Chapter 208: Logan's Mark

"Enemy aircraft! Take cover! Pay attention to cover!"

When the British aircraft suddenly appeared, the air raid alarm was manually transmitted by the rotating personnel sent by each paratrooper company. The German paratroopers who had just occupied Chester City immediately became tense: although the British had built many underground shelters to withstand German bombing, the German armored vehicles that parachuted in had no way to enter those holes, and before the German fighter planes from Cardiff's forward base arrived, the German soldiers had to use their machine guns to deal with the low-flying British aircraft. Fortunately, the Royal Air Force's fighters and bombers had been heavily depleted in the early stages, and with the German paratroopers scattered in multiple locations, the ground forces broke through the British defenses like a tide, forcing the British to deploy their limited combat aircraft to the most critical areas. What actually arrived in Chester and launched the attack was just a small squadron of old-fashioned single-engine bombers!

Captain Scherme was still discussing the next combat actions with the officers of each company. Although the 1400 elite soldiers of the Model Parachute Battalion were all elites, parachuting into the British rear area, they could easily fall into a massive encirclement of second-line British militia at any time. Therefore, every move had to be carefully planned and adjusted according to the actual situation! Faced with the British aircraft attacking at low altitude, he and the officers had to take cover behind the barricades built by the British to avoid the attacks. Amidst the noisy gunfire, strings of bullets swept past them from a distance of just a few meters, which infuriated the young captain:

"What is that? A camel from the museum? Damn British!" ("Camel" was a famous British fighter plane during World War I)

Beside him, a tall, thin-lipped Air Force lieutenant who looked a few years older than Scherme cautiously peeked out from behind the sandbags, squinting at the British aircraft whizzing past in the air, and explained, "No, those are 'Stags'! Light bombers produced by the Hawker company, the pride of the Royal Air Force in the 1930s, but it seems like they've all been transferred to the reserve forces before the war broke out! Hey! The British have finally committed their last reserves to battle, they're almost done for... Watch out for their machine guns and bombs! Oh, damn!"

In their line of sight, a black bomb fell gracefully, landing directly beside a half-track armored vehicle where soldiers were operating a vehicle-mounted machine gun for anti-aircraft fire. But after the huge explosion, a large chunk was missing from the vehicle, and the soldiers were nowhere to be seen!

"Protect the tanks!" Scherme shouted loudly from behind the sandbags.

Faced with the attacking British bombers, the German tanks that survived the parachute drops all hid behind the buildings—yet as long as the British pilots circled around, they would eventually spot them. Soon enough, two large bombs were dropped towards the same three-story building, and before the unfortunate structure collapsed completely, the No. 4 tank parked south of it quickly retreated, narrowly escaping destruction!

"Cough! The British must have noticed our presence. Time is running out. Will, you take the 4th Company and immediately scout towards Birkenhead, occupy every railway station along the line, and if you can find a usable locomotive, you'll have done a great service!" Scherme ordered. Although Chester's railway station was a junction of three railways, the British had taken away all the locomotives and even burnt some of the immovable ones before retreating, leaving the German officers feeling somewhat emotional: the British now lacked everything but gasoline!

"Yes, sir!" The burly paratrooper officer saluted respectfully and, cautiously looking around, dashed towards the assembly area of ​​his unit.

Scherme grabbed the operational map and said to another lieutenant beside him, "Dahl, you take the 2nd Company to set up defensive positions around the railway station and send out demolition teams to plant bombs along the railway line. The enemy's reinforcements may use trains to come. No matter how many there are, you and your soldiers must resist them as much as possible. Our bombers will make them suffer. Captain Enke's company... should start parachuting before noon!"

"Understood!" After saluting, the tall, thin officer quickly left. Although the German Air Force had opened up to 49 field airfields and repaired five large airports in England, and had concentrated more than ninety percent of its airlift capacity under the command of Operations Director Hans Logan, General Student's 3.5 airborne division, with nearly 50,000 men, was still divided into six batches for airborne operations. The second batch was to parachute at noon, followed by two more batches at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., and the remaining troops would serve as reserves, parachuting into the most intense or urgent areas by noon the next day!

"Carl, your company will stay in Chester as a reserve, pay attention to using the buildings and the fortifications left by the British to organize defense! Everyone else, wait until the British air raid is over, then advance towards Birkenhead!"

Just as Scherme finished giving his orders, the British bombers that had been circling over the town suddenly flew north without looking back. One of them, which hadn't dropped its bombs yet, hurriedly threw them into the open fields at least five or six meters away from the railway line. In the southern sky, a row of black dots was rapidly enlarging, and the officers saw familiar silhouettes through their binoculars: the Empire Air Force's proud eagles were here, while the British Royal Air Force pilots were scared off! (It would be strange if scattered bombers saw enemy fighters and didn't run away)

The Messerschmitt fighters drove away the weak British bomber formation, and Chester City regained its vitality. The vehicles and paratroopers of the 4th Heavy Company stationed near the railway station immediately set off eastward along the railway line. Since the area between Chester and Birkenhead was relatively flat, there were only two inconspicuous small railway bridges along the 20-kilometer railway line, so the German Air Force did not use parachute assaults to forcibly occupy them. (This had to be done on the Birmingham front to support the army's attack)

About fifteen minutes after the advance party set off, the large force composed of the 5th Heavy Company, the 6th Machine Gun Company, and the 1st Paratrooper Company also left Chester along the railway line. Although the appearance of the "Giants" gave the German Air Force revolutionary airborne capability, the paratrooper units were still mainly on foot after parachuting in. What was even more frustrating was that the operational range of the No. 3 and No. 4 tanks that parachuted in was limited to the distance supported by their fuel capacity—150 to 200 kilometers on the road and about 100 kilometers off-road!

Fortunately, the German airborne forces were not conducting large-scale cross-cutting missions this time. They had only advanced seven kilometers, and the 4th Heavy Company of the Model Parachute Battalion launched an attack on a small railway station called Appleton with the support of tank guns and mortars. There were as many as four hundred British militiamen entrenched there trying to organize defenses, but the heaviest weapons they had were just a dozen or so Thompson submachine guns favored by American gangsters. As a result, the battle lasted less than ten minutes, and the fleeing British militiamen who retreated to Croxton Town became the best prey for the German riflemen, their wiggling buttocks more eye-catching than turkeys!

After defeating the British militiamen, the German paratroopers searched the railway station and the adjacent repair shop. There, they treated an old-fashioned black locomotive with damaged exterior and interior like a heavenly treasure. When human society had just entered the 1940s, most countries in the world were still using coal-fired locomotives, but in industrially developed Britain, locomotives powered by internal combustion engines were prevalent and gradually becoming popular—although locomotives powered by coal-fired boilers had not disappeared completely, the locomotive found by the Germans was rusted both inside and out, and more importantly, only a few lever handles for operating the locomotive remained. It was probably because the previous group of British militiamen didn't destroy it that they realized it was practically impossible to repair.

But this time, the British had clearly miscalculated. Since its establishment, the Model Parachute Battalion, built by Hans Logan, had been destined to be a versatile unit. Here, there were sharpshooting snipers, versatile soldiers skilled in driving various vehicles, even aircraft and ships, and explosives, firearms, and artillery were mandatory courses for everyone. In the varied training courses, it seemed like the potential of every soldier was fully tapped. Of course, this came at a price: the Model Parachute Battalion had twice as many training instructors as a regular paratrooper battalion, and the monthly consumption of ammunition, fuel, and other supplies for training alone was three times that of a regular infantry battalion. In a sense, this unit was "forged" at great cost!

After selecting paratroopers with maintenance skills to form a special repair team and leaving behind two MG34 machine gun teams for security, the 4th Heavy Company continued to advance towards Birkenhead along the railway line. And when the main force of the Model Parachute Battalion, led by Scherme himself, arrived at the Appleton railway station, two former technicians who had worked on the railway line and four soldiers who had worked as locomotive workers joined this repair team. After tinkering for a while, they managed to restore partial power to this locomotive that was damaged to the point of being sold as scrap metal. It's worth noting that although the basic principles of locomotives in Britain and Germany were similar at this time, there were considerable differences in technical standards.

They found coal from the warehouse near the station, filled the boiler with water, and a few muscular paratroopers rolled up their sleeves to act as firemen. Next, they struggled to first drive the locomotive to Chester to find a few flatbed cars, and then they found some repair tools and new parts from the repair shop, following the main force. On the way, this seemingly "cool" train also came under attack by two "Stags". The train could only maintain a straight line on the railway line, and the bad condition of the train made it impossible for the German paratrooper-turned-engine drivers to evade using acceleration and deceleration. In desperation, the British bombers dropped bombs into the fields at least five or six meters away from the railway line, and the rookie pilots circled again and again, but their 7.7mm machine guns failed to cause substantial damage to the locomotive.

In fact, since November, the Royal Air Force had faced double "bleeding": on the one hand, due to the German Air Force's bombing of British military industrial enterprises and combat losses, the replenishment speed of "Spitfires" and "Hurricanes" could not keep up with the losses; on the other hand, the cruel battles resulted in a large number of experienced pilots being killed or captured, and in just a few months, newly recruited pilots could not possibly reach the level of veterans. It was completely unrealistic to expect rookie pilots hastily thrown into battle to achieve much!