Chapter 400129Chapter NaN

September 7, 1940

Near London, Southern England

The RAF had lost some aircraft when their airbases were captured by the French Army's incredibly rapid advance in the last battle.

Amidst this, the absence of the H Mobile Flotilla became known, and with the French Air Force concentrated over the British mainland, the RAF (Royal Air Force) was barely holding on against superior numbers.

-Got one!-

-This is Harold! James, he's on your tail!-

"Ha, things were getting better for a while, but now it's hell again!"

RAF fighter ace Douglas Bader piloted his Supermarine Spitfire while listening to the ceaseless radio traffic.

Douglas Bader's two legs were prosthetics, a result of having them amputated after an accident. His willpower was tremendous, having gone through immense effort to successfully rehabilitate, but it wasn't easy for a pilot with no legs to get back in a fighter.

The French invasion gave Bader, who should have been discharged from the air force after losing his legs, the opportunity to return, but it was also a hateful enemy that had caused the loss of countless British lives and comrades.

Without a moment to get lost in thought, Bader spotted a fighter on his subordinate's tail and immediately banked his plane, just as his wingman's scream-filled request came through the radio.

-Boss! This is Howard! Get him off my tail!-

"I'm on it, you don't have to whine!"

His usual wingman was a veteran and would never have whined over something like this, but he was stuck in a hospital bed with injuries from the last battle. Bader clicked his tongue and steered his aircraft.

It wasn't easy to land a machine-gun hit on an enemy aircraft that was twisting and turning just as erratically as the wingman it was chasing, but the RAF ace finally managed to follow the frantically moving enemy and hit its wing.

The French D.

520 fighter, its wing on fire, faltered and began to lose altitude, but Bader wasn't satisfied. He followed the falling aircraft and, only after turning the pilot's canopy into a hornet's nest, was he content.

"Ha, that makes 13!"

He had returned to the air force as soon as the invasion began and had recently become a battalion commander, but he was a pilot of such skill that when his men first saw the state of his legs and gave him looks that said 'desk-jockey commander,' he had to earn their acknowledgment by personally flying a fighter and performing aerobatics.

However, he was also a man whose fiery temper and hatred for the French made it unbearable for him not to chase down an already-shot-down enemy aircraft and confirm the pilot's kill.

-This is Howard! Boss, behind you!-

"Damn it! Follow me, don't just chat on the radio!"

Normally, even if Bader took such unexpected action, his wingman would have followed and covered him as if used to it, but the clumsy temporary wingman was only now thinking of following after making a radio call from high above.

Bader frantically banked his plane and fled, but two D.

520s that had latched onto him at low altitude gave chase.

As he tried to climb to high altitude to shake them, Bader saw Howard descending from that direction and clicked his tongue.

"That idiot! If you're going to engage, at least take the flank!"

If he climbed now, Howard would have to face two incoming aircraft head-on, and his own plane would be in Howard's line of fire.

He didn't think Howard had the skill to dodge fire from two planes while avoiding his own aircraft to hit the enemy.

On top of that, Howard's plane was a Hawker Hurricane, which was inferior in performance to the Spitfire.

The Supermarine Spitfire was undoubtedly a superb aircraft and clearly superior to the French D.

520, but the RAF, with its constant losses of aircraft, was not in a position to provide its pilots with an ample supply of Spitfires.

The decision was swift, and Bader resolved to handle it on his own, pushing his aircraft violently.

He banked and rolled, and in his dazzling display of movement, one D.520 finally lost him, but the other continued to stick to his tail, its machine guns strafing.

The opponent's movements made it clear he was also a veteran, and no matter how good Douglas Bader was, it was impossible to dodge every attack with a liability instead of a helpful wingman while having his rear taken.

The Spitfire that had never once been shot down, a source of great pride, took a few machine gun hits, and Bader wasn't sure how much longer his cherished plane would hold out.

"Damn it. I'm really going to die at this rate."

Should he not have taken on a greenhorn who had lost his wingman as a temporary replacement just to set a good example as a commander?

Of course, no pilot would welcome an order to take a greenhorn as a wingman when they had one they worked perfectly well with.

Just then, Douglas Bader's eyes caught an aircraft he'd never seen before approaching at high speed from the front.

He almost fired his machine guns at it, but even while busy evading the enemy, Bader realized this was a "friendly aircraft" he had seen in briefing photographs.

And that friendly was flying straight toward him, not missing a single one of Bader's violent maneuvers.

"Huh, now that's an ace."

To think he had more faith in a pilot he'd never met than the wingman who was supposed to have his back—what a ridiculous state of affairs this was, but-

Bader decided to trust the unknown pilot flying towards him instead of the wingman who had long since lost track of his movements and drifted away, and he sharply increased his altitude at the last possible second.

And the pilot flying head-on performed the amazing feat of evading the machine-gun fire of the enemy aircraft on Bader's tail the instant his plane climbed, while simultaneously scoring a direct hit.

Watching the D.

520 that had cornered him go down in flames, Bader rolled his stiff neck, which had been painfully tense, and piloted his cherished plane to fly alongside the fighter that had saved him.

He couldn't use the radio, so he was going to express his gratitude with a hand signal, but as he got closer to the sleek aircraft, a Bf 109 emblazoned with an Iron Cross, Bader's face twisted into a strange expression.

Of all things to paint on such a cool aircraft, a Mickey Mouse smoking a cigarette? What is that? A guy with peculiar taste.

This was the first meeting of Douglas Bader and Adolf Galland, who would later become famous for their friendship that transcended national borders.

-

September 9, 1940

Paris, the 'City of Light,' Capital of France

When de Gaulle not only succeeded in his defense of Britain, something they hadn't even expected, but also counterattacked to cut off London and central England, Paris was ecstatic.

De Gaulle was hailed as a second Napoleon, a national hero, and La Rocque lavished praise and promotions upon him and his subordinate generals.

But that joy lasted for a mere week.

"…Chief of the General Staff."

"Yes, Prime Minister."

Even after hearing Chief of the Air Staff Joseph Vuillemin's reply, La Rocque remained silent for a long time, staring at the report.

After a brief moment during which Vuillemin broke into a cold sweat, La Rocque spoke.

"Is it not possible that a digit was entered incorrectly in this report?"

"I regret to say it is not, Prime Minister. It is exactly as tallied from the front."

La Rocque glanced at the ceiling for a moment, then looked back at the report, his hand trembling.

"Does it make sense for our air force loss rate to increase twelvefold in two days?"

Looking at the report stating they had lost over 100 aircraft in a single day, La Rocque felt a sense of futility beyond mere disbelief.

"Prime Minister.

In aerial warfare, Lanchester's laws play a significant role. With numerical inferiority, it is possible-"

"Then what was our air force doing when we had numerical superiority?"

Vuillemin's explanation was cut short by the Prime Minister's icy words.

Even on the first day they received reports of the German Air Force appearing over the British mainland, the loss rate had increased significantly, but France had believed it could handle that level of damage.

But they were wrong.

The losses on the first day had seemed manageable only because the Luftwaffe, flying from the German mainland, had engaged "moderately," focusing on reaching the British airbases.

Once they began to operate from those British bases and seriously engage the French Air Force, the French loss rate soared by more than tenfold.

Over 100 aircraft were lost in a single day. At this rate, the French Air Force would be annihilated in just one month of fighting.

Considering the heavy influence of Lanchester's laws, it could be even faster.

Vuillemin couldn't say a word, and La Rocque, who had been interrogating him, was sweating so profusely he had no energy left for further questions.

It was La Rocque himself who had dismissed the reports that the Italian Air Force had been annihilated as soon as it fought, or that the German Air Force had blotted out the sky and completely collapsed defense lines, as Italian exaggeration.

In the end, what came out after a long silence was an accusation that was close to a lament.

"Weren't you the one who said that with enough investment, we could hold our own against the British or German air forces?"

"…I have nothing to say, Prime Minister."

Their ambitious D.

520 couldn't even manage to get past brawling with the mass-produced Hawker Hurricane, let alone Britain's new Supermarine Spitfire.

And the frontline fighter pilots of the French Air Force unanimously reported that the German Air Force's Bf 109 and Fw 190 fighters were worse nightmares than the Spitfire.

The French Air Force, which had been banking on the D.520, was hastily developing a new aircraft model, but it was doubtful whether the French Air Force would even exist when it was ready to take to the skies.

La Rocque put a hand to his forehead.

"Does General de Gaulle still refuse the order for an offensive?"

"That is correct, Prime Minister."

La Rocque furrowed his brow at Pétain's reply.

When Charles de Gaulle launched a counterattack without even waiting for orders from the home country, La Rocque and Minister of Defense Pétain were a bit flustered, but they didn't make an issue of it as his military gains were like rain in a drought.

But when de Gaulle refused La Rocque's order to launch an all-out offensive to capture the besieged city of London, they realized something was going wrong.

"He says that urban warfare in a city of that scale, where the enemy's main force is concentrated, would result in massive losses, and doing so could lead to a collapse from an attack by the British army in their rear, or make it impossible to maintain control of the occupied British territories."

De Gaulle's thinking is extremely rational and wise by modern standards, but the high command, which lacked the lessons of battles like Stalingrad, was not very sympathetic.

In the last great war, there had been no large-scale urban battles like the defense of Stalingrad or Leningrad.

"Coward. If the air force continues to suffer this attrition, soon we won't be able to launch an offensive even if we want to."

And in truth, de Gaulle himself didn't seriously believe that.

It was all just an excuse.

All de Gaulle was doing was trying to preserve the strength of his subordinates, who were also his power base, as it seemed unlikely Britain would surrender even if London were to fall.

"He's likely saying that he's done his part, so now it's time for the air force and the navy to do theirs."

Pétain muttered unpleasantly, picturing the face of that insufferably arrogant de Gaulle.

Even though it was a military gain achieved thanks to Britain's blunder, they had promoted de Gaulle as a national hero on a massive scale, and now even they found it difficult to handle him.

The person the French people back home were now praising the most was not Prime Minister La Rocque, nor Pétain, the hero of the Great War, but Charles de Gaulle.

La Rocque couldn't hide his displeasure, but it couldn't be helped.

He couldn't miss the opportunity to reverse the public opinion that was slowly beginning to wonder if the Prime Minister had started a reckless war.

He himself had ignored de Gaulle's request to pass on the obituary of his mother, and they had now crossed a river of no return, making it too late to be friendly with de Gaulle again.

If they tried to touch de Gaulle across the sea, they would only lose face and face a public backlash, so they had no choice but to let him be and hope for the best.

La Rocque looked at the map and spoke.

"At any rate, the heavy-bottomed German Army is finally showing signs of moving."

Germany and Britain had finally signed a formal alliance and declared the formation of the Allied Powers.

And Rommel's unit, which had been quietly stationed in Hamburg just training, was also preparing to move.

La Rocque's hand pointed to the port city of Hamburg in northwestern Germany, then to the port of Hull in eastern England.

"And those British bastards have moved their mainland's main fleet to the east."

The meaning of this was clear.

Germany intended to land Rommel's armored unit in Britain. And not by taking the long way around the North Sea via Norway, but directly near eastern England or London.

Given that the blockade of London would be immense physical and political pressure on Britain, it was a natural conclusion, but-

"The H Mobile Flotilla has been confirmed to still be in the Mediterranean. Admiral Darlan, I trust you will bring victory to the motherland this time."

François Darlan nodded with a heavy expression.

The Royal Navy's remaining strength on the British mainland was at most two aircraft carriers, a battlecruiser, and one obsolete battleship.

The German Navy was a concern, but according to a spy in a British company collaborating with Germany, they were not a major threat apart from the Bismarck.

To land Rommel's army in London, the British-German navy could not avoid a fight. If there was ever an opportunity for the French Navy to score a decisive victory against the Royal Navy, it was now.

"I will sink the entire British and German navies in the Dover Strait and show the British that their hope was a mirage."

If they won the naval battle against the British-German navy and seized control of the seas, London would fall on its own, and with Rommel's army gone, they would commence the offensive through Belgium.

For now, everything was still going according to France's plan.