afterglow

Chapter 433 One hundred barrels of special fuel; a wonderful campfire dinner
  A long time ago, Zhou Changfeng, who had just been poached by the navy from the Forbidden Army, had discussed Fort Drum with Yan Chenwu, and the two of them were studying how to deal with it in the staff office of the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion.

The history of Fort Drum can be traced back to the ninth year of Zhichang, when the Americans started a grand construction plan-to build a fort on Elfrey Island at the entrance of Manila Bay.

They razed almost the entire island to the ground and built a "battleship" with reinforced concrete on it, which lasted more than five years.

It is about [-] meters long and [-] meters wide. It faces east to west and the tip faces south, like the bow of a giant ship.

There is a saying that goes well - if you have money, you can do whatever you want. The inhumane Americans pursued perfection and succeeded in creating something that is now almost indestructible.

In order to ensure that this sea fortress is strong enough to be called an "unsinkable battleship," architects and engineers designed walls about 8m thick on all sides and 6m thick at the top.

Historically, the tallboy giant aerial bomb put into use by the Royal Air Force in the late World War weighed 5400 kilograms. After being dropped from a high altitude, it could reach an ultra-high speed of nearly 1200 kilograms/h during free fall, so it could penetrate 4.9m thick. Reinforced concrete fortress.

This basically represents the most powerful penetration capability that humans can achieve under the current technological level, but it still cannot destroy Fort Drum, which has a top thickness of 6m and three layers of 76mm thick steel plates.

Theoretically, only the Gustav 800mm railway gun can deal with it, and whether it is available or not, even if it is available, it may be difficult to deploy it in place.

The military was not willing to slowly besiege this fortress - as long as it existed, the Ming army would not be able to enter or leave Manila Bay.

Therefore, many plans for Fort Drum have been prepared for a long time. Now that the peninsula and Corogido Island have been captured, the fort has become a fishbone stuck at the entrance and exit of Manila Bay.

Zhou Changfeng sent a telegram to the Third Marine Brigade, asking whether the batch of special fuel shipped from China had arrived and when the raid on Fort Drum would be launched.

The Army Ordnance Gezhi Research Institute mixed oleic acid, palm oil, and gasoline, and adjusted the specific gravity of various substances to obtain several special fuels with different thickening degrees.

However, unlike the nearly gel-like napalm of later generations, these special fuels can only be called thickened gasoline - they are more like thick grease and have considerable fluidity, rather than a sticky gel.

The cargo ship Shangqing was one of the many merchant ships requisitioned by the Ming Dynasty navy. It has been traveling between Dagu and Lingayen Bay for a month, transporting military supplies to the troops.

The crew did not feel that there was much difference between wartime and normal times, and they never encountered any danger. However, a few days ago, a destroyer in the fleet suddenly issued a submarine alarm, which shocked everyone. Later, it was confirmed that it was just a submarine alarm. It was just a piece of metal floating on the sea, and the sailors mistook it for a periscope.

This time, the crew thought that the supplies transported by the Shang Qing were ordinary, but they did not know that one hundred gasoline barrels contained special fuel.

Because the landing operation against Moresby was temporarily postponed, Zhou Changfeng, who was quite free, simply flew from Surabaya to Manila, intending to enjoy the show with his own eyes.

If you miss this, you will regret it for several years.

At 11:6 on November 23, Manila Bay shrouded in darkness was silent.

The officers and soldiers of Company E of the 58th Coast Defense Artillery Regiment of the US Army at Fort Drum were confused, and most of them were in a very low mood.

The entire Philippines has fallen, the [-] troops trapped in the Bataan Fortress area have been destroyed, and Corogido Island, where Major General Wainwright is located, has also been captured.

Now, they are the only garrison unit left in the entire Asia that is still resisting alone, four thousand kilometers away from the nearest friendly forces.

Major Edward, the commander of Fort Drum, encouraged everyone: "This ship will never sink, and we will persevere as much as possible. Day after day, week after week, until the end."

Fortunately, this battleship built of cement gave everyone a sufficient sense of security - all kinds of supplies were quite abundant, and the fortress itself was extremely strong. There was no weapon in the world that could penetrate ten meters of reinforced concrete!
  The Ming army also carried out a symbolic attack on Fort Drum in the past two days. The Second Light Bombing Detachment of the Air Force made a total of more than thirty sorties and dropped more than a hundred 250kg aerial bombs.

Air raids destroyed the top superstructure of the birdcage masts and wooden barracks, but had no effect on the fortress itself, leaving only a few craters.

At this time, the Second Marine Brigade had dispatched two commandos, approaching Fort Drum under the cover of night.

A detachment of the boat scouts came quietly in four powered kayaks. After closing the distance, they turned off the engines and switched to manual paddling.

The small boats docked one after another, and more than [-] officers and soldiers began to try to climb the vertical wall more than ten meters high in front of them. They used cable launchers to launch nooses at the remaining railings on the top of the fortress.

It is really difficult to do this kind of life in the dark, and it took a lot of attempts before I finally succeeded.

The top building facilities were blown to pieces by the air raids and shellings in the past two days. The railings were incomplete and twisted. The heavily armed scout team officers and soldiers could only climb one by one, for fear that the twisted railings would not be able to withstand it.

The first person to board was a corporal. His excitement at this moment was beyond words.

Before setting off, the tour leader personally promised that the first person to board will be credited with the first credit! From now on, I will be able to return home with great enthusiasm!

But as soon as his excited heart was mentioned, it was as if it was tightly grasped by an invisible big hand.

I saw three figures walking from a distance, holding guns and talking. One of them fumbled and took out a flashlight.

"The strange sound is coming from here."

"Alan, use a flashlight..."

When the bright light of the flashlight shone in this direction, the corporal immediately opened fire. Such a sudden encounter at such a close range left no room for thought or reaction.

In the electric light and flint, two kinds of gunshots, "bang bang" and "da da da", resounded across the sky and sea, and the flash of the muzzle flash was particularly dazzling in the night!
  The three sentries were knocked down by the Type [-] short automatic rifle in the hands of the corporal as soon as they met. One shot in a hurry and missed, and the other was using a flashlight without a gun. Only one sentry shot and hit.

Four or five seconds later, another pacesetter came up. He immediately fired at several sentries coming from the other side together with the corporal who was shot and fell to the ground.

The two sides launched a fierce exchange of fire on the top of Fort Drum. Because E Company only deployed two three-person sentry posts on top, there was no time for reinforcements in a short period of time.

After the first few people boarded it, they found a new section of railing that looked stronger, tied it up and threw away the knotted cable.

In this way, thirty-nine officers and soldiers from the Second Marine Brigade's boat scout team climbed up one after another, and more than twenty people from E Company rushed out from the rear entrance and exit, trying to drive this Ming army down.

The U.S. soldiers relied on the collapsed birdcage mast wreckage and opened fire with all their strength!
  I don't know which side fired the flares. The small flares fired by the flare guns were just toys compared to the artillery flares, but they were enough to illuminate the upper floors of Fort Drum.

The two sides soon started throwing grenades at each other, and explosions and howls came one after another...

US soldiers are basically equipped with Springfield bolt-action rifles and only two Browning automatic rifles, which are unable to withstand the intensive automatic firepower.

A few minutes of fighting caused heavy casualties to the two squads of US troops, with seven or eight bodies lying dead on the pitted concrete roof.

"Lieutenant! They're approaching from the left!"

"Colin is knocked down!"

"Attention! The grenade is coming!"

The tactics of refueling in twos and threes cannot gain a strength advantage. Moreover, the officers and soldiers of E Company are coastal defense artillery units after all, and the quality of individual soldiers cannot be compared with that of elite light infantry such as the Boat Scout Team.

"The situation is urgent, retreat, retreat!"

"Go, go, go, get back inside!"

Seeing that it was impossible to resist the Ming army that was alternately covering the advance, the anxious Major Edward was forced to call on the soldiers to retreat inside the fortress, lest they would not even have time to close the partition door.

After dozens of seconds, the gunfire finally stopped.

The burned out flare slowly fell to the ground, releasing a wisp of smoke. The officers and soldiers of the scout team immediately surrounded them, stepped over the scattered corpses, and came to the prohibitively heavy steel door.

"Report, more than ten enemy corpses have been retreated below, and the iron gate is tightly closed."

"You won't survive long if you shrink back, ha!"

After successfully capturing the upper level of Fort Drum, several signal flares indicating success were immediately launched into the sky, which was particularly conspicuous in the night.

The generals who were waiting nervously on the shore breathed a sigh of relief, and their hanging hearts finally relaxed.

Yan Chenwu said calmly: "Send the order, let's go!"

"Order!"

A lieutenant colonel raised the corner of his mouth and said with a smile: "Send the oil and everything will be fine. Let's use a fire pot!"

"Today, let's appreciate the wonderful ideas of our 'General Zhou'." The commander of the [-]rd Division waved his hand, "Here, bring me some wine!"

Several other officers nearby also laughed, saying that they would watch and drink some wine later, and have their cameras ready.

Since the operation had been exposed, E Company stationed at Fort Drum began to operate artillery to return fire. The illumination bombs flew out diagonally from the gun emplacement, illuminating the sea as bright as day.

The 150mm field guns arranged in the four corners opened fire on anything suspicious. Naturally, the more than 3 small boats responsible for transporting special fuel were also targeted by them, each carrying 4 to [-] [-]-liter oil drums.

Cannonballs continued to fall into the sea, causing large waves to explode and causing the boat to rock and rise in the waves.

Even if there is no direct hit, the shock wave of the 150mm high-explosive bomb and the water column raised can cause great damage to the fragile sampan.

At least seven boats sank during this period, but sixteen eventually made it safely.

Only half of the four pumps and generators were ashore. The soldiers rolled the oil drums ashore and then struggled to pile them up.

The filled oil drums weighed more than three hundred kilograms. The soldiers worked in groups of four and hoisted the oil drums up one after another...

The barbecue dinner that the officers looked forward to was, after all, too idealistic. The preparations continued until late at night, and everyone was a little sleepy.

At 3:48 the next day, the officers in the observation post were drowsy, and some were already dozing off on the backs of their chairs.

At this time, someone suddenly shouted: "Look! Flare!"

I saw a shining yellow flare in the distance rushing into the night sky.

After several hours of hard work by the officers and soldiers, more than [-] oil barrels were hoisted up, and then connected to water pumps and hoses, and more than [-] liters of thickened gasoline were injected into the four vents that had been found.

They also moved some remnants of the steel frame of the collapsed birdcage mast and blocked the heavy steel door.

After doing all this, the boat scout team quickly evacuated. They tied the four fallen comrades with cables and hoisted them down one by one, and then rappelled down one after another.

In the end, only a second lieutenant and two non-commissioned officers were left at the top. They prepared to run away and at the same time pulled out the pin of the incineration grenade.

"Are you ready? Do it!"

"go!"

The handle flew off and fell to the ground with a crisp sound, which was quite clear under the hazy moonlight.

The three people ran wildly, rushed to the cable, grabbed the rope, turned around and jumped off.

When they turned around, they saw the fire shooting up into the sky and pouring out of the vents like a fountain of flames.

Seeing that everyone has boarded the power kayak, the gasoline engine on the stern of the boat is roaring, driving everyone away from this place of right and wrong.

On the bumpy boats, the officers and soldiers gazed intoxicated at this masterpiece of concerted efforts——

Fires were pouring out from everywhere in the entire fortress. The vents on the top were constantly spouting flames like fountains, and flames were also shooting from the gaps in the emplacements of the 150mm field guns.

The oil drums left on the top were also ignited, and then Fort Drum was enveloped in flames from head to tail. The flames soared into the sky, even making the stars in the bright night sky dim.

Under the scorching heat, the fire door of the ammunition depot on the second floor of the fortress gradually became unable to withstand it.

At dawn, the cabin storing the propellant package of the 356mm armor-piercing projectile first deflagrated, and soon triggered a series of explosions.

The earth-shaking explosion was like the end of the world. Its nearly 356-ton twin [-]mm turret was overturned and fell into the sea, causing a large splash of spray.

Several war reporters were startled, but the generals remained very calm.

Zhou Changfeng felt relaxed all over his body. This feeling was extremely pleasant, just like taking a shower and taking a sip of ice-cold soda after going home during the scorching summer heat.

[picture]

"Okay, the last stronghold has been removed!"

"cheers!"

"Here's a drink to you all, long live!"

The results here are good news for the Ming people, and correspondingly sad news for the Americans.

Several enthusiastic war reporters wrote articles overnight and sent back the film they had captured. Soon, successful reports such as "Master Wang pursued the victory and laid siege to annihilate the remaining enemies" were filled with the headlines of many newspapers in the north and south of the country.

The next day, countless telegrams flew like snowflakes to Melbourne, Hawaii, and Washington.

"Mr. Commander, there has been no reply to all communications from Fort Drum. The result is positive."

There was dead silence at the Pacific Fleet headquarters in Honolulu, and more than a dozen officers of all ranks were silent.

After a while, General Hasband Kimmel broke the silence, "Its fall is an inevitable outcome, and this does not affect our decision-making."

Hasband was urgently transferred to the commander of the Pacific Fleet just a month ago, and was directly promoted to a four-star general.

This commander with a strong personality was historically accused of neglecting his duties due to the attack on Pearl Harbor and was subsequently relieved of his duties.

"Sir, the existing intelligence can confirm that the Chinese action against Papua will come soon. We can't wait any longer." A major general said in a deep voice.

(End of this chapter)