Chapter 76: Mission Accomplished, Promoted To Lieutenant Colonel
“Battalion Commander, look! Friendly forces are about to break through the port area! It must be Major Lelouch coming to link up with us!”
At dusk, after enduring a bloody battle of holding out for most of the day, Rommel and Model finally saw the edge of the dock area position in the southwest, where German Assault Teams charged wildly, breaking through layer after layer of British Army defense zones, about to reach right in front of them.
The more than one thousand surviving submachine gunners holding out in Fort Malraux and Fort Rohan finally had their morale greatly boosted.
Although many had light wounds on their bodies, and a whole day of fierce fighting had long exhausted them. But seeing friendly forces charging over from a high vantage point, knowing that as long as they linked up they could win, everyone in their hearts burst forth with unprecedented courage and perseverance.
The ANZAC Corps rabble besieging the forts suddenly seemed even less of a threat.
The “da-da-da” sound of submachine gun fire continued incessantly on the forts, sweeping back wave after wave of enemies.
In the distance, Lelouch and Bock’s assault teams, along with the main force division behind them, had already broken through most of the blocking enemies, and in the final stage they charged even faster.
Even Lelouch himself was surprised, wondering why it got easier the further they fought.
It was only after he captured a batch of collapsing and surrendering prisoners during the assault that he figured it all out:
It turned out that the line-filling troops placed at the rear, blocking the port area forts, were the South Asian Bombay Division.
These troops composed of Indians naturally collapsed extremely quickly when facing the German Army’s latest assault tactics that were like mad tigers.
Countless Indian soldiers, upon seeing German soldiers wearing gas masks charging out of the smoke, acted as if they had seen demons, completely losing their will to fight.
“This… this is breaking through already? Major Lelouch is too strong, I thought we were strong enough, but I didn’t expect Major Lelouch to come up with a new trick?”
At the commanding height of Fort Rohan, Model held the telescope with trembling hands, watching friendly forces finally charge right up to them, and he couldn’t help but get excited too.
“Brothers, give it one more push! Drive those Aussies back! Link up with Major Lelouch!”
“Charge! Victory! Victory!”
The morale of the defenders on Fort Rohan was sky-high; after repelling the last wave of attacking Australian soldiers, they surprisingly jumped out of the tunnels and launched a counter-charge.
Several hundred submachine gunners charged from above, like tigers descending the mountain, sweeping fire while advancing. They killed the completely unprepared Australian soldiers into a daze, and in the chaos, they surrendered in droves, hands on heads, collapsing completely.
On the other side, Lelouch also led his team to break through the last few layers of Indian Soldiers’ defense zones, and both sides tacitly ceased fire to avoid friendly fire.
“Brothers, come up quick! All light machine gun teams into the tunnels! There are still enemies to the northwest, we’ll defend in the tunnels!”
Model’s soldiers shouted as they received their comrades carrying rifles, light machine guns, and grenade launchers, climbing up the fort together and drilling into the solid tunnel defense fortifications.
At this point in the battle, the overall situation was completely decided; the British Army could no longer turn the tables and retake the port area.
Half an hour later, Major Bock’s side also completely purged the north side of the port area, then smoothly linked up with Rommel’s troops.
Night had fallen, but the continuous German Army main force surged into these two coastal defense fortresses through the passage torn open in a single day, thoroughly consolidating the situation.
This was the commanding height of the entire Dunkirk, with fortress guns, and the surrounding urban area was completely under fire coverage.
The British Army defending the city was not annihilated; a portion of the British Army was cut off and blocked in the northwest urban area of the city, separated from the other main forces.
The defenders on the southeast side of the city were forced to retreat east across the border river between France and Belgium, withdrawing to De Panne town to continue defending. With the border river as a barrier, the German Army did not immediately cross the river to pursue, and they had no need to pursue.
（Note: Dunkirk City is located on the Franco-Belgian border, and the border river between the two countries flows into the North Sea east of Dunkirk City.）
……
“Major Lelouch! Your stratagem is truly miraculous! We seized two such important fortresses with just two thousand men! And we sank 2 pre-dreadnoughts and 4 shallow-water heavy cannon ships left by the enemy in the port! We even captured a batch of Frankish small boats!”
“You broke through the British Army’s city defenses and linked up with us in just one day—it’s simply a miracle! How did you advance 8 kilometers in a day? This was in the city.”
Lelouch, submachine gun slung over his shoulder, dusty and weary as he just drilled into the tunnel, was immediately hugged by Captain Model, who excitedly boasted of his achievements while expressing admiration.
“Nothing special, I just adapted on the fly, combining flamethrower soldier tactics with smoke grenade tactics. The enemy had never seen this new trick and was scared off by me.
Of course, the main reason was you seizing the forts and bombarding the enemy from behind, causing them extreme chaos. It seems the enemy’s morale was much lower than our pre-war estimates! We overestimated those Indians and Australians!”
Lelouch confidently reviewed and summarized, without any pride or arrogance, purely discussing the facts.
This humble attitude of not claiming credit made Model admire him even more, already becoming an absolute loyal little fanboy to Major Lelouch—well, “fanboy” isn’t quite right, because in terms of age, Model was actually a year older than Lelouch.
“So what do we do next? Since we’ve broken through the enemy lines ahead of schedule and achieved link-up, do we need to change the operational plan?” Model hurriedly asked humbly.
Lelouch immediately rejected: “No need to rush the offensive! Don’t think about quickly annihilating the enemy; just consolidate the current positions and preserve our living forces. Offensive battles incur heavy casualties; today, to break through the enemy’s positions and link up with you in the chaos, our army’s total casualties are several thousand, right.
And that’s based on our clever use of smoke grenades with flamethrower soldiers, so if we can fight a defensive battle, we must! Now that the coastal defense fortresses are in our hands, and the port too, the enemy should be the ones in a hurry, not us!
We just wait for the enemy to charge toward the port area and fortresses, smashing headfirst into our iron wall! Those two division remnants cut off in the northwest city might even serve as bait to bleed the enemy more!
The most urgent task now is to quickly repair the railway passing through the city, clear the remaining enemies west of the border river, and build new defense lines along the river. The rear will immediately bring large amounts of supplies, and deploy railway guns forward along the railway.
We must prepare to rely on the coastal defense batteries and railway gun groups to defend against enemy counterattacks from land and sea—there are still at least 150,000 army troops here with their retreat cut off; even if they don’t collapse immediately, the British Navy won’t dare abandon them to die!
Also, immediately send a report to Army Group Headquarters, saying our forces have broken through the urban area and linked up with the port area forts!”
……
A few minutes later, in the town of Bergues, more than 20 kilometers south of Dunkirk, 6th Army Group Headquarters.
Duke Rupprecht, in high spirits, had been waiting for front-line developments.
Since 7 a.m., after confirming the airborne troops successfully seized the coastal defense fortresses, the Duke had been excited like he’d been injected with chicken blood, his hands trembling uncontrollably all day.
Every two hours, he would radio to confirm where the main assault troops for relief had reached, how far from the port area, and how long until they linked up with the assault team that seized the forts behind enemy lines.
With every front-line advance, his staff officers would immediately mark it on the map and insert small indicative flags.
Watching the small flags spread northeastward, getting closer to the port, the Duke’s excitement grew.
“Your Highness! Latest battle report! Major Lelouch says his battalion has charged into Fort Rohan and linked up with the airborne assault team!”
“Lieutenant Colonel Bock also reports linking up with Major Rommel at Fort Malraux! The enemy is completely cut off!”
At the moment he heard the report, the Duke’s pupils contracted sharply several times, the wrinkles on his face smoothed out, he sprang up abruptly, and slammed his fist heavily on the map table, feeling no pain at all.
“Excellent! Perfect! Finally!” The Duke was uncharacteristically agitated and somewhat incoherent, “At last! We’ve completely trapped the British Expeditionary Force! Let’s see them try to retreat now! Annihilate them all here!”
While the Duke was still excited, a nearby staff officer softly reminded: “Your Highness… Major Lelouch also suggests quickly sending people to repair the railway and advance-deploy railway guns as much as possible to suppress incoming sea enemies.”
The Duke immediately approved: “Yes! Excellent suggestion! Do it immediately! But also pay attention to purging enemy artillery along the railway, protect the railway guns’ safety. Also, immediately draft a promotion order and report it for filing! All officers and soldiers who participated in the airborne operation, promote one rank! The merits of this battle must also be immediately reported to General Staff Headquarters and the Emperor!”
“Yes!”
……
The German Army’s war machine thus accelerated further.
That night, Berlin.
Potsdam Palace and General Staff Headquarters were lit up all night.
Chief of Staff General Falkenhayn was also somewhat restless that day.
But he thought it would at least be tomorrow before results came out, confirming if the airborne operation was completely successful and if friendly forces could link up, so he wasn’t too worried. In the afternoon, he even forced himself to take a long nap to rest up, in case news came in the middle of the night.
In the end, he was woken by the telephone bell in bed.
“Chief of Staff, Your Excellency! Dunkirk Port has been captured! The coastal defense fortresses completely seized, and we surprise-attacked and sank 6 battleships the British left in the port!”
The reporter below was shameless enough to lump the 2 pre-dreadnoughts and 4 shallow-water heavy cannon ships into “6 battleships.”
This level of inflating battle achievements was unparalleled.
But if splitting hairs, dreadnoughts or pre-dreadnoughts were indeed battleships.
As for shallow-water heavy cannon ships, though the concept existed before, no other class in the world used contemporary battleship main turrets. Calling those like “Grant” battleships was a stretch but could kinda fit.
Upon hearing this, Falkenhayn jumped straight out of bed, blood pressure surging, nearly blacking out.
“Quick! Help me dress! I must enter the palace to report the victory to His Majesty!”
Soon, a sedan drove out from General Staff Headquarters straight to Potsdam Palace.
The same scene soon played out again in the palace.
The Emperor knew even less than Falkenhayn beforehand. He didn’t even know about the first airborne operation in human history that morning, because those below feared failure and didn’t dare tell him before link-up.
So only now did the Emperor hear two pieces of good news stacked together at once.
“What? The Empire has finally completely encircled the British Expeditionary Force at Ypres? The British’ only large port for retreat is taken by us? And we sank 6 battleships?!
Quick! Award them immediately! I want to grant the Blue Max Medal to the general who planned the campaign! Also, have all Empire newspapers propagandize this great victory! ‘Expeditionary Force’ confuses civilians, just write: Annihilation of British Army!”
The propaganda offensive escalated layer by layer, and by the time it reached the major newspapers, it had nearly ballooned to “Annihilation of British Army, Annihilation of British Channel Fleet.”
……
Midnight, Dunkirk Port, Fort Rohan front line.
Lelouch was personally inspecting defenses near the fort. The on-site reconnaissance revealed several extra surprises.
It turned out that the French-built Fort Rohan and Fort Malraux, for convenient transport of armaments and supplies, extended the railway built to the Dunkirk port area further, digging tunnels right into the mountain below the forts.
They even built a transport elevator shaft to directly hoist heavy artillery ammunition boxes like 340mm and 240mm shells up to the mountaintop via the shell hoist—because without these fortress support facilities, heavy cannon shells would have to be manually carried over the mountain surface, which would be extremely troublesome.
In this era, it was still more convenient to build a railway tunneling under the fort and use “vertical elevators” to transport heavy goods. The fortresses at Verdun, and later the Maginot Line, were built this way.
Such a design might seem ordinary to others, with little potential to exploit. But in the eyes of Lelouch, familiar with human war history, it was completely different.
He immediately saw that this was tailor-made for the “Anzio Express mode”!
So he immediately ordered: “When the time comes, have the engineers repair the railway completely, all the way to under the fort! Those large-caliber railway guns can be directly hidden in the tunnels under the fortress, pulled out only to fire, and hidden back otherwise!
With the fortress mountain above as cover, even if the British send ten battleships, they can’t bombard the whole small mountain flat or blast the railway guns out.”
In coastal areas like Dunkirk, the hills by the shore aren’t high, but even just dozens of meters of mountain can’t be leveled by battleship bombardment.
The railway tunnel into the mountain is on the reverse slope of the hillside; keeping the railway guns hidden inside when not firing is absolute defense.
He knew the enemy’s retaliatory fleet could appear within a day, so they had to race against time to repair and construct.
And just after he finished deploying defenses, a sedan from the rear headquarters sped into Fort Rohan.
“Army Group Headquarters promotion order! Where is Major Lelouch? Where are Major Rommel and Captain Model?”
After ten minutes of bustle, the main officers all gathered, somewhat tense but more excited.
The Duke himself did not come to the front line; in the car was the 6th Army Group Chief of Staff, a major general.
“In view of Lelouch Hunter’s outstanding merits in the Battle of Dunkirk, he is now promoted to Army Lieutenant Colonel, reported to High Command for filing, and by the Emperor’s decree, awarded the Blue Max Medal…”
“In view of Erwin Rommel…”
The Chief of Staff read a string of commendations; only Lelouch and Rommel received the Blue Max Medal, but everyone else got a one-rank promotion.
The first airborne operation in human history achieved such major results; a blanket one-rank promotion was completely reasonable.
Lelouch and Rommel were already lieutenant colonels.
Model was also promoted to major; Dieter, having been injured and recovering for a while before, missing some combat, was only promoted to captain this time.
William Lister had it worst; he came with Lelouch’s ground relief force and wasn’t included in the airborne drop, so he didn’t get this one-rank boost, remaining a captain and even overtaken by his junior Dieter.
The only consolation was that Lister at least got a First Class Iron Cross; he fought bravely in relieving friendly forces, his direct troops advanced quickly, especially in finally breaking through those Indian Soldiers’ defense zones.
Though he didn’t jump straight to major this time, he was at “captain perfection/half-step major.”
After the announcement, the Army Group Chief of Staff kindly said to Lelouch: “No Blue Max Medals at the front line temporarily, so you’ll have to wait until after the battle to return to Berlin for the formal award ceremony; today is just the announcement.”
