Chapter 357: The Weakness

The current British Empire was like an old lady celebrating the New Year, worse with each passing year. The First World War had drained the blood and bone of this late-in-life hero, and this time, with Akado starting the war again, the people of Britain, from top to bottom, had discovered a terrible fact—they didn’t even have enough of a foundation left to fight another round.

The British Royal Navy, this time, had scraped together almost all of its assets. Originally, it had wanted to compete with the German Navy, but as it turned out, they had helplessly discovered that it was truly a case of “the Dao is one foot high, the devil is ten feet high.” The overall strength of the German Navy had already made the British Navy feel a healthy dose of fear.

Operation Dynamo had just begun for a day and two nights, and the Royal Navy was already feeling overwhelmed. Although a large number of British civilian ships had participated in the action of saving the British soldiers, the frightening loss reports were a huge headache for the British government. In 36 hours, Britain had lost one cruiser, eight destroyers, and a full twenty-seven large transport ships. This did not even include the various civilian ships whose statistics were temporarily difficult to compile. A conservative estimate was that at least 100 ships, ranging in tonnage from 270 to 4,000 tons, had been sunk by the Germans.

And such huge losses had only allowed Britain to rescue fewer than 7,000 soldiers. A preliminary estimate showed that to rescue another 7,000 men, they would have to lose at least another 150,000 tons of shipping. And the time would have to be extended to four days—which was about the limit that the defensive line around Dunkirk could hold. In other words, Britain’s Operation Dynamo this time could at most rescue 15,000 soldiers back to the mainland.

As a result, on the second day, that is, the day after Montgomery had left Dunkirk, Britain had risked organizing a rescue fleet of 221 ships, hoping to increase the number of rescued to over 20,000. But this operation, under the coordinated combat of the German Air Force and the German Navy, had become futile. After losing 43 civilian boats and two destroyers, the British Navy had been forced to completely stop the foolish act of operating during the day.

Now, left in Dunkirk were France’s 290,000 troops and Britain’s more than 237,000 men. These troops were trapped on their positions, short of medicine and with no supplies. What was even more desperate was that they still had to face the elite German infantry, which had not seen much action, as well as the thousands of cannons that had just been pushed to the front line by the Germans.

Because the time of the operation was a year earlier, and because the German army, at Akado’s suggestion, had launched the war against Britain, France, and Belgium even faster, the number and proportion of the troops in the Dunkirk encirclement had changed this time. The number of the British Expeditionary Force was a little larger this time, with a total strength of a little over 270,000 men. Including clothing and killed in action, there were now only about 250,000. And France had many more troops than the original, with a total of about 290,000 surrounded. Of course, because of Belgium’s surrender, there were not a large number of Belgian troops in the encirclement.

The fatal thing was that Akado was not as easy to fool as Hitler. The Air Force Commander, Kesselring, also did not have the same unparalleled influence in front of the Führer as Göring did. So this time, more troops had been mobilized for the air operations, and the ground operations had not stopped either. Of course, the German Navy was also stronger than ever before. These factors together had affected the Battle of Dunkirk this time.

On this day, another catastrophic fact was laid before the Anglo-French coalition forces. The two 400mm railway guns that Germany had captured in France, along with another four 280mm railway guns, had been transported to Dunkirk together. These six large cannons had been arranged in effective firing positions and could cover the port area of Dunkirk. That night, the two 400mm heavy cannons had fired for the first time, and had taken out almost half of the several hundred British officers and men who were on the pier, preparing to retreat.

One shell had hit the concrete-built pier, directly blasting a large crater 30 meters in diameter. Of the British army battalion that was waiting to retreat on it, more than 170 people, including the battalion commander, were killed. Of course, the second shot was not so lucky and had only hit a nearby beach. Because the soft sand had absorbed most of the force of this more-than-one-ton shell, it had only caused a few dozen casualties.

Following that, the 280mm cannons had also opened fire, shelling the entire Dunkirk area. And just as the night had fallen, the German bombers had also sortied in full force. More than 300 bombers of various types had descended on the Anglo-French coalition positions and, in one go, had dropped more than 1,200 tons of bombs, turning the entire of Dunkirk into a sea of fire. Coupled with the frantic attacks of the German submarines, the British Navy and civilian ships had lost 31 ships of various sizes that night and had only managed to rescue a little over 1,900 men.

“We can’t keep sending them to their deaths like this! No matter how many navy and civilian ships we have, we can’t afford to be consumed like this,” a naval admiral complained loudly, slamming his hand on the table.

Another general nodded in agreement. “We have lost too many troops. We are simply adding to the Germans’ combat record! The German night bombing and shelling are getting more and more accurate. The losses at night are almost on par with the losses during the day! If this goes on, our navy will all be sacrificed for the army in the English Channel!”

“Do you think it’s any better for us in the army?” Montgomery, who was sitting on the side, did not speak, but another army general shot up in a rage, slamming his hand on the table. “We have 32,000 men who have boarded the ships to retreat, and only 9,000 have reached Britain! The number of soldiers who have sunk with the ships at sea is more than those who have been killed in battle! Are we just concentrating them to serve them up to the Germans on a platter?”

Prime Minister Churchill, who was sitting in the main seat, was also at a loss for words. This kind of retreat was not what he wanted to see. To lose so much manpower and material, to waste so much of the navy’s combat strength, just to rescue less than a tenth of the troops. The number of people killed while fleeing at sea was more than the losses in combat on the main front. An operation like this was, for him, a complete failure. That was why he had immediately ordered this emergency meeting to be held, to discuss the next steps.

If it were peacetime, the competition between the navy and the army would seem to be a welcome thing. At the very least, it could ensure an orderly competition between the two. But now, he could not let this internal friction interfere with the combat operations, so Churchill decided to stop the argument in the conference room.

“Alright, gentlemen! Let’s all stop arguing! The navy has now come up with two plans to deal with this crisis,” Churchill said, coughing twice. “Instead of arguing here, let’s see what we should do next.”

“The navy has drawn up two operational plans. The first is to stop the personnel rescue operation, Operation Dynamo, and to ensure the security of the Reich’s maritime transport lines,” a naval admiral said, beginning his introduction. “This plan can temporarily save some of the navy’s strength and give the naval ship formations, which have suffered excessive losses, time to rest and reorganize.”

“Give up? Give up the remaining hundreds of thousands of troops of the army at Dunkirk? That’s easy for you to say. If the German army were to land, what would we use to counter-attack? The Boy Scouts?” an army general snorted coldly.

“Well then, General Montgomery, I would like to know, if our expeditionary force were to be completely wiped out at Dunkirk, do we now have the possibility of defending the British mainland?” Churchill asked, looking at the newly appointed commander of the 3rd Corps, Montgomery.

“We now have about 80,000 soldiers who can fight. Including the 10,000 who have retreated, we have about 90,000 who can be immediately thrown into battle, but they lack heavy weapons and equipment,” Montgomery said truthfully. “We are mobilizing troops. In a month, about another 100,000 troops will have completed their training, but it is hard to say what the combat effectiveness of these troops will be.”

“One hundred and ninety thousand troops? One hundred and ninety thousand? An army of over 500,000 was beaten back by the Germans. What can 190,000 do?” a British army general said with a helpless sigh. “Even with 300,000 men, it’s really hard to say how much of a role they can play.”

“We estimate that Germany can gather about 100 transport ships. If Germany plans to use armored forces on the British Isles, then the first wave of landing forces will not exceed 40,000 men. Even so, we do not actually have an advantage in a local area,” Montgomery said. “Germany has used a large number of paratroopers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Norway. This has brought trouble to our deployment of defenses. If we defend various key points and disperse our forces, then even with twice the number of troops, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of the southern region.”

He had not finished speaking and continued to strike at Churchill’s fragile heart. “Our A13 Mark II and Matilda II tanks are not as good as Germany’s Panther. So if we want to drive the German landing forces’ armored strength into the sea, we must be equipped with at least 1,000 or more tanks.”

“One thousand tanks?” Churchill was also taken aback by Montgomery’s statement. He knew how much Britain had left now. The navy was frantically waiting for new ships to be launched. The air force’s documents urging the production of Hurricane fighters were about to bury him. And now the army was also coming to press for debts. Was this going to let him live?

Thinking of this, he had no choice but to look at his old subordinates in the navy and said with difficulty, “Perhaps we should still discuss the second plan? After all, this first plan is too costly for the army.”

“The second plan was proposed by the captain of the Hood, Captain Kerr, and the fleet commander, Vice-Admiral Holland. This plan is for the main fleet of the Royal Navy to sortie and to annihilate the German High Seas Fleet in the English Channel,” a naval admiral said.

Beside him, Vice-Admiral Holland stood up and said, “As long as we can take out the German High Seas Fleet in one fell swoop, then Operation Dynamo can be carried out in the daytime, and we can save the surrounded army units!”

“Vice-Admiral Holland! I hope you understand that we still have no good way to deal with the German High Seas Fleet. To sortie rashly will only cost the navy’s fleet,” Churchill said with a frown. He knew that if the naval fleet were to sortie rashly, it would be tantamount to suicide.

“I am confident I can annihilate the German High Seas Fleet! Because they have one major weakness!” Vice-Admiral Holland said with absolute certainty.