Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 118 Airborne Arrival in Lviv - Part 2

Two hours later, at 3:30 a.m. on the 19th.

The sky was over an unnamed wilderness about ten kilometers west of Lviv.

"Sir! We should have reached the designated drop zone! Should we prepare for a parachute drop?"

Major Peter Strasser, the captain of the airship Lelouch was traveling on and also the squadron leader of one of the airship squadrons, asked Lelouch in a low voice.

Peter Strassey was considered an ace submarine captain, his ace record coming from the Dunkirk siege.

He was piloting a bomber airship at the time, and used 2000 kilograms of aerial bombs to destroy the Britannians' former dreadnought "Mars," which had already sunk on the beach of de Panne.

However, there was no bombing mission this time, and all the airship officers were piloting paratrooper airships. Major Peter Strasser had no choice but to take on this boring task.

He felt rather listless after the two-hour flight.

"Wait a little longer, don't rush to parachute down. Maybe we can observe the ground guidance signals of Major Kesselring's infiltration team behind enemy lines—let the airship flash its lights a few times." Lelouch finally gave this order.

Peter Strasser was alarmed: "Won't this expose our position?"

Lelouch: "It doesn't matter. What can the enemy do to us if we are briefly exposed? Can they immediately launch fighter reconnaissance planes, find us, and intercept us? This is the outskirts of the city; there shouldn't be any troops stationed here."

As for Major Albert Kesselring, before yesterday evening, I sent out a reconnaissance plane and made contact with his infiltration team again. I also dropped him a few boxes of supplies, including flares and a battle schedule. He should be coming to pick us up.”

Peter Strasser was completely relieved to hear that his side had an inside agent who had infiltrated beforehand, so he ordered the airships to turn on their lights temporarily and flash them briefly.

Sure enough, just two or three minutes later, some fireworks actually started up somewhere in the distance on the ground, but they didn't shoot into the sky and lasted only a short time.

This signal is only noticeable to observers looking down from the sky; it is invisible to people on the ground at a distance.

This was the message ammunition that Lelouch had airdropped after the reconnaissance plane located Catherine before nightfall last night.

After Lelouch saw the signal clearly, he decisively ordered: "Found it! Move over there! Parachute down there! There are not only fields around here, but there must also be groves. It will be very dangerous for paratroopers to land in the groves and get caught. If you can fly according to the instructions, then fly according to the instructions."

"All boats, prepare for airdrop!"

Peter Strassey used flashing lights to convey a simple airdrop order, and the entire airship unit quickly completed its final preparations before the parachute drop.

The hatch opened, and a not-too-fierce gust of cold wind rushed into the pod. One paratrooper after another filed out. Lelouch himself took a few deep breaths after his subordinates jumped out, and then jumped out of the pod.

Over the past few months, Lelouch has also practiced skydiving several times. In his previous life, as a military enthusiast, he had also tried paragliding, hiring his own instructors. So he mastered it relatively quickly.

As the inventor of airborne tactics, Lelouch also considered personally commanding frontline paratroopers in combat, which would be beneficial for his future promotion and would complete his resume as a frontline military commander at the division/regiment level.

He didn't dare to parachute in himself when he was in Dunkirk because the drop zone was too dangerous. He would have to land directly on top of the fortress and get into a fierce battle as soon as he landed.

But this occasion was perfect—the drop zone was a sparsely populated area behind enemy lines, allowing for a surprise attack. Moreover, Lviv was only about 70 kilometers from Przemyshir. Even if something unexpected happened, they could simply retreat westward with this elite regiment and rendezvous with their main force, which was bypassing Przemyshir by land.

Anyway, we have our own troops on both sides of the Carpathian Mountains. The 6th Army is on the south side and the 10th Army is on the north side. We can go back no matter which route we take, and there is no risk of trapping ourselves in a dead end.

The reasons for insisting on an airborne operation were twofold: first, to accelerate and expand the gains of the battle; and second, to rescue the friendly prisoners of war who had surrendered earlier in Przemeshir. Therefore, the worst-case scenario was simply that the prisoners of war could not be rescued.

Lelouch calmly counted to 10 in the air, then pulled hard on the parachute lines, just like in training, and finally landed steadily.

After landing, he pulled out a folding knife from his belt, cut the parachute lines, and inserted a magazine into his MP15 submachine gun. Throughout the process, his guards came over to help him cut the parachute lines.

"Sir, we've found Major Kesselring's men. He's brought over a hundred prisoners of war who escaped with him, and they're here to meet us." Lelouch's guard company commander, Crozier, quickly ran over with light steps, bringing Lelouch the good news. He also shone his flashlight slightly to indicate the direction.

May 19, 1915, was the sixth day of the lunar month, a waxing crescent moon. However, the waxing crescent moon only appears in the first half of the night. It was 3:5 a.m., and there was no moon in the sky. Without supplemental lighting, nothing could be seen at all.

Lelouch immediately headed towards the other party's location, and after walking only a few hundred steps, he bumped into Major Albert Kesselring.

"Major Kesselring, you have done a great job! Not only did you keep the prisoners in line and control the sabotage work before their surrender, but you also managed to lead more than a hundred prisoners of war to escape and hide behind enemy lines. I have brought with me the promotion order signed by Field Marshal Rupprecht, the army group commander. From this moment on, you are a lieutenant colonel. The Field Marshal has also decided to award you an additional Iron Cross First Class."

Lelouch shook hands firmly with the other person, handed them an envelope containing several folded documents, and took out an Iron Cross medal to pin on the other person's finger.

On the battlefield behind enemy lines, all formalities must be simplified.

Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring touched the Iron Cross, still feeling incredibly excited.

This mission was a gamble that paid off. Although it involved risking his life to go deep behind enemy lines and organizing the surrender, he was promoted two ranks at once. He was promoted one rank before setting off and another rank after receiving the reinforcements, going from captain to lieutenant colonel.

Kesselring quickly revealed more crucial military intelligence to Lelouch: "Sir, we have already discovered that the camp where my Demanian prisoners of war are held is 6 kilometers west of here. The reason I suggested airdropping here is because I was afraid that if we were too close to the camp, the enemy would discover us and come to intercept us."

This drop zone, though a bit far and requiring a forced march to reach, has the advantage of being less likely to be detected by the enemy. Moreover, the surrounding area is full of fields, making the airdrop safe. We can slowly organize our formation, gather our weapons, and then launch the attack.”

Lelouch thought for a moment: "I remember, we're located between two small POW camps, slightly to the south? The camp holding Demanian POWs is 6 kilometers to our northwest? The camp holding Bohemian and other POWs is 8 kilometers to the northeast?"

Kesselring was slightly taken aback: "That's right. You... are you planning to launch a surprise attack on both prisoner-of-war camps at the same time?"

Lelouch must have made a plan before he came, but when the time came, he had to make minor adjustments based on the actual situation, the weather, the terrain, and the actual coordinates of his landing.

He recalled the map of the area and finally made a decisive decision: "The two places are so far apart, and we don't have good communication methods. If we send messages to contact each other, it's easy for the enemy to intercept and become alert. It's too difficult to launch a surprise attack from both places at the same time. Let's prioritize rescuing our own Demanian prisoners of war."

I remember that the town where the Demanian POW camp was located had a forest a few kilometers to the east. We would divide our forces, sending two battalions to launch a surprise attack on the POW camp from different directions, while leaving two battalions to ambush the camp in the relatively dense area of ​​roads and forests east of the town.

If enemy reinforcements arrive in Lviv, or if the garrison at the Bohemian POW camp also comes to reinforce, we will ambush them! If there is no enemy response, after rescuing the Demanian prisoners, we will lightly arm some soldiers and then attack the Bohemian POW camp together!

Lelouch ultimately chose the safest approach. Dividing his forces for an attack would make it difficult to act simultaneously and would easily scatter his strength. It would be better to go all in, ensure that half of the objectives are achieved, and then take advantage of the situation to gather enemy reinforcements and act according to circumstances.

In his view, the Czech soldiers were definitely a slightly lower priority than his own troops, which was only natural. After all, his own troops could be immediately put into combat as soon as they were rescued, and their loyalty was never an issue.

While Lelouch and Kesselring were quickly finalizing the battle details, the entire paratrooper regiment, except for a few dozen soldiers who died or were injured during the parachute jump, had mostly regrouped safely.

Later statistics showed that a total of 5 people died and 22 were injured in the fall. This casualty figure was a very good result for a nighttime airdrop, mainly because Kesselring helped them choose a drop zone that was a field.

The black soil at the end of the thaw period is very soft, and it is impossible for a person to fall to their death with a parachute. The few deaths were due to incorrect posture when landing, causing the head to get stuck in the mud during the roll, and the person suffocated to death. They were not directly killed by physical impact.

Weapons such as grenade launchers and light machine guns were dropped from separate weapon cases with parachutes attached, as it was originally thought that some of the equipment would be damaged upon landing.

However, the final result revealed that while none of the ammunition crates were actually damaged, a small number had become stuck in the mud upon landing and could not be found. But all the crates that could be found were usable; not a single one was broken. When Lelouch received this initial information, he was quite moved. He had planned everything according to the Normandy landings behind enemy lines in later generations, but even with meticulous planning, he had overlooked the subtle geographical and weather differences between the Eastern and Western Fronts.

This is the frost-prone period on the black soil plains, and the reasons for deaths and loss of supplies are different from those on the western front. Airborne operations theory still needs further study and refinement; we can't rely solely on this foresight to succeed forever. We need to let professionals dedicate time to its research.

After landing, the soldiers picked up their guns and collected their ammunition, which took more than 20 minutes. They were finally assembled at 4:00 PM and then ran towards the prisoner-of-war camp 6 kilometers to the northwest.

……

At 5:30 a.m., the prisoner-of-war camp in Gorodok, a town on the western outskirts of Lviv.

Colonel Osmanov, the highest-ranking officer in the prisoner-of-war camp, was still asleep.

In the past two weeks, the fighting in the west has become increasingly intense, but all of this has nothing to do with the troops stationed in Lviv.

The troops stationed here were all those who had been decimated and exhausted on the front lines and were now resting and recuperating.

Colonel Osmanov once led his regiment in the siege of the Pzhemeyr fortress. His regiment had a full strength of nearly 5000 men, but after the siege, only more than 2000 men remained.

After returning to the rear, he replenished his forces with over a thousand new recruits, bringing the total to 3200. He divided two battalions, about 1800 men, at the Demanian POW camp, and placed the other two battalions, 1400 men, at the Bohemian POW camp.

Because of the heavy casualties suffered during the siege, he was recalled and put in charge of guarding the surrendered prisoners of war at the Przemehir Fortress.

Those prisoners of war were his old adversaries, who had killed half of his comrades during the defense of the fortress. Therefore, Colonel Osmanov harbored a deep hatred for these prisoners of war, kept them under very strict control, and was extremely ruthless when forcing them to do hard labor.

The 45,000 Dmanian prisoners of war were mainly tasked with maintaining the railway conditions around Lviv, loading and unloading cars at the Lviv train station, and cultivating farmland near Lviv.

Last year, the winter wheat planting season in the Lviv area was not delayed, and the wheat seedlings were planted very well. However, since the beginning of summer this year, because the surrounding areas have become war zones, many serfs have fled famine. By the second half of May, which should have been the winter wheat harvest season, no one was buying the grain, so prisoners of war had to be forced to rush to harvest and plant.

Farming was more difficult to manage than other forms of forced labor because the work area was large, and guards inevitably had moments when they couldn't keep an eye on things. After only a week of wheat harvesting, several hundred prisoners of war found opportunities to sneak away.

Some prisoner-of-war officers took advantage of the preferential treatment they received upon surrendering, such as being allowed to keep their personal belongings, to hoard some gold marks. They would then secretly slip the gold coins to the guards, the French soldiers, during breaks from working in the fields.

The French army had very poor discipline, and some of the ordinary soldiers were serfs who had never seen much of the world. When officers of noble birth gave prisoners of war gold coins, the soldiers would turn a blind eye, take the money, and secretly release the prisoners, only to report that they had escaped on their own when they returned.

Since desertion was impossible to completely prevent, Colonel Osmanov did not punish his soldiers much.

Whenever he discovered an escape, he would only punish those who were "suspected of having the motive or tendency to escape" from the group of prisoners of war who had escaped, and execute them as a warning to others.

If someone is caught while attempting to escape, then needless to say, they can be executed without any grounds for reprisal.

In the past week, several hundred prisoners of war have escaped, and he has also executed several hundred, nearly a thousand. The remaining 43,000-plus prisoners of war can only rage in silence.

At this very moment, the soldiers were half-asleep, half-awake, and the sky was just beginning to lighten.

Suddenly, the sounds of grenade launchers being fired echoed around the camp.

Dozens of projectiles, each with the power of a hand grenade, flew through the air in high parabolic arcs before exploding inside and outside the camp walls.

With a series of loud explosions, several gaps were blown in the camp wall, and the sentry towers at the four corners of the camp were hit by a barrage of fire, almost all of which were destroyed in the first wave of attacks.

The eight M1910 heavy machine guns on those watchtowers were wiped out without firing a single shot.

A regiment of the Rusa army has at most 16 heavy machine guns, and Colonel Osmanov's regiment was divided into two parts to guard two prisoner-of-war camps, so there were only 8 in total here.

They are usually placed in the corners of the camp to block the walls. If anyone tries to escape over the wall, they can be shot at along the base of the wall, ensuring that as many as try to escape, they will be killed.

Unexpectedly, this deployment at this critical moment resulted in the complete annihilation of the two battalions' heavy machine guns in the first wave of enemy fire.

The Lusa's heavy machine guns were taken out by grenade launchers, but the Demacians' light machine guns began to fire "rat-a-tat-tat~".

Almost instantly, the Demanians attacking the camp switched from silence to full firepower, with light machine guns spitting out dozens of intersecting tongues of fire as they relentlessly mowed down the remaining sentries at various posts.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!" Lusa, the guard in the camp, was completely caught off guard by the enemy attack in such a remote rear area. She was utterly bewildered and could only shout wildly.

Who in this era could have imagined that the enemy would suddenly appear at least 70 or 80 kilometers away from the front line? The Lusha soldiers guarding the camp were already very lax, and their only attention was focused on the prisoners in the camp, so they paid no attention to outsiders.

The first wave of attacks quickly stunned the firing positions on the wall, and dozens of sentries on duty were killed instantly.

Meanwhile, a large group of Demacian submachine gunners, taking advantage of the darkness before dawn, charged forward.

The only resistance in the camp came from the rapid-fire shots of Mosin-Nagant rifles. Although there were hundreds of Mosin-Nagants, they were completely unable to stop the enemy's charge.

The Demacians' submachine guns fired in a "rat-a-tat-tat" pattern, and as they approached the camp walls, they threw rows of grenades, dropping hundreds of grenades on both the north and south walls. The Demacians had also deliberately adjusted their attack positions, making a slight detour before attacking to ensure that they could advance from both the north and south and attack the camp from both sides.

"Commander! The Demacians have broken in!"

Colonel Osmanov's staff and guards rushed in to inform their superior of the latest situation after the Dmanian assault soldiers had already blown open the camp walls and gates with a barrage of grenades.

Colonel Osmanov had just put on his trousers, but they were crooked, his belt was off, and his boots were just hastily pulled on without being buttoned.

"Where did the enemy come from? What kind of enemy is it? Have you figured it out?"

The regimental staff officer was also at a loss, and could only guess: "It should be those prisoners of war who escaped before. I don't know where they got their weapons, and they ran back to ambush our comrades who were rescuing them!"

"Bullshit! How could those hundreds of escaped men have such good weapons? Did the Demanians airdrop weapons to them using airships?" Colonel Osmanov was a bit more intelligent than his subordinates and immediately realized that such firepower was definitely not something escaped prisoners of war could possess.

However, he only guessed that the enemy's main force had made contact with these escaped prisoners of war and airdropped weapons to them, without considering the option that "the enemy directly sent paratroopers".

But none of that mattered anymore. He immediately ordered each battalion and company to resist independently and hold their ground. If any prisoners of war tried to attack from within, they were to be opened fire!

He knew very well that at this point, killing a prisoner of war or an enemy soldier would have the same result. If these prisoners of war were rescued, they would immediately become dangerous warriors again once they regained their weapons!
After giving these instructions, Colonel Osmanov issued another urgent order: "Immediately send a telegram to the other camp to warn them! Also warn Commander Ogelki, who is stationed in Lviv! We have encountered an attack by a resistance force composed of enemy escaped prisoners of war! But the enemy has somehow obtained heavy firepower from the Dmanian regular army! Requesting support!"

The radio operator immediately followed the regimental commander's orders and sent indiscriminate warnings to all friendly units in the vicinity.

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P.S.: Another day of writing 10,000 words a day... Looking back, I've been writing at least 10,000 words every day since September 1st...

(End of this chapter)