Chapter 111
Chapter 111
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 111
Chapter Title: World War II - Darkest Hour (4)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
< World War II - Darkest Hour (4) >
June 24, 1940
The English Channel
The battlefield was no longer southern Britain, but the English Channel.
A celestial arena where fighters scrambled from either central Britain or northern France could reach the front in about an hour.
An overwhelming number of aircraft, well over several hundred, zipped chaotically through the skies above the Channel, locked in combat.
“Goddammit, why are there so many of them!”
Douglas Bader, a proud ace of the Royal Air Force (RAF), cursed as he frantically maneuvered his fighter.
-Bader, you’ve got two on your tail!-
“I have eyes, I know!”
Douglas Bader throttled down to evade the two French D.520 fighters on his six, yanking the control stick to send his plane climbing.
Machine-gun fire erupted behind his aircraft. One round pierced the canopy glass, sending a chill down his spine.
“Damn it, you goddamn traitors!”
Bader frantically ascended into the high altitudes. As soon as the clouds concealed his plane, he banked hard. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, he rolled his aircraft and opened fire on an enemy fighter that had unknowingly flown past him, scoring a direct hit.
The French D.520, its wings riddled with holes, faltered and began to plummet toward the sea.
The other enemy pilot, finally realizing the situation, danced in the air to shake Bader off. But his Supermarine Spitfire relentlessly pursued the slower French fighter, mercilessly turning its fuselage into a sieve.
“That’s for the Victorious, you bastards!”
Bader shouted triumphantly at the enemy plane as it spiraled down in flames toward the vast ocean, but the situation was far from good.
-I’m hit! Can’t… can’t maintain altitude!-
-John! Behind you! Aaargh!-
The radio crackled with frantic calls. The RAF was fighting desperately, but they were severely outnumbered by the French Air Force.
“Damn it, low on fuel! Returning to base!”
Bader had no choice but to retreat to base, leaving his comrades to fight on in the pandemonium.
The performance of the RAF’s standard-issue Hawker Hurricane was on par with the French Dewoitine D.520, and the new Supermarine Spitfire was actually superior in combat.
However, the French D.520 had an operational range of 1,250 km. In contrast, Britain’s prized Spitfire had a range of barely 700 km.
With southern England’s airbases devastated at the start of the war, the RAF had to scramble from central Britain. This nullified any advantage of a defensive battle against the French Air Force, which was launching from its home turf.
In fact, it put them at a disadvantage.
If both sides took off at the same time and flew a similar distance, the British fighters would have to return due to fuel constraints after a short engagement, while the French fighters could continue the fight.
In aerial warfare, which is heavily influenced by Lanchester's laws, this difference rendered the superior combat performance of the British aircraft meaningless.
The RAF, having tragically lost its southern fighters and airbases, was now experiencing the same range issues on their home turf that the German Luftwaffe had faced in the original history.
The battle had raged since dawn and it was now just past noon. Most pilots had been flying two or three sorties without rest, turning the engagement into an extreme test of willpower and concentration.
Yet, no one in the RAF could afford to back down.
While they fought a desperate air battle against the odds, below them, a French fleet covering the sea was steadily approaching the British Isles.
-
The French air raids, which began with Portsmouth and Plymouth, continued relentlessly. The Channel Fleet, stationed at the key southern naval ports of Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Portland, had taken a severe blow.
The RAF had rushed to the scene, but they were already struggling to counter the French Air Force that swarmed the English Channel, leaving them little capacity to support a fleet engagement.
“Damage limits our maximum speed to 15 knots!”
The hull of the Resolution, the Channel Fleet's flagship and an old battleship commissioned in 1916, was groaning under the accumulated damage from bombs and torpedoes.
If Portland hadn't been the last to be hit, she would have been sunk long ago. But thanks to the Royal Navy’s damage control, the ship was stubbornly holding on, befitting her name, ‘Resolution.’
“What… what did you say?”
The Channel Fleet’s commander, Admiral Lancelot Holland, was speechless.
“Could you repeat that?”
At Admiral Holland’s question, Captain Knox Little of the Resolution, his flagship, reported again.
“According to reconnaissance and air force reports, the French Navy is approaching from the direction of Brest and Calais. Transport ships are following right behind their fleet.”
“N-Numbers?”
“It seems they’ve brought everything they have available.”
Admiral Holland couldn’t hide his alarm. *Are they insane?* Deploying their entire fleet was one thing, but sending transport ships before securing naval supremacy?
Even with air superiority, the fact that the transports had already arrived meant they must have set sail almost simultaneously with the surprise attack.
Did they not fear losing their army if the transports were sunk?
An ally breaking a treaty and launching a surprise declaration of war overnight wasn't enough; now they were resorting to a mad gamble that could result in unimaginable casualties.
Every piece of conventional wisdom they had believed in was shattering.
“Admiral. If we let them land, the Home Guard has no way of stopping them.”
“…”
With the commander of the Home Fleet, Admiral Forbes, trapped in Scapa Flow, the man in charge on the ground was him, the commander of the Channel Fleet.
Under his command were the battered old battleships Revenge and Resolution, four heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, fifty destroyers, and twenty submarines.
It was fortunate that the enemy air raids had started with Portsmouth and Plymouth. Otherwise, his two Revenge-class battleships, with their already pitiful anti-aircraft defenses, would have been sunk right there in Portland.
Admiral Holland let out a hollow laugh.
If the enemy hadn’t been attempting an immediate landing, he would have retreated to preserve his forces and wait to join up with other fleets.
But the main fleet at Scapa Flow couldn't come immediately due to the surprise attack and the mined waters.
By the time the Rodis Fleet, which had been safe in the east, could arrive, the enemy would have already landed on a defenseless coast with no preparations made.
To think the day would come when the Royal Navy, the mightiest in the world, would have to face the enemy at such an overwhelming disadvantage.
Admiral Holland picked up the radio transmitter with a trembling hand.
“This is Admiral Lancelot Holland, addressing headquarters and all hands of the Channel Fleet. Those despicable traitors are approaching with a fleet and transport convoy to invade the British Isles.”
How many battleships did the French Navy have? Was it nine?
The admiral’s thoughts were interrupted by a French bomber that, while trying to evade the barrage of anti-aircraft fire and strike his battleship, burst into flames and crashed into the sea.
He knew all too well that winning was an absolute impossibility.
“We will prevent them from setting foot on the British Isles, no matter the cost.”
After a moment of silence, a transmission came from headquarters, from the First Sea Lord, Admiral Pound.
-Approved. We wish your fleet Godspeed.-
Receiving approval from headquarters, Admiral Holland swallowed dryly.
He was well aware that this was tantamount to ordering every man in the Channel Fleet to their deaths.
“…The British Empire expects that every one of you will do his duty.”
Yet, no one in the Channel Fleet opposed the admiral’s orders.
With the resolve to break through the French fleet’s escort and sink even a few transport ships to protect their homeland, the entire Channel Fleet chose to fight to the last man.
-
The navies of two nations, which in the original history had worked together to perform the miracle of Dunkirk, were now clashing.
The engagement of a grand fleet of over 150 ships, covering the narrow and rough waters of the English Channel, made even the concepts of fleet reconnaissance and scouting meaningless.
The Channel Fleet’s battleships, Revenge and Resolution, fought against the French fleet with their crippled bodies and were both sunk. However, the flagship Resolution managed to penetrate the weak armor of the French battleship Dunkerque, crippling it in the process.
Even with their flagship down, the British destroyers showed no fear of the overwhelmingly powerful French Navy and charged forward ferociously.
Their advance, dodging not only the main battery fire of battleships, the shelling of cruisers, and torpedoes from other destroyers, but also the bombs and torpedoes from the air, was a credit to the Royal Navy’s reputation.
The British Navy made a near-suicidal charge to break through the French warships and strike the transports, while the French Navy blocked their path to protect the convoy.
An unprecedented slugfest ensued, with ramming and point-blank broadsides—tactics long thought extinct—making a return as the Royal Navy ships, unafraid of death, charged like moths to a flame despite being sunk in droves.
Flames and gunfire covered both sky and sea, and countless sailors and airmen were buried in the ocean in a desperate struggle that began in the afternoon and lasted until dusk.
It was a gruesome battle where most sailors from sunken ships were not rescued, instead caught in the crossfire or drowned.
Amidst the wreckage of that devastating battle, the French Navy's new battleship, the Richelieu, remained unscathed.
“What a massacre.”
Admiral Jean-Marie Charles Abrial, commander of the French Northern Fleet, who had made the Richelieu his flagship, clicked his tongue.
The British Channel Fleet had fought a desperate battle to the death, and in the end, most of its ships were sunk.
But the French Navy, despite its overwhelming numerical superiority, had also suffered considerable losses.
The British Empire had committed two battleships, four heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, fifty destroyers, and twenty submarines. Of those, only six destroyers and seven submarines managed to retreat.
Against this, the French, who had deployed nine battleships, six heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, and eighty destroyers, saw one battleship crippled, three heavy cruisers and four light cruisers heavily damaged, twenty-three destroyers sunk, and eighteen damaged.
Moreover, the French forces ultimately lost most of the transports they were protecting to the relentless attacks of the Channel Fleet, submarines, and aircraft.
Admiral Abrial had secretly thought the Prime Minister’s plan was excessively vile and cruel, but seeing these results, he had to reconsider.
If the battle had not taken this form, defeat would have been theirs.
“Admiral. The transport convoy will arrive soon.”
“I see. We will support the landing operation at dawn.”
But, making a mockery of the Channel Fleet’s heroic sacrifice to prevent a landing, none of the sunken French transport ships had actually been carrying soldiers.
“…The Prime Minister is a terrifyingly cruel and ruthless man.”
Admiral Abrial shook his head slowly.
La Rocque's plan—to bring empty transport ships along to force the Channel Fleet into a fight they couldn't back down from, and then annihilate them—had worked perfectly.
Although France had lost a significant number of transports, leaving them with a shortage, the Channel Fleet that guarded the English Channel was effectively annihilated. The real French landing force, which had departed with a slight delay, would now be able to conduct its landing operations much more safely.
Even if the transports were empty, it was a victory bought by using the lives of their crews as bait.
The result was truly magnificent, but Admiral Abrial could not shake the bitter taste in his mouth.
-
June 25, 1940
Berlin, Northern Germany – Government Chancellery
“…The British Channel Fleet has been annihilated? The French Army landed on the British Isles this morning?”
I felt an overwhelming urge to grab the back of my neck.
I had thought France might do something crazy, but even when I heard that Scapa Flow, Portsmouth, and Plymouth had been attacked, I never imagined they would actually attempt a landing on the British Isles.
This is insane. The army high command had decided to send General Rommel, but Rommel and his troops hadn't even reached Hamburg yet.
Who could have imagined that Great Britain, the world’s greatest naval power, would fall so easily?
“The British Embassy has made an official request for assistance, but I’m not sure how we should handle this…”
Foreign Minister Weizsäcker’s face was completely pale.
Damn it. To think I’d see a successful Operation Sea Lion after the Nazis were gone.
“What should we do?”
Even my father was uncharacteristically perplexed.
“The French mainland is protected by the Maginot Line, and our navy, to be frank, cannot match theirs. We aren’t allied with Britain anyway, and even if we were to join the war, is there anything we could do right now…?”
Ludwig Beck trailed off.
Even if it was temporary, the Royal Navy had been all but neutralized. The Mediterranean Fleet couldn't move as long as the Italian Navy was there.
It was uncertain how many ships from the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow could sortie immediately after the mines were cleared, and the damaged capital ships would take at least a month to repair. The heavily damaged ones would take much longer.
Britain already had a notoriously small standing army, and Halifax’s military cuts meant there would be extremely few troops available for immediate deployment on the mainland.
And now that a landing had already occurred, Britain’s fate was hanging by a thread.
“Even so, we cannot abandon Britain here. Since France is all but allied with Italy, it’s as clear as day that if they occupy Britain, they will try to blockade us.”
I had set General Rommel aside as a special detachment, but I had hoped the moment to actually use him would never come. It looked like his unit would have to be dispatched as soon as it was ready.
The problem was whether our navy, even with the support of the remnants of the British fleet, could break through the French Navy and land General Rommel on British soil—
“U-Urgent news!”
Not again! What is it this time?
Erich Kordt, the Vice-Chancellor for Foreign Affairs, flinched under the sharp gazes of all the government officials, but quickly handed me two telegrams.
The contents were dizzying. One was infuriating enough, but two? I felt like the sky was turning yellow.
With a trembling hand, I passed the telegrams to my father. He looked at them and his expression soured.
“Italy and the Japanese Empire have declared war on Great Britain and announced an alliance. And… the Soviet Army is preparing a massive offensive into Poland with what is estimated to be over 2.5 million troops.”
After trying so hard to prevent a second world war, a completely different version of it had erupted anyway.
Ah, I’m going to lose my mind.