Chapter 229: Ship Snatching

"Prepare... Wait! What's that?"

Beside an LG40 75mm recoilless gun, Count von Brüschel, only 23 years old but with six years of military experience, raised his right hand high. With a vigorous wave of his hand, he could turn the building on the street corner ahead into a death zone. But at this critical moment, a flash of white appeared in the window that had been spewing bullets.

"Is that a white flag? Are they surrendering?" Not far away, a paratrooper officer holding binoculars was astonished. Despite being in the long alleyway, they hadn't seen the white flags on top of the Police Headquarters and the local Council Building, but the gunfire around them had indeed diminished compared to before!

"It's a white flag! Cease fire!" shouted a captain, fully equipped with paratrooper gear, nearby.

Despite this, the Count did not immediately order his soldiers to withdraw the shells from the cannon. Instead, he slowly lowered his right hand and said, "Stay alert, everyone! Fire only on my command!"

In a moment, a small squad of paratroopers armed with MP38s and Mauser 98Ks bravely crossed the street corner. The whole neighborhood suddenly became so quiet that the clanking of metal objects like water bottles, gas mask canisters, and paratrooper shovels on their gear sounded loud and clear. Charging to the front of the house, the lead paratrooper, a burly figure, kicked the door open with force and shouted in broken English:

"Don't move! Don't move!"

At that moment, many hearts were in their throats. The two paratroopers behind him aimed their weapons nervously into the doorway. The agonizing seconds passed, and the first British soldier emerged, hands raised with a common British Tommy helmet on his head, wearing a khaki overcoat, with a clean face and a look of fear in his eyes.

Immediately after, a second soldier, dressed almost identically but looking a bit older with a stubble on his face and wearing black woolen gloves, appeared at the door. Despite possibly not understanding German, he still dropped his rifle to the ground amidst the shouting of the German paratroopers.

It was a Lee-Enfield Mark II short rifle, already in production before the previous war and later used in the British military as a training rifle. With the progress of the war, these second-line weapons had been deployed to frontline units. Although slightly shorter in barrel length and thread, resulting in reduced range and power, it retained the Lee-Enfield rifle series' consistent high rate of fire and accuracy. Perhaps this stubbled man had already killed several German paratroopers before?

The third person to emerge from the house was a guy with a slightly disproportionate figure, standing at just over one and a half meters tall but with overly wide shoulders and hips, as if he had been feasting in the kitchen for years. Fat people have their advantages. He casually carried a 10-kilogram Bren light machine gun and lazily glanced at the Germans in front of him, casually dropping the weapon to the ground and walking aside.

Seeing the British soldiers drop their weapons and step out of the room one by one, the German paratrooper commander finally breathed a sigh of relief, waving his hand heavily to signal the paratroopers to move on towards the harbor. With the first group of surrendering British soldiers, and regular ones at that, several militia-looking Britons also emerged from the buildings surrounding the street corner. They had clearly seen the white flag flying in the distance, and they looked dejected and crestfallen.

After the initial bloody battle to enter the city, the German paratroopers busied themselves happily. They piled up the British weapons and gathered the surrendering troops in the open space at the street corner, placing them under the control of the machine guns.

Thus, the sound of gunfire in the city ceased like a fire under a faucet, leaving only wisps of smoke drifting around the city. In the alleyway just now, Count von Brüschel ordered his men to withdraw the shells from the cannon, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, leaving one for himself and distributing the rest to the sweaty gunners—although this recoilless gun was lighter than the ordinary infantry gun, it was still difficult to carry around, especially with shells to haul. Because of this, at the request of the Air Force Operations Commander, the technical department had developed a paratrooper vehicle capable of carrying this type of cannon for the paratrooper units. It was slightly larger than the standard VW82 Kubelwagen, with a higher chassis, faster speed, and much lighter weight than a typical armored vehicle. A "Giant" glider could carry four of them, and the new medium glider could carry one!

After finishing one cigarette, a sudden explosion came from the direction of the harbor, followed by gunfire. Those continuous gunshots were not only from the German MG-34s and the British Brens but also a higher-pitched, slightly slower rhythm of laughter, mingling among them!

At this moment, both the recently surrendered British soldiers and the German paratroopers accepting their surrender became tense again. Before long, a paratrooper on a motorcycle came speeding down the street, shouting, "Colonel Lendert has ordered all machine gun crews and artillery teams to rush to the harbor!"

Colonel Lendert was the commander of the 1st Airborne Division, 1st Regiment, and also the third in command of this airborne operation. Once the paratrooper units landed on the battlefield, there was no front or rear distinction. The officers couldn't be called "leading from the front" or "being on the front line" anymore. During the fiercest battles, they often had to pick up submachine guns and face the enemy in close combat, resulting in a much higher casualty rate for the paratrooper officers than for the regular army units. However, there was no shortage of brave challengers for command positions in the German airborne units.

The messenger on the motorcycle quickly headed towards another alleyway, and the Count looked at his artillerymen. It was a soldier's duty to obey orders, no matter how difficult the obstacles! Thus, they hoisted the small cannon and rushed towards the harbor. Fortunately, the lead paratroopers had already cleared most of the obstacles. They ran through three intersections and finally, the vast blue jewel appeared before them!

In the vast harbor, there were only a few ships at this time, with the most eye-catching being the large warship whose body resembled a black iceberg, and the hollowed-out bridge had yet to be armored. Because it was in the fitting-out stage during the conflict, it was practically in a non-combat state, towering over the dock like a towering city wall!

Upon closer inspection, the steel wall was slowly moving away from the dock towards the open sea. A warship without a chimney couldn't use its main engines—the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers of the German Air Force were circling above the harbor, and their powerful aerial bombs could easily destroy any ship below ten thousand tons, yet they strangely didn't attack these tugboats. Were they afraid that the bombs would damage the still under-construction British battleship?

Most of the time, the decisions of decision-makers were the most classified secrets for the grassroots officers and soldiers. These brave soldiers only needed to follow the instructions given to them at each level.

Despite carrying a moment of doubt, the count still decisively gave the order to fire.

The shells screamed towards the sea. Although the distance exceeded 3000 meters, the first shell hit the side of the leading tugboat with astonishing accuracy. A man wearing the uniform of a British naval sailor was thrown into the sea on the spot, and the high column of water instantly engulfed most of the tugboat's hull!

"Well done!" The officers standing in place cheered in unison.

"Load the shells!" The count proudly raised his head, watching as the gunners quickly extracted shells and propellant from the wheeled airborne containers, completing the loading with standard movements. After personally making the final adjustments, he stepped aside and covered his ears with both hands. "Fire!"

The second shell, still surprisingly accurate, hit the bow of the tugboat squarely. Although it was a simple high-explosive shell, it was enough to blow a huge hole in the steel and wood hull of the civilian vessel!

Seeing the breach below the waterline, the count ordered his gunners to quickly load another shell. This time, with billowing smoke, the helpless tugboat finally tilted forward—self-preservation was already a problem, let alone providing traction for the massive battleship!

With the second LG40 joining the battlefield, the count still adeptly directed the gunners to bombard the tugboats on the water's surface. Before long, the tugboat on the port side of the battleship was sunk, leaving only the last small tugboat, which was barely moving!

On the dock, the paratroopers brought all floating vessels they could find, even small boats that could only carry two or three people. Although most of them had no experience rowing before, under the urgent situation, vessels of all sizes surged toward the target like piranhas smelling blood. There were already some British sailors on board the ship, who, although unable to stop the German artillery from firing on the tugboats from a distance with their rifles, machine guns, and autocannons, could easily shoot the exposed German paratroopers on the boats!

Seeing this situation, the count quickly adjusted his two recoilless guns. Despite the enormity of the target, the next few shells all hit the battleship without exception—although they couldn't cause any damage to the thick hull, the shrapnel and shockwaves caused extensive casualties among the British sailors on board. With more and more German mortar teams gathering in the dock area, mortar shells began to rain down on the battleship's deck, significantly reducing the British firepower! Seizing this opportunity, the German paratroopers who approached by boat had already reached the underside of the battleship, but the British sailors had long removed the climbing nets and gangways installed during the outfitting period, much to the frustration of the paratroopers who had not served in mountain troops!

On the north side of the harbor, fully armed German paratroopers had already entered the famous Harland & Wolff shipyard. In the largest dry dock, explosions occurred one after another on the partially outfitted heavy aircraft carrier, followed by raging fires—clearly, a strong sense of honor made a considerable number of British naval officers and men unable to accept the result of their ships being captured. Faced with insufficiently prepared destruction, the German paratroopers had to make every effort to seize time, ships, and equipment...