Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 23: Mine Mine
May 26, 1940, seven o’clock in the morning. Port of Dunkirk, France.
W, Supreme Commander of the British Expeditionary Force. H. E. Admiral Gott stood on the field airport in the outskirts and watched a British flamingo-style medium-sized passenger plane slowly land on the runway.
In the air, five Air Force Hurricane fighters hovered on alert. When the passenger plane slowly stopped taxiing on the runway, Gott led his men to greet the plane.
The hatch opened, and a smiling middle-aged English gentleman in a straight general’s uniform appeared in front of Gott.
“Huh? Why are you?” Gott cried out in surprise.
Half an hour later, in an unremarkable three-story building on the edge of Dunkirk Harbor.
“Are you sure this is a formal plan?” Gott frowned and looked at a document in his hand.
“Of course it is official. This plan was formulated by the various service chiefs of staff committees. The Prime Minister personally reviewed this plan, and the entire war cabinet agreed to implement it. Do you have any questions?” The general was pleased. Sitting on the sofa aside, holding a cup of black tea in his hand.
“Oh, there is no doubt.” Gott answered quickly. “Of course I fully trust the judgment of the chiefs of staff.”
“Oh, how was the Prime Minister’s order carried out yesterday afternoon? Lord Gott?”
“I have issued the order. But it will take time for the retreating troops to return to their original positions.”
“We don’t have much time.” The admiral placed the black tea in his hand elegantly on the tea machine.
”Gott, you already understand our current situation. I hope you will start preparing for the implementation of this plan immediately. We have already negotiated with the French commander-in-chief and they will cooperate with our actions. The specific situation and the plan are all included. Yes. Now you have one day to prepare, only one day. At this time tomorrow, the plan must start. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Excellency Chief of Staff.”
“Haha, that’s good, I will fly to Paris right now to discuss the details of French cooperation with General Wei Gang. I hope to see you in Paris in two days.” Chief of Staff of the British Empire Admiral Germany smiled and stood up.
“Are you leaving now?”
“Yes, the plane is still waiting for me.”
“Then I will take you to the airport.”
“No, you can read this plan carefully now to see if there are any problems. If you encounter trouble implementing this plan, you must report it to London immediately, understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
sent away the chief of the general staff, Gott returned to his office and was startled by the plan.
Why send that Ironside to send the plan again? Everyone knows that he is the toughest one in the whole staff to support the plan to break the siege to the south. He personally passed the Wei Gang plan last time, but when he raised a little question, he was denounced as timid and cowardly, and he lost the fighting resolve of the British officer. And from the standpoint of London, the plan this time is imperative, and even if they have opinions, they will not listen to it.
is really joking. I also agreed to let the troops move to the sea the day before yesterday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon, I ordered the troops to return to their original positions. As a result, I still have at least six divisions on the road. Morale has already had a big impact. And many of these troops don’t have much ammunition and supplies. The supply ship promised by London yesterday afternoon has not yet reached Dunkirk.
I actually lost the determination to continue fighting before the **** battle in Arras, and it was also my earliest suggestion to retreat in the direction of Dunkirk. Because there are only four days left for the supply of the troops, and the ammunition is only enough for a large-scale battle, if London does not ship ammunition and supplies, the consequences will be disastrous.
It seems that London has given up the plan of retreating from sea, so there is only one way left to break through the land. If the intelligence in this plan is true, it would really be an opportunity to save myself and this unit.
Gott looked at the plan carefully. There should be no problem with the breakthrough, the key is whether this is a trap for the Germans. But those chiefs of staff should also think of this. It seems that they have analyzed various possibilities, so they don’t need to think about it. So the remaining question is. . . .
”ding”
Got rang the electric bell leading to the next room. After a while, his adjutant opened the door and walked in.
”General, what’s your order?”
“Has the navy ship arrived? Have you contacted?”
the adjutant answered loudly.
”Not yet, General. I should have arrived last night. I have already contacted the Navy last night. They seem to be investigating the reasons why the three transport ships have not arrived yet. I heard they are in trouble.”
“Is it sunk in the strait? Impossible, it is not so easy for the German submarine to break through our anti-submarine blockade.” Gott felt very puzzled.
”Don’t care about him, please contact London again and ask them to send a few more ships in my name. We are in great need of supplies now.”
“Yes, General.”
”Also, the troops on the Western Front were ordered to speed up their operations and must return to their original positions tonight. Their ammunition supplies will be delivered to them as soon as the ship arrives, so they can rest assured. Let the commander maintain the morale of the troops, and immediately prepare for battle after arriving at the position. The troops on the northern line also immediately handed over the defense to the Belgian troops and ordered them to immediately begin to assemble in the direction of Arras.
We must concentrate all our troops to open this breakthrough. The Fifth Division and the Fifty Division plus the Third Division will serve as the vanguard forces, allowing them to reach the Arras line as soon as possible. Tonight, let them do a tentative attack first. “
“Yes, General, I’ll go and give your order immediately, but if we use those three troops, won’t we have no reserve team?”
”You don’t have to worry about it, I have my idea, you can go down.”
“Understood, General.” The adjutant opened the door and went out.
While Gott was busy preparing for the plan, there was a mess in the British Admiralty in London.
Admiral Bakerhausen, Secretary of the Navy, was violently reprimanding several of his men.
“Why didn’t you notify me earlier, you know what this means? Why didn’t you report to me on the same day, you are serious malfeasance, I want to send you all to the military court.” The Secretary of the Navy Waving a document, the splash of saliva almost sprayed onto the faces of the officers.
“We are very sorry for our actions, but in fact it is not that we did not report immediately, but that we want to obtain accurate information…” A navy lieutenant colonel stood up to defend, but he had not waited for him. After speaking, he was interrupted by the angry general.
”What! Do you dare to follow me with this set! Three fully loaded munitions supply ships, 12,000 tons of equipment, ammunition and supplies, two regiments of infantry, two **** destroyers, four anti-submarine ships A fishing trawler, a minesweeper, we have lost so many people and equipment in just two days. How do you explain all this to me? You will now explain all these things to me in detail.”
The lieutenant colonel quickly answered.
”General. The anti-submarine trawler we were patrolling the Strait of Dover the night before suddenly disappeared, and we didn’t receive a report from the commander of their squadron until noon yesterday. We thought it was a German submarine. , So while sending out search forces, it also ordered the strengthening of anti-submarine patrols in the strait.
But they did not find any wreckage or survivors on the patrol route of the missing fishing boat, not even a dead body, and no signs of German submarine activity in the strait. We ordered anti-submarine trawlers to expand the scope of search and patrol.
By this time it was nine o’clock in the evening, and the fleet to supply Dunkirk had already departed. At that time, we issued an anti-submarine warning to the fleet and dispatched two **** destroyers patrolling the center of the strait to protect it. At 10:14 in the evening, the radio station suddenly received an emergency call for help from two anti-submarine trawlers. Due to the signal interference, we could not figure out what happened to them. So we immediately ordered another anti-submarine trawler nearby to go for rescue and investigation. As a result, the ship also issued a distress call at 10:42, and they claimed to have been attacked by a German submarine torpedo. And the closest thing to them was the Dunkirk supply fleet. So we ordered them to go to rescue, and ordered the two destroyers to prepare for anti-submarine operations.
They sent back a telegram. When they got there, there was nothing on the sea. I believe those anti-submarine fishing boats had sunk with their crew. Because we were afraid that the German submarines were still active there, we ordered them to return to their original routes, and we were going to send other ships there to continue searching for survivors.
Ten minutes later, the three transport ships and the two destroyers received the signal of mine-struck death almost at the same time. Only then did we find out that the Germans had arranged mines in the Dover Strait. We immediately dispatched two minesweepers to rescue them, and only found there that the area of the German minefields was much larger than ours. And they are mixed mines. There are not only floating mines but also a large number of anchor mines and their magnetic mines in the minefields. As a result, one minesweeper was sunk by a magnetic mine, and the other was damaged, and finally escaped from the minefield. This is how things happened. “
“Have you investigated the distribution of German mines and the location of the minefields?”
”We sent all the minesweepers to investigate at dawn. Now we found that their mines are distributed along the French coast and the Belgian coast, divided into three huge minefields and connected to our minefields. Get up, there are at least thousands of mines, and now their mines together with our mines have completely sealed off the coast between Calais and the port of Ostend, Belgium. We can no longer supply Dunkirk in a short time.”
“Then there is no way to scan out a route?”
“It’s impossible in the near future. At least for now, we have nothing to do with the German magnetic mines. We will not be able to let the minesweeper ships enter the minefield until the Naval Research Institute has worked out countermeasures, otherwise they will die in vain.”
“Then we can’t clear a way in our minefield?”
”We think the same way, but we need time. There are also a lot of mines in our minefields. It would take about three to four days to clear a channel that can be navigated by small ships. If you want to pass other ships , Then it will take more than five days. What we still don’t understand is how they entered the strait to mine. How their mine-laying submarine passed through our tight blockade, and how could they be able to do so in a short period of time. So many mines were laid at night. They could do this if they used a large number of Air Force planes to mine mines, but the radar did not find any planes over the strait in the past two days.”
The Secretary of the Navy frowned for a moment, then stood up.
“I must report this matter to the Prime Minister immediately. You first write a detailed report. I hope to see your report on the desk when I come back.”
Then he stuffed the document into a briefcase, carried the briefcase and left the office without looking back, leaving a room of navy officers in panic.
In the prime minister’s office at No. 10 Downing Street, Churchill was surprised after hearing Bakerhausen’s report. He quickly asked the Secretary of the Navy.
”Beckhausen, how long will it take for you to clear a route and restore maritime contact with Dunkirk.”
“Now it takes three to four days to clear a channel without interference from German aircraft, and we can only pass small ships, and if we want to pass large ones, we need to wait another two days.”
”Then we cannot approach Dunkirk Harbor from the sea at all.”
“Yes the Prime Minister.”
Churchill stood up, frowned and stared at the map on the wall. He lit a cigar, then dangling the cigar while thinking, turning around in the office. Suddenly Churchill seemed to have figured out something.
”I see, hahahaha~IndoMTL.com~ This just proves that the Germans are indeed at the end of the war, they have no ability to continue the offensive. And they are afraid that we will attack them after the troops are supplied in the encirclement. Counterattack. So they thought they were smart and planted mines in Dunkirk Harbor, trying to prevent us from supporting the expeditionary force. They thought it could trap us.
They didn’t expect that we had discovered their weakness long ago, and already had a counterattack plan. In this way, our breakthrough plan can definitely succeed. Let them block it. I would love to see Hitler’s expression when he learned that we had broken through his encirclement. Hahahaha. “Churchill smiled proudly in the office.
“Then Prime Minister, don’t we need to rush to clear mines.”
”No, no, no, we still have to sweep mines and pretend to be very anxious. Then the Germans will think they really trapped our expeditionary army. They will relax because of this, our The breakout plan is more secure.” Churchill replied with a smile.
”But the supplies requested by General Gott…”
”This is indeed a problem. Fortunately, the Germans in front of him are only a few weak infantry regiments. They should not be able to consume his ammunition in a short time. When he breaks through the encirclement, he will be able to fight with France. The main contact, he will have everything at that time. You can send a telegram to reply to him, and explain the situation here, so that he must act according to the planned steps.
Let the Air Force drop some supplies to comfort him, and it can also boost his morale a little bit. Tell him that if this operation is successful, I will personally go to France to honor the soldiers and officers who have done their work. “