Chapter 1125: The Iceland Mystery

The roar of an engine echoed in a hidden auxiliary airfield. Several pale-faced British Air Force officers and a few men in mechanic’s uniforms surrounded the gasping engine, shaking their heads in frustration.

This engine, due to problems with its blade manufacturing, had developed all sorts of issues after just a few weeks of use. It had nearly killed the pilot flying this Meteor fighter during a patrol. Then, it had almost exploded after landing. In the end, it could only be removed to be used as test equipment, and even then, its performance was far from ideal.

Just like the cornered Nazi Germany of another timeline, the side effects of “Iceland-Britain” (Northern Britain) rushing high-tech weapons were beginning to show. Their equipment was extremely unreliable, frequently encountering all kinds of problems on the battlefield, which affected the soldiers’ ability to use it and perform.

Even if these “doomsday weapons,” based on performance alone, could be called epoch-making new inventions—some could even be considered innovative developments that would lead the next era—they all possessed various fatal flaws that could not be ignored. They were expensive, difficult to mass-produce, and had extremely low reliability.

It turned out that it wasn’t just the “wildly-thinking” Nazi Germany that pinned its hopes on high-tech weapons on the eve of its destruction. Any country would fall into this vicious cycle after being defeated.

“The vibration can’t be suppressed at all. This engine can no longer be installed on an aircraft.” A British technician, who was recording the various faults and problems, sighed helplessly, then stated his opinion to the British officer beside him: “This month, Canada only produced 14 engines. Nine of them, after a period of use, developed this kind of unsolvable problem.”

Another researcher nodded in agreement, then analyzed the main reason for the engine problems from a technical perspective: “The manufacturing process for the engine’s internal blades is immature. Canada simply doesn’t have the capability to produce this kind of engine. The result of forcing it is the situation we have now.”

He had always opposed relying on those immature Canadian factories and small, workshop-like enterprises to produce jet engines. Weapons produced this way were extremely unstable; compared to the enemy, such unstable weapons were an even more dangerous presence. Unfortunately, no one listened to his opinion. Or rather, even if everyone heard it, no one was willing to give up the attempt.

They had searched the entire British and American arsenals, but they couldn’t find an aircraft that could match the performance of the German Ta-152 fighter. If the British didn’t take the lead in using jet fighters and producing jet engines, how could they possibly curb the German “ocean” of FW-190D and Ta-152 fighters?

“We painstakingly scraped together 4 Meteor jet fighters, and 3 of them crashed due to mechanical failure. The German bomber fleets haven’t even arrived, and we’ve already lost 3 pilots ourselves… What kind of mess is this?” a British pilot, standing next to the engine in his survival suit and wearing a parachute, lamented mournfully. His comrade-in-arms had died in a crash due to mechanical failure a few days ago, and he still couldn’t get over it.

Despite being reinforced with 3,000 US troops, a gloomy cloud hung over Iceland. The destroyed runway and the half-built base looked as grim and terrifying as ruins, robbing anyone who saw them of any confidence and leaving them unable to find a single shred of hope.

The engine was still vibrating, still running, making everyone around it extremely uncomfortable. No one believed they could win the war by relying on this kind of weapon. Many jet pilots had even begun to fear flying missions. This sentiment spread, making Air Marshal Dowding feel the severity of the situation.

“Wooo… Wooo…” Just as everyone was immersed in their despair, channeling their inner “melancholy artist,” the air raid siren rang out at the most inopportune time. Soon, an orderly ran out from the radio room not far away, waving a piece of paper and shouting, “German carriers approaching! Fighter units on standby, prepare for takeoff!”

“I’d rather fly an obsolete P-40 fighter than take off in this unstable piece of junk.” The British pilot, hearing the alarm, grabbed his gear and complained to the ground crew following him as he walked toward the distant aircraft hangar. “God save me.”

To be fair, if the Meteor fighter had been given another five years of development and accumulation, it would absolutely have been a reliable jet aircraft, superior to Nazi Germany’s ME-262. Although its design was more conservative than the German’s, it was still a beautiful jet fighter.

At this moment, the British pilot climbed the ladder to the cockpit of the Meteor fighter, praying in his heart that this time his plane wouldn’t drop out of the sky due to mechanical failure. With the help of the ground crew, he fastened his seatbelt, then began to check the various instruments in his cockpit, looking for any problems that might affect the flight.

The shrill sound of air raid sirens from other bases could be heard in the distance, making the atmosphere in this secret airbase even heavier. Right now, Iceland’s air defense basically relied on two small, hidden airfields. And in these two airfields, the total number of planes that could take off was only a dozen or so.

Clearly, using such a small number of fighters to meet a large-scale German fighter force was, without a doubt, a suicidal act. Thinking of this, the British pilot sitting in the cockpit froze for a moment. Since when did pilots of the British Royal Air Force fear taking off to meet their enemy? Since when did the valiant Royal Air Force, with its thousands of fighters, become so fragile that it could only scramble a few planes to counter an invader?

…

Inside the Iceland Air Defense Command, General Dowding frowned as he gathered the intelligence reports in his hand. He was reluctant to let his fighter units take off to intercept, to continue this attrition in a completely disproportionate battle. He was afraid of hearing news that another of his fighters had crashed due to a malfunction, which was shaking the morale of his fighter force.

But the standing order from his King was to counter-attack resolutely and protect the airspace over Iceland. If he didn’t order the fighters to take off at this moment, and the Iceland base suffered any more losses, he, as the commander of air defense, would certainly be reprimanded by the Crown. This conflicted feeling weighed on him, making his chest feel as heavy as if something was pressing down on it.

“General!” An officer ran into Dowding’s command post, clutching a message from the newly rebuilt, simple radar station, and shouted, “General! General! The number of German aircraft taking off is between 20 and 30! The scale of the German aircraft is between 20 and 30!”

When Hugh Dowding heard this, his eyes lit up. This time, the Germans had not scrambled their massive strategic bombers, but their smaller carrier-based attack aircraft, which had a small bomb load. In that case, even if they endured this German bombing, it was acceptable not to scramble fighters to intercept.

He quickly calculated in his head, becoming even more convinced that this German attack would not cause much damage. Such a small attack force… perhaps the Germans’ real goal was to lure the Royal Air Force into the air, and then wear down the UK’s limited air power!

Thinking of this, Dowding immediately gave orders to his subordinates: “Notify the US Army, tell them to take cover! Have our air force remain on standby; no need to rush to intercept. It’s fewer than 30 German planes. Have the anti-aircraft guns focus on protecting the only radar station. Other than that, we have nothing left that’s worth the Germans bombing.”

Hearing this, the other generals in the command post smiled and went to relay the general’s orders. Soon, the German aircraft appeared over the battle-scarred ruins of Iceland. These German planes clearly didn’t pull any new tricks. They hurriedly dropped their bombs on a few suspected targets, then turned around and left Iceland’s airspace.

“All clear! The German bombing was small-scale. The scramble mission is canceled. All aircraft remain on standby,” an officer shouted to the pilots on standby in their few remaining planes, standing next to the hidden field airstrip. A small cheer went up. No one liked taking off under these circumstances.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The pilots’ faces broke into relieved smiles. The air raid siren was canceled. Everyone turned their attention to the distant, dot-sized German planes that had come and gone so quickly. “Hey! I say, these damn German bastards, they just fly one circle and leave?”

“Maybe they were scared off by your heroic killing aura,” a ground crewman joked, seeming to have regained his soul now that the alarm was off. He helped the pilot he was responsible for take off his survival suit.

“I don’t know why, but I feel something’s fishy about this,” the pilot who had jumped down from the fighter plane muttered uncertainly, having seen a “flaw” from somewhere.

But his words immediately drew laughter from the group. “Don’t jinx it. Maybe it was just a demonstration of force by the German Navy.” Amidst the laughter, the pilot also felt he was being overly suspicious, so he just scratched his head, smiled, and shut his mouth.

Before the British pilots and ground crew at the base could think too hard about it, that jet engine, which had been under testing in the simple shed, suddenly made a strange ka-la, ka-la sound. Then, just a few seconds later—in the instant before the test crew could cut the fuel and power—it suddenly, for some unknown reason, exploded with a boom, blowing the entire roof off.

Dragon Spirit thanks everyone for their concern. My health is much better; it seems it was just a common cold. I was still miserable on the train, but I felt slightly better after arriving.

The main delay these days was the funeral. There were so many social obligations; it was so busy. The South has so, so many more customs for red and white (weddings and funerals) affairs than the North. The different customs really gave me another experience, just like the wedding.

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