artillery arc

Chapter 593 "Is There Justice in This?" (Update 39/81)

On January 1, General Steiermark personally went to the seaside to urge the troops to board the ship.

He set up a small but complete headquarters on the beach.

The core of the headquarters is a radio car, a telegraph car and a matching generator car. In addition, in order to deal with possible attacks by the Ants, there are four long-barreled Type 4 tanks next to the headquarters.

Everything was normal throughout the morning. The White Sea Fleet dispatched five large cargo ships of 10,000 tons, escorted by five destroyers. In addition, a heavy cruiser led two destroyers to be on alert in the nearby waters, ready to deal with the Ante Navy at any time.

It can also be heard from the radio communications that General Steiermark asked the radio operator to connect the receiving end to the loudspeaker on the car, so every detail of the radio conversation was transmitted through the loudspeaker.

The people who had been talking on the radio all morning were calm and composed, not at all like people who were about to be surrounded.

After all, they have control of the sea. Although the retreat speed is a little slower now, they can still evacuate 10,000 to 20,000 people every day.

Today the navy has stepped up its efforts, sending out five 10,000-ton ships at once, evacuating a minimum of 50,000 at a time.

The only problem was that there were indeed too few small boats for transportation. Tens of thousands of Proson troops were blocked on the beach, and the number of people on the boats did not decrease after a whole day of transportation.

I don’t know if these five ships can be fully loaded in one day.

General Steiermark was just worrying about this when a loudspeaker connected to the radio suddenly shouted: "Enemy planes are coming up, diving rapidly!"

The general immediately turned his head and heard someone shouting on the loudspeaker: "Enemy planes are diving! We..."

The words were swallowed up by the noise, and it was impossible to hear what was said. The operator immediately adjusted the knob, and soon the noise disappeared, and a voice exclaimed: "Lützow has been shot! Lützow——"

The explosion made the speakers break, and everyone present shrank their necks, their ears hurting from the vibration.

General Steiermark looked as if something terrible had happened, picked up the microphone and shouted, "What happened? What happened?"

The adjutant put his hand on his shoulder and reminded him: "Don't use plain language! Use code words!"

General Steiermark waved his hand and knocked away the adjutant's hand: "Don't bother me! I am General Steiermark, answer me, what happened?"

There was silence on the other side for a moment, and then the voice that had just shouted "Lützow" said: "The Lützow was attacked by enemy dive bombers. There was a huge boiler explosion just now. It is...sinking."

General Steiermark's body froze. This news was like a bolt from the blue, shattering his good mood that had lasted all morning.

The adjutant was still reminding: "General, saying something like this on the radio is a devastating blow to our army's morale! General!"

Admiral Steiermark realized that his adjutant was right. Just as he was about to say something, the loudspeaker shouted again: "The enemy's torpedo planes have given up the attack! Lützow's fleet calls the 'Traveler', the enemy's torpedo planes are heading towards you!"

"Traveling Merchants" was the radio call sign for a transport convoy consisting of five 10,000-ton cargo ships.

Steiermark threw down the microphone, rushed out of his small temporary headquarters, stood on the edge of the hill, and raised his binoculars.

Soon, he saw planes flying close to the sea. These planes did not use the common paint scheme of the Ant Air Force. They were all painted dark blue. The marking on the wings was not the Ant logo, but a white five-pointed star with a basket ring and a red dot in the middle (the earliest emblem of the United States Navy had a red dot in the middle of the white star, which was later removed to distinguish it from Fuso).

The planes flew almost close to the sea surface, like flying fish jumping among the waves.

Although they were enemies, Steiermark couldn't help but sigh: Was the Fuso Empire defeated by such elite pilots?
No! This is not the time to admire the enemy!
The enemy planes broke up their formation and rushed in pairs towards the five 10,000-ton ships anchored on the sea.

The first group of enemy planes immediately launched an attack. They circled all the way to the left wing of the 131-ton ship with hull number , then circled right and entered the attack route.

The only anti-aircraft gun on the 10,000-ton ship was firing back in vain, and shells continued to fall on the sea behind the enemy planes.

Steiermark did not understand the navy, but he understood mathematics. He knew that with this density of firepower, it was absolutely impossible to shoot down enemy planes or prevent them from dropping torpedoes.

Through the telescope, he clearly saw two enemy planes dropping something into the sea.

From his angle, he could not see the tracks of the torpedoes. He could only see two torpedo planes that had completed the attack turning again and flying towards the beach.

Flying towards the beach???

By the time Steiermark realized what the two enemy planes were going to do, they had already opened fire, using their forward-firing machine guns to blast the Plosson soldiers on the beach.

The people on the beach were still watching the show. No one expected that death would suddenly come to them. When the machine gun barrage swept across the beach, it knocked down many people at once.

After completing the attack, two aircraft of unknown model flew away (actually TBF Avenger torpedo planes).

Steiermark pushed away the adjutant who had knocked him to the ground, climbed up, brushed the dirt off his body, and took the military cap from the adjutant: "Damn it, I didn't do my job very well, but I had a lot of other thoughts--" He thought that the enemy plane's attack on the 10,000-ton ship was ineffective, but in fact it was just that the aerial torpedoes were slow.

As soon as the words were spoken, two columns of water rose from the port side of the 131-ton ship with hull number .

Steiermark closed his mouth and watched in despair as the 131 ship caught fire and the people on board jumped into the sea in a hurry.

Soon after, the 132-ton ship with hull number was also hit.

The two torpedo planes that launched the attack flew over the beach, fired a burst of fire, and then flew away.

Soon after, the third and fourth groups of torpedo planes followed.

They even found Steiermark's headquarters and headed straight for it, with machine guns firing at tanks and armored command vehicles.

After the torpedo planes had gone away, Steiermark crawled out from under the tank. He didn't even bother to shake off the sand on his body, but just looked at the sea blankly.

Five 10,000-ton ships were all on fire. The ones that were sinking fastest were already tilting, with their sides almost touching the water.

The people who had just been brought on board by the small boat were now struggling in the water, trying hard to swim to the shore. All that could be seen were the splashes of water made by people splashing in the water, and no waves could be seen at all.

General Steiermark finally came to his senses and shouted, "Hurry up and save them! At least half of our soldiers can't swim! Hurry up and save them!"

Soon, the small boat that was busy transporting soldiers began to rescue people. At this time, a dark blue-painted plane suddenly swooped down from the sky!
They actually started shooting at the rescue boat!
Moreover, these planes were obviously different from the torpedo attack planes just now. Their forward firepower was extremely fierce (the attack here was launched by F6F Hellcat fighters, with firepower of 6 12.7mm machine guns). No matter what kind of small boat it was, most of them would catch fire after being strafed, and the people who had just been rescued had to jump down again.

In addition to strafing the small boats, the fighters also opened fire as they passed over the beach, knocking the Prosen people who had nowhere to hide on the beach to the ground.

Steiermark was so angry that he stamped his feet and screamed at the sky. Then he was discovered by two enemy planes, which circled back and strafed Steiermark's temporary headquarters.

When he saw them coming back, Steiermark wanted to show his integrity and face death, but he was grabbed by his adjutant and thrown under the tank.

After several waves of continuous strafing, the headquarters' generator truck exploded.

After waiting under the tank for an unknown amount of time, the roar of enemy aircraft engines and the sound of machine gun fire finally stopped. Steiermark climbed out from under the tank again, looked at the three burning half-track vehicles, and then looked at the devastated beach.

The White Sea was in high tide at this time, and the red waves pushed the corpses to the shore, piling them up layer by layer.

Steiermark cursed: "This is a violation of international law! They must pay the price for this inhumane behavior!"

----

"Your heroic actions will earn Ant the highest reward!" Wang Zhong patted Worcester's shoulder and said happily, "You will be the first, and possibly the last, United States soldiers to receive the Gold Star Medal!"

Emilia faithfully completed the task of simultaneous interpretation.

Worcester smiled modestly: "It's just a heavy cruiser. In the Pacific, this level of achievement is only worth 50 gallons of ice cream."

Wang Zhong: "Then I'll give you 100 gallons! 100 gallons for each person! The torpedo pilots who attack the ship will also get a share!"

After saying that, he saw the fighter pilots of VF6 and quickly said, "You have it too! But you don't have any big gains, so each of you can only have one cone!"

The fighter pilots looked at each other in bewilderment, and the captain spoke for them all, saying, "We don't really want to eat ice cream in -30 degree weather. Just give us some hot soup and stew, and the chicken your chef makes is really good!"

In order to entertain the pilots of the United States, Wang Zhong personally gave the recipe to the chef of Seres and invented the "General Tso's Chicken" in advance. It was really welcomed by the pilots of the United States. Every time the dish was served, they would eat as many chickens as were served.

Wang Zhong: "Okay, okay! You have done a great job for the people of Ant today, so you can eat whatever you want! But be careful, don't get diarrhea tomorrow and miss the plane! We are counting on you to destroy the Proson Navy and completely eliminate the enemy's idea of ​​escaping from the sea!"

After hearing the translation, the pilots all laughed.

However, Worcester was a little worried and asked Wang Zhong: "We came to the front-line airport voluntarily, but your headquarters is also so close to the front line. Isn't it a bit bad?"

Wang Zhong: "Don't worry, the enemy has been forced back, and there are no powerful enemies nearby. I will go and see the waves of the White Sea myself soon."

After saying this, he looked towards the west: "You know, the starting point of my legend is in Roniezh, also on the White Sea. Arriving at the White Sea, I have returned to the starting point - rounded off."

As he said this, a hand suddenly rested on his shoulder. He turned his head and saw Lyudmila smiling.

(End of this chapter)