The Twilight of Empire: Starting from Dunkirk

Chapter 170, 11th Brigade

August 16, 1940, Axbridge, United Kingdom: Underground command bunker of No. 11 Fighter Group, Royal Air Force.

After more than a week of high-speed, frantic friction, the bearings of war finally emitted a piercing scream, on the verge of breaking.

If the "Eagle Day" and its aftermath in early August were a brutal assault by the German Luftwaffe on Great Britain's air defense system, then by mid-August, the air battle had completely transformed into an industrial meat grinder.

The 11th Fighter Group command bunker, located 18 meters underground in Axbridge, was like a boiler room about to explode due to overpressure.

Major General Keith Parker, the frontline commander responsible for defending the entire southeast of England—the route the Germans would inevitably take during their invasion—stood beside a massive wooden drafting table. His uniform shirt collar was completely open, his sunken, bloodshot eyes fixed intently on the colorful wooden blocks on the table representing enemy and friendly aircraft.

The Germans changed their tactics.

Or rather, under immense pressure, Reich Field Marshal Hermann Göring, who was based in Berlin, finally heeded the advice of frontline commanders Albert Kesselring (commander of the 2nd Air Fleet) and Hugo Sperler (commander of the 3rd Air Fleet). They ceased harassing the insignificant escort merchant ships along the English Channel and temporarily abandoned the indiscriminate bombing of London.

Now, all of the German Air Force's aerial bombs are precisely aimed at the Royal Air Force's vital front-line airfields and the "Home Chain" radar station.

This is the most logical, cold-blooded, and deadliest tactic in military terms, and it's also the last thing the Royal Air Force wants to see.

situation.

"Sir, the damage report for Manston Field is out." A major intelligence officer strode over to Parker and handed him a telegram that smelled of ink. "In the past three hours, they have been subjected to two waves of level bombing by a total of eighty Do-17 bombers and a squadron of Ju-87 Stuka dive bombing."

The staff officer swallowed hard and read out the shocking data: "The main runway was directly hit by eleven 500-kilogram high-explosive bombs, all creating craters over five meters in diameter. All the above-ground hangars were completely destroyed. Three Hurricane fighter jets undergoing engine overhauls, along with their maintenance racks, were burned to their skeletons. Ground crew casualties exceeded forty. Worst of all, the underground fuel tank's pipelines were ruptured, causing a leak of high-octane aviation fuel. The entire airport is now a ticking time bomb."

"How long is it expected to take to restore takeoff and landing capabilities?" Major General Parker didn't look at the report; he was just staring at the map.

"The engineering company is filling the craters with gravel and quick-drying cement, but due to the constant threat of strafing, it will take at least twelve hours to barely restore takeoffs and landings on the single grass runway. Currently, the 65th Squadron stationed there has been forced to relocate."

"Where's Kenley Base?" Parker's voice was devoid of emotion, but his clenched fists betrayed his inner anxiety.

"It was also severely damaged. Not only that, the radar tower in Ventno was precisely struck by a Stuka half an hour ago, and its transmission antenna collapsed. We have lost an important eye on the southern coastline."

If the airport is destroyed, those expensive flamethrowers and hurricanes will be lying on the ground like dead fish, at the mercy of others; if the radar is destroyed, the 11th Group will revert to the blind men and the elephant situation of World War I, unable to conduct precise guided interception.

On the other side, General Dowding stood silently atop the command platform. The Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Air Force Fighter Forces looked ten years older.

In his hand was a personnel loss report, a form that caused him even more heartache than the base damage report.

Thanks to Arthur's strong intervention and the efficient operation of the "civilian repair network," the production and repair rate of aircraft were barely able to keep up with the rate of consumption. From the assembly lines in Coventry and Birmingham, a steady stream of new fighter planes were sent to the front lines.

However, metal can be recast, but flesh cannot.

"Parker," Dowding's voice was filled with extreme exhaustion, like an engine about to run out of fuel, "we're bleeding dry."

Dowding walked over to Parker and slammed the loss report on the edge of the map table: "In the past week alone, your 11th Group alone has lost more than 130 experienced pilots. Most of them died in air combat, some froze to death in the sea after parachuting, and our rescue teams couldn't possibly pull everyone out in time. Some even crashed into the ground during landing due to extreme fatigue."

"Those idiots at Training Command are still sending me people. But what kind of people are they sending? Rookies who've only flown twenty hours in biplane trainers at flight school, who don't even know how to retract a flamethrower's landing gear! Cramming them into the cockpit and sending them into this meat grinder of the sky, they won't survive the first round!"

Dowding took a deep breath and made an extremely difficult decision: "We have no reserves. Leslie Mallory (commander of the 12th Group), responsible for defending the central region, always keeps his 'wings' tightly packed, and support is always a step behind. If our loss rate remains high over the next three days, I will have to order all fighter squadrons to withdraw from southeast England to inland airfields north of London. We cannot risk all of the RAF's resources on the Channel."

This is a painful strategic compromise.

Once the 11th Group retreats, the vast industrial areas, ports, and towns of southern England will be completely open to German bombers, ready to be ravaged.

"No, we're not backing down. This game hasn't reached the point where we need to take back a move yet, and besides, we still have some cards we haven't played."

With the sound of a heavy oak door being pushed open, Arthur strode into the underground bunker.

In this military command post filled with the stench of sweat, gunpowder, and despair, Arthur's presence seemed out of place.

He was dressed in an army brigadier general's uniform and carried a black cane that concealed a sharp blade. Lieutenant Jeanne, following behind him, carried a thick stack of documents and files.

Arthur's eyes didn't show the same weariness as Dowding's. The RTS enhancements allowed him to work at a superhuman pace, and his eyes were filled with absolute rationality.

He went straight to Major General Parker's drafting table, and without exchanging pleasantries, directly asked Jeanne to place the stack of documents on the table.

"In Blackpool, in Northholt, and even in the barracks behind these bunkers beneath your feet." Arthur said slenderly.

His fingers tapped on the manila cover of the file. "Right now sit hundreds of pilots who spend their days smoking junk cigarettes, staring blankly at war reports in the newspaper, or getting drunk and causing trouble in bars. They have hands and feet, perfect eyesight, and an intense urge to kill, to kill Germans."

Major General Parker frowned; he knew perfectly well who Arthur was referring to.

"You mean those refugees? The Poles, the Czechs, and the French?"

Parker shook his head, retorting without hesitation, "Mr. Sterling, as a special advisor to the Air Force," he said, "I am incredibly grateful for your contributions to logistics and radar upgrades. But I must remind you from a tactical execution perspective: this is a modern air war that heavily relies on radio guidance and precise formation coordination!"

Parker spoke rapidly, his voice trembling with frustration as a frontline commander: "I admit they're competent soldiers. But they don't understand English! They can't even understand the most basic RAF radio terminology (R/T)! When my ground controllers call out 'Tally-ho,' 'Pancake,' or 'Vector' on the channel, they're probably just consuming alcohol!"

"Squeezing them into Spitfires and Hurricanes traveling at 400 miles per hour, and having them fight hundreds of German planes in the sky, they'll break formation and even crash our own planes once they lose language communication! I have no problem with them wanting to meet their maker, but I don't want to waste precious aviation equipment on them!"

"General Parker, I must remind you, your viewpoint might not be a problem under normal circumstances, but the Royal Air Force..."

We have reason to be proud, but these are extraordinary times.

Arthur wasn't angry. He simply placed his hands on the table, leaned forward, and looked down at Parker and Dowding: "This isn't a war fought by just the British Empire, nor is it a friendly match between the Oxford University Debating Society, nor is it an afternoon tea party at Downton Abbey. This is the whole of Europe resisting the Nazi invasion, everyone killing each other in the air, no need for that bullshit London accent."

Arthur casually flipped through the file, pointing to the densely packed, tongue-twisting Eastern and Central European surnames: "Look at their resumes! Look closely! These aren't the rookies fresh out of the training command, the kind who can't even hold a flight stick properly!"

"Jan Zumbach, a Pole. Last September, he flew his old PZLP.11 biplane, which didn't even have a canopy and had fixed landing gear, and engaged in a bayonet fight with the Germans' Bf-109s over Warsaw!"

"Witold Urbanowicz, a Pole. During the French defeat, he piloted one of the French's leaky, dilapidated planes and managed to shoot down a Stuka!"

Arthur's voice, strong and clear, echoed through the bunker: "Their country is gone. Their cities have been burned to the ground. Their wives, daughters, and parents have been herded into concentration camps by the SS like livestock."

"They don't need political commissars to conduct pre-war mobilization, nor do they need any nonsense about 'for the king and the country'"—that's just utter rubbish from the knight-errant.

God. They don't need to understand our useless "V-formation" tactics.

Arthur looked directly into the eyes of the two generals and said, word by word, "What flows in their veins is no longer blood. It's fuel of revenge that's more explosive than 100-octane aviation fuel."

"Language barrier? If they can't understand the radio, they'll use gestures! If the formation breaks up, let them hunt freely! All they need to know is how to put the aiming reticle on those Bf-109s with the Iron Cross painted on them, and then hold the firing buttons on the four machine guns and two cannons firmly!"

"The Royal Air Force's homegrown boys take to the skies to fulfill their military duties; these outlaws who crawled out of hell take to the skies purely to kill. What we desperately lack now is precisely this kind of killing machine that requires no psychological preparation."

The entire underground command bunker fell into a deathly silence.

All eyes were on General Dao Gong. The veteran closed his bloodshot eyes. He had dedicated his life to building a professional, disciplined, and gentlemanly Royal Air Force.

But at this moment, in the face of the industrial meat grinder that leads to national subjugation and racial extinction, all traditions become worthless.

A few seconds later, Dowding opened his eyes, picked up the pen on the table, and heavily signed his name on the personnel transfer form requesting the formation of a foreign flight squadron.

"Give them planes. The latest Spirotechnics and the repaired Hurricane, their choice."

Dowding looked at Parker, his voice becoming resolute: "Before dawn tomorrow, I want to see the 303rd (Polish) Squadron, the 310th (Czechoslovakian) Squadron, and the Free French Squadron inside the 11th Battalion's defensive perimeter. Let them tear it apart."

1940年8月17日，清晨05：40。

Kent, a concealed field airfield on the outskirts of Biggs Hill.

The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the air was damp and sticky, mixed with gunpowder smoke and blood.

At the end of the grassy runway, which was covered in mud and ruts, a Spitfire fighter jet, numbered "DW-K", was warming up its engines before takeoff.

In the cramped cockpit sat James Edgar "Johnny" Jensen, a rookie pilot who had just been assigned to the 616th Squadron.

At this time, Johnny was not yet the Western Front's top ace who would become a household name in the coming years, shooting down 34 enemy planes in the European theater and inspiring awe throughout the entire German Air Force.

He was now just a twenty-five-year-old rookie, his hands gripping the control stick tightly, his knuckles white with tension, and even his breathing unsteady. To make matters worse, his right collarbone, a recurring injury from years of playing football, had been fractured during a previous emergency landing, and the bandages had only been removed two days prior. Every time he pulled that heavy control stick, a tearing pain shot through his shoulder.

This was almost his first real combat flight. In this meat grinder-like August, the so-called "reserve pilots" were nothing more than the next batch of expendable materials on the assembly line.

The veteran pilot who was supposed to guide him through the airspace was torn to shreds by German machine guns over Dover seven days ago; and the instructor who taught him how to retract the landing gear at flight school was welded to the runway yesterday by German incendiary bombs, just 100 meters away from him.

The experience and traditions of this squadron have been completely severed.

All the navigators are dead, and now, this rookie can only fly to hell alone.

His throat was dry, his headset filled with the static crackling of static electricity and the slightly panicked calls of the tower controller in English. He mechanically checked the instruments: the altimeter was zero, the turnaround speedometer was normal, the throttle position was confirmed, and the magneto switch was on.

Just like his instructor taught him.

But out of the corner of his eye, he involuntarily glanced to his right, thirty meters away.

There, parked, was a Hurricane fighter jet with a relatively rugged appearance, a raised back, and a somewhat bulky look.

Those were fighter jets from the 303rd (Poland) Squadron, which had just moved here yesterday evening.

Johnny turned his head and, through the scratched bulletproof glass, could clearly see the cockpit of the hurricane.

The Polish pilot did not wear the standard goggles and oxygen mask as required by Royal Air Force regulations.

He wore a leather flight cap loosely on his head, goggles casually pushed up on his forehead, and even had a half-smoked unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

What struck Johnny even more was the Hurricane's paint scheme.

The Royal Air Force’s iconic red, white and blue concentric circles have been preserved, but on the side of the engine cowling, ground crew painted a huge, blood-dripping Grim Reaper’s scythe with extremely rough red paint, as if it had been directly smeared on with a brush.

That wasn't some kind of artistic pastime by the squadron; it was a revenge totem painted on with crude paint.

This is the vicious curse and utter contempt of a conqueror who crawled back from hell, hurling at all German warplanes bearing the Iron Cross.

The blood-dripping scythe silently proclaimed the pilot's tactical logic: he would never push the stick to return to base when the Browning machine gun's ammunition belt was completely empty. This two-and-a-half-ton steel machine was the final shell to smash his cockpit.

Seemingly noticing Johnny's gaze, the Polish pilot turned his head and looked at the Spitfire.

The Pole looked at the young-faced, nervous-looking British boy in the cockpit. He didn't salute or give a thumbs-up.

He simply grinned, revealing a chilling, even cruel smile. Then, he raised his gloved right hand and, with extreme slowness and force, made a throat-slitting gesture at his own neck.

This was certainly not meant to intimidate Johnny; it was a rehearsal of what he was about to do in the sky.

"Emergency scramble! Emergency scramble! All hands on deck! Enemy formation is approaching! Bearing 1-8-0!"

"Twenty thousand feet high!"

A mournful roar came from the control tower's radio, accompanied by a red signal flare rising into the gray sky.

Without the slightest hesitation, Johnny saw the Polish "Hurricane" on his right unleash an extremely violent roar.

The Polish pilot didn't wait for formation instructions; he pushed the throttle all the way down, releasing the emergency afterburner limit. The roar of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine even drowned out the air raid sirens. The heavy Hurricane, like a mad beast, was the first to burst off the runway, its wheels carving a deep rut in the damp grass, sending grass clippings and mud flying into the air with the propeller's fierce winds.

There was no standard three-plane "V" takeoff formation, and no mutual cover or probing.

Immediately afterwards, five, ten—the entire 303rd Squadron's Hurricane fighters, like a pack of wolves unleashed from their cages, took off in a chaotic yet aggressive manner.

They piloted outdated aircraft, which the British considered somewhat obsolete, yet fearlessly plunged straight into the German formations looming over the East like dark clouds.

The future ace, the current rookie Johnny Jensen, felt his heart ignite at that moment, completely fueled by this group of desperados. It was a complex emotion, a mixture of fear and a death wish; the rules of civilized society were at stake.

Collapse awakens the most primal war instincts in our blood.

He gritted his teeth, ignoring the sharp pain in his collarbone, and slammed the throttle valve.

"Die, Nazis," Johnny muttered, pulling up the nose of the plane and following the invisible banner of vengeance, hurtling into the meat grinder of the clouds.