I asked you to escape, but you became a soldier in World War II

Chapter 147 Maginot Line of Defense

Lin Chen was not mistaken. The person sitting on the simply built wooden platform was none other than Major Jingke.

He managed to escape with his life in his hasty retreat from the Battle of Stalingrad, but his entire army was wiped out, having been either killed or captured.

When he heard the final end of Stalingrad, he couldn't tell his emotions. Was he happy that he was alive, or was he sad for his subordinates?
Since he was a major who had participated in the bloody battles on the Eastern Front, he soon received a notice of transfer to the Ninth Army.

Later, he also participated in the Battle of Kursk, but did not meet Lin Chen. In this battle, Jingke fully demonstrated his rich experience in escape.

When he saw that the situation was not good, he immediately led his troops to retreat westward. Although his troops suffered almost no losses and became one of Model's main forces to hold the defense line later, he led the troops to retreat privately after all.

With the support of his superiors, his merits and demerits were offset.

But there was no way he could stay in the Wehrmacht, so he had to be transferred to France to serve as a reserve training officer.

Several months later, he was transferred here again to serve as the supreme commander of the prisoner-of-war camp, but his rank was still major.

This was considered an "exception" in a very small part of the general phenomenon of military rank promotion on the Eastern Front, and it also disappointed his superiors and colleagues. However, even so, he was still the king here who was powerful and had the final say.

There was nothing new in his speech on the stage. He just didn't want to cause trouble for you, but you should not make it difficult for him. If a jailbreak happens, he will punish ten people who escape.

However, he still proposed something that made all the prisoners happy, that is, starting from tomorrow, everyone's meals would be increased from one meal a day to two meals a day.

But the prerequisite is that you must work hard.

After that, Lin Chen and his team were divided into groups and sent to the Maginot Line for transformation.

马奇诺防线的位置自隆吉永至贝尔福，全长约390公里。包括梅斯筑垒地域、萨尔泛滥区、劳特尔筑垒地域、下莱茵筑垒地域和贝尔福筑垒地域。整个防线由保障地带（纵深4～14公里）和主要防御地带（纵深6～8公里）组成。

The engineering construction is strongest in the two fortified areas of Metz and Lauter. The Saar floodplain is constructed by utilizing natural river barriers and swamps. Fortifications were not built until after 1935, and the defense is the weakest. The Lower Rhine fortified area uses the Rhine, Rhone, and Rhine Canal as natural barriers, and only built support points consisting of permanent firing fortifications along the Rhine. In the most important sections of the Metz and Lauter fortified areas, a comprehensive fortification group combining ground and underground parts suitable for circular defense was built.

The ground part is armored or reinforced concrete machine gun fortifications and artillery fortifications, and the underground part has several floors, including command posts, personnel lounges, food storage rooms, ammunition depots, first aid stations, power stations, filter ventilation rooms, etc. There are passages connecting the fortifications, and electric vehicles are available. The weapons in the shooting fortifications are specially designed and installed.

The entire defense line has a total of about 5800 permanent fortifications of various purposes, with a density of 15 per kilometer of front. The top and walls of the strongest reinforced concrete fortifications are 3.5 meters thick, and the armor thickness of the armored towers is 300 mm, which can withstand direct hits from two 420 mm mortar shells.

The anti-tank obstacles in the defense line mainly include anti-tank trenches, cliffs, cliffs, and metal and concrete piles, which are reinforced with minefields. The anti-infantry obstacles are generally metal piles or wooden piles and barbed wire. In some areas, electrified barbed wire is also set up.

This line of defense, which was hailed as the world's strongest at the time, was bypassed by German armored forces in the early days of World War II. It was ultimately useless and became the laughing stock of the century.

But now Germany's situation was obviously not good, so the German High Command decided to use prisoners of war to transform and upgrade these fortifications in order to make a final death struggle after the Allied landing.

It is a huge irony that the German army, which had easily bypassed the line at the beginning, now has to re-activate this line of defense.

However, Lin Chen obviously does not have so much free time to think about these problems now. He must prioritize surviving in this high-intensity working environment.

Lin Chen's task was very simple, which was to move the stones mined from the mountain behind from the car, put them in a dump truck, and then transport them to the construction site of the defense line.

The prisoners of war then piled these stones together with cement and some steel bars to build the famous weapon to defend against tanks - "Dragon's Tooth".

"Dragon's Teeth" (German: Drachenzhne), each of them is 90 to 120 cm (about 3 to 4 feet) high, square cone-shaped, of different sizes and staggered arrangements, and there are often mines buried between two "teeth".

Since this anti-tank weapon is cheap and easy to use, if the attacker wants to destroy it, it must pay a huge price and time, so it is used in large quantities by the German army.

The German army also had anti-tank trenches and permanent fortifications behind these densely packed "Dragon Teeth". The artillery in the bunkers could easily destroy other enemies that followed the tanks.

Lin Chen was also very moved. The German army actually started preparing for a rainy day so early? It seems that there are still some knowledgeable people in the German army, and they all know that Germany is going to be finished.

However, relying on just this line of defense, which was unable to stop the German tanks back then, can it now stop the more powerful Allied forces?

"Hurry up! Don't dawdle!" The supervisor next to him saw that Lin Chen was a little slow and immediately hit him with a stick. Although Lin Chen's ability to withstand blows was first-class, it still hurt a little.

These damn "traitors".

The supervisors were basically not German soldiers, but "volunteers" recruited by the German army, that is, pro-German elements in the German-occupied areas.

In order to show their loyalty in front of their masters, these people are often more brutal than the Germans, and the Germans are happy to see this, especially now that the war situation is unfavorable and they need some fun to vent.

The other prisoners of war around were angry when they saw Lin Chen being beaten innocently, but none of them were willing to be the first to stand out. Lin Chen couldn't help but shake his head when he saw this situation. If everyone's bloodiness was wiped out, they would become lambs to be slaughtered.

Although the weather was very cold, fortunately everyone's work intensity was quite high, so they didn't feel cold, and many people even sweated slightly.

We worked until 10 o'clock in the evening, when we were sent back to the prison area by the supervisors. There was no need to think about food. Now everyone's task was to go to bed quickly, otherwise they would be even more exhausted.

When they lay down, there was no quilt, only any material they could find to keep warm, such as straw and coats stripped from dead people.

It is hard to imagine that this was already one of the most "humane" prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. What about the other concentration camps?
Lin Chen felt very cold, but he had no choice but to hold on. However, he knew that he must not stay here for too long, otherwise even his best body would not be able to bear it.

The next day, before daybreak, everyone was woken up by the supervisor.

There was no breakfast to eat, so I had to rush to the construction site to continue working. At this time, it started snowing.

No one was excited about the snow, but was more afraid of the coming severe cold.

While working on the site, Lin Chen saw two older prisoners of war who were identified as typhoid fever victims by the German army because they kept coughing. They were "freed" on the spot, and then their bodies were pulled out and dragged away by the prisoners. It was really shocking. So you must not get sick on the construction site. There are no medicines to treat you here. The only way to help you is a bullet.

It was finally noon, and the snowflakes in the sky were getting bigger and denser.

Every prisoner of war had a thick layer of it on his head and body. Some of the weaker ones were shivering with cold, but they dared not say a word.

Fortunately, the most exciting moment of the day arrived. Several supervisors brought selected prisoners to deliver lunch to everyone.

When Lin Chen finally queued up and got his lunch, even though he was mentally prepared, he was still shocked by the terrible food.

Not only is the quantity small, just one spoonful, and it contains a paste made from potato peels, corn stalks and the like.

Even so, it was too watery and had a sour smell.

"Don't you have much appetite?" The people around him immediately saw Lin Chen's disdain, and the meaning was very clear.

If you don't want it, give it to me!

Of course Lin Chen couldn't refuse it. No matter how bad the food was, it was still food after all.

In such cold weather and with such high workload, not eating would be tantamount to seeking death.

Besides, how could it be worse than the special forces training in his previous life where they had to eat raw insects? He now deeply understood why the army had to train everyone like this. If they could eat all that, why would they be picky about food?

nonexistent!

So Lin Chen smiled to the side, then held his breath, swallowed all the food on the plate in a few gulps, and even licked the edge of the plate clean.

Although the taste was really terrible, at least I had something in my stomach, which replenished my body with energy and made my whole body warm again.

There is no time to rest, and the supervisor comes over quickly to urge us to get back to work.

This high-intensity working environment coupled with little food was enough to make most soldiers lose the ability and courage to escape.

We must find a way out!

In the next few days, Lin Chen would try every means to understand the situation around him during his breaks from work.

Unlike the strict security in the prisoner-of-war camp, the defense here is relatively lax.

Because there were minefields almost all around, there were two MG42 machine guns at the commanding heights of the construction site, plus two squads of guards and dozens of supervisors, guarding more than a thousand prisoners of war.

Everything seemed to be impregnable, because in the past few days alone, there had been cases of prisoners of war escaping. They were either shot or killed in minefields. The German army was too lazy to even send troops to pursue them, because there was snow everywhere outside, and it was simply a dream for the Allied prisoners of war who were short of food and had thin clothes to leave.

And every time someone escaped, they would come back and select 10 times the number of people to shoot. Under this high pressure, many prisoners of war wanted to inform on others. If the informant was successful, the reward would be a piece of black bread.

So Lin Chen decided that the number of people escaping together must be as small as possible. They only needed to destroy the two German machine guns, and the rest was to rush through the minefield.

Those minefields are insurmountable chasms for others, but for Lin Chen, they are very easy.

Because he can feel the location of the mines, and each mine will be marked above it, this plug-in is truly invincible!

Taking advantage of a rare opportunity to transport corpses, he finally got in touch with Mike and the others. They were all very surprised by Lin Chen's idea, because in their opinion, the possibility of rashly rushing through the minefield was almost zero.

But Lin Chen hopes that they will follow him closely. He received guidance from God last night and will be safe.

Several people looked at each other, but they were all devout Christians. In this situation, what else could they do if they didn't believe in Lin Chen?
Two of them already had a cold and a fever, and if they didn't fight, they would definitely be dragged out and "relieved".

Everyone followed Lin Chen's instructions and did not tell anyone after returning, but the next day everyone understood and did their best to perform their duties.

Jason and Brown suddenly had an argument and started fighting each other fiercely. Soon, both of them were bleeding from the punches they threw at each other.

However, before the supervisors around could stop it, they were stopped by the German sergeant. It was really boring to watch these prisoners of war work or die every day. It would be better to watch the fight between prisoners of war here, which was also a rare pastime.

However, just as they were watching with others, Lin Chen and Mike quietly moved to a machine gun position and easily killed the machine gunner who was concentrating on the fight below.

Then it aimed at the German troops in another machine gun position and opened fire quickly. The terrifying firing rate of the MG42 quickly turned the German troops on the opposite side into a bloody mess. Andy and Gary, who were lying in ambush on the side, immediately stepped forward and took over the machine gun position.

"The Germans are going to massacre us this afternoon. They will never let us go once we have built up our fortifications! Let's fight them!" Lin Chen raised his arms and shouted, then used a machine gun to fiercely shoot at the German soldiers and supervisors.

Because they were all gathered together, the effect of the strafing was astonishingly good. After only a few rounds of bullets, most of the armed German troops were knocked down. The bloodiness of the other prisoners of war was immediately aroused, and they took revenge for their grudges and avenged their grievances.

Although the German army fought desperately and killed some prisoners who rushed forward, they were outnumbered and were eventually wiped out.

Lin Chen immediately destroyed the machine gun, then picked up a rifle and rushed down. Colonel George, the highest officer among the prisoners of war, came out, affirmed their heroic feat, and then asked them what they were going to do next.

Lin Chen told them without hesitation that he planned to cross the minefield and head west to France, which was the closest place back to Britain!

When the other party heard that Lin Chen and his team were planning to cross the minefield, their faces changed. Isn't this just seeking death?
"Where are the others in the camp?" asked Colonel George.

(End of this chapter)