Chapter 232: Lucky Day
At the same time, ten miles from Dunkirk, in the city of Gravelines, Manstein's three armored divisions encountered their fiercest resistance yet.
In order to delay the Germans as long as possible, General Corap, the Allied commander responsible for the Northern Army, voluntarily gave up his chance to retreat.
He gathered veterans of the Great War and a portion of elite infantrymen who were still willing to fight, forming two infantry divisions.
Relying on the Gravelines Canal and the remaining heavy firepower at their disposal, they dug trenches among the crisscrossing waterways and low-lying terrain. Their goal was simple: drag down the exhausted lions that had rushed across half of France and buy time until the entire Northern Army retreated to Dunkirk.
To show his determination to resist to the end, Corap ordered all bridges and roads behind him blown up after confirming that supplies were sufficient.
A group of soldiers who had given up hope was often the most troublesome kind of mole.
Perhaps sensing that Manstein's three armored divisions were no longer as sharp as before, the two elite infantry divisions even organized two small counterattacks despite German bombing.
Realizing how difficult these defenders were, Manstein understood that relying solely on small-scale close air support would not allow him to complete the mission of taking Dunkirk within two days.
He decisively requested support from the Air Force.
Kesselring was not stingy.
He dispatched more than one hundred bombers to conduct a full day of indiscriminate bombing against the entire Gravelines defense line.
At the same time, to prevent the large-scale escape of British and French troops toward Dunkirk, an additional thirty Stuka dive bombers were sent to carry out aerial deterrence bombing, cutting off any possibility of the British and French Army marching during the day.
While the three armored divisions took a brief rest, the rear supply lines finally arrived.
The Eleventh, Twelfth, and Sixteenth Infantry Divisions replaced the exhausted armored troops and, under the cover of night, launched an all-night assault.
The British and French infantry divisions, which had already been bombed for an entire day, dragged their weakened spirits and exhausted bodies back into battle. Holding their rifles, they forced their minds once more into a state of extreme tension.
When dawn finally came, they expected rest.
What greeted them instead was endless bombing.
Under the double torment of body and mind, how long this defense line could last had become an unknown.
And in Dunkirk, out of more than two hundred thousand troops, fewer than fifty thousand had successfully entered the city.
The remaining nearly two hundred thousand were blocked by German bombing and could only advance at night.
Coupled with refugee columns clogging the roads, the Army's retreat time increased even further.
Because they also had to account for the evacuation of refugees, the massive number of retreating people paralyzed the coastal piers.
Dozens, then hundreds, of trucks were pushed into the sea to serve as makeshift piers.
But not all news was bad.
For Britain and France, the good news was that the ships had arrived.
And God seemed to favor England.
Thick fog and light rain covered the beach. Out of safety considerations, Kesselring delayed the air raids.
On the naval side, because the British Navy had deployed enough mines around the English Channel in advance, even though German submarines were about to arrive near the Channel, it would still take a considerable amount of time to clear the mines and scout out safe attack routes.
Today was an absolutely lucky day for Britain and France.
It was a rare opportunity to retreat.
On the coast, Eurich's cigarette had been soaked by the rain, and his lighter refused to spark.
As an only child, his reason for joining the French Army had been simple and pure.
To protect his land.
To protect his aging parents.
"Friend, want a cigarette?"
A nearby Briton saw his difficulty, patted him on the shoulder, and handed him a half-lit cigarette.
"Don't worry. England is beautiful. London is no worse than Paris."
"Thanks, friend."
Eurich took the cigarette and inhaled deeply.
As the smoke entered his lungs, he fumbled for the silver cross his mother had forced upon him before his departure. Then he pulled a yellowed old photograph from his pocket.
In the photograph, his mother's wrinkled face had never moved him as much as it did now.
For a moment, he could not tell whether it was rain or tears that blurred his vision.
Woo.
Wiping the water from his face, he looked out toward the sea.
In the thick fog of early morning, several freighters sailed across the water. Farther away, he could vaguely see destroyers and cruisers swaying on the waves.
The melodious blast of the horn was undoubtedly a signal of homecoming for the British soldiers.
But for the French soldiers, for Eurich, the question of when they could return to their country, when they could return to their homeland, had become unknown from this moment onward.
Still, they were undoubtedly lucky.
On the first day of evacuation, no attacks came until late at night.
But that did not mean tens of thousands of soldiers were transported throughout the day.
Due to inexperience in organizing such a massive transport mission, combined with wind, waves, and a series of problems such as chaotic command, Britain and France failed to seize the opportunity God had given them.
Only eleven thousand men were evacuated.
The next day, they no longer had such good fortune.
As fifty thousand people entered the city, the thick fog in the air was dispersed by the sun.
Then piercing air raid sirens entered everyone's mind.
The air raid had begun.
Boom!
German He 111 medium bombers poured high explosives downward, catching a destroyer docked near the coast and blasting it in half.
Countless incendiary bombs covered the entire beach, scorching the sand.
The British Air Force also realized that Germany's aerial counterattack today would be on a massive scale.
In order to resist it, Churchill deployed every fighter that London could muster.
From Hurricanes to Spitfires, from Defiant fighters born out of experimental efforts, to Hudson bombers and Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers, even reconnaissance aircraft and wooden fighters left over from the Great War were thrown into Dunkirk to intercept the bombing.
And what they had to face was the German escort formation that had just won a great victory in the Sedan campaign.
The result had already been decided.
Or rather, every British pilot knew this interception would fail.
But none of them flinched.
They still charged toward the German aircraft, whose quality far surpassed their own, pulling the trigger to buy the last scraps of time for fifty thousand men to board the ships.
Tututututu!
Machine guns drew dense straight lines through the air.
The interception lasted an entire day.
One British aircraft after another crashed into the city. In Dunkirk Square near the coast, burning wreckage piled up like mountains.
By night, Britain had lost more than thirty-five fighters.
The German Air Force had perfectly executed its escort mission at the cost of only ten bombers and five fighters.
Five destroyers and fifteen civilian transport ships loaded with British and French soldiers were all sunk.
Two British cruisers also suffered varying degrees of damage. After returning to port, they were sunk by German submarines that had broken through the minefield.
At the same time, all the coasts of Dunkirk had been bombed into ruins.
Britain, having lost both in the air and at sea, saw almost all the soldiers transported during the day wiped out.
Only fifteen thousand men were brought back late at night, barely matching the previous day's evacuation numbers.
The problem was that Manstein's armored Army had already broken through the Gravelines defense line.
The roaring tanks, together with three infantry divisions, were rapidly heading toward Dunkirk.
The evacuation had only brought back twenty thousand people.
Sixty thousand were still stranded inside the city.
Nearly one hundred and forty thousand had not even reached the evacuation points.
.....
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