Chapter 500 Plan

"Hmm? Flooding London? What an interesting idea. Who came up with it?"

Yannick nodded repeatedly as he looked at the action plan submitted by Wolfram von Richthofen, commander of the Army Aviation Corps.

Richthofen said respectfully. "It was a Stuka pilot who came up with it on a whim when bombing London yesterday. I think it is very feasible, so I asked you for your instructions."

"It's a good idea. Give him a credit. Go and prepare. Londoners have been in underground air-raid shelters for several months. It's time for them to come out and bask in the sun."

Due to its topography (most of it is on a flood plain), London has been flooded at various times in history.

The most recent one was more than ten years ago on January 7, 1928; just after midnight, the Thames River broke its banks. The raging floods poured into the narrow streets, and the depth of the accumulated water quickly increased to more than 1m. The torrents rushed into the most important buildings in the city center, and at this time, most Londoners were still sleeping in their dreams.

The Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London, and the Tate Gallery were not spared... However, the most unfortunate thing was that many basements in London, where the residents were the city's poorest people, were completely filled by the flood, causing many deaths and thousands of people to become homeless.

At that time, there was no alarm system to wake up the sleeping citizens, and the Thames Barrier to prevent the flood from invading the city was not built. The flood surged out of the subway, overflowed the embankment, rushed through Southwark and Lambeth, passed through Temple Docks, and hit the Houses of Parliament. Its old palace and Westminster New Hall became a vast ocean in an instant. "The flood poured over the guardrail like a waterfall and flowed all the way to the foot of Big Ben." The Times reporter wrote. "At the obelisk and the Royal Air Force Memorial, small waterfalls can be seen everywhere. The training ship President even floated to the same height as the street."

"It reminds people of Shakespeare and the streets and alleys of that era. The water rose so fast that the guys who had just woken up had to throw off the blankets and run out in their pajamas."

The most serious flood in later generations was the North Sea flood in 1953, which forced 32,000 people to evacuate urgently. It was not until 1982 that the Thames Flood Barrier was built and officially opened in 1984. Steve East, the project manager of the Thames Flood Barrier, said that the Thames Flood Barrier can protect the center of London from a once-in-a-millennium flood; but this guarantee was almost slapped in the face in 2014.

Although it is not the flood season now, the Thames estuary is wide outside and narrow inside, and the tide rushes in and the water level rises. Once the dam is blown up, it can also flood London.

At the same time that Yannick gave the order, the small town of Bumalay in Scotland was also unusually lively.

"I've been suffocating these days." Fred stretched his body and watched the tanks around him start one after another excitedly. In the past few days, more than 100 tanks and various armored vehicles have been assembled in the factory of Bumare.

Sitting in an armored vehicle, a soldier asked. "Squad leader, I heard that our goal has changed?"

Fred nodded. "Yes, it has changed. We will prioritize occupying the town of Rosslyn."

"Rosslyn? What is that place?"

"I heard it's a town seven miles south of Edinburgh."

As he spoke, several flares were launched into the air, and dense rockets fell on the minefield buried in front of the anti-tank trench. The successive explosions plowed the entire minefield. Then several bulldozers rumbled to the anti-tank trench and began to fill the trench.

This series of actions made the British troops surrounding the town of Bumare very nervous.

"Quick...quick...order all the soldiers to enter the combat positions, the Germans are going to attack!!" Commander Brooke's calves were trembling with nervousness. Although the British army surrounding the town of Bumarai had a division, it was not fully staffed; there were only more than 10,000 soldiers. What was even more terrible was that the soldiers with some experience were transferred to the front to stop the German army. Now the soldiers stationed here were all new recruits, and many of them had not even fired a few times.

Relying on these people to stop the attack of the German army on the opposite side, Division Commander Brook felt suffocated. He could only use some tough measures. "Send my guard platoon up, and anyone who dares to flee will be shot on the spot!"

Although the brutal Soviet supervision team can often be seen in later movies, supervision teams have appeared in countries such as Britain, France, and Germany.

In the British Army, how many soldiers and low-level officers were shot on the spot or sentenced to death during the war has long been a secret number. In the book "Data of British Military Operations in World War I" published in 1922, this number was deliberately concealed. It was not until 1994, more than 70 years after the end of World War I, that the most confidential part of the British Army's data was automatically declassified, and people were able to find out the exact number of soldiers executed that year.

According to the data collected from the archives, a total of about 3,800 soldiers and officers were executed during World War I, including 11% of on-the-spot shootings - that is, the supervision team caught deserters on the battlefield and shot them on the spot. In addition to being sentenced to death, tens of thousands of soldiers and officers were convicted and sentenced by military courts, and most of these defendants could not find lawyers to defend them.

The British war squad and military court dealt with deserters on a large scale, mainly in 1915 and 1916. In the first few months of 1914, the morale of the officers and soldiers on the front line was still good; in 1917, due to the further spread of anti-war sentiment, deserters turned into a large-scale mutiny. The British upper class no longer dared to kill deserters at will, and privately promised not to let the front-line troops engage in "battles with no hope of survival."

In the tragic Battle of Verdun, the French army suffered heavy casualties from the fierce bombardment of the German army. The anti-war sentiment within the army was high, and a large number of soldiers wanted to flee the battlefield.

French General Pétain was ordered to take the lead in the crisis. After inspecting the battlefield, he drew a line and organized a group of officers to be stationed on this line. He ordered the soldiers to hold their positions, and if they dared to withdraw across this line, they would be shot directly.

A large number of French soldiers wanted to retreat, but they found that they were still greeted by a black mass of guns, but not from the German army, but from their own people. Many French soldiers who fled died at the hands of the war squad, which intimidated other French soldiers. In the end, the French paid a terrible price and defended Verdun.

At the end of World War II, the morale of the German army gradually collapsed. Scherner himself was known for his toughness. His command tactics may not be very clever, but his determination to stick to the position was greater than that of many German generals. He personally led the guards and shot deserters in front of the troops, declaring that "cowards can only be shot and cannot be forgiven." However, while being hated by his subordinates, the situation of the German army's defeat on the northern front did improve. Some deserters were intercepted by the field military police and then uniformly incorporated into the disciplinary battalion. The disciplinary battalion usually has 500 to 1,000 people and is sent to the most intense and cruel battlefields. Scherner believed that the disciplinary battalion should be assigned to the rear guard mission to attract Soviet firepower until all of them died in battle to wash away their shame.