Chapter 140: Drain The Royal Navy And Air Force Dry Here
As the “Magnificent” truly lived up to her “magnificent” name, Major General Horace Hood was completely dumbfounded.
Two Bellerophon-class battleships were thus scrapped—one wrecked and exploded, sinking—the Channel Fleet’s hard-earned new elite warships were completely wiped out.
Just half a year ago, the Channel Fleet could only use pre-dreadnoughts, without even a single battleship.
It was only later, due to the Battle of Dunkirk where pre-dreadnoughts suffered too many losses and weren’t enough anymore, that Naval Minister Walton, Your Excellency, signed off with a flourish, allocating a batch of relatively older, slower battleships to the Channel Fleet to ensure the blockade of the Strait.
That’s how the Bellerophon-class and Dreadnought joined. Today, Bellerophon is deployed in Portsmouth, while Dreadnought is undergoing simple repairs in Southampton, not in Dover.
The Germanians essentially bombed and sank both battleships anchored in Dover today across the sea.
And the nightmare was far from over.
The entire attack lasted only about 20 minutes, leaving the Germanians with at least 40 minutes of stationary targets to hit, plus over an hour of moving targets.
While the two battleships were focused and detonated, the railway gun group also scored several successes.
Five 380mm railway guns focused on the King Edward VII-class pre-dreadnought Dominion in Folkestone Anchorage, and after 40 minutes of continuous bombardment, hit her with six shells, completely sinking her.
Fifteen 280mm railway guns first focused on the Formidable-class pre-dreadnought Prince of Wales in Folkestone Anchorage, sinking her in just 15 minutes.
They then split up to massacre the other auxiliary ships in Folkestone Anchorage, ultimately sinking the British Navy’s last remaining Minotaur-class armored cruiser before the anchorage evacuation—that one with four 240mm guns, the “armored cruiser pinnacle/half-step pre-dreadnought.”
The coastal defense gun group didn’t idle after sinking the two battleships either; they shifted targets to expand gains, sinking one Duncan-class pre-dreadnought Exmouth and the Devonshire-class armored cruiser Roxburgh in the hour before the enemy ships evacuated.
Plus the Chatham-class light cruisers Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, and nine destroyers.
Coincidentally, the patrol light cruiser squadron deployed and anchored in Dover Port that day happened to be the four Chatham-class light cruisers named after Australian cities, and they were also all the warships in the British Royal Navy named after Australian place names.
Some of these ships were built in Australia, like Brisbane; the rest were built with fiscal revenues contributed by this dominion Australia to the mother country, hence the naming.
After this battle, the Royal Navy’s Australian elements were inadvertently wiped out; Australia’s years of bootlicking contributions to the mother country’s navy were swept clean.
In the end, the two-hour bombardment operation at Dover Port and Folkestone Anchorage sank/destroyed two battleships, three pre-dreadnoughts, two armored cruisers, four light cruisers, and nine destroyers—a historic epic victory of one-sided slaughter!
Most crucially, the Britannia Royal Navy didn’t even have a chance to fight back; the Germania Navy and railway gun unit had zero casualties in this battle.
The Germania Army air units did suffer minor casualties—the last hour or so of the battle saw Dover Port and British rear combat reconnaissance aircraft charging toward the Strait like they were free, trying to interfere with German reconnaissance aircraft and airships’ spotting.
Originally, British fighters didn’t dare to play away games, proactively flying across the sea to the south bank of the Strait; they only dared to turtle on home soil.
But today they were forced into away games, just to interfere with the enemy and reduce fleet losses.
Britain even urgently flew all usable aircraft from London, first 100 km to Dover, and without time to land and refuel in Dover, directly onward to Calais.
Thus, British aircraft had to fly at least 130 km to reach the battlefield, while the operational radius of aircraft at the time was generally only about 200 km（ Of course, after combat, British aircraft didn’t need to fly back to London; they could land nearby in Dover, saving 100 km of return flight）
British aircraft flying so far for the mission would inevitably have reduced combat effectiveness and poor loiter time.
Moreover, Britain’s air weapons were currently in a “about to solve the gun synchronizer but not yet solved” last-step state.
If this battle had been delayed by one or two months, to September, Britain’s air units might have closed the technical gap on “mounting machine guns straight ahead to avoid machine gun bullets hitting the propeller.”
But now they just hadn’t achieved it. The air units had planned to hold low and play it safe for these two months, keeping a low profile until the technical bottleneck was broken before going wild.
The Navy’s blunder forced the air unit unable to hold back any longer, compelled to throw eggs at rocks.
Thus, the sky over the Dover-Calais Strait turned into a slaughterhouse on the morning of July 28.
A scaled-down “Battle of Britannia” played out twenty-some years early, but with home and away fields swapped.
The Germania side was fully prepared; air unit commander Colonel Immelmann had long gotten word from Lelouch and Keitel, knowing that once coastal defense guns and railway guns opened fire, enemy combat reconnaissance swarms might come like bees after a disturbed hive for revenge.
So Colonel Immelmann had waited rested, assembling as many squadrons as he could early, and had ground crew prepare ample fuel, ammunition, and parts in advance.
Colonel Immelmann personally led, using Albatros D.III fighters and Fokker fighters to spread a big net, waiting for enemy planes to crash into it.
Because elite pilots might be short-handed, before the action, Colonel Immelmann specially visited the rear hospital treating pilots, to see if any wounded had recovered well enough for early discharge to fight.
In the end, he found over a dozen pilots including Manfred von Richthofen, all wounded in the Lviv campaign three months ago, all fit to return; he pulled them all back.
Richthofen Baron was originally supposed to fly with Immelmann’s old partner Lieutenant Colonel Boelcke; Boelcke was now with the 6th Army Group on the Romanian front. But with light Eastern Front air tasks now, Immelmann pulled Eastern Front recovered pilots to the Western Front to fill in, promising to send them back after this air battle.
The recovered pilots including Richthofen Baron were all eager to go, everyone wanting to strive for merits.
……
At 6:50 a.m., the Britannians’ first wave of aircraft attacked—32 in total, eight 4-plane squads, likely all aviation power from Dover Port base.
Colonel Immelmann personally flew an Albatros D.III fighter, leading 40 subordinates into the air to intercept—not only crushing the enemy in quality and piloting skill, but also holding a numerical advantage.
Richthofen Baron also flew a Fokker fighter, fighting fiercely amid the swarm.
As the enemy swarm charged, Richthofen inwardly held his breath: he already knew that Lieutenant Student, who flew with him in the Lviv campaign, was now a Captain, possibly soon to be promoted to Major.
Because on his first combat sortie, he downed four enemy planes! And later merited repeatedly, already an ace pilot!
While he was still a Lieutenant! Because on his first sortie he only downed two enemy planes, then was struck by an enemy plane and crashed, lying in hospital for three months.
His peers from back then had downed 10 while he had only 2—who wouldn’t be anxious?
Fortunately, during these three months in hospital, Richthofen Baron had smoothed many edges and reflected on many details. This rebirth from the cocoon, he was confident he’d reclaim his glory.
“Rat-tat-tat~ rat-tat-tat~” two air-cooled machine guns spat fierce tongues of fire straight ahead, every roll-in precisely flanking to the enemy tail.
As the killing began, Richthofen was the second in the team to score a kill—the first enemy plane was personally downed by Colonel Immelmann leading the charge, and the second fell to Richthofen.
The other comrades also opened their scores; for a time, over the Strait of Calais, British planes fell like turkeys.
Richthofen felt blood rush to his head, yet senses sharp as if divinely aided, diving into the enemy swarm time and again, latching onto one for mad output, shredding it with bullet chains into fragments.
A small half of comrades had just gotten one kill, another small half hadn’t even scored yet, and the battle ended.
Post-flight tally showed even Supreme Commander Colonel Immelmann and a few pilots had only downed two each.
Yet an obscure young baron lieutenant downed three in one go!
“Hey! Lieutenant Richthofen! Congrats, you downed three! Heard you also got two at Tarnuv—you’re an ace now!”
While drinking coffee and eating snacks during the break after landing, Colonel Immelmann smilingly gave him the ace pilot badge, patting his shoulder in encouragement. Nearby comrades tossed him in the air and caught him, cheering casually.
“Thanks, sir! I’ll work twice as hard!”
The tea break soon ended, because less than half an hour later, a larger second wave from London appeared across the Strait.
The squadrons that had just landed to refuel and rearm were forced to scramble again.
Because it was interior lines combat, defending just a small airspace, all German planes didn’t need much fuel—tanks filled two-thirds full, saving dozens of kilos of weight to carry two thousand extra machine gun bullets.
Richthofen flew his Fokker fighter with cockpit nearly piled full of bullet chains, wobbling back into the air. His aggressive loadout left comrades dumbfounded.
“Britannian dogs, die!” Richthofen no longer conserved ammo; he knew heavier loads meant fierce long-range fire first—originally closing to under 200 meters to ring the enemy in sights before firing, now head-on from 300-400 meters.
Bullets poured out like water, unsparing. Right off, several long bursts splashed 500-600 rounds to down the first enemy.
This natural long-range head-on barrage new tactic inspired comrades to mimic untaught. For a time, ammo-rich German planes scored kills on helpless British ones during distant head-on shoots—
Britannian planes still unsolved forward-firing; they relied on two-seater rear machine guns to counter, so zero firepower head-on.
Before engagement, over a dozen British planes trailed flames and smoke, plummeting—morale utterly collapsed.
Yet German planes had ample machine gun bullets, this pre-engagement volley not hurting their staying power.
Colonel Immelmann, Richthofen, and others weaved and slaughtered, in bloody battle; three scrambles in two hours, downing who-knows-how-many enemy planes.
Finally, with Dover Port’s enemy fleet fully evacuated and unwilling to linger, the opposite air force quieted, no more suicidal interference.
Post-battle tally: Britannians lost 200 combat reconnaissance planes! Nearly draining the entire London air defense circle here!
Germania Air Force, rested interior lines, lost only 11 planes and seven pilots. Parachuted pilots, near Calais under German control, were all recovered.
Britannians lost over 200 pilots and 200 rear gunners—over 400 air elites dead, none returning alive.
After all, battlefield on Calais side, no friendlies to rescue downed pilots; Britain’s southern air elites were meat-grinded dry here, at least half its veteran pilots lost, air force backbone snapped.
The most thrilled was Richthofen Baron: three scrambles today—first three kills, later two with more ammo, six then four—but last only four because enemies wiped, no more to kill, though plane still had over 800 machine gun bullets left unfired.
On July 28, Lieutenant Richthofen set a 13-kill daily record; plus his two from early May on Eastern Front, career total jumped to 15, entering Germania pilots’ top 20.
By contrast, father of air combat and this unit’s Supreme Commander Colonel Max Immelmann had only 31 total, army-wide No. 2—but after nearly a year of air war.（ Current No. 1 is fighter unit commander transferred to Eastern Front, Lieutenant Colonel Oswald Boelcke, at 33）
At this rate, rising star Richthofen Baron would soon catch up.
By nine a.m., sea and air battles fully ended.
Inside and outside Dover Port, wreckage still spewed thick smoke and fire, telling this defeat’s brutality.
The railway gun unit was ordered back by 4th Army Group Commander Duke of Württemberg, withdrawing rearward to avoid Frankish raids.
Only the immovable eight coastal defense armored turrets, idle, began bombarding Dover Port’s docks, unescaped civilian and merchant ships, shipyards, repair yards, warehouses, even large cranes.
Half a day more bombardment turned all Dover Port and Folkestone Anchorage storage, port facilities, military buildings to ruins; dozens more civilian and merchant ships destroyed.
Channel Fleet’s two small fuel depots in dock area blown by heavy armor-piercing shells, hundreds of thousands tons fuel leaked, burning everywhere.
Smoke pillars rose, black smoke visible from 100 km away in London.
This multi-battlefield sea-air campaign finally curtained.
——
PS: Tonight I’ll post a chapter author’s note with remaining fleets and scales for each navy. As a data recap, posted as author’s note—free.
