, and in a few moments it became dozens.
The Germans also made great efforts this time, with more than 100 bombers coming in the air alone, and more than 30 fighters of various types escorting them.
Some of them flew to the beaches of Dunkirk to slaughter the Anglo-French troops waiting for rescue, while the other part went north to patrol the sea and sink troop carriers without reporting them.
"Damn, come on! Don't look at us as civilian ships and don't take us seriously! ”
On land, German Army Group A had received orders to reoffensive, and the panzer and infantry divisions continued to advance in the direction of Tournecazar and Dunkirk, but it would take at least twelve hours for the tanks of the 19th Army to be launched, and Guderian could only order his motorized infantry regiment, the Greater German Infantry Regiment, and the SS Guard Banner Infantry Regiment to attack Burburg and Vatten respectively.
The terrain near Fort Bul was difficult, crisscrossed with ditches, and a heavy rain soaked the road like a swamp, which slowed down the pace of the mobile troops.
Corporal Chauhan's party was ordered to drive to Waten in the south and engage the defenders there in a fierce battle.
"Ping Pong Ping Pong ~"
On the edge of a jungle, Chauhan's squad encountered the local French army, and immediately drew their guns and fired at each other, each with each side causing damage, and soon the encounter turned into a positional battle, with both sides using the terrain to fortify their forts and try their best to kill the enemy on the opposite side as much as possible.
Chauhan emptied his magazine again, hiding behind a tree and scrambling to change the bullets, but next to him, a soldier of the SS machine gun team, armed with an MG 26 light machine gun, rushed out screaming as if possessed by a god.
Qiao Han noticed that the clothes he was wearing were the first time he had seen them, and they were actually camouflage uniforms.
"The warriors of the empire~~rush~~ for the Führer~~!"
The soldiers of the SS machine-gun company were very heroic, they used their fire superiority to suppress the front, and Johan was slapped by the company commander and hurriedly followed. Defend the flanks of the brave young SS men from encirclement.
Soon, the French troops encountered on the opposite side began to retreat, and there was no obstacle in front of them.
But just when Qiao Han wanted to rest behind the tree, he suddenly heard a deafening explosion in the air.
When he looked up, he saw an airplane turn into a burning fireball, emitting a long trail of black smoke like a tail, and slanting towards the ground.
When they saw that it was a British plane that had been shot down, all the soldiers whistled with their guns and shouted at the sky.
But soon another plane with a black choking tail in tow crashed not far from them, this time it was their German plane.
The cheering movements of the soldiers all stopped, and the smiles froze on their faces, and after a while, the thin clouds in the sky dissipated, and they finally saw that there were many fighter jets crisscrossed and entangled above the clouds, and from below they all seemed to have collided, and there were planes facing each other in one fell swoop, leaving two rows of unbearable guns on each other.
If you are lucky, you can return and make a forced landing, and if you are unlucky, you will be hit by a fuel tank or engine, and you will either fall first and explode, or you will explode and then fall.
German planes and Anglo-French rescue fighters scuffled together, spitting out bullets in straight lines, intertwined and even left no room to fly.
As for the port of Dunkirk, on the first day of the bombing alone, the Germans sent the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 8th air air forces, with a total of 225 bomber sorties and 75 sorties of "Stuka", dropping 350 tons of bombs.
Dunkirk's port facilities were devastated, with seven harbor pools, an eight-kilometre wharf, and 47 hectares of dockyards and warehouses in ruins.
In the second wave of German bombardment, the 54th Bomber Wing sank an 8,033-ton French steamboat "Aden" on the east embankment, and the other wings also destroyed the city of Dunkirk and the St. Pol oil refinery, turning large areas of the vicinity into a sea of fire.
The entire city of Dunkirk was shrouded in thick black smoke, and the 3,500-meter-high column of smoke even became a signpost for both the offensive and defensive sides to determine the direction.
Civilians who could not flee were killed or wounded in the bombing, and the number of dead and wounded should have exceeded 1,000.
However, not only in the air, but also in the sea, the retreat of the Anglo-French forces at sea was difficult.
After the Germans captured Calais, their heavy artillery could even directly bombard Allied ships sailing along the coast of Calais.
On the same day, one of the British troop carriers involved in the retreat was sunk off the coast of Calais and three others were damaged, and the rest of the ships had to turn around and abandon the shortest retreat route, which was close to the coast of Calais.