Reconnaissance of Malta
Zhou Tianlei left Berlin immediately after staying at home for only two days and quickly returned to France. He had to organize the German Ocean Fleet and a part of the original French fleet to conduct amphibious landing adaptation training, while at the German Marine Corps base, a large number of personnel and supplies began to be loaded onto vehicles in preparation for transfer to Sicily, Italy, where they would prepare for the landing operation. Zhou Tianlei also had to set up a submarine surveillance line against Britain, in case the British rebuilt their home fleet and Mediterranean fleet launched a surprise attack on the German fleet after the landing battle started. So he went to discuss this with D?nitz, hoping to borrow some submarines to complete the task. D?nitz readily agreed to the request and withdrew some submarines from the Atlantic to form a temporary surveillance submarine group under the command of the German Ocean Fleet. Zhou Tianlei was still not at ease and required the German intelligence department to send personnel to monitor the movements of British warships in British naval ports, especially in Alexandria, Egypt.
When Zhou Tianlei returned to the German Ocean Fleet, he immediately called a meeting with the officers of the German Ocean Fleet and announced that the plan to attack Malta had been approved. He also stated that this would be Germany's first true amphibious landing operation in modern warfare (Zhou Tianlei was not unfamiliar with this as he had participated in China's amphibious landing exercises before coming to Germany). Due to time constraints and secrecy requirements, only the 11th Airborne Division and the German Marine Corps Brigade were involved in the landing force, while the rest of the troops were provided by Italy. Therefore, coordination with the Allied forces on land, air, and sea was also crucial. The task of the German Ocean Fleet was to engage in annihilating battles against the British Home Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet. Of course, the possibility of the British Mediterranean Fleet appearing was greater, as the Strait of Gibraltar had already been controlled by Germany's air force. The task of providing full firepower support for the landing operation had been assigned to the German Ocean Fleet's Southern Squadron (formerly the French fleet) and the Italian fleet, as well as the German and Italian air forces. Additionally, they were also responsible for monitoring the French troops in North Africa to prevent anyone from going crazy and trying to disrupt the Malta operation.
Before the battle, the German North Sea Fleet moved to a French Mediterranean military port and conducted pre-battle exercises with relevant troops. Because this involves multiple services, multiple teams working together, in combat there can be no room for complacency or assumptions.
Even before Zhou Tianlei formulated a specific combat plan for Malta, the German naval amphibious reconnaissance detachment that had been deployed in Spain and performed prominently in the battle to escort Zhou Tianlei was transferred to France. After replenishing some personnel, it was transported by Italian submarines to Malta Island for pre-war campaign reconnaissance.
Kittel swam ashore on the island of Malta with more than 60 men, while the rest were led by newly promoted Lieutenant Hank to reconnoiter Malta's northern island – Gozo.
They began to appear on the coast of Malta after observing the situation, and after advancing less than 300 meters, they encountered a minefield set up by the British garrison on the island. Captain Kittel asked his vanguard to explore a way through the minefield without attempting to clear it, but only to find their foothold in the minefield so that they could quickly pass through the minefield without being discovered by the British. Immediately afterwards, Captain Kittel marked out the location of this minefield on the map.
A few bird calls came from the front of the minefield, and Captain Kittel knew that his vanguard had already explored a path through the minefield. He then led the main force to pass through the minefield, while the snipers covered them in the rear. They landed on the beaches near Sliema, a town north of Valletta, the capital of Malta. The British defenses were not very strong here, and at that time they were mainly defending against German and Italian air raids, without considering the possibility of landing from the sea, so after passing through the minefield, they did not encounter any similar defensive measures again.
They changed into British uniforms at a location, packed their German naval infantry uniforms neatly in backpacks, and buried the original German military weapons after sealing them. Taking out the British active-duty weapons from the spare weapon package, Lieutenant Kittel led ten people disguised as a British army patrol to advance towards Sliema along a road extending to Sliema, where an Italian secret agent was waiting for them. The others disguised themselves locally and waited for the result of their contact with the Italian secret agent.
As they marched to the rhythm of a virtual Scottish bagpipe, mimicking British soldiers, when they arrived at Sliema and saw an inn called Sliema Inn, Captain Kettler knew that they had reached the meeting place with the secret Italian agent, who was said to be the owner of this inn in intelligence. Captain Kettler gave orders in English: "The whole team takes a ten-minute break." The soldiers all started to disperse, but if there was a tactical expert watching, he would know that the Germans were actually loose outside and tight inside, and each soldier's angle actually sealed off his own defensive angle.
Captain Kittel walked into the inn, and a waiter asked him: "Sir, is there anything I can help you with?" Captain Kittel said the password: "I want 40-year-old Duval wine from Brest, France. Do you have it?" The waiter was stunned for a moment, turned around and left.
A little old man, not very tall, with a rather ordinary face and already slightly bald, came in. He said: "I don't know if the gentleman wants Chateau Kaysersberg or Chateau Bréhat's Duvall wine?" Captain Kittel said: "Chateau Bréhat." The old man looked at him seriously for a moment, then said to him: "Please come this way, sir." Captain Kittel followed him into one of the hotel rooms. The old man closed the door behind them and said to Captain Kittel: "You've finally arrived. Are you Italians?"
"Ah, no, we are Germans. German Navy," said Lieutenant Kittel. The old man's face showed a flash of disappointment, but it was quickly replaced by a new expression. He handed him a map of Malta with many symbols drawn on it and said: "This is what we have reconnoitered ourselves, there are some things that we cannot reconnoiter, I hope you can go and reconnoiter those places clearly. My nephew will give you something in a moment." He pushed open the window and called out: "Viota, Viota!" A young man quickly jumped out and said: "Uncle, what's going on?"
The old man shouted: "You go to our warehouse right away." "Yes, uncle." The young man turned around and left. After a while, a small truck left the hotel and headed south. The old man pointed to a point on the map and said: "The warehouse you will be going to is here, we have prepared cars and civilian clothes for you, so that you can move more conveniently during this activity. Alright, I won't see you off, hurry up and go."
Captain Kittel gathered his troops outside the inn and ordered them to proceed to a warehouse indicated on the map. There they met up with the old man's nephew, and from the warehouse they drove off in three small trucks loaded with a considerable quantity of civilian clothing.
They drove back to the place where they were hiding, and after meeting with their team members, distributed civilian clothes to the team members. Then, they carefully hid the long weapons, leaving only handguns and hand grenades on them, which are short and easy to hide. After that, they took cars, in groups of two or three, and began to scatter across the island, going separately to scout out British military activities and garrison situations.
Kittel and two other members of the team were tasked with reconnoitring the airfield at Luqa in the centre of the island, where the only fighter squadron on Malta - No. 261 Squadron RAF - was based, consisting of twelve Hurricanes and eight Sea Gladiators, which was also a key target for Operation Herkules.
After arriving in Lucca, they did not choose to enter the town in order to avoid drawing attention from the townspeople to strangers. Instead, they used their outdoor survival skills to build a dwelling near Lucca Airport. A few people took turns monitoring Lucca Airport around the clock.
In the evening, Captain Kittel was responsible for monitoring Lucca Airport. He carefully observed the length and number of runways, aircraft hangars, command towers, and marked them on a simple airport diagram hidden under his raincoat.
At this time, the airport's alarm suddenly sounded loudly. Captain Kittel thought he had been discovered and was preparing to slip away after hastily packing his things, when he saw British pilots rushing towards the apron. He suddenly realized that it was the Italian air force starting an air raid on the island, and the British fighter planes were going to intercept the Italian bombers.
On the runway, the British 'Hurricane' fighter planes have lined up and started turning their propellers, preparing to take off. Kittel observed that only 8 'Hurricane' fighter planes took off, while 3 'Seafire' biplane fighters were also pulled out by airport ground crew for refueling and ammunition replenishment, apparently they are also going to take off to intercept Italian bombers.
After all the British fighter planes took off from the runway, Captain Kittel continued to observe the situation at the airport. He observed that there were some dark objects in front of the taxiway, but it was too dark and the British observation spotlight didn't shine over there. So he couldn't tell what they were. He could only mark them on the airport's indication chart and plan to make a closer observation during the day. For the rest of the time, he observed the distribution of British sentry posts, the patrol situation of the British airport guard troops, and the general firepower allocation of the British at the airport. And marked them on his own simple airport indication chart. There were some things that needed to be supplemented with further reconnaissance during the day.
At daytime, Kittel lieutenant was woken up by his squad member while he was still in a daze. His squad member looked panicked on the face. Lieutenant Kittel cursed in a low voice: "What's wrong with you, you coward?" The squad member didn't care about Lieutenant Kittel's attitude and said: "Lieutenant, we've clearly seen those unclear things you marked on the map, they are British anti-aircraft machine guns and artillery groups." "What? Say it again!" "They are British anti-aircraft machine guns and artillery groups."
Captain Kittel's sleepiness was completely driven away. He asked: "You confirm that those are British anti-aircraft artillery and machine guns, how many have you checked?"
"I've checked it out, Britain's anti-aircraft guns are 20mm and 40mm, with 15 of each. There are also 20 machine guns."
Captain Kittel scratched his head, for the intelligence he had received said that because this British airfield was in the center of the island and Britain's anti-aircraft firepower was insufficient, the original deployed anti-aircraft forces were transferred to Valletta, the capital of Malta, and only a few were left here. But how did they come back now? Did the British bring reinforcements from other places to Malta because the anti-aircraft firepower in Valletta, the capital of Malta, had not decreased according to the photos taken by German aerial reconnaissance. However, no matter what, the existence of these high guns will cause considerable trouble for the German airborne troops to capture this airfield.
Captain Kittel thought of this and asked his crew: "Have you marked the changes in air defense firepower on the map of this airport?"
"That's marked," said the crewman. "Alright, get this intelligence out tonight and let the people upstairs decide what to do with that airfield."
On the second evening, Captain Kittel received a telegram stating that the German Naval Command had decided to have the existing German armed forces on the island take over several airfields on the island. Since Captain Kittel and his men were not carrying heavy weapons, German submarines would transport some heavy weapons including mortars and explosives before the battle began. The contact point and time were set beforehand, and their mission was to continue supplementing reconnaissance of British troop strength and weapon deployments on the island in order to provide more intelligence support for a joint German-Italian amphibious assault operation.
In other places, the German Navy's amphibious reconnaissance personnel investigated the beach conditions, tidal conditions, nighttime and daytime illumination conditions, the deployment of British troops on key beaches in Malta, and the anti-airborne deployment of several airports. The distribution of British forces in various parts of the island, as well as their weapon configurations, were thoroughly scouted and compiled into a report that was sent back. Subsequently, they received an order from the German Navy to wait on the island for further instructions from the German Naval Command.
