Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 78: Chaos

Large-scale bombing by the Luftwaffe continued until sunrise in the early morning. Groups of bombers flew slowly towards the French mainland, leaving a burning ruin behind them. www.geiliwx.com

This is an unprecedented air strike in the history of human warfare. The Luftwaffe once again set a historical record. From 9 o’clock in the evening on the 19th to 6 o’clock in the morning the next day, the Luftwaffe has dispatched 2,300 sorties of various types of aircraft to 27 cities, villages and towns along the southern coast of England. As well as the bombing of military bases and ports, the scale and duration of the bombing have caused heavy losses to the target. Not only has it surpassed any previous air strikes by mankind, it has even exceeded the imagination of all air force strategists.

In this air strike, the Germans made full use of air and ground radar systems to monitor the actions of each fleet. The ground command center used radio navigation systems and long-range radio to guide all bombers on the bombing route. The time for the fleet to reach the target is accurate to the minute. In this operation, the Germans showed their paranoia and rigor incisively and vividly. The entire battle was completely digitized. They made a list of every move, and every feint action or surprise attack, each aircraft group’s Entering and leaving, the Luftwaffe's ground command controlled the rhythm of the entire air strike, and played with the Royal Air Force at will.

At the time, no one would have thought that this air strike would directly affect the entire battle of England. The final defeat of the British Empire began on this night.

The Germans have never directly put force on ordinary civilians like this night. Although some civilians have died in previous bombings, they were caused by stray bullets around military targets and were not targeted. Of attacks on ordinary civilians.

This time it’s different. It looks like a massacre against civilian targets. The city centres of more than a dozen cities were reduced to ashes, and several coastal towns were directly erased from the map, causing it overnight. Tens of thousands of civilians died, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. The direct economic loss reached tens of millions of pounds. The indirect losses are even more immeasurable.

The cold-blooded bombing launched by the Germans not only hit the British government severely, but also caused a serious impact on the hearts of ordinary British civilians.

Before this day, the British had only seen the horror of the city being destroyed in newspapers and novels. There has never been such a real look. The morale of the British was high for a time, because in those novels, the brave British faced the gunfire of the evil enemy. They were united to overcome all difficulties and always won the final victory. Justice will always defeat evil, and the Germans are always on the evil side, right.

The Germans did bomb many British coastal targets. But most of them are military targets and airports in the suburbs far away from cities. Occasionally, a few bombs fall into the urban area, blowing up a certain building or collapsing the attic of a certain house. One or a few unlucky people unfortunately become victims Newspapers usually post a blurry photo in the second page or the entertainment page, which becomes a chat for the citizens after dinner. After drinking a glass of whiskey, they can shoot the newspaper and curse the Germans.

London’s East End was once severely hit by German bombers. There were dense factories, workshops, and countless rudimentary houses and shacks. There were mile-long warehouses lined up on the banks of the river, full of production waiting Flour, food, raw silk and weapons and ammunition transported away.

In a residential area. Thousands of poor Londoners live there like mice. A single German bomb can destroy an entire shed. These wood-panel buildings are as easy to burn as matches. Swarms of poor people die like ants in the flames, or are buried or burned to death. The fire brigade and the police are always late. Their job is to water the houses that are not on fire to prevent the flames from spreading to other high-class neighborhoods. Then they wait for the flames to extinguish themselves, and then clean up the victims in the scorched fire. The remains were put into the prepared pulpboard coffin and dragged out of the city to bury them to avoid causing disease.

London ladies and gentlemen stood on high roofs or towers watching the billowing smoke in the East End. While cursing the brutality of the Germans, they admired the magnificence of the fire. They knew that someone was dying there, but who would care about the lives of these rats.

The East End is the black hole of London. Most of the people there are poor people at the bottom of the society, full of thieves, robbers, swindlers, gamblers, either drunks or opium ghosts, people there are illiterate, innocent, cunning, greedy, morally corrupt, without shame, and oppose the government , Contempt for authority, except for mechanical work in a dark factory. Gangs and gangs run rampantly in the dark streets and alleys doing all the shameful illegal businesses. There are dozens of fights or murders in those dark back alleys every day, and a noble gentleman will not live in those areas for an hour.

The disasters in the East End of London are not listed in the fourth page of the newspaper. At most, there is only a rough sketch and a few interviews with the district sheriff, indicating that the fire in a certain block is under control, and the London police are serious about it. , Will protect the lives of every London citizen.

But this time, it was no longer the tiny and dirty rats that were attacked, but the residents of the whole town, regardless of rich or poor, good or bad, good or evil, men and women, old and young, all became Germans Tens of thousands of ordinary people were burned to death, bombed to death, smashed to death, and suffocated to death in just one night. The number of people injured was ten times that. Many people suffered terrible burns, which may not last a week. , Then the death toll will soar exponentially.

The German bombs blew up the roofs of houses, collapsed tall gables, and incendiary bombs ignited entire neighborhoods. Countless people and their accumulated wealth turned into a pile of ashes, and even more people survived. Suffering, they lost their property, house, relatives, career, and job. All that is left is a set of clothes and scars on their bodies. The government organized the first wave of rescue activities in the early morning of the next day. In addition to medical assistance, it also took out some food and clothing reserves. However, based on the huge base of the victims, this was completely stretched, and even tents were even on site. Not enough, the poor people can only sit in the fields leaning against each other.

The news spread like lightning throughout the south. The British really felt the horror of the war for the first time. Most of them felt scared. They could take up weapons and shoot at the German infantry, but they could not stop them. A disaster that fell from the sky. The air force has proved their incompetence with facts. They can no longer defend the British sky. The Germans can attack any British town from the sky without any scruples. Destroy everything they want to destroy, and British civilians can only watch this happen, completely powerless.

So, from noon on the 20th. In the cities of southern England, a terrible wave of refugees suddenly broke out.

The residents of the town brandished their ration cards and pound sterling, searching for all the food, fuel, clothing and daily necessities still on sale in the market. People are either single-door or single-family, or make friends and take all the means of transportation they can find. Carrying all the belongings that can be taken away, they hurriedly began to flee from their city.

On the roads from the southern coast to the northern inland, the fleeing convoys stretched for dozens of kilometers, and a large number of vehicles and people continued to flow out of the villages and towns along the road to gather into this huge migration team. In China, serious congestion occurred in many areas.

Some people piled up all their belongings on top of the vehicles, from pots and pans to fashionable furniture, luggage, food and drink supplies, and piled up a hill, which seriously blocked the sight of vehicles behind, causing There have been many traffic accidents.

On this chaotic road. All class divisions have been blurred. Whether you drive a Rolls Royce or a half-ton Ford, God treats everyone equally, and no one can run faster because of noble.

Many of these fled citizens still carry weapons, and many of them even have military rifles. They were former National Guards.

The bombing of the Germans last night completely destroyed the self-confidence of the self-defense army members. These people have only now discovered that they joined the self-defense army not to defend any government and the king, and they don’t care about the life and death of the king’s family and the fat Churchill. What they care about is their homeland, their property and their families. They join the Self-Defense Forces and take up weapons to protect them. Protect these things that must be guarded and fight the evil Germans who intend to take these treasures to the end.

But now, they find that the development of the situation is not the case at all. The **** facts in the towns that have been destroyed have revealed a terrifying fact that the Germans do not have to land. Just relying on bombing can take away everything you want to protect. Of course, they are not willing to wait and die, carrying their rifles on the seashore cannot withstand the German airstrikes. Being able to stay with my family now seems to be completely lucky. Who can guarantee that the Germans will not launch such a terrorist attack again tonight, and who can guarantee that the next city will not suffer.

Subsequently, another unverifiable news shattered everyone's last expectation, and London issued a notice "Cromwell." Although this phrase was only communicated to the Army, there were many people in the Self-Defense Army who had relationships within the Army. Soon everyone knew about this secret order and the Germans had already begun an invasion.

When the Self-Defense Forces were at a loss, some more terrible rumors came. For example, a German infantry division was landing at Folkestone, the Germans dropped a paratrooper division in Heze, and the German navy was Portsmouth has landed, and the British Army garrison in Dover is fighting the Germans and has suffered heavy losses.

The little morale left in the National Self-Defense Force suddenly disappeared. The Germans have gone ashore, so what is the use of wandering around in these fields? Most of the Self-Defense Forces chose their families in front of their families and the country. Those temporary organizations The company disintegrated on its own. The team members returned home with their own equipment, and then fled north with their families. Everyone had a common idea, the farther away from those cities and villages before the German bombing. The better, go to the north, out of reach of the Luftwaffe and Army.

By 2 pm on the 20th, most of the surviving coastal towns and villages had been turned into empty cities. In the panic wave of escape, the local National Self-Defense Forces all collapsed on their own, and local defense organizations everywhere. Each collapsed, and the organization disappeared. From the officers to the soldiers, they all died down, went back to their homes, and got mixed into the refugees who fled.

The refugees fleeing vast and mighty all the way north, no one along the way dared to blow up roads and bridges, set up roadblocks, and land mines according to London’s orders. This is the way for refugees to escape. Those who do this will be killed. To kill.

When London finally got the news, the refugees had spread throughout the southern road network, and the situation was completely out of control. What makes Churchill vomit blood even more is that the tide of refugees has blocked most of the high-grade highways and blocked the support forces that are moving to the coast, especially the re-formed First Armored Division. Those tanks can only be used from heavy vehicles. The vehicle got up and down, climbed down the road, and walked slowly along the road towards the designated area at a walking speed. The commander said that if it went well, it should be able to reach Folkestone the next morning.

Churchill deduced from the area bombed by the Germans where the Germans might land, which should be in the two seaport cities of Folkestone and Dover, and perhaps a section of the beach between Heizer and Hastings. In this air strike, these areas were attacked extremely violently. The buildings in the city were seriously damaged. A large number of soldiers were killed in the barracks. The proud large-caliber coastal artillery and train artillery were also severely damaged. Strike, the tracks of the coastal train guns were completely destroyed, and they were held alive in the air defense tunnel.

Dover’s coastal artillery position was attacked by incendiary bombs, which detonated the propellant stored in the air-raid shelter. One 380mm heavy artillery was completely destroyed, and the other was lightly injured. Was burned to metal residue on the spot.

The most painful thing for Churchill~IndoMTL.com~ is that the gas bombs he kept in secret warehouses in various coastal towns were all burned in the warehouses. The German army seemed to have super luck. Many of the towns attacked It is a storage point for poisonous gas. Four hundred and fifty tons of mustard gas has become a violent combustion-supporting agent in the fire. This poison will cause a violent explosion when encountering an open flame. These towns are burnt to ashes, and there is no lack of credit for these things.

The strongest one of the killers was actually abandoned by the opponent before the move. At first, Churchill thought that someone might have leaked the secret, but many of the towns targeted by the bombing were ordinary material storage points and weapons depots. He can only think that this may be just a tragic coincidence, and God has not blessed the British Empire.

At the moment, he has nothing to do with the mighty rush of refugees. There are hundreds of thousands of people. He can never order the army to clear the field with weapons. He can only order the troops that are rushing to leave the road, go on other paths or directly cross-country. Must arrive at Dover and Folkestone at midnight on the 20th and enter the scheduled position. At the same time, he ordered the surviving garrison troops around Dover to enter the first level of combat readiness, enter the coastal barrier positions, and strive to delay the first wave of German landings, waiting for reinforcements. Finally, he issued an order to the British navy, and the local fleet immediately prepared to enter the strait and attack all water targets, making sure not to let any German plank drift across the strait. (To be continued.) xh211

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