Chapter 367: God’s Prank

If one were to say that on this day, January 27th, God was on the side of the Germans, then undoubtedly the person he favored the most was L

If one were to say that on this day, January 27th, God was on the side of the Germans, then undoubtedly the person he favored the most was Lütjens. But if one were to say that the care given to Lütjens as a fleet commander had to be shared among every warship in the fleet, then undoubtedly the High Seas Fleet was not the luckiest person on this day.

The luckiest was Captain Prien of the U-boat U-47, who had received orders to rush to the waters off the coast of the Netherlands to find an opportunity to ambush the British warships active in the vicinity. At 4:01 AM on January 27, 1938, he had discovered a fleet sailing in the opposite direction on the flank of his course. So he had dived, adjusted his angle, and had begun to wait for his opportunity.

Soon, the opportunity had arrived. Because they were worried about being attacked by German bombers at dawn, this fleet had fled in a great hurry and had not even properly patrolled the nearby sea area. And so U-47 had easily fired all six of its torpedoes at a very close distance. As a result, two torpedoes had hit a cruiser that was sailing on the flank of the Howe, and the other four had all hit the broadside of the British’s newly built battleship, the HMS Howe.

As a result, two of these four torpedoes had directly hit the Howe‘s magazine and had detonated the large-caliber artillery ammunition inside. Another one had hit a boiler room, disabling half of the Howe‘s power system.

The massive flooding had not left the battleship Howe much time. In just a few minutes, the battleship Howe had capsized on the surface of the sea. Apart from a few lucky sailors who had escaped, most of the personnel who had jumped into the sea had been pulled into the abyss by the whirlpool formed by the sinking of the ship. And this time, U-47 had taken advantage of the chaos and had escaped, leaving the British Navy with a wound that was difficult to heal.

Prien was now the world’s number one super submarine ace, having sunk more than 100,000 tons of shipping. Just after he had sunk the battleship Howe and had sent a telegram of his combat record back to Wilhelmshaven, Prien was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves by the Führer, was promoted to Captain, and was smilingly called the “Battleship Killer.”

This nickname could be said to be well-deserved. Since the beginning of the war, Prien had already sunk the three battleships Barham, Royal Sovereign, and Howe. This combat record could be said to be unprecedented, and it was estimated that it might also be the last of its kind. And Prien, this legendary captain himself, had also been ordered to rush back to Wilhelmshaven to receive a new round of propaganda reports from the media.

On January 29, 1938, Lord Gort left Dunkirk by submarine and returned to Britain. This also marked the complete abandonment by the British of their nearly 200,000-strong army in the Dunkirk area. But this army was still fighting a bitter battle, because the order issued by the British side was very simple—to fight to the last man.

When this lord returned to a British port, he saw what it meant to be utterly devastated. In the harbor of the great British Royal Navy, a few destroyers and gunboats were sparsely docked. In the distance, the battleship berths, which had originally been densely packed with warships, looked so empty.

In just one short month, Britain had successively lost six battleships and three aircraft carriers in battle, which accounted for almost half of Britain’s active main warships. Even if one were to count the refitted ships and the ships that were about to enter service, it was still a little over a third.

One must know that although the British Navy was huge in number, the areas it had to protect were also huge. In the Far East, where the war was tight, the British government still maintained a powerful maritime force. In the Indian Ocean, to deter the nearby colonies, there was also a large-scale naval formation. Canada, Africa, the Mediterranean, the South Atlantic—these regions provided Britain with rich resources, but they also tied up more than half of the British Navy’s strength.

So now, although in terms of overall strength between the British and German navies, the British Navy still had the advantage, in the waters near the North Atlantic, Britain could be said to have completely lost its command of the sea and air. Even if they were to wait until the other three King George V-class battleships were launched, the British Navy would not have the slightest advantage.

At this very moment, the battleship HMS Ramillies was on a mission in the Indian Ocean, the battleship Resolution was in Africa, the battleship Nelson was on an escort mission in the Mediterranean, the Rodney was active near the Strait of Malacca, the Queen Elizabeth was in the South Atlantic, the Revenge was in the Far East of Asia, and the only remaining battlecruiser, the Repulse, was undergoing a refit.

The Royal Oak and the Valiant were protecting the three carriers Glorious, Furious, and Argus as they returned to base in the North Sea, while also avoiding the pursuit of the German Navy. So when Lord Gort looked at the battleship berths, there was only the lonely battleship King George V, looking so solitary and pitiful.

One new battleship, two old battleships, plus three not-so-advanced aircraft carriers—this was the entire main force of the British Navy’s Home Fleet. Of course, in terms of the number of cruisers and destroyers, Britain still had a certain advantage, but in terms of the main combat ships, there had never been a time when Britain and Germany were so close.

In addition, it had to be said that although the number of British cruisers and destroyers was large, the vast majority of them were tied down on the shipping route between the North Atlantic and the United States by the German submarines. The actual number of home-based destroyers and cruisers was even less than that of the German Navy.

Just as Lord Gort was staring at the only battleship, the King George V, in a daze, a British soldier on the Dunkirk front was sitting listlessly in a trench with his rifle in his arms, staring blankly at his mess tin.

The clear soup in the mess tin was not much different from boiling water. At the bottom, there was also a lot of dust that had just fallen in from the shelling. He had already swallowed the moldy piece of bread. After all, who would care about the quality of the food after being hungry for half a day, right?

His face was full of fatigue. The German attack seemed to have slowed down a bit, not as fierce and dense as it had been a few days ago. But some well-informed officers were talking about the navy’s affairs. It was said that for the sake of the battle in the Dunkirk area, the navy had lost almost a third of its main warships in the battle of the North Sea.

As a British Army soldier, although he did not know how many warships and sailors the British Navy had, for Britain, which had always called itself the number one navy in the world, a third of its warships should not be a small number, right? Ten ships? Twenty?

In short, they had lost, and lost badly. This was his most direct understanding of the navy’s failure. Of course, another matter also indirectly proved how tragic the navy’s failure was—from January 27, the ships that had come to transport the personnel for evacuation had almost disappeared. Occasionally there was one at night, but they were all civilian ships. There were no more military warships coming to Dunkirk.

He drank a few mouthfuls of the sandy, muddy clear soup in his mess tin, poured the dregs at his feet, tidied up a bit, and only then did he stand up in the trench. He smiled at the corpse of his comrade-in-arms, who had been dead for a long time, and looked at the position opposite.

The Germans over there seemed to still be eating, which made this British soldier seem to smell a whiff of food. Even though he had also heard that German food was very scarce, and that most of their meals were mainly potatoes and various leafy vegetables, he was now starving and felt that potatoes were the ultimate delicacy in the world.

In the afternoon, this British soldier did not experience the tragic slaughter and battle of the previous day. The German tanks had not appeared on the position in front of him. Those terrifying killing machines had harvested the lives of British soldiers by the hundreds and thousands, and had turned Britain’s best tanks into burning scrap metal. So those German tanks were one of the most terrifying weapons of war he had ever seen—because there was another equally terrifying weapon called the Stuka.

He didn’t know what time it was in the afternoon. In any case, while this British soldier was dozing in the trench, his platoon leader came to inspect with his men. This British platoon leader woke his subordinate with the tip of his foot and then chatted about some topics related to ammunition and the weather.

“Sir, why didn’t the Germans attack in the afternoon?” the British soldier who had stood up and saluted asked.

“The people at the top are negotiating. If there are no surprises, we will have to lay down our arms and surrender,” this platoon leader had a good relationship with the company commander, and it just so happened that the company commander was the division commander’s brother-in-law, so this company had always been a grassroots unit that was relatively well-informed. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for them to know the news of the navy’s defeat.

Yes, in the end, there were no surprises. About an hour after the platoon leader had left, a cheer that shook the heavens and the earth came from the distance. The German positions even began to sing battle songs, and the sound of laughter and talking was continuous. Just as this British soldier was at a loss for what to do, his platoon leader appeared again in time, telling him that he could lay down his arms and wait for the Germans to come and accept his surrender.

On January 30, hundreds of thousands of troops of the Anglo-French coalition surrendered. General Gamelin shot himself in his headquarters. Britain and France were in a state of mourning, while Germany was in a state of national celebration. With the surrender of Dunkirk, there was nothing left to stop the Germans’ southward march. More than a million German troops, in a mighty procession, sang songs of triumph as they charged toward the French capital of Paris.

The 10th Armoured Corps in de Gaulle’s hands was in a state of continuous retreat, and it wasn’t until the outskirts of Paris that it finally stopped its rout. And the more than 70,000 British soldiers in France had received a strange order to abandon their defensive lines and controlled areas, to concentrate in the coastal cities of France, and then to board the departing ships and retreat to the British mainland.

Three hundred thousand newly mobilized French soldiers had to use the rifles and bayonets in their hands to try their best to stop the 3,000 tanks of the German army from entering their capital. The whole of France was in a state of mourning, and the government was also in a mess.

Just at this moment, when France was already besieged on all sides, another startling piece of news came. The Italian leader, Mussolini, finally couldn’t hold back and made his move. The speed at which Germany was sweeping through Europe was too fast, which made this Italian leader feel that if he didn’t make a decision soon, he would have to watch Germany take all the advantages.

And so just an hour after the great surrender of Dunkirk, Italy had impatiently declared war on Britain and France.