The Rise of the Third Reich

It was 3pm on May 2, 1942, cloudy.

Over the St. George's Strait, 55 kilometers south of the island of Ireland and 200 kilometers away from the Irish capital, 12 very fat-looking Me323 transport aircraft, escorted by 36 Fokker Zero fighter jets, flickered in and out of the clouds. This large transport aircraft, which is huge and can carry up to 12 tons of cargo or 120 armed soldiers, was developed on the basis of the Me321 large gliding transport aircraft.

Moreover, Me323 is still a French-German cooperation project. Cooperated by Germany's Messschmidt Company and France's Land God-Rhone Company, the latter provides a reliable 14-cylinder radial engine type 14N. This engine can take off with 1140 horsepower at an altitude of 5,000 meters. The power can also reach 1035 horsepower. Although this engine lags behind the air-cooled engines produced by German BMW and Siemens, it has sufficient production capacity to fully meet the needs of the Me323, and its performance is very reliable and the price is extremely low.

So engineers from Messerschmitt and Teresa-Rhone installed six Teresa-Rhone 14N engines on the Me323 transport aircraft. With a total power of more than 6,000 horsepower, this aircraft can fly 750 kilometers at a speed of 200-245 kilometers per hour when fully loaded, which is just enough to fly a detoured one-way trip from Brest to Dublin (it has to bypass Cornwall, England) peninsula). It was a plane tailor-made for raiding the Irish capital!

Since France quickly fell to Germany after the Mediterranean Campaign, the Me323 transport aircraft not only used French technical strength during the development process (because the participation of French engineers and technicians speeded up the development process a lot), but the production was also arranged in French factories—these factories were all opened before the war and had excellent skilled workers, engineers, and equipment, and were no less impressive than German factories. According to today's production plan, the German Airborne Transport Command can receive at least 200 Me323 transport aircraft this year.

The bulky Lieutenant Otto Skorzeny sat in a seat near the window in the "big belly" of the Me323 aircraft. Outside the window were white clouds that looked like cotton wool, giving people the feeling of traveling on a large passenger plane. .

If all goes well, it's a trip - and according to the commander of the Luftwaffe's 323rd Special Mission Combat Aviation Regiment, which flies these Me323s, the flight to Dublin is a good one.

Because the 5th Fleet and the landing fleet had attracted most of the attention of the Royal Air Force, and before the aircraft of the 323rd Special Mission Combat Aviation Regiment took off, there was already a squadron of P.108S heavy bombers going near the Cornwall Peninsula. Aluminum chaff has been thrown, so the radar deployed by the British on the Cornwall Peninsula should now be invisible.

As for the Irish, there is no need to worry, because the whole world knows that the Irish hate the British. Britain was once the richest and most powerful empire in the world, but it allowed hundreds of thousands of Irish people to starve to death in the Great Irish Famine caused by potato bacteria between 1845 and 1850. During this great famine, the British government not only He did not actively rescue, and also prevented the Ottoman Sultan at the time from providing a donation of 10,000 pounds to the hungry people in Ireland - because Queen Victoria herself only provided 2,000 pounds. In the end, the Ottoman Sultan had to secretly transport three cargoes of food to Ireland to aid the hungry people... This attitude towards the Irish can no longer be described as "indifference", but is close to a deliberate genocidal policy!

Therefore, this great famine also became the beginning of the awakening of Irish national consciousness and the independence movement!

Although nearly a hundred years have passed since the Great Famine, and Ireland has become a Free State, the road to national independence has not been completed after all. The United Kingdom also controls the Northern Ireland region in the north of Ireland, and Ireland is not a true republic, but a "Free State" under the British Empire.

However, the Irish are not reconciled to the current situation. The current Irish Free State government is also notoriously anti-British. Under the leadership of this anti-British government, Ireland is now the only country in the entire British Commonwealth that has not declared war on Germany and still maintains Neutral Free State.

The members of the "Moonlight Squadron" who had "traveled" to Ireland during the war all knew how pro-German the Irish were. Just look at the uniforms of the Irish army, which are exactly the same as the German military uniforms.

Therefore, Lieutenant Otto Skorzeny firmly believes that as long as 38t tanks and fully armed German soldiers appear in the park in front of the Irish Presidential Palace, the Irish government will be very happy to invite Germany to send troops - because the Irish are not against Germany. invasion, but fear that Ireland would be occupied again by the British after the German invasion failed, which was a problem.

"Eamon, where is the German fleet?"

Although Irish President DeGrasse Hyde had no real power, he couldn't help but call Prime Minister Eamon de Valera to inquire about the situation of the German landing fleet.

"We should have passed Normandy. Churchill, a liar, just announced the victory of Normandy in his speech, claiming that he had sunk two German aircraft carriers and a German battlecruiser in the waters near Normandy."

"Can't it be true?" Douglas Hyde asked worriedly.

"It's impossible, because Churchill also called on every British person to fight to the end in his speech, which shows that the Germans will land soon."

"Then the Germans will land in Cock Bay?" DeGrasse Hyde asked.

"I don't know, but we are well prepared." The Irish Prime Minister assured. "All suitable landing sites have been cleared, obstacles and mines have been removed, German road signs have been installed, and there are still a lot of equipment near the beach. With clean water, food and shelter, and a German-speaking guide, I thought the German landing would be a casualty-free operation."

"What about the railways? Are the railways ready?"

"Get ready. 100 locomotives and 1,000 trains have been prepared at the train terminal in Cork City, ready to be launched at any time to transport the landed German troops to Dundalk."

Dundalk is located on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, only more than 70 kilometers away from Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, and has always been the focus of the Irish army's defense.

However, the Irish army is dressed more like the German army, and its combat effectiveness is incomparable to the German army. Moreover, the Irish government has always been very poor, there is no industrialization in the country, and it cannot afford good weapons. Therefore, the Irish army was just bread and rifles. If the British army really wanted to invade, they would not be able to defeat them.

Therefore, the only way for the Irish government to regain Northern Ireland and save most of the Irish territory from the ravages of war is to allow the Germans to pass through the southern and central regions of Ireland as quickly as possible and reach the front line near Northern Ireland.

After hanging up the phone, Irish President Douglas Hyde began his daily routine of walking on the grass before dinner. This was also a rare opportunity to get in touch with ordinary people in Ireland. Although Hyde is the president of the Free State, he is not the kind of person who lives in the clouds. Phoenix Park, where the Presidential Palace is located, is also open to the public. Many people come here to relax and play every day. President Hyde likes to talk to these ordinary Irish people and understand their needs.

But when President Hyde walked out of the presidential palace today, he saw many people who were supposed to be strolling leisurely on the grass running towards him quickly, and there was a buzzing and roaring sound coming from nowhere.

what 's wrong? Douglas Hyde thought to himself: Could it be that when the citizens of Dublin saw their beloved president coming, they all rushed to ask for his autograph? He reached into his pocket to take out the pen, when he suddenly heard someone shouting next to him.

"Plane! Big plane, such a big plane!"

big aeroplane? How big is it? Douglas Hyde subconsciously raised his head and looked into the air, and immediately saw an incredible scene.

Over the Phoenix Park, a dozen "big-belly" aircraft appeared at some point. This kind of aircraft was larger than any other aircraft that DeGrasse Hyde had ever seen. There were 6 engines on the wings. That buzzing and roaring sound should be caused by them.

Moreover, these large planes flew very low, as if they were about to land on the grass of Phoenix Park at the next moment.

"Mr. President, those planes are about to land!" a presidential attendant loudly told the stunned DeGrasse Hyde.

"Landing?" Douglas Hyde took a closer look, and sure enough, a plane was about to land on the lawn of Phoenix Park.

"Oh my God, whose planes are they?" asked DeGrasse Hyde. He didn't understand airplanes, and he couldn't see the emblem on the airplane because of his old eyesight.

"I don't know, but it's definitely not ours!" An attendant suddenly took the president's arm. "Mr. President, they may be British planes...Mr. President, get out of here quickly!"

Douglas Hyde then followed his entourage back to the Presidential Palace as if he had woken up from a dream. Before he could enter the Presidential Palace, he saw a large group of Irish Army infantry charging out of the temporary military camp next to the Presidential Palace. They came out carrying rifles, machine guns and white flags - if the people coming off those big planes were British, then they would greet them with rifles and machine guns. Although Ireland was weak, it also had the courage to resist. If the Nazis are coming, then quickly raise the white flag to avoid unnecessary casualties...