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As the crowd, chattering amongst themselves, prepared to protest at the building entrance, several people arrived before the Swedish soldiers and stopped them.
"I was there just now, and I've had enough of your nonsense!" The leader was an old man with a cane, who immediately pointed his finger at Greta and started yelling, "Why should millions of Swedes entrust you, an ignorant brat, with the right to make unwarranted comments!"
“Every child has the right to speak! This is inherent to every descendant of Sweden!” Greta’s mother immediately pulled her daughter back and started arguing with the old man. “And you are the kind of person my daughter said has no consideration for the future of Sweden!”
"Don't use the word 'children' as a cover, you idiot!" The old man stomped his feet angrily. "Let me tell you, our Longger family has two children. One is on the front line, defending against enemy planes bombing our hometown, while my eldest son is on the destroyer Joaquin on the other side of the shore. He's the captain! Every soldier like my child is protecting our country..."
"It's them! They're the accomplices of the Americans and Soviets!" Greta's father chimed in. "If they hadn't been flying planes and warships alongside the US and the Soviets in the Baltic Sea, the Britannians wouldn't have noticed us, let alone be dumping countless bombs on our homeland!"
“You are older than all of us, yet how dare you ignore these facts and keep talking about ‘defending our homeland’? No matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe it. Because if you truly understand the situation and still don’t take action, then you are evil!”
"Do you know how many people in Europe have been displaced and lost their homes because of the wars of the past few years? You have no idea what a heavy number that is!" Amid the clamor of the crowd, Greta, nestled in her mother's arms, began to refute them. "You, here today, are not mature enough to tell the truth! You have let us down! Thousands of generations to come are watching you. Since you have let us down, we will never forgive you!"
The two groups drew ever closer together, and when Swedish soldiers finally arrived to stop them, Grandpa Lunger was pushed by someone, his forehead snapped back, and the back of his head hit the middle of the road. By the time people noticed, he had never woken up again.
……
In times of peace, sons bury their fathers; in times of war, fathers bury their sons. As the captain of the destroyer USS Joaquin, Lieutenant Commander Lunger had been deeply worried these past few days because his younger brother's fate was unknown on the southern front, but he never expected to receive news of his father's unexpected death first.
"Who? Who killed my father?!" Unable to bear this bolt from the blue, the captain, like a bloodthirsty great white shark, questioned the crew members who were from Stockholm or whose relatives had some connection with the capital. Before long, he got the information.
Greta's parents were both teachers at the school where the incident occurred; her father taught music and her mother taught mathematics. Most of the civilians who rioted that day were school staff and their relatives, and they all lived on the same street.
So, when he learned that his superiors had not responded much to the unexpected death of Lunger's father, the captain, in a fit of rage, led nearly a hundred fully armed crew members straight to their quarters.
"Come out! You bunch of bastards surnamed Thunberg!" The out-of-control Lundgren had already started firing his submachine gun into the air and cursing. Although the crew members were also indignant, they were still somewhat clear-headed. They just grabbed some stones and bricks from the roadside and smashed the windows of the houses.
Hearing the terrified screams from inside, Lundgren cursed and fired at a doorman's house. But it wasn't Greta's family who opened the door; a man pointed to the next door and told the captain that was his target.
"Break down the door! I want to personally pay for my father's life with these bastards!"
Then, just as the crew members were banging on the door with their rifle butts at his shouts, Swedish military police arrived and detained everyone. Before Lunger led his team ashore, the ship's communications officer knew that the damage was done and sent a telegram to the higher command to warn the police, thus preventing a bloodbath.
So how was the matter finally resolved? That very evening, just as they were deciding to severely punish Captain Lunger, Swedish submarines patrolling and mine-laying off the coast of Stockholm sent back a telegram: they had intercepted a fishing boat heading south near Gotland, which was surprisingly crowded with Swedish civilians with their families. And this wasn't the first civilian vessel to evade naval surveillance and secretly cross the sea south.
In the end, they made a very conciliatory decision: Greta's family would pay in full for Lundgren's father's funeral, the captain would publicly apologize, and he would advance the next six months' salary to compensate Greta's neighbors who were affected.
Despite his reluctance, Lundgren, led by a naval lieutenant commander and watched by dozens of crew members and civilians, completed this symbolic project with feigned politeness.
Just as they were about to leave Greta's house, Lundgren suddenly turned around and strode towards them. Just as everyone in the house was on edge, the captain stopped in front of the piano in the room.
This is Greta's father's piano, with several stacks of sheet music on it. Lundgren flipped through them and found the one bearing the title of the Swedish national anthem—"Thou Ancient and Glorious Northern Country".
He stuffed the sheet music into his clothes, left a threatening remark, and stormed out, saying, "Your whole family is unworthy to sing this song, never will be!"
……
While the Swedes were bewildered by their retreating troops at the front, Berlin was filled with jubilation. Elizabeth was celebrating Trossa and Amatulla's initial victories in Scandinavia.
“It is only right that you are happy for us, Your Highness.” But Trosa’s face did not show a smile; instead, it was somewhat serious. “However, even if Sweden is no match for us, it is still Sweden of Zone 45, not Sweden of the EU.”
"General, there's no need for you to be overly modest about the reward you deserve."
“That’s not the case,” Amatulla explained. “Do you remember when Lord Suzaku Kururugi and Princess Nunnally questioned American soldiers in Area 11? Do you remember those Americans saying that the people they encountered in Area 11… no, the Japanese, in the Pacific often committed acts of torture and murder against prisoners of war?”
“The soldiers on the Swedish front have been talking about something during this time,” Trosa continued. “A KMF pilot named Maye was found during the initial airborne operation with her throat slit by the Swedes, her body bound with ropes and left in a pile of corpses, not yet buried.”
“That’s not all, Your Highness.” Amatulla’s teeth began to clench. “Recently, the crew of the submarine Yudrian reported that after the landing in Hanne Bay began, they have seen fishing boats coming from the north along the Swedish coast every night. The people on board are all carrying flashlights, torches and other light sources, as if they want to be seen.”
"Is he a civilian? General?" Elizabeth was curious, but also a little uneasy.
"The Udrih reported that they initially chose to surface and then submerge again to warn the civilian ships not to try to approach our landing site, but strangely, wherever the submarine submerged, they followed."
“If it were in Germany, our soldiers would occasionally find civilians who have escaped here looking for their families, that would be understandable,” Trosa said, full of suspicion. “But the problem is that Sweden isn’t like Germany, where couples and children are separated and unable to reunite after a terrible war. Besides, there are also instances of Swedes mistreating prisoners of war in a manner reminiscent of the Japanese in District 45…”
"My God..." Elizabeth broke out in a cold sweat as she pondered the thought. "So, could those civilian ships be helping the Swedish military monitor our submarine movements? Or perhaps they're planting suicide bombers for us?!"
“After all, this is District 45, Your Highness. We must have the worst-case scenario in mind regarding the word ‘war.’” Trosa shrugged. “Therefore, considering the various factors of Sweden’s military strength and geography, I think it is urgent to give the Swedes a stern warning immediately, to let them know the price for standing in the way of the Holy Britannian Empire.”
"What good plan do you have, General?"
"It's very simple, just learn from the US and UK, who are currently playing against us."
As she spoke, Trosa picked up a model of a Britannian armed transport plane next to her, held it together with the pen in her right hand, and drew a curve from south to north along the east coast of Sweden on the map. Finally, she circled a city—Stockholm—to represent the bombing destination.
Chapter 369 Burning Stockholm (Part 1) (Section 468)
[022 Warm Reminder: This chapter is best enjoyed when paired with the soundtrack "Opening Titles" from the movie "Red Tail".]
The Scandinavian Peninsula is covered with lush coniferous forests, which are Sweden's national treasure and its evergreen garment throughout the year.
Today, several inexplicably decaying and withered fir trees along the shores of Lake Mälaren suddenly collapsed one after another, their crowns almost uniformly pointing towards the houses and woods on the eastern shore where a cold wind was blowing. Stockholm, a metropolis that had never tasted the bitterness of war since its inception, was about to face the most terrifying catastrophe of its life.
……
Air raid sirens and evacuation orders shattered the tranquility of the streets. Thousands upon thousands of city residents, like startled birds, and refugees who had recently fled from the south and had not yet been resettled, poured out of their houses and tents like a burst dam, flooding the city's streets and intersections.
The civilians hadn't had time to practice taking shelter from the air raids, nor were they familiar with how London residents had evacuated in an orderly fashion. Soon, stumbles and trampling broke out among the throngs of people. The Swedish soldiers were like a few reeds and saplings struggling in a flood, jostled and pushed around by the panicked crowds. Almost no one paid any attention to their pronouncements or the evacuation signs.
The naval officers, who were also helping the infantry, now had to spend a lot of time dealing with the civilians. Captain Lunger, who was also involved in the evacuation, had to give up and run with his men to the destroyer on the shore not far away.
"Weigh anchor!" The captain leaped onto the deck of the Joaquin, stepping over a pile of crates on the shore, and called to the first mate on the bridge, "Has the higher-ups figured out the details of the enemy approaching us?"
"This is a huge problem, Captain!" the first officer exclaimed urgently. "More than 300 planes are coming right up to the east coast! The Soviets and Finns in Kalmar are doing everything they can to help, but it's not making much of a difference!"
"Damn it, are all the air force personnel working themselves to death on the southern front?!" Angry complaints were useless. Lunger wiped his nose and tossed his peaked cap aside. "We can only rely on ourselves! I'll take the helm. Everyone, get moving! Anti-aircraft guns in position!"
Just as the captain rushed into the bridge, a casual glance out the porthole filled him with despair—a dark mass, like thousands of crows startled from the forest before a major earthquake, was heading straight for Stockholm.
……
Originally, Valar wasn't supposed to lead the armed transport planes, but he stubbornly and fanatically took the position. Coincidentally, Major Mayer, whom he hadn't seen in a long time, was also the head of the escort group, giving the two, who hadn't seen each other in a long time, a chance to chat.
“You’ve changed, sir.” Even through the windows of the KMF’s cabin and the armed transport plane, Mayer could see the captain’s face, which was filled with gritted teeth. “Sector 45 has successfully assimilated you into the same kind of people as them.”
“I’m assuming you haven’t been involved in any operations in Northern Europe this past month, so I won’t get angry with you, Maier.” If it weren’t for the radio, the lieutenant colonel would probably have bitten his ear off.
“If it weren’t for that girl named Mavis, my plane might not have even made it back.” Valar’s voice trembled with anger, and he even let out a few chilling sneers. “Ha, who told you that the people in the same cabin were all brave Imperial soldiers? They actually managed to find her body and still have the chance to come back alive to tell me… The most fearless, resourceful, and courageous soldiers who dared to step forward died like dogs under the butcher’s knife in the blink of an eye.”
“Take a deep breath, Lieutenant Colonel,” Mayer advised kindly. “It’s more important to maintain the rationality a team leader should have than to shout empty slogans about blood debts being avenged.”
With a snap, Vallar cut off communication with the KMFs, watching the Stockholm cityscape become increasingly clear beneath the clouds.
"Listen up, everyone! My order is only one sentence: Bomb any houses you see, and bomb any clusters of houses to death!"
……
Stockholm, often called the Venice of the North, is also a city built on an archipelago. Several streams from Lake Mälaren, which flows into the Baltic Sea, divide the city into several large sections from west to east, sheltering it among dense hills with an average elevation difference of forty to fifty meters, giving the city a natural protective barrier.
This is why a destroyer like the Joaquin, long since relegated to transport and training roles by the Swedish Navy, was stationed in the country's capital. The crew worked tirelessly, running the boilers at full power to get this 420-ton destroyer moving immediately.
"Fire at will! Keep the enemy planes away from here!" Looking out the porthole, Swedish infantrymen were about to set off to follow civilians heading to the air raid shelter, while the Joaquin circled on the less than 40 hectares of water not far away, using its only anti-aircraft guns to drive away the KMFs that were rushing down.
At an altitude of three to four thousand meters above, Britannia's armed transport planes had already opened their bomb bays, unleashing a deluge of bombs weighing hundreds of tons, as if Stockholm were being pounded by wall after wall running from south to north. The bombs exploded between buildings, and countless whips carrying gunpowder and clouds of smoke tore apart the city's suffering body.
We could no longer linger on this relatively wide but not really wide stretch of water. With quick reflexes, Lunger steered the ship toward the path to survival, and the Joaquin, moving straight ahead at full speed, darted into the narrow waterway squeezed by hills and buildings like a rabbit.
Clearly, the destroyer's pristine white color stood out too brightly against the blue water and colorful houses. More than a dozen KMFs and jets, eyeing her, swooped down, continuously dropping bombs that exploded on the water in front of and behind the ship and on the shore to its left and right.
可能早预料到会有这一天。计划着用于保护斯德哥尔摩天空的华金号，过去一个月做了一次紧急大换装——75mm主炮甚至鱼雷发射架都从甲板上拆去，硬生生变成了一个不再适合海洋而挤下了6门40mm和6门20mm防空炮的武装高速渡船。
All the destroyer crews did the same, but who could have imagined that they would face such a desperate disaster today? The anti-aircraft gun crews on the deck had no choice but to fire with all their might, as if possessed. Roof tiles, roadside trees, and even a teddy bear floating on the water were all instantly scattered by the sudden explosion onto the Joaquin and its crew.
In the blink of an eye, the warship had surged from the narrow waterway onto a stretch of river several hundred meters wide, directly facing a railway bridge shrouded in smoke. The banks connected by the bridge were engulfed in terrifying flames, and the entire crew was trapped between two walls of fire—never had a summer in Stockholm been so intensely scorching and dizzying.
There was a steam locomotive on the bridge. When the air raid siren sounded, the conductor was busy evacuating the passengers from the carriages, but there wasn't enough time to start the train. At that moment, the bombed-out bridge was collapsing towards the middle of the river, and the train was sliding along the bridge due to gravity, heading directly towards where the Joaquin was about to pass.
"We have to get out of there! Captain!" The echoes of explosions throughout the city mingled with the ship's anti-aircraft fire. The first mate screamed hysterically into Lunger's ear, his throat almost bleeding.
"It's too late! Don't worry about me! Go to the aft deck and take charge of the air defense!" Lunger pushed him out of the bridge, turned around and passed under the railway bridge in an instant. When he looked up, he could already see the black and hard metal body of the locomotive.
The captain heard a loud crash from the stern of the ship, like countless steel pipes being crushed and deformed. Then his Joaquin suddenly sank down and was immediately bounced up by buoyancy, lifting him up and slamming him against the bulkhead of the bridge behind him.
He couldn't even imagine what the first mate had seen when he stepped out of the cabin and was nearly thrown overboard—a locomotive weighing over a hundred tons, along with its trailer cars, crashed onto the destroyer's aft deck, sweeping over a large number of anti-aircraft guns and the crew operating them like a baseball bat that had swept across a mahjong table, slamming more than half of the Joaquin's anti-aircraft capabilities into the water.
……
Based on information gathered by the Swedish military from the US and the Soviet Union at the outset of the war, Britannia's primary targets were likely the cities along the southern and western coasts. Therefore, they focused their main efforts on other cities, delaying their efforts on the capital.
All of this was followed by a catastrophic chain reaction from the unexpected bombing raids, and it wasn't just a matter of insufficient anti-aircraft artillery deployment. Protecting civilians was far from enough with facilities like the city's grand theater, and there hadn't been enough large enough air-raid shelters for Swedish soldiers and workers to dig. When panicked civilians rushed in, the shelters were even filled with construction equipment.
The soldiers maintaining order were pinned down by the crying and shouting civilians inside and outside the air-raid shelter, and the crowd eventually dispersed—not because of any loudspeakers. When the soldiers saw the KMF diving down and instinctively raised their guns to fire, everyone surprisingly scrambled to the side of the road.
Surprisingly, the hail of bullets did not fall on them. Taking advantage of this opportunity to restore order, the still-shaken soldiers led all the civilians who could not squeeze into the air-raid shelter to the woods on the outskirts of the city.
The officers and soldiers split into two groups. One group led the relatively nimble middle-aged people and children up the hillside to the woodland, while the other group had to lead the remaining elderly, weak, sick and disabled along the relatively flat road through the already raging streets.
There was no other way to go. The infantrymen slung their rifles over their shoulders, rolled up their sleeves, and plunged into the sweltering streets. Enduring the stinging pain of the high temperature, they pushed aside burning vehicles and collapsing walls of houses, using their flesh and blood to carve out an escape route.
"We can go through here! Everyone..." Just as the crowd was about to surge forward, suddenly a nearly five-meter-tall steel humanoid figure appeared, as if it had been lying in ambush by the roadside all along. The soldiers were terrified. "Oh no! Go back! Go around!"
Watching those people's heads escape, the KMFs that had sprung out remained unmoved. A two-aircraft KMF squadron in the sky saw that it was their commander's aircraft and was about to open fire to finish them off, but they stopped in surprise.
"What are you doing here, Major Maier? These civilians clearly deserved what they got, so why won't you allow us to open fire indiscriminately?"
"Attacks on urban areas are the mission of armed transport planes, while our duty is to protect their safety. We need to reserve enough ammunition to ensure we can deal with enemy interception on the return journey." Of course, if it were truly an enemy aircraft on alert, Mayer should be in the air, not here looking like he's gripping the trigger, deeply conflicted about his conscience.
"Then let's leave this place." The two men who came to find the major glanced at the charred corpses of civilians by the roadside and spoke rather casually. At this moment, Valar also threw his accusations at the major.
"I ordered you to protect the fleet and suppress the enemy. What did you do, Major?" Looking up through the cracks in the buildings caused by bombs, Valar's armed transport plane was lowering its altitude, turning sideways, and pointing the self-defense turret on one side of the fuselage at the Swedish Navy destroyer that was still struggling in the water.
……
At this moment, the Joaquin, covered in scorching coal dust and dragging itself in a mess, sailed into another river channel filled with countless planks and debris. Only the two Bofors guns on the foredeck were still firing.
After settling the surviving crew members on the aft deck, the first mate struggled back to the bridge. Suddenly, he felt as if he and the warship beneath him had been hit by a ship, experiencing a violent jolt. The Joaquin failed to turn back in time to follow the bend of the river, and one side of the ship slammed hard against the riverbank, sweeping the messy carriages and cars on board into the water.
"Captain!" As the first mate scrambled into the bridge, a beam of light pierced through a bullet hole cut by a machine gun. Lunger had already collapsed under the helm, clutching a bleeding wound on his right chest.
"Captain! Captain! The boilers are failing! Can you hear me?!"
The first mate wiped the sweat from his brow, treating the captain's wounds while responding to the chief engineer's calls.
"Hold the boiler up for just one more minute! Just one minute! I'll get the captain to a safe place right away!"
The first mate could only offer verbal assurances, while the reality was that their ship had already strayed onto another river channel a hundred meters wide. This time, the Joaquin, billowing with black smoke, became the target of countless enemy planes attacking from the sky.
Hundreds of machine guns and cannons were firing at him overhead. The first mate hysterically shouted Lunger's name while trying to steady the helm and aim it at the shallows on the other side of the riverbank.
However, just as they reached the middle of the river, Valard's aircraft had already pointed its guns at the dying destroyer. The three twin-gun turrets on one side of the engine room, like wood-planing machines, instantly silenced the last Bofors anti-aircraft guns on the foredeck, leaving a deep crack in the bridge.
The first mate also fell, his forehead grazed by a flying piece of debris. As he struggled to get up, the helm began to spin wildly out of his control, turning the bow of the ship away from the shallows—to a square dock lined with sailboats as neatly as a vegetable garden.
The relentless destroyer crashed into the sailboat, which had suffered little damage in the past ten minutes, its hard surface like a hoe carving a ravaged path through the wooden hull and planks before slamming into the solid concrete embankment.
With its back to the city ablaze and the sun obscured by black smoke, and with its back to Stockholm, which was beyond saving, the Joaquin, bow held high, stopped amidst the shore and the wreckage of sailboats, its charcoal-black scars concealing a deep silence.
Chapter 370 Burning Stockholm (Part 2) - Section 469
Only a blue flag with a gold cross remains on the sea, proving that a Swedish Navy torpedo boat sank here not long ago.
Only one crew member survived on the small boat. He was wearing a life jacket and drifting in the sea, half-conscious, until he heard the sound of the propeller cutting through the waves.
After watching the Britannian fleet return, he never expected that the KMFs, which had been so immovable high in the sky, would suddenly turn around and bring down such a fate to their entire fleet. Now, a US-made PBY seaplane painted with a three-crown insignia has stopped in front of him.
"I've brought him in!" The newly appointed self-defense machine gunner, Corporal Jop, was positioned to the right rear, dragging the soaking wet and drowsy sailor into the cabin. "Can someone help him spit out the water? I... I don't know how."
"Go back to your position and leave it to me." The one who answered him was Lieutenant Samuel, who was lying on the floor at the rear of the cabin. He had been waiting to open the rear door after takeoff and put the 8mm machine gun back on the outside.
"Once you've dealt with this guy, head back to the radio station, Samuel. Don't lose contact with the capital!"
Captain Goodlson, sitting in the captain's seat, turned around and called out, then skillfully pushed the throttle valve beside him, allowing his PBY Catalina to slowly fly away from the sea and head towards the due north of the earth—behind the towering coastal islands and reefs, behind the undulating forest vegetation, billowing black smoke had already risen thousands of meters into the sky.
"Good heavens..." Lieutenant Elonora, in the co-pilot's seat, had been mentally prepared since they first took off from Gotland, but when the plane flew low over countless wailing tree canopies, and when the raging inferno of Stockholm appeared in the binoculars in their hands, the sight was shocking, astonishing, and utterly horrifying. As a child of the North, all words seemed so pale.
The endless flames stretching between houses and streets echoed like the low roar of a collapsing mountain between rivers and hills. The intense heat and thick smoke seeped in through the gaps in the nose turret, choking everyone in the cabin and causing them to cough and tear up. Left with no other choice, Goodlson had to slam on the left rudder, steer the plane away from the oven-like disaster zone, and slowly and distantly observe everything in the city along the western coast.
As they were talking, they glanced inadvertently at the Zoningholm Palace on the port side—unexpectedly, a row of large bomb craters ran across the lawn of the palace, but fortunately the building itself did not seem to have collapsed anywhere.
As they watched the crowds thronging inside and outside the palace, and the entire plane filled with people worried about the safety of His Majesty Gustav V, they heard the swooping sound of steel nutcrackers approaching them from the sky.
"Three enemy planes at seven o'clock!"
Upon hearing this, the quick-thinking captain immediately pushed the control stick sharply, sending the 10-ton PBY hurtling straight down into the thick smoke between the city and heading towards the low-lying river.
"It's up to you, Steyuwe!" The KMF shot a hole in the wing, causing everyone on the plane to sway. The co-pilot, just as they were flying over the top of the plane, which was visible to everyone, reflexively shouted to the front gunner once again.
Without uttering a word, Sergeant-General Steway sat in the newly modified twin 20mm cannon bay, and with a long burst of fire, he completed a spinal surgery on a KMF that was about to take off. "The remaining two have each moved to the left and right, and the one in the back?"
"I heard you, I heard you!" The captain was already using the tail rudder to control PBY to sway left and right, dodging damage while causing considerable trouble for the two gunmen behind him.