Chapter 1205 Churchill Fortress

"Boom, boom, boom..."

When the violent explosions came, Lieutenant General Joseph Collins, commander of the 6th Army of the United States Army and commander of the ground forces on Newfoundland, was watching the battle in the "Churchill" naval fortress near the port of St. John's (the capital of Newfoundland).

St. John's is the largest city on Newfoundland and an excellent ice-free port. It is located on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy on the Avalon Peninsula and at the mouth of the St. John's River. The population is not large, only tens of thousands.

Although the geographical location here is not the core of Newfoundland, but is located in a corner, at the eastern end of the Avalon Peninsula, it has the best port on Newfoundland, so it naturally became the top priority of defense.

Since the fall of the British mainland in 1943, the US Army's engineering corps has been working non-stop in St. John's and its surrounding areas, building the largest "Stilwell Military Airport" on Newfoundland (in memory of Lieutenant General Stilwell, the American freedom fighter who defended England) and "Churchill Naval Fortress" (in memory of the great anti-Nazi fighter Churchill).

The former is now under air attack by hundreds of Me264 bombers, while the latter is the core of the US military's defense on Newfoundland Island and the headquarters of Lieutenant General Collins. At this moment, he is standing at the observation port of a spectacles fort in the "Churchill" naval fortress to watch the air attack.

The situation is very bad and beyond Lieutenant General Collins's expectations. The Germans actually used dozens or hundreds of remote-controlled guided (to be precise, TV-guided) missiles to fire from the sky over Conception Bay, 15,000 meters away from Stilwell Military Airport. This distance completely exceeds the maximum range of the 127mm anti-aircraft guns deployed at Stilwell Military Airport. So now the Americans can only watch missiles accurately fall on the airport runway and blow up big holes.

Oh, not completely watching, the anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns on the airport can also attack the missiles themselves. However, the attack effect is not good, not many were shot down, and most of the missiles seemed to hit the target. But such a result is actually not very meaningful, because the big holes on the airport runway are not difficult to repair. The Americans had been prepared for a long time. Each airport repair team had a lot of mechanized equipment, and the speed of filling the hole was very fast.

"It seems... Stilwell Airport will be paralyzed for a day or two!" Vice Admiral Bruce Austin Fraser, commander of the Churchill Naval Fortress and commander of the British (Canadian) Royal Navy Newfoundland Fleet, also stood with Vice Admiral Collins to watch the battle. He muttered and shook his head, and his face looked very ugly.

The reason for his depression was not only the somewhat confusing battle situation on Newfoundland, but also the news from Labrador - the landing enemy was under the banner of the British Royal Army! And they claimed to be here to liberate Canada...

"Are the other airports in Newfoundland the same as Stilwell now?" Vice Admiral Fraser put down his binoculars, shook his head and said to Collins, "Joseph, will the Germans really land on Newfoundland?"

"Maybe." Collins paused and frowned, "But it doesn't matter. Newfoundland's defense is strong enough. If they want to land, they will suffer heavy losses! And...the F-13 of the First Fleet of the Navy did not find any new landing fleet approaching Newfoundland within 500 nautical miles. Did you, the Royal Navy, find anything?"

"We didn't..." Vice Admiral Fraser shook his head. "Except for the 10,000 or 20,000 Germans who landed in Labrador, there is no German ground force near Newfoundland."

Lieutenant General Collins shrugged and frowned: "Even if tens of thousands of people want to land, what can we do? We have more than 200,000 people, and there are more than 50,000 people from three airborne divisions (belonging to the 18th Airborne Army) who can be airdropped to Newfoundland at any time. The inventory of weapons, ammunition and other supplies on the island is enough to support 300,000 troops for 6 months. The terrain of Newfoundland is so dangerous that the Germans can't succeed at all."

Newfoundland is completely different from Trinidad. The latter has flat beaches and the island is also flat. Newfoundland is full of terraces, and the most common thing on the coast is dozens of meters high cliffs. This is the terrain around Port Joseph, and there is no beach! As long as a few regiments are deployed on the cliffs, the Germans can't land even with a million troops.

But why are the Germans now spending so much money to bomb the airport with expensive guided ammunition? Don't they know that the American engineers with a large number of engineering machinery are very good at filling holes?

"Will it be an airborne attack?" Vice Admiral Fraser was still worried, "The Germans are best at using airborne troops to launch surprise attacks."

The British Vice Admiral actually guessed it right, but it was useless because he himself did not believe this judgment.

"Unlikely..." Collins looked confused, "Our troops have been on the highest level of alert for a long time. How could we be defeated by airborne troops with no heavy equipment? And we still have two or three thousand tanks/tank destroyers. Can the German airborne troops defeat so many tanks?"

When the two discussed the battle situation, there were no more continuous explosions from the direction of Stilwell Military Airport. The missile airstrike finally ended, and the Me264 in the sky and the Fokker 636 escorting them also flew away. Lieutenant General Collins and Lieutenant General Fraser also ended their observation of the battle and returned to the command center located in the core of the "Churchill Naval Fortress" along the completely hidden underground passage.

"Churchill Naval Fortress" is built on a cliff several tens of meters high, and is divided into two parts: above ground and underground.

The above ground part is mainly the concrete turrets and armored turrets for coastal defense artillery (3 cannons and 406mm naval guns are placed or installed respectively), as well as various light artillery, anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, and the eyeglass fort for observation.

The underground of the fortress, that is, various facilities built inside the terrace several tens of meters high (a large area of ​​the terrace is hollowed out), include storage warehouses for weapons and ammunition, long and winding underground passages, shelters that can resist 460mm caliber heavy artillery and death missiles, and the core command center located in the strongest part of the fortress, which can maintain contact with all Allied forces on Newfoundland Island through wired and wireless communication.

As soon as they returned to the extremely busy core command center, Lieutenant General Collins and Lieutenant General Fraser received a news that made them feel even more strange.

"Sir, I just received a notification from the Northeast Allied Command in North America that a large group of slow heavy bombers is approaching Newfoundland and is expected to arrive in 7 hours at the earliest."

"A large group of slow heavy bombers?" Lieutenant General Collins was stunned, "Do you know what kind of bombers they are?"

"I don't know." The staff officer shook his head, "I only know that there are a lot of them, and the speed is very slow, only about 300 kilometers per hour."

Collins turned his head and looked at Vice Admiral Fraser of the British Royal Navy, who had served as the Third Sea Lord and Deputy Commander of the Home Fleet and had some research on German aviation weapons.

"Maybe they are transport planes." Fraser frowned, "Maybe the Germans don't have enough long-range heavy bombers, so they converted the heavy transport planes into bombers. Maybe... maybe these planes are carrying paratroopers."

"Paradox?" Lieutenant General Collins was about to ask the staff how many planes there were, but the staff next to him reported a new situation, "Sir, the Northeast Allied Command in North America has issued another notice. A large group of bombers took off from the Azores and flew towards Newfoundland."

What's going on?

Collins and Fraser looked at each other, and Collins said, "Will the Germans send two waves of paratroopers?"

Fraser thought for a moment and said, "A large transport plane can only carry dozens of paratroopers at most. Even if 1,000 transport planes are deployed, there are only 40,000 to 50,000 people, and there is no possibility of any heavy equipment. Because heavy equipment is dropped by gliders, and gliders cannot fly more than 2,000 kilometers."

"If it is really a transport plane," Fraser paused and expressed his judgment, "the target cannot be Newfoundland Island, but should be Saint-Pierre and Miquelon Islands."

"Impossible?" Collins said, "There are 65,000 Free French fighters there, and they are well-equipped and have solid fortifications to rely on. Can tens of thousands of paratroopers defeat them?"

"It's hard to say." Fraser shook his head slowly, "The current French Empire is the second pillar of the European Community, and France's interests are actually reflected. Moreover... the Free French fighters and the supporters of the Pétain government are actually the same kind of people. That General de Gaulle is actually the successor of Pétain and Weygand!"

Vice Admiral Fraser's words are a bit heartbreaking. But in fact, there is nothing wrong, because the backbone of Free France is not the big white left in France - the big white left in France at that time were all kinds of intellectuals who didn't want to fight, and there was no military madman like de Gaulle who wanted to form a mechanized force to raid Germany all day long. So the backbone of Free France was originally a big right-wing who shouted and killed Germany, and they were all "disciples" of people like Pétain and Weygand.

And their disagreement with Pétain, Weygand and others was just whether to admit defeat or not, and there was even a suspicion of betting on both sides!

France now has a high status in the European Community and has secured its second place (in the European system originally led by Britain, France was also second, and it is still second now, but its position is more stable and its security is more guaranteed). It has also gained rich economic benefits and realized its long-cherished wish to fully incorporate French North Africa into the mainland, and its territory has also been greatly expanded.

In this case, is it necessary for the Free French Movement to continue to fight?