Chapter 1086: Incredible Victory
Just as the US landing ships on the sea were being mercilessly slaughtered by the German Type 21 U-boats, dozens of large and small landing craft were breaking through the morning sea fog and approaching the mudflats near Georgetown with a bang.
Before the landing craft came to a stop, the hatch at the bow of the boat was creaked into the knee-deep sea water, and the US officers and soldiers filled with them jumped into the water with their heads covered. The first one was a bearded, tall US Marine captain with a helmet on his head, holding an M3A1 submachine gun (Gader submachine gun), carrying a large backpack, and shouting the slogan "God bless America!" He looked a little crazy and didn't seem to care about death at all. However, the American soldiers who followed him into the water with a rumble were all nervous.
"Guys, follow me! Follow me to kill the Germans!"
Captain John Miller, the commander of Company E, 4th Amphibious Assault Battalion, 4th Marine Division, was a veteran who had participated in the bloody battle of Ni'ihau Island. At that time, he led a platoon of Marines to the beach of Ni'ihau Island as the first batch... Then, he and his men plunged into the fire net woven by various Japanese ammunition. In the process of landing on the beach alone, his platoon lost two-thirds of its people, and the 4th Amphibious Assault Battalion of the 4th Marine Division also suffered more than half of its casualties in the battle that day.
Now, Captain John Miller is going to lead a company of American youths to face the various ammunition of the German devils, who are 10 times more terrible than the Japanese!
As an American man who crawled out of the pile of dead bodies on Ni'ihau Island, he had long believed that leading the landing in Georgetown was a mission that must be killed. However, out of loyalty to the American motherland and his belief in freedom and democracy, he gladly accepted the order and accepted the mission that must be killed.
Moreover, as early as the second day after he landed on Niihau Island, he regarded himself as a dead man!
So he was not afraid of death and was ready to die.
Before the beach landing began, the US landing formation was attacked by German aircraft, torpedo boats and submarines, which also made Captain Miller determined to die!
There were heavy losses before landing. Even the Aranche dock landing ship, which was ridden by Major General Clifton Cates, the commander of the 4th Marine Division, was sunk. How could there be fewer casualties in the next landing operation?
So the Marines who followed Captain Miller to land in the morning mist were all nervous, fearing the combined attack of various firepower of the German army. If they were not careful, they would encounter the terrible E-50 tanks. Even the Japanese knew to deploy T-34 tanks near the beach. Would their teacher, the Germans, not know? However, the Germans would definitely not use the outdated T-34, but the powerful E-50 tanks and Tiger tanks!
According to the intelligence provided by the Soviets, the German E-50 tank can even withstand the fire of the Soviet 122mm cannon!
In order to fight against this terrible tank, the US Army urgently modified the M10A1 tank destroyer, installed the 90mm anti-aircraft gun on the M10A1 body, and produced the M36 tank destroyer. The 4th Tank Battalion of the Marine Corps (belonging to the 4th Marine Division) was also equipped with a company of M36 tank destroyers (17 M36) before entering Guyana.
However, these 17 precious M36 tank destroyers were all loaded on the Aranche dock landing ship and have now sunk into the sea with the ship.
In other words, the officers and soldiers of the 4th Marine Division of the United States, who are now rushing to the Georgetown beach, have no idea what weapons they can use to deal with the German E-50 tanks?
However, the landing operation of the 4th Marine Division will not be cancelled because of the lack of M36 tank destroyers. The battle to attack British Guiana was so important to the United States that it was a decisive battle for the country's destiny.
Because British Guiana was the bridgehead for the German invasion of the Caribbean, and Georgetown was less than 500 kilometers away from Trinidad. Most types of German shore-based aircraft could attack Trinidad from Georgetown. Georgetown was a huge and unsinkable aircraft carrier! As long as it was still in the hands of the Germans, the US troops on Trinidad could lose their air superiority at any time!
So, including Captain Miller, several thousand officers and soldiers of the 4th Marine Division of the United States, at dawn on August 24, regardless of the fact that their landing fleet had just been attacked by German aircraft, submarines and torpedo boats, and suffered heavy losses, and lost many supplies and technical equipment, they still resolutely embarked on the journey of "liberating" British Guiana.
Miller and his soldiers held their guns tightly and rushed to the beach desperately. But the knee-deep seawater and the soft mudflats made it impossible for them to walk fast. Everyone was sweating in a blink of an eye. They had only covered less than half of the distance of several hundred meters, less than a thousand meters.
Captain Miller was still in the front, his heart was beating so fast that he almost had a heart attack. Although he had long put life and death aside, he was still very nervous when death was really in front of him.
Especially since there was no sound of gunfire on the beach until now, Captain Miller smelled a strong smell of danger.
This means you have to get closer before firing! Only the truly battle-hardened elite can keep calm in front of the enemy who landed like a tide, put the enemy at the most ideal shooting distance, and then kill them with extremely accurate firepower.
The German troops defending Georgetown Island are undoubtedly such elites!
But the extremely accurate shooting that Captain Miller imagined never happened, when he and more than 100 officers and soldiers under his command finally rushed to the beach. What caught his eye was the shantytown on the beach that had been bombed into ruins by American planes and warships - that was the home of local Indians and black fishermen in Guyana. Because it was too close to the beach, the US military believed that there might be German fire points hidden, so it was repeatedly bombed and shelled. Now there is only a pile of rotten wood and various miscellaneous rags, and of course there are many fragments of blacks and Indians waiting to be rescued by American soldiers. Most of them are elderly people and children, and there are no young and middle-aged people, because the young and middle-aged people were captured by the Germans to work in the "Georgetown Island Fortress"...
"Captain, there seems to be no Germans here!" A sergeant who followed Captain Miller shouted to him. "They probably couldn't stand the bombardment and ran away?"
"Run away?" Captain Miller glanced at the sergeant beside him, "They haven't really run away once in this war!"
"But there are really no Germans here. If there were any... they would have opened fire."
Captain Miller looked around again. There were more and more American soldiers rushing onto the beach, and several amphibious tanks modified from M4 tanks also rumbled onto the beach, while the direction of Georgetown city was still quiet.
"Well, there may not be any Germans here, but they will definitely fire at us somewhere else!" Captain Miller said his judgment very confidently, and then shouted to the company's flag bearer and a sergeant in charge of signal communication: "Find a higher place and put up our Stars and Stripes so that the damn Germans know that the United States has landed!
Shoot out a signal flare to tell the sea: the landing is successful, the landing site is safe, and the Georgetown beach is under the control of the US military!"
...
"Look, three red flares in a row!"
"That's the signal of a successful landing!"
"Stars and Stripes, it seems that someone has put up the Stars and Stripes, right on the beach in Georgetown!"
"God bless America, we won!"
"Victory!"
On the sea, oh, it should be a cheering sound from the sea, which made the drowsy US Marine Corps Major General Clifton Katz cheer up again.
The US Marine Corps major general is now wearing a life jacket, soaking in the sea less than 8 kilometers from Georgetown Beach with hundreds of American soldiers who jumped into the sea from the Ashland dock landing ship, waiting for rescue with the most desperate mood.
His mood is completely understandable. The landing operation in Georgetown had just begun, and his 4th Marine Division was beaten up by several German U-boats (6 Type 21 U-boats) at sea. A total of 24 landing ships of various types either sank or ran aground, accounting for almost 20% of all landing ships occupied by the 4th Marine Division. Moreover, these 24 landing ships are all large ships, including 3 valuable dock landing ships and 12 tank landing ships (including various support ships converted from tank landing ships).
At least 4,000 US military officers and soldiers have either drowned or are soaking in the sea waiting to drown. One of them is Major General Katz, the commander of the 4th Marine Division!
Because they had suffered heavy losses before landing, and also lost the division headquarters (the division headquarters and Major General Katz were both on the Ashland), a key tank destroyer company, and a large number of heavy equipment. So Major General Katz, who had fought in the Second Battle of the Hawaiian Islands, had just determined that the landing operation had no hope of success - his troops had been defeated, and Operation Liberty had failed.
But just when he felt very desperate, the Stars and Stripes rose on the beach of Georgetown.
Major General Katz, who had recovered some of his spirit, quickly raised the telescope that had been soaked in the water for an unknown amount of time and looked in the direction of the beach. Sure enough, there was a flag, no, several Stars and Stripes appeared on the beach.
And there was no sign of fighting on the beach, which meant that the landing was successful and the Georgetown beach was under the firm control of the US landing force.
Major General Katz thought to himself: I actually won a battle, and I can win like this, it's incredible!