Chapter 587 Operation Sea Lion IX

"Passed the Strait of Dover? Great!"

No. 73, Wilhelm Street, Berlin, Ministry of Defense Building, Command Meeting Room. Adolf Hitler waved his fist excitedly and was about to say a few inspiring words, but he saw that the faces of several generals in uniform looked a little heavy.

Hitler, a former army corporal who never knew much about military issues, asked: "We only lost 7 ships and 2 torpedo boats to break through the Strait of Dover. This is a good start, right?"

"Yes, a good start." Hersman smiled slightly, "But it's just a beginning... Today is the most critical day of the entire Sea Lion operation. It is expected that the Royal Air Force will launch an air strike on my 5th Fleet and the landing fleet with the greatest force."

"Then can we resist it?" Hitler seemed a little worried.

"Losses are inevitable," Hessman said, "but the British will definitely suffer greater losses, because air battles will inevitably occur over our fleet, and the British pilots who are shot down will either be killed or captured. Today... they may lose 1,000 captains, while our loss is expected to be no more than 200."

We can't be afraid of losses in a war. Since we have decided to rush to the English Channel, we must be prepared to lose aircraft carriers and "missile cruisers"!

At this moment, Hessman's adjutant Stauffenberg walked in quickly, saluted solemnly and elegantly, and then said to Hessman: "The Western Front Headquarters just called, and the radar found that a large number of aircraft flew from England to the waters near Normandy."

Herssman nodded and said to Hitler: "Leader, they are here to die!"

...

The morning mist has dissipated, and the weather over the strait is good. There are a few thin white clouds floating in the low sky. At an altitude of 8,000 meters above the sky, the spring sunshine shines through the clear and bright glass cover to bring warmth to the people in the cabin.

John Randall Daniel held the joystick with both hands, letting the plane fly forward steadily. He turned his head and looked down to the right side of the cabin, and saw a scene that he would never forget for the rest of his life.

This is a large fleet of thousands of planes! In the air below, wherever you can see, there are densely packed, layered, large and small planes flying with a momentum that covers the sky and the sun.

As a "long-lived" pilot who joined the Royal Air Force in 1937 and has been fighting on the front line since the beginning of the World War, Major Daniel saw such a spectacular scene for the first time, and this was also the scene in his dream. It's just that in the dream, he was driving a Mosquito fighter to lead the "Thousand Aircraft Formation" to bomb the German capital of Berlin.

In reality, his destination today is only the waters near Normandy in the middle of the English Channel. The German fleet is there! According to the report of the submarine that risked its life to scout, there are at least 3 battlecruisers and 8 aircraft carriers in the waters near Normandy!

8 aircraft carriers! Now the German navy is so rich that aircraft carriers can attack in batches.

On the other hand, the Royal Navy is getting worse and worse. The enemy has attacked the English Channel, but the Royal Navy's battleships dare not show up. Are they determined to keep the fleet in the Firth of Clyde?

Fortunately, in addition to the Royal Navy, Britain also has the Royal Air Force. Let the Royal Air Force defend the United Kingdom from invasion today! At least there are still many men in the Royal Air Force who are not afraid of death!

Daniel felt sad when he thought of the Royal Air Force fighters who were not afraid of death. He joined the 7th Training Squadron of the Royal Air Force in December 1937. The friends who received training with him at that time were either killed or missing. Only he was left to fight to defend Britain.

What made him even more sad was that as the war continued to deteriorate, the skills of the pilots who had just joined the Royal Air Force's front-line combat units became worse and worse. Many of them went to the front line after only flying for forty or fifty hours. No matter how brave such pilots were, wouldn't they be killed if they met experienced German aces?

He glanced at the densely packed fighters and bombers below, and thought: "There are 1,000 planes, which should be enough to break through the defense of the German fighters..."

"They are coming! At an altitude of 9,000, at 12 o'clock, it is the Fw-190 and an unknown twin-engine model. Daniel, take the 141st Squadron to drive them away."

Daniel heard the order from Colonel Liptrot, the commander of the wing, in his headset. The German planes are coming, and the air battle is about to begin!

...

"Look, planes, so many planes!"

Hearing the shout of Lieutenant Karl Wiesel, Lieutenant Ribbentrop, who was walking on the rear deck, quickly raised the Zeiss telescope he carried with him at all times and looked at the sky in the north.

As his vision became clear, the scene instantly gave him a tingling sensation on his scalp. He saw planes everywhere above and below the thin clouds. Hundreds of planes were entangled together, large and small, single-shot and double-shot, with strings of bullets, thick smoke, explosions, and parachutes like white clouds, forming a magnificent war picture in the sea and sky!

"Enemy planes have broken through! Open fire!"

I don't know who shouted, and then a quadruple 20mm machine gun roared, four strings of flames rolled into the air, and a fire net rain of bullets was shot out. An unknown model of the plane was immediately blown up in the air and turned into a ball of fire!

"Bomb! Starboard!"

"Bomb! Port!"

"Dive bombers spotted! 10 o'clock, altitude 3500!"

In the bridge of the Norwegian Sea amphibious assault ship, people loudly reported the positions of bombs and dive bombers from time to time. The elderly captain Attenborg was personally operating the ship. Under his control, the 18,000-ton amphibious assault ship was as flexible as a torpedo boat, dodging seven or eight bombs falling from high altitudes in a row. The bombs dropped by high-altitude horizontal bombers were not only inaccurate but also easy to dodge, posing limited threats to ships in sailing, but this was just an appetizer prepared by the British for the German fleet.

A dozen SBD dive bombers finally broke through the layers of blockades of German, Italian and French fighters such as Fw-190, Fokker Zero, Bf-109, MC.205 and D.520. Six of them rushed above the Norwegian Sea amphibious assault ship. The British pilots driving the SBDs regarded this amphibious assault ship as a very valuable aircraft carrier and swooped down with a roar. Two of them were quickly turned into fireballs by the Bofors anti-aircraft guns on the Norwegian Sea and a Z-type destroyer escorting the Norwegian Sea, but the other four still dropped 1,000-pound bombs.

"Boom..."

Vice Admiral Paulus, who was watching the battle in the bridge, suddenly felt the floor under his feet suddenly jump twice, making it difficult for him to stand. Just when he wanted to grab something, the two 1,000-pound bombs that had penetrated the flight deck penetrated several very thin decks and finally exploded on the bottom of the Norwegian Sea.

The power of the explosion caused the ship to shake violently, and Paulus fell to the ground hard, and his head hit the hard floor, and he suddenly saw stars. I don't know who pulled him up by the collar, and then yelled at him: "Vice Admiral, can you swim?"

"Yes... but I haven't swam for a long time." Paulus answered subconsciously. He is not a person who likes to exercise particularly. He learned swimming at the Naval Academy.

"Then think about how to swim!" The loud-voiced guy continued, "Because our warship is finished, we have to abandon it now!"

It was only then that Paulus realized that the voice that was talking to him belonged to Attenborg, the captain of the Norwegian Sea.

The Norwegian Sea amphibious assault ship was sunk!

Now Paulus and his division headquarters and the officers and soldiers of the division's direct team had to abandon the ship and jump into the water. More than a thousand people (hundreds were drowned and killed in the explosion, and all the equipment of the division headquarters and the division's direct team was lost) were wearing life jackets and soaking in the oily sea water waiting for rescue. Bombs, planes, parts or a few living people would fall from the sky from time to time.

Looking at the chaotic battlefield at sea, Lieutenant General Paulus, who was soaking in the sea, really missed the clean and comfortable office in Zossen.

When Lieutenant General Paulus, the commander of the 1st Marine Division of the German Navy, fell into the sea, the British ace pilot Major Daniel was also falling into the sea, of course hanging on a parachute. Because his Mosquito was smashed by a twin-engine fighter with 6 or 8 guns - this German plane was so brutal!

But he was lucky enough to jump out of the cabin unscathed and landed safely in the sea. Everything was fine, he was not injured at all. The only thing that made him feel bad was that there were German warships everywhere on the sea. He was going to be caught by the Germans and put in a concentration camp! I don't know if he will be beaten? I heard that the Nazis are very unreasonable...

He was frustrated and thought that when he was about to be captured, he had already fallen into the sea. Then he heard someone ask in German: "What country are you from?"

"I am...hahaha!" Major Daniel looked around and suddenly laughed. It turned out that there were many German officers and soldiers wearing life jackets around him, and there was an aircraft carrier sinking in the distance with a big fire!

"What are you laughing at?" Someone found the British army logo on Major Daniel's clothes and asked in English.

Major Daniel laughed even louder: "Because we are going to win, we sank your aircraft carrier! We won!"

Many of the German officers and soldiers soaking in the sea water could understand English, and they immediately shouted.

"He is a damn Englishman!"

"Beat him!"

"Beat him hard!"