Chapter 73: Airborne Seizure Of Dunkirk Fortress Battery
February 17th, 4:30 a.m.
As the sounds of guns and cannons from the assault in Dunkirk City gradually subsided, the British Army officers and soldiers who had fought fiercely for most of the night finally breathed a slight sigh of relief.
In the basement of a large church near the port area, Lieutenant General Edmund Allenby of the Belgian Expeditionary Force 4th Corps, his eyes bloodshot, finally extinguished his cigar, and the oppressive atmosphere in the city defense headquarters gradually dissipated.
A month ago, Lieutenant General Allenby was still the corps commander of the expeditionary force cavalry corps. But now, the cavalry corps had been reduced to just one division’s establishment, the other two divisions had vanished, and there was no need to retain the army-level establishment.
But Lieutenant General Allenby’s personal performance was still commendable; his operations were extremely decisive and brave. With manpower in short supply now, Commander-in-Chief Marshal French temporarily transferred him to be the corps commander of the newly formed 4th Corps, allowing him to continue commanding the defensive battle.
“Are those Germanians crazy? They attacked so fiercely tonight; five street blocks in West City have already fallen. They couldn’t provide precise artillery fire support in night combat, so this kind of hard charge was completely disregarding losses!”
After hearing that the front line wasn’t that strained, the staff officers finally had time to complain about the enemy, and the representative among them was Colonel Rolf, Allenby’s chief of staff.
Another nameless staff officer nearby couldn’t help but chime in: “Maybe they’re relying on how effective their flamethrower soldiers are at purging urban buildings. Damn it, if only the Empire’s soldiers were that brave, willing to charge forward with weapons that can only spray dozens of meters while under machine gun fire, and finally spray fuel into the enemy’s buildings!”
This remark resonated with everyone; from Lieutenant General Allenby to Colonel Rolf, they all couldn’t help but nod inwardly, feeling a surge of frustration at their own troops’ inadequacy.
The flamethrower isn’t actually hard to make. Historically, during the war, the British Army later copied flamethrowers too, but throughout the entire war, they couldn’t organize even a single flamethrower assault offensive. The flamethrowers they produced were all defensive types, used as flamethrower bunkers. Meanwhile, the German Army launched over 600 flamethrower assaults during the entire war.
But this wasn’t because the British Army or French Army lacked the technical capability; it was because frontline soldiers were also afraid of death and refused to serve as flamethrower soldiers. Any mention of organizing flamethrower troops would easily cause unrest in morale.
Especially since both sides knew the horrific fate of being approached by flamethrower soldiers and how close their range was, on the battlefield, as soon as a flamethrower soldier was spotted, everyone would frantically concentrate fire and sweep them, fearing they would get close.
Only armies with even stricter military discipline could form such high-risk special units on an organized scale.
However, these matters weren’t something frontline generals could influence. After venting a few complaints, the group quickly shifted the topic to prospects for the subsequent battle situation.
Because after 4 a.m., the German Army suddenly slowed their offensive, this unusual action sparked many guesses among the staff of the British 4th Corps.
“What do you think? Why did the Germanians end their offensive early? If it’s because of the pre-dreadnoughts and shallow-water heavy gunboats that appeared these past two days shelling from close range, making them afraid to attack in daylight, then they should intensify and attack until 6 or 7 a.m., stopping only after dawn.” Chief of Staff Colonel Rolf couldn’t help but raise this question.
The group of staff officers chattered about this issue for a long time but didn’t get to the point.
Finally, Lieutenant General Allenby couldn’t stand it anymore and personally tapped the table with half a cigar: “Can’t you understand this? It’s most likely that the enemy knows they’ll face our fierce supplementary bombardment after dawn, so they stop two hours early, hurry to build frontline fortifications, find suitable cover, and switch to defense on the spot.
For so many days before, our army has been passively defending, pushed forward by the enemy one or two street blocks at a time every day, and we never counterattacked. The enemy has overlooked deepening and strengthening the frontline positions. Yesterday we suddenly counterattacked with super heavy firepower, and they took a loss, so of course they’ll learn their lesson!”
With the corps commander speaking personally, the staff officers felt somewhat ashamed. Thinking along this line, it seemed reasonable. Especially since it came from the corps commander, even if it originally had only seven parts reason, in the staff officers’ mouths, it grew to ten.
So for a moment, flattery flowed like a tide; everyone acted as if they had the conclusion in advance and were proving it, elaborately substantiating Lieutenant General Allenby’s view in various ways.
Lieutenant General Allenby had just said it offhand, but after being tired for so long, one’s mental defenses inevitably slacken.
Even though he wasn’t usually one to love hearing flattery from subordinates, in such extreme fatigue, hearing it couldn’t help but make him feel pleased.
The entire British Army command echelon made no further speculation about the German Army ending their offensive before dawn, deeming it entirely reasonable.
The defending officers and soldiers, exhausted after most of the night, finally couldn’t withstand the fatigue and mostly fell into deep sleep. Only the on-duty sentries remained vigilant; fire observation posts everywhere were still trying to gather battlefield information as much as possible, but everyone else had basically relaxed.
……
Just as most British Army officers and soldiers were utterly exhausted and starting to sleep, in the sky over the southern suburbs of Dunkirk City, dozens of massive black shadows finally appeared quietly.
Airships have another advantage over airplanes: they are relatively silent.
Their engines only need to push the airship forward slowly, without providing lift. Their relatively slow speed also means no wind-breaking noise during flight.
Currently, no night navigation technology has been invented, and the airships aren’t equipped with high-precision gyroscopes; they rely on high-precision compasses and other lateral equipment to roughly set a course.
In theory, long-distance night flight would seriously accumulate errors and cause deviation.
But for tonight’s operation, these issues didn’t matter, because the strike point was only 80 to 90 kilometers from the final target point—already very close.
These airships had been secretly transferred from the rear to Armantieres the previous day, landing before nightfall. Then from after dark until before 3 a.m., the airship crews were all sleeping and resting well, and the airships were refueling and maintaining. They took off again just after 3 a.m.
Moreover, because they arrived before nightfall and took off again before dawn, the entire operational plan didn’t use radio communications to notify, ensuring absolute secrecy in their movements. Neither the British Army nor the French Army noticed the German Army Airship Force’s movements in time.
Everything was planned very meticulously.
At 5 a.m., when the lead airship was 30 kilometers from the front line and 40 kilometers from the Dunkirk forts, the navigator on the airship could already clearly see the great fires in the areas of Fort Rohan on the north side of the port area and Fort Malraux on the south side.
The entire Dunkirk urban area had the biggest fires there—this was exactly the afterglow left by their own railway guns bombarding with incendiary bombs, guiding the airships.
Being able to see the target directly meant they flew straight to it, so there were no night flight navigation or error issues at all.
Being able to see the target with the naked eye is the best and most precise navigation.
The airships flew another 20-plus kilometers, now only about 10 kilometers from the target. The flames on the ground were gradually being extinguished, making the airships lose obvious reference points, but fortunately the distance was already very close; once extinguished, it didn’t matter—they couldn’t deviate anymore.
Moreover, time had passed 5:30 and was approaching 6 a.m.; the first rays of dawn from the east were about to appear. Once it was dimly light, visibility issues wouldn’t matter.
Soon, these 42 airships quietly approached through the darkness, arriving directly above Fort Rohan on the high ground south of the port and Fort Malraux on the high ground north of the port.
When the war first broke out, Germania Army airships were generally not very large, around 140 meters in length, with the mainstream model being the L7 type.
It wasn’t until the mid-to-late war, due to the enemy’s strengthened anti-aircraft fire, that airships needed higher ceilings, greater range, and bomb loads, leading to airships being built up to nearly 200 meters long.
For current early-type airships, the theoretical long-range effective payload is just over 2 tons; later types can reach 6 to 8 tons. But this figure is only for “flying high over the strait to bomb Britannia homeland and fly back.”
In reality, if willing to shorten endurance by carrying less fuel and flying at lower altitudes（low-altitude air density is high, buoyancy is greater）, it’s possible to triple the effective payload of early airships.
For today’s battle, since endurance didn’t need consideration and flight altitude was kept at 2000 to 3000 meters, they could ultimately squeeze out 7 tons of payload for paratroopers and ammunition.
One airship could carry 60 fully armed paratroopers, plus several flamethrowers and large quantities of grenades.
Or carry 6 tons of aerial bombs and incendiary bombs for precise assault bombing of the target area right before the paratroopers assaulted.
On January 19th a month ago, the German Army used airships to bomb Britannia homeland across the strait for the first time, but only bombed a port near the east coast, not daring to go deep inland, and faced no anti-aircraft fire retaliation at all.
Even now, the British Army has no ground anti-aircraft fire.
Originally in history, this situation would last until May of this year; only after the German Army began bombing London did Britannia have to rush-produce a batch of 37 mm 1-pounder guns, and the next year 40 mm 2-pounder “ping-pong guns,” finally having initial ground anti-aircraft high guns.
So currently, airships flying over enemy-occupied areas are still absolutely safe. The only concern is the rare large twin-seat reconnaissance aircraft temporarily fitted with heavy machine guns—
However, today’s batch of airships were all packed with paratroopers armed with submachine guns; enemy large reconnaissance aircraft would be taught a lesson by 40 submachine guns firing together unless they stayed 300 or 400 meters away to shoot, otherwise daring to get closer.
“We’ve arrived over the target area! No enemy alerts detected, but we seem to be a bit early; about 10 minutes or maybe 15 until sunrise, temporarily uncertain.”
On the airship, a group of commanders and drivers were noisily busy adjusting for the sudden error.
“Then lower altitude, hover for parachute drop from 1000 meters… no, from 800 meters! Ensure they can see the drop point even in darkness, don’t land in the wrong spot!”
“Bomber airships, concentrate bombing two minutes before the parachute airships release paratroopers! Dump bombs at maximum speed, then immediately parachute! Don’t give the enemy reaction time!”
Dropping bombs too late risks friendly fire on the descending paratroopers, but too early gives the enemy time to reinforce defenses, possibly even alerting them to send reinforcements quickly. Dumping all bombs within 2 minutes is just right.
Soon, 6 bomber airships and 36 paratrooper airships were in position.
In the darkness, 2 airships carrying heavy bombs first dropped 3 2000 kg special aerial bombs each on suspected fort connecting tunnel positions.
The other 4 circled small loops like sowing salt, pushing out 50 kg small bombs one per second downward within 2 minutes. These bombs were just to destroy the enemy’s surface fire points, kill peripheral guards, and block peripheral enemy reinforcements.
The two forts below each consisted of 3 twin 340 mm armored turrets, plus numerous 240 mm coastal defense guns and 140 mm secondary guns（French 138 mm, which French Army light cruisers also favored for main guns, and battleships for secondary guns）
Between each fort’s 3 340 mm armored turrets were extremely sturdy concrete connecting tunnels that even battleship main guns couldn’t penetrate the covering layer.
But against 2000 kg aerial bombs, especially since aerial bombs have a much higher explosive fill ratio than artillery shells—one bomb equivalent to about a ton of TNT. Unfortunately, the drop height wasn’t very high, so the bombs didn’t get enough gravity acceleration time for super high armor-piercing initial velocity.
With a muffled “thud-boom!”, the super heavyweight aerial bombs slammed straight 2 meters into the loose soil, then half a meter into the reinforced concrete roof; only then did the fuze complete, followed by a massive roar, flipping the top off the entire concrete passage connecting the giant turrets.
Inside the tunnel, in the area at least 200 meters from the explosion point, any French sailors present were instantly shattered internally by the enormous confined overpressure, none surviving.
In open environments, blast pressure might not be so lethal to the human body since energy dissipates in all directions. But in a confined tunnel, with no other vent, the pressure forms super high pressure along the tunnel, able to cause vomiting blood and internal injuries even hundreds of meters away.
The French sailors guarding the forts below quickly fell into chaos; they didn’t even know how to respond to this sudden change.
“Start parachuting immediately! Hurry!”
The 36 paratrooper airships in the air had reduced speed to the minimum; soldiers resolutely jumped down one after another. The airships’ slow speed made parachute jumping much easier than from airplanes, without worrying about too wide a dispersal area.
Moreover, airship cabins could open on both sides, allowing jumps from both, doubling the simultaneous dispatch rate.
From 800 meters in the air, groups of soldiers deep-breathed as they plummeted rapidly; everyone was extremely tense.
Major Rommel, Captain Model, Lieutenant Dieter—all were among the parachuting ranks.
All instructions had been given; now it was up to each individual’s performance.
Rommel silently recited the operating rules in his mind; for an 800-meter drop, it takes about 10 seconds to reach 500 meters, with minimum parachute opening height between 300 and 400 meters. He counted to 12 in his head, twisted his wrist forcefully to glance at the second hand, then yanked the parachute ripcord.
He didn’t know he’d opened slightly early; when fully deployed, he was still 420 to 430 meters from the ground, but it didn’t matter—not worth worrying over those dozens of meters of early opening.
The French sailors on the ground hadn’t organized resistance yet; most soldiers hadn’t even spotted the paratroopers—only two or three out of a hundred thought to fire upward in time.
Scattered Berthier 92 rifle shots rang out sporadically for two or three minutes, gradually becoming denser. But their effectiveness was limited to just those two or three minutes.
As the “da-da-da” of MP15 submachine guns rang out densely, the Berthier 92 rifles were quickly suppressed.
“Quickly seize the main turrets along the tunnels! Then seize the secondary gun positions and fort command posts! Charge straight in from the breach opened by the heavy bombs!”
After landing, Rommel also waved for soldiers to rush into the breach from the airship’s 2000 kg aerial bomb, charging along the tunnel inside; even Rommel himself carried an MP15 submachine gun, occasionally sweeping toward the other side of the tunnel.
The oncoming submachine gun barrage was extremely advantageous in the tunnel; the parachute assault team pressed forward fiercely, tossing dense grenade barrages around corners to clear the way, then sweeping with submachine guns after turning.
Soon, Fort Rohan and Marloye Ban Fortress each had at least one twin 340 mm armored turret seized by the parachute assault team.
The parachute assault team showed no sign of slowing, continuing to charge madly onward.
Like injecting medicine into a vein, it would naturally flow through every capillary in the limbs and body, until traversing every vein in the fortress.
