I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 27

We lost.

Admiral Somerville was killed. 

No, not only him, but almost everyone in the command was killed.

I was taken to the hospital with injuries after being attacked by enemy planes at the anti-aircraft battery, so I couldn’t attend the command meeting, but that saved me.

According to the reports I received so far, most of the passages were collapsed, and the chances of the commanders in the deepest bunker surviving were very low.

Now I, a mere lieutenant colonel, had to command the survivors. 

William Creek felt no pain in his thigh. 

His head hurt more from the pressure of responsibility than his thigh that was grazed by shrapnel.

“A few huge bombs seem to have fallen. The battleships are stranded… and the search for survivors on board is still ongoing, but we are severely short of personnel. We can’t conduct a search in the fortress due to practical problems.”

“Where are the damages? Which passages are blocked?”

The sergeant who reported to him looked nervous.

“…Sir, it would be faster to ask which passages are not blocked. Look at the map…”

The map of the fortress was marked with red Xs. 

These were the blocked passages. 

Lieutenant Colonel Creek scanned the maps.

The passages to the supply depots deep underground were blocked as expected. 

Only the supply depot on the shallowest floor 1 was accessible, and there was no ammunition for fire extinguishers there. His head started to hurt more.

“Is there anywhere we can get personal ammunition? Any way to dig down? How many troops do we have, only those who are intact. Do we have any way to defend ourselves when their ground forces approach?”

“Sir, we are in a very chaotic situation right now. I’m just a sergeant, and I only know some of the survivors – I hope they’re just ‘some’. But…”

The sergeant hesitated again. Lieutenant Colonel Creek sighed deeply.

“You can answer no to most of the questions, can’t you? Where can we get ammunition? When would we need ammunition on a battleship? The only good thing is that we didn’t have much ammunition in stock anyway, so we distributed most of it to the soldiers.”

“How much per person?”

“Oh, finally a question I can answer. Sixty rounds. Sixty rounds.”

Should I just surrender? 

He forgot and felt a sharp pain in his thigh and asked for morphine from the nurse. 

Would his head hurt less if he got morphine?

Confirmed survivors about two companies, 400 people. 

Sixty rounds per person means 24,000 rounds. 

If Jerry brings 25,000 people, they have more soldiers than our bullets. Wow.

Can the Mediterranean Fleet arrive? 

From Malta, which is over a thousand miles away? 

Before that, we’ll either die by Jerry or be abused by Spaniards.

How’s the treatment at the POW camp? Please don’t drag me to places like Poland… It’s cold there. 

It would be nice to live in a warm Spain, feeling the breeze of the Mediterranean in a camp…

“Which POW camp… No, never mind.”

“Yes? Anyway, I understand.”

Can I order them to fight and die? 

No, do we have food for dinner tonight? 

I barely skipped breakfast and lunch because of the battle and funeral.

It’s hard to call a nurse and ask her to bring food. 

Is there any food left?

Oh, I want paella. When I went out on leave after being stationed in Gibraltar, I remembered a plate of boiled shrimp and paella that a Moorish street vendor sold. 

The fellow officers who went on leave with me are now alive or dead and I’m in this mess. 

Grrr…

“Nurse, do you have anything to eat?”

The fat lady nurse looked at him with a sullen expression. 

Hey, I’m the highest-ranking officer in this base right now…

Damn it. 

This is worse than not eating at all.

He spooned up some Morgan oatmeal porridge and thought so. 

Most of the food warehouses in the base were blown up and disappeared into the rocks along with them, but they said there was plenty of food left because there were fewer survivors than before. 

But this was what was served to patients. ‘For recovery’.

“Are you kidding me? How can I recover with this?”

I need protein, protein. To heal from wounds, I need meat not this Morgan oatmeal crap!

Even in this situation, he felt a petty desire to taste the food that the generals ate, now that he became the highest-ranking officer in the base.

If Spain hadn’t declared war, he would have sent soldiers to get food from nearby houses or something. 

Or at least hired people to cook for him with money.

He was from this country, but the British really couldn’t cook. 

His mother too. 

He realized how tasteless his mother’s food was after he came to Spain. 

It was better than the barracks’ grub.

He once made beef Wellington for his local girlfriend, saying it was a secret recipe from his mother, and got slapped in the face.

Frida, she was really beautiful… She looked at the food he made with a bewildered expression, took a bite, spat it out, and slapped him hard on the cheek before storming out.

He was enchanted by her deer-like green eyes and wondered what wine would go well with dinner that night. 

It was a shock to him. 

How could he have grown up eating that stuff? 

Maybe we were already defeated by Germany in terms of food?!

“Sir…?”

The sergeant who reported to him earlier opened the door of his ward and came in. 

Did he miss dinner? 

He looked weak.

“No, what is…”

And then a group of soldiers followed him with guns pointed at him. 

A mutiny?

Lieutenant Colonel Creek wondered for a moment, but soon realized there was no need to wonder.

What’s the point of knowing who they are when there’s no way to win? 

He put down the spoon he was using to eat the disgusting oatmeal and raised his hands high.

“Surrender! Surrender! Please spare me!”

Lieutenant Otto Schorchene of the armed escort proudly called the headquarters through the radio. 

The fortress was completely subdued.

He had some regrets, though. 

He had blown up the passages to the warehouses with explosives he brought while checking the structure of the fortress and reporting the results, but they collapsed completely with a few aerial bombs.

It was much easier to infiltrate the fortress again than the first time, which had become a mess with bombs. 

He only captured one lieutenant colonel who was groaning in his ward, but he was still the highest-ranking officer in the fortress.

“Ah, yes, headquarters? This is the infiltration team. The fortress has collapsed and the resistance is only a few who have no command structure. We have no casualties on our side. Over.”

“So where are we going to be imprisoned? Germany? Spain? I’d prefer Spain if possible. Oh, and do you guys have any food?

I’m British too, but British food is really awful. To be honest, German food doesn’t seem very tasty either except for sausages – what do you call them in German? Wurst? – Anyway, you guys only have potatoes, wurst and sauerkraut with beer. That’s it.

Spanish food is much better. France is okay too, but they’re frog-eaters so forget it. Anyway, I hope you Germans will send us to Spain. Our soldiers are brave and good people. They don’t deserve poor treatment…”

“He asks headquarters. Where will these soldiers be detained?”

Schorchene radioed headquarters again to give him the answer he wanted so that he would shut up.

At that moment, their hearts were one. 

Lieutenant Colonel Creek wanted to avoid eating that damn British food, and Otto Schorchene wished that loudmouth would stop talking. 

Headquarters replied that they would be sent to Seville for interrogation.

What happened after that? 

Who knows.

“Ah, thank goodness. I’m really relieved…”

The lieutenant colonel seemed genuinely relieved. 

Schorchene was incredulous, but anyway. 

He went around the fortress and accepted the surrender of the soldiers.

Most of them were hopeless or unarmed. They didn’t even try to fight against Schorchene and his special forces who were armed with machine guns and grenades while rescuing their comrades who were buried or trapped on stranded battleships.

Maybe it was because of Schorchene’s appearance, with his huge body and scarred face, his men thought, but anyone who had enough guts to say that…

“Is this because they see your face and surrender…”

Was there? No.

Gunter Lütjens, who became the commander-in-chief of Operation Rheinübung Fleet, was full of expectations. 

When he left for the North Sea with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, he didn’t know what awaited him ahead.

He only read the secret order from the Führer. 

The order detailed the actions of the British fleet that would attack Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. 

And it turned out to be almost prophetic.

He sank Hood and sent King George V and Prince of Wales to the bottom of the North Atlantic, following the Führer’s orders.

Britain lost two of its newest battleships to him, and he was rewarded with a two-rank promotion and became the commander-in-chief of the Axis Combined Fleet.

“Any messages from Bismarck?”

“No, sir. There was no signal from Bismarck since they engaged.”

Bismarck was alone – with a few destroyers and U-boats escorting it – heading to the North Atlantic to serve as bait for this operation.

The British Home Fleet would surely be enraged and chase after Bismarck with a massive sortie. 

He was worried about Bismarck. 

After all, he had earned his position on board Bismarck.

Of course, even without Bismarck, the fleet he commanded now was very impressive. 

Just the battleships alone: flagship Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Italy’s Littorio, Vittorio Veneto, Caio Duilio, Conte di Cavour, France’s Richelieu, Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Bretagne and Provence.

There were countless cruisers and destroyers escorting these twelve battleships. 

In fact, almost all of the surface forces of the Axis countries had joined for this operation.

The British battleships they had to face were only eight. If they trusted the report of one battleship being destroyed by the H-force, it was seven. 

The Mediterranean Fleet in front of them had only two old battleships – Barham and Malaya – and six cruisers.

Excluding the air power, the Axis Combined Fleet was numerically superior. 

Even considering the low skill level of the Axis navies, they had the advantage.

“Malta has… Malta has less than a hundred Hurricanes, right? Anyway, when we pass near Malta, make sure to form an anti-aircraft defense line. Even if the air force covers us, we have to do what we can.”

“Yes, sir!”

The only variable was Malta’s air force. 

The stubborn ones who were still holding on despite being bombarded by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica. 

If the fleet was hit by an air raid, all the variables they had created by attacking Gibraltar could be wasted.

He was confident that he wouldn’t suffer much damage if he formed an anti-aircraft formation and concentrated fire, given his overwhelming numbers.

But since this was practically all of his surface forces, he had to save his strength for the final battle. 

For the next… invasion of Britain.

He was already a senior admiral. 

To go higher, he had to wait for Erich Raeder to retire and receive the rank of grand admiral and become the naval commander-in-chief.

He didn’t think winning an operation like this – even if it was valuable – would help him advance much. 

It would be better to lead the navy in the invasion of Britain and successfully support the landing.

“That’s next… London and Scapa Flow. We’ll get revenge on those damned pirates. Right?”

“Ah, you are truly an admiral. You’re already thinking that far ahead!”

In the last war, Germany’s glorious fleet had to shed tears and scuttle themselves after being captured by Britain. 

The humiliation of their fleet buried in Scapa Flow…

Most of the senior officers in the navy had started their service during the last war. 

They dreamed of leading their proud fleet across the ocean, but their dream vanished completely. 

How desperate they must have felt.

He would return that history, that history of humiliation, to them. 

He would burn London and sink Britain’s ‘Royal Navy’ to the bottom of Scapa Flow! 

That was Lütjens’ goal.

Of course, he wanted to capture rather than scuttle their precious new battleships and aircraft carriers. 

He already had twelve battleships that were very impressive, but what if he had more battleships made with Britain’s advanced technology? 

How reassuring that would be.

The Führer was still considering a decisive battle with America, and his friend and colleague Dönitz also expressed his hostility towards America who kept attacking his submarines.

Of course, Lütjens himself didn’t mind a decisive battle either. 

He would be the one leading Germany’s battleship fleet against America!

While Lütjens was indulging in his pleasant imagination, Tirpitz and its fleet began sailing towards the jade-colored Mediterranean Sea.

He saw Gibraltar Rock in front of him, still smoking faintly. 

On his way back, he would raise Kriegsmarine’s flag on that rock. 

He vowed.