The Twilight of Empire: Starting from Dunkirk

Chapter 168 I want to know how long Mr. Meyer can keep bragging.

August 7, 1940, 6:00 AM. Bentley Abbey, Middlesex, England.

This is the nerve center of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command. Just a month ago, this was a training base, but now it has become the front line.

Although it's called a "monastery," there are no nuns or prayers here, only the buzzing of electronic devices, the smell of tobacco filling the room, and the sound of countless young female support soldiers moving war games in front of a huge map table.

This 18th-century Italian-style mansion has now been completely transformed.

Miles of black cables now stretched down the corridors that were once adorned with oil paintings. The lavish banquet hall had been transformed into a war room, with a massive wooden map table occupying the center—the chessboard for the entire Battle of Britain. Dozens of Royal Air Force female auxiliary personnel, wearing headsets, were using long wooden poles to push blocks representing friendly and enemy aircraft into their respective positions, following instructions from the intelligence filtering room downstairs.

It's dry, tense, and filled with anxiety here.

At the entrance to the underground command bunker, two fully armed military policemen suddenly brought their heels together and saluted the newcomers.

Arthur returned the greeting expressionlessly, his steps quick, his leather shoes making a rhythmic sound on the marble floor.

Following behind him was Lieutenant Jeanne, who had fully resumed her military service. She carried an MP40 submachine gun on her back, held a thick folder in her hand, and scanned her surroundings warily, as if this were not the British command post, but enemy trenches where a gunfight could break out at any moment.

When Arthur pushed open the heavy oak door and entered the underground command room, a heated debate was taking place.

This is the top of the chain of command, and also the place with the greatest pressure.

The huge explosion-proof lights illuminated the entire room, and the walls were covered with status charts for various fighter squadrons, weather maps, and tide schedules.

Royal Air Force Fighter Commander General Hugh Dowding stared intently at a battle damage report in his hands, his famously poker face expressionless.

His eye bags were deep; this veteran, known as the "stubborn one," hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time. Across from him, several air force brigadiers in charge of logistics and equipment dispatch were sweating profusely, their collars undone, their uniforms undone, and they had even disregarded military discipline.

"General Dowding, this is simply impossible!" A brigadier general in charge of equipment supply waved a form in his hand, his emotions running high. "At yesterday's intensity and loss rate, our Spitfire fighters will be exhausted within three weeks! The current replenishment rate simply can't keep up with the consumption! Frontline repair stations are lacking aluminum plates, magnesium alloy castings, even rivets! We must request Stirling Heavy Industries to increase production! We need more new aircraft! We need aluminum!"

Another staff officer chimed in, "The three squadrons of the 11th Group are practically paralyzed. We're short of both personnel and aircraft! We've suffered too many losses over France. If we continue at yesterday's rate of attrition, we won't make it past September!"

"idiot."

Arthur cursed under his breath, his footsteps interrupting the argument and instantly silencing the noisy conference room.

He slammed his cane down on the floor with a heavy thud.

All eyes were focused on this "special advisor" and the fully armed, imposing French female officer behind him.

The officers present all knew Arthur Sterling's importance; he was not only a close friend of the Prime Minister but also the head of the British military-industrial complex.

Here, his words often carried more weight than the Air Force's orders.

Arthur walked to the conference table, not looking at the data on aircraft production, nor even glancing at the anxious brigadiers. Those reports were originally compiled by his production department heads and submitted to the Royal Air Force; he was more familiar with the data than anyone else.

He pulled out a completely different report from his pocket—data on pilots—and casually tossed it onto the coffee-stained map table.

"Gentlemen, stop staring at those aluminum sheets and engines. That's an extremely amateurish way of calculating, an accountant's mindset, not the mindset of a general."

Arthur's gaze swept over everyone present, his tone cold and pragmatic: "We don't lack aluminum, we don't lack engines, we don't even lack assembly lines. Your eyes are only focused on the factory's monthly output."

They focused on quantity, but forgot the most crucial element of war.

He tapped the table with his finger: "Stirling Heavy Industries has just launched a civilian repair network in Coventry and Oxford. This is a plan that Lord Beaverbrook and I devised together. I have mobilized countless car repair shops and even bicycle workshops in the countryside."

The Beaverbrook he mentioned was the British Minister for Aircraft Manufacturing and a long-time partner of the Sterling family.

"Those planes riddled with holes don't need to be sent back to the factory for rebuilding. They're towed to the nearest auto repair shop. My mechanics, the same ones who usually fix Rolls-Royces or tractors, are now handling aerospace-grade aluminum. They can repair a Spitfire with a shattered wing in 24 hours, or even piece together a new one from parts of two wrecked planes. I call it 'assembling corpses,' it sounds awful, but it works."

Arthur chuckled coldly, his tone dripping with sarcasm towards the Hans across the strait: "In industrial production and maintenance, we're more flexible, more like shrewd businessmen, and more like scoundrels than the Germans. German engineers are meticulous, demanding only original parts, while I only have two requirements: it just needs to fly and fire. So, stop complaining to me about not having enough planes. As long as the wreckage can be salvaged, I can get it airborne again in two days."

He placed his hand on the report about the pilots: "But look at this! This is the real crisis!"

How long does it take to train a qualified fighter pilot? In peacetime, it's 18 months! Even with this kind of wartime intensive training program, it takes 6 months! And that doesn't include the time they spend gaining experience in actual combat! We can't train them 24/7.

Repairing a wrecked pilot in an hour! Even the best surgeon couldn't do that!

The red numbers on the report are alarming—they represent recent pilot casualty statistics.

More than the loss of aircraft, the rate at which experienced pilots were lost was the real reason that could have caused the Royal Air Force to collapse.

"You should know that before the Polish campaign, the Fighter Command had 2200 qualified pilots on its roster. At that time, we thought that number was more than enough, and we could even send an expeditionary force to France."

"Then came the French campaign that brought us to our knees and forced us to flee." As Arthur spoke, General Dowding's eyes gradually darkened; this touched a raw nerve. "In those hellish six weeks, we didn't just lose the European continent. We left 435 of our best pilots on the beaches of Dunkirk and over Paris. That's a full 20 squadrons! They weren't recruits; they were squadron leaders, aces, the backbone of the Royal Air Force."

"As of early this morning, after deducting the wounded and those on rotation, we only have 1,150 active-duty pilots left. In the past month, we have not only failed to make up for the losses from the French campaign, but have also incurred a personnel deficit of nearly 30%."

Arthur paused, then turned to the last page of the report, which recorded yesterday's battle damage—the day the German Luftwaffe broke through the defenses and symbolically bombed the British mainland.

"And these are the numbers that are truly keeping me up at night."

"Yesterday. Just yesterday. In order to intercept the German vanguard reconnaissance and bombing formations, we lost 32 pilots over the English Channel."

The meeting room was deathly silent, with only the dull hum of the ventilation fan.

The number 32 may not sound like much, but every commander present knew what it meant.

"32 men," Arthur repeated coldly. "If Göring—no, Mr. Meyer—launches his full-scale attack, and if this level of attrition continues for a month, that's 960 men. Gentlemen, that means by September, the Royal Air Force will cease to exist."

"From today onwards, all tactical doctrine must be revised." Arthur looked at Dowding, his eyes serious. "Tell the lads that if the plane is severely damaged, or runs out of ammunition and is being tailed, bail out immediately! Don't try to save the plane! Don't gamble your lives to save those few tons of aluminum!"

"The plane is lost, that's my factory's problem. I have two hundred production lines and five thousand maintenance workshops supporting it. But the people must come back alive!"

Arthur emphasized, "As long as the people are alive, I can provide them with an unlimited number of planes. But if the people are gone, even if I build ten thousand Spitfires, they'll just sit on the runway and rust, waiting for the German tanks to come and take them over."

Dowding looked at Arthur and remained silent for a long time.

This stubborn and meticulous veteran stared at the casualty report, his tightly clenched lips twitching slightly.

He knew Arthur was right. As a commander, he always felt the pain of losing every fighter jet, but compared to cold machines, human resources were the most irreplaceable and expensive consumable.

"You're right, Arthur." Dowding finally nodded slowly, his voice weary. "This is a war of attrition, and human resources are our most expensive bottleneck. I will immediately issue new operational orders to save lives and abandon aircraft."

"And there are combat methods." Arthur didn't stop because of Dowding's approval. He turned around and walked towards the row of huge cabinets with flashing indicator lights on one side of the command room.

That was a secret weapon radar data processing terminal provided by Stirling Electronics to the Royal Air Force.

Meanwhile, on the cliffs of Dover, those seemingly simple "native chain" radar towers, resembling high-voltage power line towers, are undergoing a transformation invisible to the naked eye.

Over the past few days, Arthur's technical team has carried out an emergency upgrade to the entire radar network.

From hardware to logic, the Royal Air Force needs to innovate.

"The Germans aren't stupid. Their technology is also very advanced. They'll soon figure out the operating frequency of our radar." Arthur pointed to the steady green waveform on the oscilloscope. "To interfere with our radar, they might drop a lot of chaff or use high-powered radio jammers to cover our frequency band."

"If this had happened yesterday, their tactics would have succeeded. Our screens would be filled with static, and the commander of the 11th Battalion would have gone blind."

Arthur turned to look at Dowding and his staff: "However, my team completed the anti-jamming upgrade of the radar system last night. We introduced multi-band frequency hopping technology and more advanced signal filtering algorithms."

"The Germans thought they could blind us with foil strips and radio jamming." Arthur looked at the clear, flickering dots on the radar screen—the German aircraft gathering over the strait at that moment. Despite the strong jamming signals, the target echoes were still clearly visible. "But they didn't know that we had put sunglasses on the radar. This system can automatically filter out the clutter and leave only the real metallic echoes."

Arthur took a red and blue pencil from Jeanne and drew a circle around the strait region on the map.

"This is our slaughterhouse. With these eyes, Major General Parker's 11th Group will no longer need to conduct tiring aerial patrols. They can sit at the airport and drink tea, waiting for the Germans to fly to their most vulnerable positions before taking off to intercept them."

After arranging the Air Force's core tactics, Arthur turned his gaze to the other side of the command room, where there was an encrypted telephone line leading directly to 10 Downing Street.

At this moment in London, it's not just the Royal Air Force that's preparing for war.

In the underground wartime cabinet headquarters in Westminster, Winston Churchill stood before a huge battle map, a cigar in his mouth. Beside him stood a tall, solemn-looking Frenchman—Charles de Gaulle.

For de Gaulle, this was both an ordeal and a trial.

Although he did not command a large air force, and although he was now merely the leader of a government-in-exile, he did not choose to hide in the safety of the rear. He chose to stand with Churchill, at the nerve center of this empire facing destruction.

His duties are political and symbolic.

He wanted to witness the battle firsthand and learn how the British organized a defense in dire circumstances. He wanted to broadcast everything that was happening here to his French compatriots across the Channel through the BBC: Britain had not fallen, and the resistance continued.

This was also Arthur's instruction to de Gaulle before they parted: Follow Churchill, and observe and learn from whatever he does.

Churchill would also occasionally consult de Gaulle on possible German psychological tactics and the political dynamics of continental Europe. The two men stood like statues before the map; their very existence was a silent declaration—Anglo-Saxons and Gauls stood shoulder to shoulder against the Nazi onslaught.

Meanwhile, on the defensive line in south London, a more direct form of cooperation is underway.

Major General Jeanson, commander of the French 12th Motorized Infantry Division, was standing on a position outside Croyden.

This elite French army, which Arthur had dragged out of the hell of Berg, not only retained its organizational structure but also preserved the last vestiges of French military dignity.

Unlike other exiled forces that were scattered and incorporated into British logistics battalions, they were instead deployed as a complete operational group with independent command, wedged into the ground defenses south of London like a nail.

Using the original 1000 veterans who had narrowly escaped death as the core, and after more than a month of intensive reorganization, they absorbed and integrated most of the French soldiers who had retreated to Britain. From the initial scattered troops, they quickly expanded into a massive army of 20000 Avengers.

They not only recovered to full strength, but even surpassed their peak full-strength strength of 12000 men, and Arthur even promised to...

They were armed to the teeth and transformed into a fully-equipped, heavily armed division.

This is not just an army, but the physical embodiment of the Free French Army on the British Isles.

On the front lines, French soldiers were digging trenches alongside the British Home Defence Force. Major General Jeanson was not in the command post; he was personally inspecting each anti-aircraft position.

"Move that Bofors anti-aircraft gun five meters to the left! That's a blind spot!" Jensen roared in increasingly London-accented English, then ordered his soldiers in French, "Have the machine gun crews watch out for low-altitude attacks! The German Stukas love dive bombing!"

Sterling Heavy Industries replenished them with the latest equipment as much as possible. The French soldiers were no longer carrying the old Lebel rifles, but brand-new Lee-Enfield rifles and Bren light machine guns. Their trucks were loaded with ammunition and fire-fighting equipment.

Major General Ryoma knew very well that ground troops could do limited things in this air battle, but they were not useless.

"Your mission has three parts." Those were Arthur's orders to him before dawn, which Sen now relayed to his commanders: "First, use all light weapons and anti-aircraft guns to bombard any low-flying enemy aircraft that enters your range, interfering with their bombing accuracy; second, once the bombs fall, our motorized infantry will be the fastest fire brigade and rescue team, and we must help the British rescue every civilian buried under the rubble; third, if the German paratroopers dare to land here—"

Rang Sen patted the pistol at his waist, a ruthless glint in his eyes: "Then let them know that the 12th Division will continue fighting here, the battle they didn't finish in France. Show no mercy."

Meanwhile, in a more secluded corner of London, Arthur's other two gears were also turning silently.

In the basement of an abandoned flour mill in the East End, Colonel David Sterling is distributing equipment to a group of men who look like dockworkers but have unusually fierce eyes.

This is a secret outpost of the "auxiliary units," also known as the "stay-at-home resistance organization."

"Listen, put away all those plastic explosives and tripwire mines. Now is not the time to turn London into ruins; we need to avoid blowing up our own people."

David Sterling toyed with a sharp assault knife, his eyes scanning the areas circled in red on the map. He was preparing to catch the rats: "Those office-bound guys from MI5 and MI6 just sent in intelligence. There's a group of German rats active in London. They're called the Guides."

"Their mission was to climb onto the rooftops of tall buildings or infiltrate open areas before the air raids began, and use radio transmitters and signal flares to indicate coordinates for the German Air Force."

David slammed his dagger into the Westminster district on the map: "These bastards want to be the eyes of Göring's bombers. Our job is to gouge those eyes out."

His mission changed from sabotage to cleansing.

"We have established direct contact with the intelligence department. Once the radio monitoring vehicle locks onto the unidentified signal source, or the air defense sentries detect unusual ground flashes, you will be deployed immediately."

David Sterling surveyed the group of desperados: "No arrests, no trials. Any spy attempting to guide the Germans in the chaos of the air raids, any fifth columnist with a signal pistol—"

He made a throat-slitting gesture: "This is our hunting ground. We need to make sure these German spies are already cold in the sewers before the first bomb falls."

His men are laying a massive counterintelligence network in the shadows of the city. Armed with silenced pistols and fighting knives, they lurk in subway vents, abandoned attics, and church bell towers. Anyone attempting to light a fire in the darkness will immediately encounter these dagger-wielding ghosts.

In the heart of the Sterling Industrial District, the private army of Sterling Security, commanded by Colonel Ryder, displayed a completely different level of professionalism.

This is the heart of military production, a vital life-sustaining machine that the empire absolutely cannot afford to lose.

Colonel Ryder stood atop the factory's air raid shelter tower, a walkie-talkie in his hand. His troops were equipped with quadruple Vickers heavy machine guns and M2 heavy machine guns imported from the United States.

"Attention, all air defense posts: any unidentified aircraft is considered enemy aircraft." Ryder kept his eyes glued to the sky. "Protect..."

The factory is the top priority. If incendiary bombs fall, the fire brigade must control the fire within three minutes. If anyone takes advantage of the chaos to storm the factory—”

Ledera cocked his gun: "Kill them all."

This private army not only had to defend against air raids, but also maintain order. When police forces were tied down by air attacks, they were the military police of the Sterling Industrial Empire, ensuring that the production of every single screw would not be halted by panic.

Our attention returns to the underground command room of Bentley Monastery.

Time ticked by, and the dots on the radar screen grew denser and denser, like a swarm of ants before a summer downpour, surging in from across the strait.

Arthur glanced at his watch; the hands pointed to 06:45.

Everything is ready.

The logistics and maintenance network is in place, awaiting the wounded warplanes; the radar network has filtered out the clutter and locked onto its prey; politicians are holding their ground, allies are preparing for war, special forces are lying in wait, and private armies are on alert.

This was not just an air battle; it was a sophisticated national machine operating at full power in the face of a threat of destruction.

"Lieutenant Jeanne," Arthur suddenly called out.

"Here!" Jeanne stood at attention, her voice clear and crisp, her pen hovering over the notebook.

"Record the order. In the joint name of the Special Operations Service and the Air Force, notify the Coast Guard and Maritime Rescue Service to deploy all speedboats, fishing vessels, and even private yachts. Establish a pilot rescue corridor in the English Channel."

Arthur walked up to the huge nautical chart and drew a wide channel with his finger across the azure area of ​​the Strait of Dover.

"Tell them it's going to rain people in the strait today. Whether they're ours or Germans, if they fall in, get them all out of the water."

"Give our pilots blankets and hot rum, then send them back to the airport or hospital in the fastest vehicles. As for the Germans—" Arthur thought for a moment, "send them to a POW camp—or directly to the interrogation room in Sterling Tower. I need to know just how many planes that pig Göring has prepared, and how long his bragging can last."

"Yes!" Jeanne quickly took notes, her eyes filled with excitement. She had rediscovered the thrill of racing tanks with Arthur in France.

Arthur turned around and looked at the narrow strait on the map through the thick, blast-proof glass of the underground command room. His face appeared particularly resolute under the green glow of the radar screen.

There, dark clouds were gathering over the eagle's sun. Hundreds of German bombers and fighters were covering the eastern sky in unprecedented density.

"The shadow of the sea lions has loomed, but the hunters have already set up their guns. Goring says he'll wipe us out in four days? Let him try."

The sun had long since set yesterday, but now, on the eastern horizon, the rising sun was illuminating the outline of Bentley Abbey.

It was dyed a deep crimson, like fresh blood, or like a raging fire.

The air raid sirens began to sound in the distance, mournful and prolonged; it was no longer an exercise, but the roar of war.

The Battle of Britain, the largest air battle in human history, officially began at this moment.

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