Chapter 1: Autumn Wind Sweeping Leaves
"To France, you'll stay in Paris for a while. Hartmann (not Ultraman) will take care of your living arrangements, and you can explore the beautiful city that hasn't been touched by the war, taste the most authentic French cuisine. When the fighting here is over, I'll come to get you!"
The nearby Junkers 52 transport plane had already started its engines, the deafening roar forcing Logan to speak almost shouting. Fortunately, his English wasn't misunderstood by the British.
Dorine wore her oversized floral dress, a white sunhat perched on her head, her rosy cheeks tinged with a slight blush. She still didn't dare to meet Logan's gaze, but her eyes finally lifted from her delicate hands, resting an inch higher: on the metal button on Logan's chest.
That inch already filled Logan with joy and reinforced his belief that the barriers between nations would gradually fade away in the river of time!
On the gangway, an Air Force sergeant had cast several urging glances in their direction.
Stepping forward, Logan embraced Dorine tightly for three seconds.
"Wait for me!" he whispered in her ear.
The handsome man in the Luftwaffe uniform released her, and the beautiful Englishwoman walked up the gangway, her head slightly lowered, tears streaming down her face at the moment the hatch was about to close.
A profound sense of loss hit Logan's heart hard. Such feelings seemed to hark back to that innocent summer!
On the other side of the gangway, "Aunt Susan" still glared resentfully. Ever since the German army dealt a heavy blow to the British 5th Army three days ago, killing and injuring over 4,000 British infantry and capturing nearly 2,000, she had been staring angrily at Logan—the majority of the British casualties were caused by the German Luftwaffe's fighters and bombers!
Of course, the German Luftwaffe's account was on Colonel Logan's head, which was reasonable enough. What made Logan wryly smile was the patriotic "Aunt Susan," who boarded even faster than her beloved daughter. The luggage of the mother and daughter duo even left two burly German soldiers sweating profusely.
Vaguely, Logan worried that the money he handed over to Hartmann might be spent clean by these two troublemakers in Paris in just a few days!
With a wave, the Junkers 52 smoothly took off, carrying away Logan's last worries.
Next, it was time to deal with the British landing forces that were retreating from the Wootton, Coes, East Coes, and Yarmouth ports. On the first day after the rain stopped, the German Luftwaffe, in fierce aerial combat, shot down 57 fighter planes and 66 bombers at the cost of 79 British fighters and 60 bombers, demonstrating that the side with the superior overall quantity won the strategic victory, and the German Luftwaffe established its air superiority over the central part of the English Channel in one fell swoop!
Subsequently, the continuous sunny weather proved fatal for the British. Under the relentless attacks of the German Luftwaffe, the Royal Navy lost one light cruiser, five destroyers, two frigates, several gunboats, and torpedo boats, with another 43 various types of ships sunk. The British attacks and transportation to the Isle of Wight came to a halt.
In just a few days, the situation of the battles around the Isle of Wight had turned 180 degrees, fully demonstrating that weather still played an irreplaceable role in modern warfare.
To some extent, this was truly the hand of God!
Logan wouldn't miss the opportunity given by heaven. In the past week, the German Navy had gathered more than two hundred barges, cruise ships, speedboats, and even some steamships from the French inland rivers. At dawn, these vessels, under the cover of the German Luftwaffe, sailed across the channel towards the other shore, while the German troops on the Isle of Wight also worked hard to build four floating pontoon bridges in the south. Together with the miraculous port of Portsmouth, they welcomed the follow-up forces and equipment of the "Fuhrer Guard Flag Unit" and the "General Hermann Goering" Regiment. These two units, actually reaching the brigade level in scale, outnumbered over ten thousand troops. With the addition of over two thousand paratroopers sent by the 7th and 22nd Airborne Divisions, Logan's forces outnumbered Montgomery's landing forces!
As night fell, the German fighter and dive bombers habitually returned to the northern French airfields. In an attempt to reverse the situation, the Royal Air Force launched an aggressive bombing raid on the second night after the rain stopped, deploying 95 bombers (there weren't many bombers left for the Brits, hehe). Since the German army had not yet equipped itself with real nighttime fighters, they could only rely on searchlights and ground anti-aircraft guns to intercept the incoming aircraft at night, with low efficiency. Consequently, the British raid achieved some results, but there were too many German airfields in France, and the next morning before the sun rose, a large number of fighters and bombers flew across the channel like locusts. In retaliation, Keitel ordered indiscriminate bombing of the airports and military industrial facilities in the southeast and south of
England. Due to some workers still working overtime, hundreds of civilians were reportedly killed in this bombing, sparking international condemnation.
Sitting on the turret of Tank No. 4, Logan leisurely smoked a cigarette, which was already lit in broad daylight. Since Tank No. 019 had been heavily damaged in the defense of Portsmouth, he had switched to Tank No. 039 this time, not because he had any particular fondness for the number 9, but because the crew of this tank, like the previous one, mostly consisted of shorter individuals... making the interior slightly more spacious!
The officers' "thoughtful intentions" touched Logan, but he was relieved that these tank crew members, regardless of their stature, were all rigorously trained and had experienced some battles; they were not just for show!
Accompanying the advance towards Wootton Harbor today, besides a hastily assembled mixed company from the original landing forces, there were two newly formed tank companies of the "Fuhrer Guard Flag Unit" 1st Armored Battalion, the entire 3rd Mechanized Battalion, and the artillery battalion of the "General Hermann Goering" Regiment, all of which were transported to the island in the past two days. With the old and new forces assembled, there were a total of 52 Tanks Nos. 3 and 4. The newly transported troops also included two fully trained StuG III assault gun companies, and the number of armored vehicles was even larger. The artillery battalion of General Goering's regiment was particularly formidable: the configuration of 24 105mm howitzers and 8 150mm caliber howitzers was even more powerful than that of a regular Wehrmacht divisional artillery regiment—of course, this unit had been raised and organized by Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief Hermann Goering before encountering a roadside bomb attack. Bearing the aura of an Imperial Marshal.
On the ground, the tide of steel formed by tanks and armored vehicles swept across the fields with astonishing momentum; in the sky, squadrons of aircraft with iron cross emblems under their wings flew past. Logan had seen such scenes in movies before, but those images featured smoking American soldiers and Mustangs and Spitfires of the Allies. Now, with the Isle of Wight as a springboard, as long as they could take down the British mainland, as long as Britain capitulated, the nightmare of the German generals' "two-front war" would cease to exist. No matter how powerful the British Navy was, how amazing the American industry was, could they still launch a landing battle across the Atlantic?
Wootton Harbor, along with the surrounding British defenses, came into view, and Logan raised his right hand in a dignified manner, signaling the massive ground force to stop advancing. At the same time, more than thirty Stuka dive bombers took off from the southern airfields of the Isle of Wight and launched a dive-bombing attack on the British positions and port facilities—although the British anti-aircraft fire never stopped, their power was simply too disparate!
After about ten minutes, the Stuka formations finished their bombing, and the artillerymen of General Goering's regiment took advantage of this opportunity to adjust their heavy artillery to the ready-to-fire state. With the commander's order, the ground trembled once again!
Amidst the deafening roar of artillery fire, Logan sat upright on the turret, pulled out a silver lighter confiscated from a British colonel, and elegantly lit another cigarette. General Patton, hailed as the man who liberated Europe with a cigar in his mouth. At this moment, Logan missed the taste of a premium cigar even more—when he got his hands on those two boxes owed to Jürgen von Arnim, if conditions permitted, he would get himself a box and sit at various landmarks in England, letting the embedded journalists take photos, hehe!
Just this morning, the "Charlie Chaplin look-alike" specially came to find Logan, telling him that his fighter squadron had shot down 196 British planes. Although some were old biplanes, they still belonged to the British fighter sequence. Without any accidents, they would reach 200 before lunch.
Where was the air battle? This was simply shooting turkeys!
After being promoted to Air Force Colonel, Logan's salary, along with various subsidies, reached over a thousand marks per month, placing him comfortably in Germany's middle-class bracket. In this enviable position, acquiring two boxes of cigars was no difficult task. He readily agreed outwardly, but inside, he was ecstatic—though Garland's fighter squadron had suffered the loss of over 40 planes and some experienced pilots, what did 200 planes signify? In the historical Battle of Britain, during the initial phase (August 13th to 23rd), the British lost a total of 183 aircraft. By the most intense phase of the battle (August 24th to September 6th), their losses escalated to 466 planes in just two weeks, marking the closest period to victory for the Germans. Subsequently, the German Luftwaffe shifted focus to launching large-scale bombings on London, squandering away the victory they had almost secured!
As of now, barely into late August, the Royal Air Force had already lost half of its combat aircraft and a significant number of experienced pilots. Most airports, radar stations, and military facilities in southeastern and southern England had suffered severe damage. What added to their frustration was that the radar, originally deployed as a secret weapon, had been suppressed by German radar jamming stations, rendering it ineffective...
Amidst the rumbling of artillery, Logan leisurely finished his cigarette. The Goering Regiment, originally a police force, had surprisingly evolved into the precursor of German paratroopers and ground combat units of the Air Force. Later, it participated in the French campaign under the guise of an anti-aircraft unit. Now, it had formed a new artillery regiment beyond its three anti-aircraft battalions, which made one marvel at Goering's extensive interests and astonishing power. Unfortunately, a small roadside bomb had handed Logan an unexpected diversion. The artillerymen dug up from the army were ruthless and accurate, and within half an hour, the already perforated outer defense lines of the British were on the verge of collapse amidst the thundering of cannons. Following this, Logan ordered the artillery fire to extend into the harbor area, and then, raising his right arm high, he calmly and forcefully swung it downward. The formidable ground armor force, akin to medieval knights in heavy armor, began their charge with a terrifying momentum...