Operation New Lion: The Canary Islands Campaign Almost Failed

  Zhou Tianlei and his group returned to their residence, the Citroen car that had been following them changed into three different cars before finally becoming a Renault sedan which also stopped near the entrance of their hotel.

  After Zhou Tianlei entered the room, he picked up the cool water prepared by his staff and drank it down, then asked his staff for a detailed report on the Battle of the Mariana Islands.

  The staff officer brought up the report, Zhou Tianlei sat on the sofa, opened the report and carefully read it.

  In that detailed report, the joint operations of the German High Seas Fleet, the German Marine Troops Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit and the German Air Force Paratroopers are described.

  The day before the German naval troops and paratroopers arrived in the Canary Islands on a French ship transporting gold, they secretly boarded planes in Spain through Spanish arrangements and reached the airport in the Canary Islands.

  The German Atlantic Fleet, however, was faster because the battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper had not returned to their home ports in Germany after the Battle of Dunkirk but were instead ordered by the Naval High Command to carry out combat patrols off the coast of southern France.

  The German Navy's amphibious reconnaissance units concentrated on investigating the hydrology, currents, water temperature and tidal times of the ports in the Canary Islands, while at the same time checking their diving equipment, boarding equipment, underwater breathing apparatus and personal weapons.

  The German High Seas Fleet then began a sweep of the entire island to guard against any French ships that might escape and how they could be intercepted.

  At half past four in the afternoon of the second day, a French warship carrying gold appeared.

  The first to appear before the Germans was the French aircraft carrier 'Béarn'. This aircraft carrier was originally a battleship of France, but after a brave French pilot landed an airplane on it in 1920, the French converted this battleship into an aircraft carrier and conducted various sea trials in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. In 1938, France launched its formal aircraft carrier construction plan, with one already under construction.

  When the French aircraft carrier "Béarn" was docked, French sailors began to disembark and go ashore in the bustling areas of the Canary Islands. They will set sail from the Canary Islands tomorrow afternoon for the United States, where they will unload 194 tons of gold from their ship into American banks. The anti-aircraft cruisers "Sainte-Thérèse" and "Dunkerque", which are also carrying over 100 tons of gold each, will accompany them to the United States. They will arrive at the Canary Islands at 6 pm tomorrow afternoon. Although they set sail earlier, they still cannot catch up with the French aircraft carrier "Béarn", which is closer to the Canary Islands and departed from Brest, France, while the anti-aircraft cruisers "Sainte-Thérèse" and "Dunkerque" departed from Toulon, France.

  The anti-aircraft cruisers 'Jeanne d'Arc' and 'Dunkerque', which set sail from the port of Toulon in France, finally arrived at the Canary Islands as scheduled.

  The French fleet commander urged the port of the Canary Islands to speed up the replenishment of food, meat and fresh water for them. Meanwhile, German paratroopers who had long been disguised as dockworkers in the port of the Canary Islands took advantage of this to load crates of weapons onto the French warships. And while the French were not paying attention, some people went to a secluded place, took off their dockworker uniforms and revealed the French sailor uniforms they had worn underneath.

  At 11:30 PM, German naval commandos in rubber boats slipped into the harbor of the Canary Islands.

  They put on their diving suits on the rubber boat, wore underwater goggles, carried oxygen bottles on their backs, put flippers on their feet, packed their weapons in bags, and wrapped ropes and climbing hooks around their waists.

  As soon as all German naval infantry amphibious reconnaissance troops except the boat crew were ready, Commander Schuren of the German naval infantry amphibious reconnaissance troops gave the order to start combat.

  The members of the German Navy's Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit jumped into the water one by one, and the splashing sounds continued. After the German Navy's Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit members entered the water, the boat crew turned the boat sideways, and the sniper on board aimed his gun at the French sailor patrolling on the warship with lights on in the background.

  According to plan, the members of the German Navy's amphibious reconnaissance unit were divided into two groups. One group went to the stern of the French warship and used a specially prepared fishing net to entangle the propeller of the French warship, preventing it from moving. The other group quietly approached the side of the French warship, preparing to launch a surprise attack on the French warship in coordination with German paratroopers who had been hiding above.

  A German naval commando team wearing frogman gear quietly approached the French warship, surfacing to use the shadows cast by the ship's lights to conceal themselves as they carefully observed the patrol intervals of the sailors on board.

  They observed carefully, then suddenly boarded the French warship from the side, unfastening the grappling hooks from their waists. With a forceful swing of their arms, the hooks wrapped with cloth strips were firmly secured to some fixed devices on the French warship. The reason for wrapping the hooks with cloth strips was that they feared the sound of the hooks coming into contact with the deck of the French warship would alarm the patrolling soldiers on board.

  Members of the German Navy's Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit pull on the rope behind the hook, jumping out of the water and climbing up the rope.

  At this time, a French sailor named Bron on the French anti-aircraft cruiser "Dunkerque" patrolling above was rubbing his sleepy eyes and heading to his own cabin after taking over from another sailor.

  As he turned past a building on the warship, preparing to open the hatch leading to his own quarters, he suddenly felt that something was reflecting light into his eyes from the left side of the hatch. He curiously looked over and found that the thing seemed to be shaking, which he thought was strange, so he took two more steps closer to take a closer look, only to find it was a hook, and at this time, a frogman wearing a diving suit climbed up from the rope connected to the hook.

  The French sailor Blown and the frogman discovered each other at the same time, both of them were stunned, but it was the French sailor Blown who came to his senses first. He shouted loudly: "There's a situation! There's a situation!" and cocked the rifle in his hand.

  Although the French sailor Brown was hit in the neck by a water knife thrown by the frogman, with bright red blood gushing out of the large arteries on both sides of his neck, he lay powerless on the deck. However, the shot he fired before falling had already alerted other sailors on the French destroyer Dunkerque.

  Other sailors on the deck of the French cruiser Dunkerque immediately manipulated the searchlights to shine towards the place where the gunfire sounded. At the same time, the alarm was pulled, and the sharp alarm sound pierced through the night sky. A large number of French sailors were awakened by the French officer who shouted from bed, jumped down from bed, rushed to the outside storage of guns, took out guns and ammunition, and ran up to the deck.

  The shrill alarm siren not only startled the sleeping sailors on the French anti-aircraft cruiser Dunkerque, but also startled the French anti-aircraft cruiser Sainte-Thérèse and the French aircraft carrier Béarn moored in front of and behind it. They also rushed out of their cabins to see what had happened.

  At this time, although the German naval infantry amphibious reconnaissance troops who attacked the French "Dunkerque" anti-aircraft cruiser had all boarded the deck of the "Dunkerque" anti-aircraft cruiser, they were surrounded by French sailors. They could no longer launch a surprise attack on the sailors on the deck and could only find cover to shoot at the French sailors. Suddenly, there was a burst of gunfire on the deck.

  While on the French anti-aircraft cruiser "Jeanne d'Arc" and the aircraft carrier "Béarn", German naval commandos from the amphibious reconnaissance unit were slightly faster than those who attacked the French anti-aircraft cruiser "Dunkerque". They had all boarded the French warship before the alarm sounded, but they did not have time to attack the sailors on patrol according to plan. The alarm on the French anti-aircraft cruiser "Dunkerque" rang out. However, they reacted quickly and soon found cover for themselves, using their MP-38 submachine guns to block the hatches of the compartments they could see on the French warship.

  The German airborne commander, Colonel Linck, who was in charge of directing the surprise attack, realized that the amphibious reconnaissance units of the German Marine Troops had failed and that the German paratroopers who were hiding on French warships had not been able to act normally. He broke radio silence and requested that the German High Seas Fleet outside the harbor enter the port quickly.

  At this time, on the French warship, German naval infantry amphibious reconnaissance team member Hank, who was using a deck anti-aircraft gun mount on the French "Dunkerque" anti-aircraft cruiser as cover, was aiming his submachine gun at the French sailor 50 meters away and firing suppressive shots. Suddenly, he heard his comrade Lant shout: "Three o'clock direction, 15 meters, five."

  He instinctively pulled out a 'watermelon' hand grenade from his single-soldier combat vest, specifically designed for special forces, pulled out the safety pin, held it in his hand for two seconds, and then threw it in the direction his comrade had indicated. Then he hugged his comrade and rolled to the right behind another obstacle.

  With a loud "boom", the hand grenade he threw exploded in mid-air, and the shrapnel fell freely onto the deck of the warship. The French sailors who were attacking Hank never expected that German soldiers would dare to use hand grenades at such close range without any defense. They were all hit by the shrapnel from Hank's thrown hand grenade and fell to the ground.

  Hank and the others, because they were hiding behind an obstacle, only heard the crisp sound of bullets hitting metal, and they were unscathed from head to toe. Hank took off his hat and threw it to the left with the muzzle of his gun, while he rolled to the right like a weasel, rolling to a cover he had been eyeing earlier. Lant followed suit, rolling out behind him.

  Hank looked up and saw the communication antenna of a French warship above him, which they had carefully identified before departure. He thought: Our sneak attack has failed, the commander's mission for us before the battle was not to let the French go back alive or send out telegrams, otherwise the French would be alerted and change their combat plan, making the intelligence obtained by German spies at risk of life invalid. He decided to blow up the communication antenna on the French "Dunkerque" anti-aircraft cruiser, preventing the French from sending warnings to their homeland.

  He turned to ask Lant if he had any zha medicine, Lant shook his head. Hank looked around disappointedly, wanting to find something else that could destroy the antenna, when suddenly he saw two black shadows walking towards them, and with a swoosh, he pointed the gun at the two shadows.

  The black shadows also discovered them, but they did not open fire. Instead, they flashed the pre-arranged recognition signal of the German naval amphibious reconnaissance unit and the German airborne troops. Hank was overjoyed, he flashed back the reply signal, two men dressed in French sailor uniforms rushed to their side, different from the French sailors, they had a towel tied on their right sleeve for identification.

  The two German paratroopers asked Hank, "Are you guys going to blow up the antenna?" Hank and Lantz nodded in acknowledgement. The two German paratroopers continued, "We were originally supposed to blow them up, but something went wrong, the French blew up our camp, we couldn't get our weapons, so we came late, just now I saw you hiding here, thinking you might be from the German Navy's Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit, and it turns out you really are from the German Navy's Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit."

  Hank was overjoyed: "Did you bring the zha medicine?" The two German paratroopers also nodded and took out the zha medicine.

  They decided that two of them would set up the explosives and pull the fuse, while the other two were responsible for keeping watch. The German paratroopers climbed up the antenna, tightly binding the explosives to it, and pulled down the fuse. Hank and the others held guns to cover the German paratroopers as they worked on setting up the explosives.

  When the fuse was ignited halfway, several people covered each other and quickly left the communication antenna. Immediately, they found a safe hiding place to cover themselves. With a loud bang, the communication antenna on the French "Dunkerque" anti-aircraft cruiser was blown over.

  The German paratroopers beckoned to Hank that they were leaving. At this time, the sound of shells whizzing through the air was suddenly heard, and several people quickly fell prone, only to see a large splash jumping out of the water at a considerable distance from the French "Dunkerque" anti-aircraft cruiser.

  Only a few people knew that the battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, as well as the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, had entered port according to plan after the failed raid. The shell just fired was a signal for German soldiers still on board French warships to withdraw quickly in order not to be hit by mistake. A few people rushed to the edge of the deck without hesitation, climbed over the railing and jumped into the sea. On other French warships, German soldiers also saw the splashes and hastily retreated from contact with French sailors, jumping into the open sea.

  Just as they were jumping, a stray bullet hit Hank's shoulder. Hank let out a strange cry and fell into the sea.