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These guys were really unlucky. Their plane wasn't destroyed, but they ran out of food—the unfamiliar and complex undeveloped mountain forest environment, coupled with strong winds, caused them a lot of trouble.
They couldn't find it, or the Swedes found the supply crate with the parachute attached before they did, and then burned it.
This has caused a huge problem. Not only are they almost unarmed and running around naked, but they also rely on KMF's night vision goggles every day, and now at night they can only stare blindly with their own two eyes.
Gunfire and tracer rounds continued to erupt from the surrounding woods and the Swedish anti-aircraft positions on the distant hills, as they dealt with the KMFs that seemed to appear out of nowhere. There was even the sudden sound of propellers.
Hoping to spot an enemy aircraft, I looked up, but all I saw was a strange bird slowly moving in the sky—and what was even stranger was that it had three propellers, one on each wing and one on the nose, and the sound was like an old lady with a sore throat flying overhead.
"Are you sure there are three fans?...Hey, hey, hey, lie down!" The guys who were lying in ambush by the roadside waiting for the Swedish patrol's weapons didn't care whether they were seeing things or not, because a group of tanks was coming.
The following vehicles, judging from their outlines, were Swedish-made and familiar from Bornholm Island. The first two looked much more familiar; they were American Stuarts. A long convoy, including several trucks carrying anti-aircraft guns, was heading south to reinforce the anti-landing forces.
After hiding for a long time, they finally found several highly motivated KMF squads.
“We will protect you. Also, I have something to ask you.” The KMF squad leader asked, “Have you found a female soldier? Her name is Mayweather. For some reason, she only had the ejection seat and jumped with us. She has a tuft of pink hair on her right sideburn, so she should be easy to recognize.”
"Pink..." The group of disheveled men suddenly remembered that when they were hiding in the pit where the Swedish soldiers had dumped the bodies, they had taken a second look at a young woman's corpse. Besides the pink hair on her sideburns and her hands tied behind her back, there was a deep, bloody mark on her neck where a bayonet had pierced her.
"The Swedes have already executed her, they even tortured her to death..."
……
The next morning, Marshal Alexander, who was defending the west, stood under the Union Jack and pondered whether the Swedish and Finnish planes still had any chance against Britannia.
Yesterday's counter-landing operation was indeed quite effective, but it clearly only delayed the enemy's large-scale offensive by one day, nothing more. Today, Britannia's armed transport planes have once again brazenly entered Swedish airspace.
Asking the Swedes and Finns to gamble with him? They certainly wouldn't be willing, and neither the British nor American forces represented by the Marshal could set an example.
Now we need to talk about the sea. At this time, the Royal Navy's five aircraft carriers were still safely on standby in the Kattegat Strait, which is the waters north of Copenhagen, but the carrier-based aircraft of the four Illustrious-class and one Unicorn-class carriers had suffered considerable losses, and most of them were Barracudas that dropped bombs and torpedoes. Sea fire alone was not enough.
As for the powerful US Navy? On the same day Britannia landed in Sweden, they also launched hundreds of attacks on Hamburg and Bremen. Of course, even if four of the US Navy's twelve aircraft carriers stationed in the North Sea returned to port for resupply, such an attack would still be a piece of cake.
However, things didn't go as planned. That night, large waves suddenly rose in the North Sea, causing problems for a number of US warships that were not used to the Atlantic Ocean conditions. Of the six Essex-class destroyers still on the front lines, three had to dock to seek shelter from the storm, while the remaining three and two Midway-class destroyers remained in the narrow waters near the Elbe Estuary, maintaining a state of combat readiness.
Are these carrier-based aircraft sufficient to defend against another Britannia air raid on Hamburg and Bremen the following day, while also having enough power to join the Royal Navy in wiping out the enemy fleet?
Just as Marshal Alexander and Cunningham on the aircraft carrier were having a headache-inducing conversation, the Strategic Intelligence Exchange Directorate, stationed in Stockholm and responsible for intelligence exchanges between the East and West, sent a telegram from the Soviet Army: Starting this morning, Britannian forces suddenly began operating in the airspace bordering Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Marshal Rokossovsky was also wondering if the other side was planning something big.
Just as everyone was puzzled, an officer suddenly rushed up to Alexander and handed him a telegram from the Swedish Army.
"What? More than a hundred armed transport planes heading towards the northern interior of Sweden have suddenly turned towards the Kattegat Strait?"
……
"Calling Copenhagen! Repeat! Calling Copenhagen!"
Just as Alexander was taking a shock at the Swedish telegram, a group of Danish sailors patrolling the coast in torpedo boats spotted a large number of white ships emerging from the port of Rostock in Germany.
"We have detected a large number of Britannian naval warships! Repeat, enemy warships... Oh damn, they've launched ship-launched missiles! Repeat! They've launched missiles! Heading towards the Kattegat Strait!"
Chapter 367, Section 466: Victory Fades, Fear Is Nothing More Than Fear
As seen on the map, Copenhagen, together with the Swedish cities of Malmö and Trelleborg on the opposite side, forms a natural iron triangle defense along the Øresund Strait, the throat of the Baltic Sea, and is also the last sea and land barrier for Britannia to attack Denmark from the east.
Marshal Alexander, a military man, had already arranged for these three cities to be heavily fortified. The weapons left by the Swedes were not enough, and the British tirelessly transported anti-aircraft guns of all sizes from their homeland, from Oerlikon and Bofors to 3.7-inch caliber guns.
As for the Danes, under the influence of the British, they also set up the 88mm anti-aircraft guns that the Germans hadn't had time to bring out of their homeland in the harbor of Copenhagen.
Today, when hundreds of Britannian armed transport planes swarmed in and forced their way into the Iron Triangle defense zone, the first to feel fear were not the soldiers belonging to the armies of these three countries, but the Swedish refugees who were preparing to leave their homeland with their belongings and loved ones.
These Swedes, who had left their homes and had not experienced the inferno of London during the Battle of Britain like ordinary British civilians, panicked and jumped ship the moment they heard the anti-aircraft guns of the British, Swedish, and Danish forces, as well as the small boats escorting refugees firing into the sky.
But what's somewhat despicable is that in the end, these ferries didn't even get a bullet hole in them, and many Swedish civilians drowned due to excessive stress.
After the escorting KMFs flew down and harassed the large-caliber anti-aircraft gun positions, they left. As for the armed transport planes, they didn't even look back, flying straight north accompanied by countless missiles—in the distance, in the Kattegat Strait, the Royal Navy's carrier battle group consisting of four Illustrious-class ships was faintly visible.
……
"Full fleet, zigzag maneuver using the 210 direction as the reference point, quick!"
At this moment, the four Illustrious-class destroyers were arranged in a diamond shape among the escorting cruisers and destroyers: HMS Illustrious, the flagship of Field Marshal Cunningham, was on the east side, HMS Indomitable was on the north side, and HMS Formidable and HMS Victory were on West Point and South Point, respectively.
As the silhouette of the first armed transport plane appeared in the sky over the Kattegat Strait, the Victory's four twin 4.5-inch anti-aircraft guns, with their flat, frying pan-shaped turrets, positioned on either side of the foredeck, opened fire.
Like bees swarming from a hive, plumes of black smoke and anti-aircraft gun tracer ammunition belts were aimed at these colossal objects in the sky. This was the first time that a "death firepower network" had been fully deployed over the Kattegat Strait.
When the first missile was shot down, the HMS Illustrious had already sent all the Barracuda torpedo bombers off the deck into the hangar, leaving only a few Sea Fire bombers at the stern of the runway that hadn't had time to take off, which then made a rapid right turn amidst the sparks and water.
One missile slipped through the net and landed in the sea less than 10 meters from the port side of the Tejas. Field Admiral Cunningham, along with more than a dozen officers in the bridge, swayed with the 23,000-ton displacement aircraft carrier beneath them.
Through the marshal's binoculars, the Seafire fighters, already intercepting at high altitude, were locked in fierce combat with the colorful KMF aircraft. At this time, a large number of armed transport planes that had completed their mid-course guidance were preparing to return to base. It was only then that the Danish pilots flying Hurricanes and P-40s hurriedly arrived—they were really just a few scattered aircraft compared to the Seafires, as most of the fighters had already been prioritized for the Swedish fleet.
But that's not what Cunningham was concerned with.
"Really, they can't tell the difference at all? Didn't the Swedish pilots find even the slightest difference in appearance between these big birds that have switched to missile guidance and those that drop bombs and carry out airdrops?"
The marshal's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as he stared through the binoculars—it was only after the American and British naval officers and men acquired a relatively undamaged Britannian armed transport plane that they roughly understood that these long-range missiles could only accurately hit their targets on armed transport planes with a host of new equipment installed in their cabins.
The problem is that unless you take the device apart, you can't find any difference between these two things that have such different functions.
At least that's the information we have so far, and it seems the enemy understands that these people from District 45 don't have that high a level of "cognitive ability"—otherwise, they wouldn't be able to understand where the Britannian army got the audacity to have the relay aircraft use the strategy of pretending to airdrop and bomb Sweden, and then suddenly turning around to attack the fleet.
……
Just as Cunningham was still staring intently at the belly of a squadron of armed transport planes through his binoculars, a plume of black smoke suddenly drifted by and blocked his view.
"Look! It's heading towards the Victory!" an officer on the bridge shouted.
The marshal seemed somewhat dazed, and after a moment of stunned silence, he looked again in the direction the officer was pointing. Amidst the swirling anti-aircraft barrage, a heavily damaged armed transport plane, its engine ablaze, turned and swooped down towards the British aircraft carriers as its comrades fled.
At this moment, the anti-aircraft gun crews on the HMS Victory must have been on tenterhooks. They had seen Stukas, HE 111s, and even the FW200, which Mr. Churchill had dubbed "the scourge of the Atlantic."
This time, however, the fascists from another world were operating a monster whose wingspan was nearly twice as wide as the deck of the HMS Victory, and whose engine room could fit a Tiger tank—every sailor on board was unwilling to imagine the consequences of it crashing into the aircraft carrier.
Just when everyone was at a loss, a 4-inch main gun from a nearby destroyer, aimed at the aircraft, struck the cockpit beneath the armored transport plane's cantilever at the last second. The violent explosion finally tore the Raptor apart; the fuselage and wings instantly shattered into pieces of varying sizes, crashing into the sea in front of the HMS Victory's bow.
“Jesus…” The surging waves rose like a high wall in front of the bow in Cunningham’s telescope, reaching higher than the bridge before crashing down, giving all the crew members on the deck of the Victory a hard slap.
"What are you thinking about, Marshal?"
Cunningham didn't immediately answer the officer's question. In a daze, he had a premonition—he desperately tried to recall when the Royal Navy and the US Navy had ever had a similar experience? At sea near an island? A multi-engine fighter jet, battered and wrecked, crashing into an aircraft carrier?
"Fleet-wide order!" At that moment, news came that a second wave of enemy aircraft and missiles was approaching. The marshal simply threw down his binoculars. "Cease the zigzag maneuver! All ships turn to a 310-degree angle and move away from the coast of Zealand at full speed!"
……
[022 Friendly Reminder: The following passage can be enjoyed with the soundtrack "Dogfight" from the movie *Midway*... but let's not force it, this time you might not be able to stomach it.]
The second wave of Britannia's relay aircraft did not attempt to penetrate the east coast of Zealand, where Copenhagen is located. Instead, they bypassed the west coast of Zealand, where anti-aircraft fire was relatively less concentrated. The missiles they guided suffered minimal losses, and the Seafire fighters barely concentrated in that area.
Then they saw the Formidable HMS on the distant sea, its massive body contrasting with the escort ships and the gleaming muzzle flashes of its guns.
However, before they could celebrate for long, they noticed a swarm of buzzing, dark blue insects approaching from the direction of Kiel—a group of US carrier-based aircraft flying in from the other side of the Jutland Peninsula, not too late after all.
Three Essex-class and two Midway-class ships, along with approximately two hundred F8F Tobago and F4U Corsair aircraft, formed a dense, dark mass, some even carrying rockets. Before the escorting KMFs could even climb to intercept them, they launched their rockets, and in the blink of an eye, large numbers of armed transport planes, with gaping holes and disintegrating fuselages and broken wings, plummeted to the ground.
Chaos reigned in the air, and the American pilots dared not slacken their efforts in the slightest. Meanwhile, the KMF pilots who came to their aid did not lose their composure despite being slightly outnumbered, skillfully and effortlessly engaging the carrier-based aircraft in a chaotic melee among the armed transport planes.
Just as the US carrier-based aircraft were about to be overwhelmed, 20 missiles rained down on the Formidable USS at high speed the instant the armed transport planes turned to return to base.
"Fire! Fire!" On the anti-aircraft gun positions of the surrounding ships, the spent shell casings of Bofors and Oerlikon were piled up at the gunners' feet with the reverberation of the mudslide. The hot gun barrels would immediately vaporize into a wisp of white smoke if they were even lightly dipped in a drop of seawater, and then be blown away without a trace by the gust of wind from the muzzle.
Missiles shattered into fireworks in mid-air, their fragments overlapping with the bloodshot veins of every sailor. Curses, fear, unease, and roars filled the air, but nothing could help the massive Formidable beneath them accelerate its escape from the dangerous waters; they were powerless to reverse what was about to unfold.
Emerging from the black smoke of anti-aircraft fire, two missiles, amidst countless exploding sparks behind them, and in the astonished eyes of a hundred or so sailors, landed precisely on the centerline of the deck between HMS Formidable's four twin 4.5-inch gun turrets at almost the same instant.
Immediately afterwards, another intact missile arrived and ignited. In an instant, flames and black smoke spread to the entire forward half of the Formidable's hull, along with most of the bridge. A piece of deck painted with the runway baseline flew out in full view of everyone and landed in her wake.
……
"Calling Formidable! Answer! Formidable, answer immediately!"
Field Admiral Cunningham repeatedly called from the bridge of the Brilliant HMS Formidable, but could not hear a single radio signal. The entire Royal Navy carrier battle group could only watch helplessly as the thick smoke, fueled by a sudden strong wind, soon completely obscured HMS Formidable, making it impossible to even see if there were any open flames on the deck.
Fortunately, two close-proximity destroyers quickly approached, and through them, a message was relayed.
“'Radio and radar are not working, at least six anti-aircraft gun positions are unresponsive, the foredeck elevator is severely damaged, and the fire in the hangar is under control and has not spread further.' This is a flag signal sent to our ship by personnel aboard HMS Formidable.”
"What do you need us to do, Marshal?"
"Calm down, everyone!" Cunningham steadied the crowd, glancing at the thick smoke billowing from the Formidable and guessing the wind direction. "The entire fleet will continue on its planned route, proceeding at full speed north of the Kattegat Strait. Inform the destroyers adjacent to the Formidable that they must protect them at all costs!"
……
A large, dark patch was reflected beneath the American pilots who had just been through a fierce battle, as if slapping each of them in the face.
The battle was far from over, and the panting crew received more bad news. A third wave of relay aircraft and missiles had already penetrated directly through the middle of Zealand Island, and the billowing smoke seemed to carry the stench of blood, fueling the Britannians' frenzied predation.
The propellers and jet exhaust in the sky were like a group of venomous snakes that had been baking in the sun for a long time, struggling to constrict each other. A dozen or so Norwegian Hurricanes and Spitfires came to help, but in the face of such a predicament, such power was no different than adding a few skinny rats to the constricting snakes.
Good fortune finally smiled upon the Royal Navy. The sea breeze continued to blow from the direction they had left, and the thick smoke from HMS Formidable, mixed with the smoke canisters set up by the British destroyers, enveloped the wrecked aircraft carrier in a shroud of black silk and white cotton thread.
The smoke screen rose very high, even creating a cloud in the sky a kilometer above, successfully blocking the armed transport planes flying in from the south. Having escaped the propeller blockade, these lucky planes, however, could no longer find the still-bleeding Formidable.
Unable to effectively worsen the damage to the former and cause it to sink, the relay aircraft had only two options: either drop unguided missiles into the smoke screen or redirect their firepower to other aircraft carriers in order to avoid returning empty-handed.
Just as they hesitated, two Colossus-class aircraft carriers, ordered by Field Marshal Cunningham to serve as a reserve force near Oslo Bay on the north side of the Kattegat Strait, gathered about eighty naval firepower to add another layer of defense to the air interception, forcing them to retreat in disappointment.
……
In Copenhagen, the sirens of fire trucks and ambulances blared incessantly. From the rooftop of his command post, Marshal Alexander could clearly see fighter jets preparing for emergency landings and pilots deploying their parachutes every now and then.
What else can we do? Besides silently lamenting the unfavorable timing and circumstances, should we vent our anger on innocent civilians?
As he went downstairs and returned to his room, the phone rang from Stockholm; it was General Heechul calling him.
“I regret the promise I made to you before, sir,” Alexander said apologetically. “The Royal Navy has already…”
"This is not the time to talk about this, Marshal." Haiqi said urgently on the other end of the phone. "Listen carefully, I don't care whether the Royal Navy will come to protect the Iron Triangle in the Øresund Strait or not, right now we just need to launch an air strike!"
"Please calm down, Mr. Hitch. Is it the Britannian fleet that just launched a missile attack on the Royal Navy that has arrived off the coast of Sweden?"
"It's the entire Britannian Empire's fleet! Nearly a hundred of their warships and transport ships have appeared in Hanne Bay, coming from Germany and Bornholm Island! Another large force of theirs has already landed behind our front lines!"
Chapter 368, Section 467: A clown, unworthy of being human.
If we were to rewind to mid-1944 from a modern perspective, it would be easy to imagine how much more a breach would be torn in the already shaky swastika flag as the heart of Berlin heard that the so-called "Atlantic Wall," on which so much hope had been placed, had been rendered meaningless by the Allied attacks on the Western Front.
Moreover, Sweden, a country that has long enjoyed peace and stability, cannot be compared to fascists that actively invade other countries. Such a humiliation is now hanging over their necks—it is both infuriating and outrageous.
The Britannian Empire's naval fleet and landing ships formed a vast, moving archipelago of steel in Hanne Bay. When the last precious 105mm field gun along the coast lost its combat capability, the Swedish officers and soldiers, staggering on the ground, had no chance or ability to resist. Faced with thousands of men in black and KMFs advancing towards their trenches, they raised their hands.
According to the accounts of a few American and Soviet soldiers who were fortunate enough to escape before being sent to Berlin, these aliens had a strange fear of the so-called "District 45" prisoners of war—especially when they saw Soviet officers and soldiers who, although disarmed, were filled with murderous intent, it was like a group of hunters facing a ferocious beast locked in an iron cage, but still able to bang on the cage and make it clang loudly.
Today, however, the Britannians simply grabbed them by the collar and dragged the Swedish soldiers out like dogs, kicking and shoving them, and then inevitably gave them a beating.
The Swedes, who barely understand English, could only stare in bewilderment at the words uttered, such as "a bunch of bastards like those from Area 11," too intimidated to even lift their heads.
Because the Britannian airborne troops were able to control the transportation hubs leading to the west and north, most of the Swedish troops stationed in and around Kristiansund had to escape by abandoning a large number of heavy weapons such as artillery and tanks along the main road to the east, which was close to the coast.
As they retreated at full speed without looking back, the lion and serpent flag from another world had already risen over the city. A gleaming boning knife had sliced the northern border of Skåne from Sweden's body, placing it in Britannia's clutches. And next to face this sharp blade would be the British on the shores of the Øresund.
Colonel Jodman and his East Gotland Air Defense Regiment were also in such a sorry state that they almost became sitting ducks. If it weren't for the fact that the Swedish Royal Air Force pilots had been tempered by the harsh reality to have the courage to face difficulties head-on, this escape route to the east would probably have been turned into a hellish highway by armed helicopters flying in from the destroyers of Britannia.
The KMFs were locked in aerial combat with the newly painted P-40, F4F Wildcat, and F6F Hellcat fighters, which were adorned with the three crown insignia. Every now and then, planes would crash on the coast and hills along the roadside, terrifying the Scania and Volvo trucks that were speeding by in a panic.
Not far ahead lies the Karlsruhena naval port. Now, apart from some remaining defensive structures, nothing of any use remains. The heart of the Swedish Royal Navy may be left to rot and sink in the water, with countless steel structures sitting there.
Just as Colonel Jodman could see the anti-aircraft guns roaring in the naval port, and just as the silhouettes of the Britannian navy ships in the distance had faded away, suddenly, like a giant whale turning over, a dark charcoal-colored submarine the size of a destroyer burst out of the white waves and onto the surface.
Suddenly, the submarine's back opened slowly like the giant jaws of a man-eating flower. In an instant, more than ten missiles shot into the blue sky, spewing fire, and flew towards the Swedish flag fluttering in the wind and rain at the Karlsruhe naval port, right in front of all the officers and soldiers who were still fleeing for their lives.
……
More than a year has passed since Nazi Germany's demise, but the profound memories it left on European history have not faded. Consider Denmark, Norway, and France; such "learning from history" naturally brings endless fear to the ordinary people of Sweden.
Not everyone had the courage to sail to Dunkirk in late May 1940 to pick up British soldiers. The Swedes, accustomed to a peaceful life, began to "find their own way."
Today, in front of a school in Stockholm, over a hundred citizens, holding signs in English and Russian, chanted slogans indignantly. Among them stood a blonde girl with two braids, who had to stand on a box to make her megaphone visible; her parents stood quietly behind her.
"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be here. I should be back in school, back in my music class with my dad!" The girl named Greta's features were contorted with indignation. "The Americans and Soviets came to us, saying they would bring us hope, but they stole my dreams and my childhood with empty words!"
"It was their silver tongue and deception that led to the near collapse of our nation, the demise of countless suffering Swedes, and the beginning of our national ruin. Yet they continued to use force to try and confine us to a fairytale of unity and mutual assistance against foreign enemies. How dare they do this?!"
Greta made a face that looked like she was choking on her sobs, but was actually more like she was choking on water, and pointed to a building in the distance. That was the building of the Strategic Intelligence Exchange Office established by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union in Stockholm.
"Today, every Swede here is fully aware and clear-headed! We will not allow those who have disrupted the peace of Sweden to shirk their responsibilities. Today, we draw a red line for all Swedes and show them Sweden's true choice!"