Chapter 413: Valentine’s Day

After taking control of the town of Bite, the 1st Paratrooper Battalion established its command post there. Borol was then ordered to take his men in the opposite direction, toward the flank of the German beach landing, to eliminate the British artillery positions there.

Although the main artillery batteries had been mostly destroyed by German aircraft, a few scattered and well-hidden British positions were still firing on the beach. This shelling was severely slowing down the rate at which German troops could land, so the paratroopers were ordered to clear out these nuisances that the landing force couldn’t immediately deal with.

After breakfast, Captain Borol and his soldiers set out. They moved through thickets and small woods, appearing like ghosts behind the British coastal defenders.

Even though this was the rear of the defensive line, the British had set up their coastal positions in a circular defensive formation to prevent surprise attacks by the German paratroopers, who had achieved remarkable success in the Netherlands. At this moment, the battle on the beach was raging, while this side was relatively quiet.

Because the anticipated rear attack by German paratroopers had not materialized, the already under-strength British coastal defense force had ended up pulling most of its troops to the front. What remained were mostly inexperienced new recruits and a few scattered machine-gun nests.

The German paratroopers had become quite adept at dealing with such laughable defensive measures. Placing a few machine-gun nests near an artillery piece was a childish tactic they had seen from the Netherlands to France, and now again in Britain. It was starting to get tedious for Borol. Once again, it was suppressive fire from their machine guns, a flanking maneuver from two sides, and a completely one-sided and predictable outcome.

By the time Borol and his men charged into the British trench, all that was left were a dozen or so fresh corpses. The British had deployed two field howitzers in this artillery position, which was concealed under a dozen large trees. They were large-caliber 5.5-inch howitzers and looked quite impressive.

British artillery during World War II was designed and manufactured using inches, which resulted in a number of very strange calibers. This 5.5-inch gun, for example, was actually 140mm. Its performance was more than a little inferior to the German 150mm guns of the same period, with its only advantage being a slightly longer range.

This was related to the different design requirements for artillery on both sides. Based on the tactic of rapid armored advances, the Germans felt that artillery range was not as important. Akado and his generals preferred lighter artillery that could keep pace with the tank units. The British, on the other hand, prioritized range and had fewer requirements for weight, which allowed them to produce longer-range guns.

The paratroopers, unable to operate these cannons, certainly weren’t going to leave them for the British. After destroying the two guns with explosives, Borol led his men laterally along the trenches and concrete fortifications, engaging and killing any British soldiers they encountered. In one fell swoop, they destroyed two more British machine-gun bunkers from the rear before they could even get into the fight.

“Set up a machine gun here! Cover our attack on that high ground over there!” Borol ordered his men, pointing to a hill where a British machine-gun bunker was located. “Continuous fire! Disrupt their rhythm!”

With the unique sound of their machine guns firing, the German paratroopers quickly charged toward their third objective. The British seemed to be in disarray; they hadn’t expected the Germans to attack along the trench line. As a result, the attack was met with only sporadic fire from Lee-Enfield rifles, which posed no real threat.

Borol leaned against the trench wall, cradling his MP-44 assault rifle, and picked off targets in the distance one by one. The gun vibrated with each shot, and in the distance, British soldiers were hit and staggered to the ground.

“One! Two! Three!” Borol muttered to himself, still pulling the trigger. Under his cover, two soldiers closed in on their target, pulled out hand grenades, and hurled them towards the British trench.

Boom! Boom! Two grenades exploded in the British-held trench, throwing up a cloud of dust and smoke. Debris and shrapnel flew in all directions, along with the limbs and weapons of the British soldiers.

Following the two explosions, German paratroopers charged forward, rifles in hand, hunched low. One paratrooper who wasn’t in the trench was hit by a stray bullet and collapsed just as he leaped up. But more Germans swarmed the position, and a deafening volley of gunfire erupted.

By the time Borol, Baru, and the others reached the high ground, it was already in German hands. Two daring soldiers planted a German flag on the hilltop, and one of them was immediately shot in the hand, losing two fingers.

The German landing force on the beach below saw the flag and let out a cheer. Soon, this section of the British defensive line was broken through, becoming the second to fall. The dust-covered German paratroopers and the blood-spattered landing troops had a victorious rendezvous, then collapsed back-to-back in the British trenches, gasping for air.

As they caught their breath, 60 Crusader helicopters, armed and carrying special forces, roared over their heads and conducted vertical landings in several locations. Although four aircraft were shot down, the overwhelming momentum of this move threw the British defenders into chaos. Large numbers of them were killed by the special forces descending from the sky, and many more broke and fled in panic, abandoning defensive positions that could have held for much longer.

Once they were out of their prepared defenses, the British soldiers were less than helpless chicks in front of the elite German troops. The real slaughter began. Dozens, then hundreds, of British soldiers were killed as they fled, and their loss rate skyrocketed.

The unit garrisoning this area was the 1st Regiment of the 5th Division of the British V Corps. Including its attached coastal artillery units, the regiment had over 1,700 men. Now, having lost two-thirds of its defensive positions and with over half its men as casualties, it was in full retreat. Of course, compared to the casualties they had inflicted on the Germans, it could even be considered a long-awaited British victory.

At the cost of over 850 men killed, the regiment had taken out 2,391 German soldiers. If not for the terrain advantage, these battle-hardened German soldiers could have routed two or even three such regiments of new recruits.

However, with the retreat came disaster for the regiment. While the helicopters were vulnerable in set-piece battles against intact anti-aircraft defenses, they were a divine weapon for hunting down a routing army. A dozen helicopters circled overhead, and of the British troops who escaped the coastline, not even one in ten survived. The casualties for the 1,700-man British infantry regiment shot up from 850 to a horrifying 1,400.

Unfortunately, that was not the only piece of bad news for the British V Corps that day. At 11:30 AM, the V Corps headquarters was hit by shelling from the French and Italian battleships. The corps commander, his chief of staff, and over half of the senior command staff were killed. The V Corps command system, already in chaos, descended into complete anarchy after 11:30 and was unable to rally its forces to form a coherent resistance or counter-attack against the German landing force until 2:00 PM.

With the landing of German tanks and the arrival of the overall commander, Colonel Duke, on shore, the German forces began to perform at their expected level. At 1:50 PM that afternoon, the SS Akado Youth Division entered Bacton and captured the first small port on the beach. Unloading became much easier. By 3:00 PM, over 60,000 German soldiers had landed on British soil. Desperate news reached the British one piece after another. For example, that evening, Germany’s most elite armored force, the 2nd Panzer Corps, began to unload at Bacton.

The German paratroopers who had helped secure the beachhead did not get to rest. Borol was ordered back to the town of Bite. The British IV Corps had broken through the outer defenses and was approaching Bite, their objective to retake the town and then the all-important port of Bacton.

As night fell, the German advantages in the air and at sea would vanish. Upon receiving the news, the Royal Navy sortied its entire fleet, charging towards the German landing zone regardless of the cost. Their objective was simple: to use the cover of darkness to launch a surprise attack on the German landing fleet, destroy as many transport ships as possible, and cripple Germany’s ability to resupply.

Whether it was Churchill or Montgomery, Akado or Rundstedt, everyone knew that the coming night would be decisive. Whether Germany could hold out through the long, dark night without air and naval cover would be the key to defeating Britain and knocking it out of the war before America could react.

Watching the sun sink below the hills, Borol held his assault rifle, his face expressionlessly calm. He knew this night would be filled with blood and slaughter, and he knew it was equally important for both the British and the Germans. All he could do was fight to the death, fight to survive this night and welcome the light and victory of the next day. He prayed that he could complete his mission and bring honor back to his homeland.

February 14th, 1938, was destined to be a bloody Valentine’s Day. On the beaches of Norwich, the nearly 4,000 corpses of soldiers from both sides testified to the uniqueness of this Valentine’s Day, and proved that even on the most beautiful of days, the most disastrous things can happen. This was war. This was a fucked-up life.

Netherlands, Rotterdam, the former Dutch Royal Palace, now the Führer’s headquarters.

Akado held the phone, comforting his wife Mercedes in a soft, gentle voice. “My dear, I am so sorry I couldn’t be with you for Valentine’s Day… Yes, I know you miss me very much… I sent those soldiers to their deaths, the least I can do is spend this beautiful holiday with their souls… Thank you, Happy Valentine’s Day… I love you, as I love this country…”