Six Hundred and Sixty-Two Fastest Reinforcements
Just when Rommel and Patton's troops were entangled, behind the German front, a group of Italian soldiers were using various machinery and other individual equipment to try to level a field airport. The construction scene in full swing proved that this huge construction site The scale of the project is quite large.
Italian soldiers don't seem to be very suitable for fighting on the front line. They are weak when attacking, and they are as uneasy as a leaky house when defending. But once they are not allowed to go to the battlefield, these soldiers will be full of energy. The construction process is also exquisite and the quality is excellent.
So Rommel ordered the Italian soldiers of the two armies to secretly build a large number of front-line airports after the formulation of this battle plan. As for what these front-line airports do, no one knows.
"The Germans are willing to make trouble. They have to repair fortifications, dig trenches, and scout the terrain everywhere to collect information, as if they are machines that can't stop." An Italian soldier leveled the sand around the airstrip with a shovel while talking with him A comrade-in-arms complained: "I was very grateful that they brought us here, so that we didn't have to participate in the front-line battles, but they gave us this job, and we were exhausted all day long."
His companion did not raise his head while working, and replied: "Okay, we are lucky. I heard that the black shirts suffered thousands of casualties. We can repair the airport in such a safe place." , It’s already a very good job. If the frontline troops are not enough, and we are pushed up, it will be miserable.”
No one knows what the temporary front-line airfields of these Germans are used for. These airfields have no pre-set air defense positions, and there are no cover measures. are very few.
These places may just be false targets to doubt the opponent's air force, or they may be temporary runways for the forced landing of returning faulty planes. As for why so many field airfield runways are built, this is not something that ordinary Italian soldiers can know. Anyway, they just build and build endlessly.
"You didn't see the German canned food replenished by those in the black shirts. That's real food." He complained, feeling that he had been treated unequally and differently. The Italian soldier had seen the supplies of the Blackshirt Army, which was at the same level as the German regular army, which naturally made these second-line Italian soldiers envious.
Originally, the food and supplies of the Italian army were good. As a result, Rommel did not intend to evenly distribute the supplies provided by his long supply line. He ordered the front-line troops to receive 100% or more of the supplies, while the second-line troops maintained the supply level at 70% or even 50%.
As a result, the supplies received by many Italian second-line troops were very poor. The garrisons in many places even had only two meals a day, while the black shirts who followed the German army and the German army's own troops had canned food and food every day. Fried noodles, and sometimes even beef and chocolate candies.
"Is that food eaten casually? If you eat it, it means you are going to the battlefield. The British are easy to provoke? That is to say, the Germans are more powerful. If it were us, at this moment, Tunis would have been lost." An Italian veteran sighed and said, "You are new here, you haven't heard of that..."
"What's the matter?" Apparently, the young Italian soldiers who had just arrived in Africa had never experienced the defeat of the Italian troops by the British, so they were very curious about this kind of thing.
"Well, when the Germans didn't come, our general didn't listen, and he wanted to provoke the British, and we were defeated. I was in the rear guard and was not surrounded and captured, but I heard that, That’s what the British report said when they mentioned the capture of the Italian troops.” The old Italian soldier held back a bit, and then he continued when everyone’s curiosity reached its peak: “The British said: 'We captured 5 acres of Italian officers and 200 acres of Italian soldiers'..."
"..." Now everyone knows why they were stuffed into the German Army Engineering Corps to build this kind of front-line field airport. With such a good foundation laid by such a group of seniors, it is estimated that they need more than courage to go to the front line.
"We captured about 5 acres of officers, and 200 acres of British and American soldiers!" Just as a group of Italians were lamenting the shameful achievements of their predecessors, a German military officer was proudly reporting to Rommel that the German army today results.
Everyone felt that Patton's failure to commit to his reserve team was due to a covert counterattack plan, and there was a hint of conspiracy throughout the entire engagement. The Germans finally decided to ignore Patton's possible trap and used their superior armored forces to crash into the core of Patton's army.
Eventually the Germans found the largest tank force they could muster, including 40 Tigers and 110 Panthers, and formed an attacking detachment that stormed the heart of Patton's Army, where they knocked out about 40 The latest M4 Sherman tank of the US military, and then the entire Patton Army completely collapsed.
The main force of Patton's army, who had always been afraid and wary, did not appear on the battlefield, and did not even have a decent counterattack. The entire army was defeated by the German army. The battlefield turned into a one-sided pursuit. Many American soldiers behaved very differently from before. They raised their hands and surrendered neatly, which was completely opposite to the tenacious style of resistance in the previous few times.
Because a terrible rumor spread among them, this rumor is that "Alexandria has changed hands, the British 9th Army has collapsed on the flank. There are a large number of German soldiers in the rear of the entire army, and the 8th Army has been surrounded by the Germans." Even this rumor has the most direct evidence-the command of the 8th Army has begun to retreat, and everything has been defeated.
Sitting in his armored command vehicle, Patton looked tired and frustrated. Even his favorite cigar was not in his mouth at this moment. Beside him is the main force of the 8th Armored Division retreating backwards. This is the "coffin book" in Patton's hands, and it is all the valuable property he can take away now.
As for why he left the front-line troops, he chose to escape which was close to humiliation. In fact, we have to start from a few hours ago, because a few hours ago, Patton's supply line deployed from Cairo to the south of Alexandria was suddenly cut off, and his rearguard was ordered to counterattack, but the information sent back scared everyone People jumped.
Intelligence showed that the German army appeared in the supply line and rear, and the force was very large. As for where this deadly German army came from, Patton really had no idea. All he could do was break out eastward with all the American troops he could find, retake the supply lines and retreat back to Cairo.
A battle that Patton and Montgomery had painstakingly organized, just like this in a situation that suddenly collapsed and ended anticlimactically. The German army won an overall victory from the stalemate. Soon they will flank Alexandria , or they have already surrounded Alexandria in terms of situation.
Afterwards, Rommel's army would drink the Nile River, and the defenders in Cairo were simply unable to resist the devastating footsteps of the German army. Whether they could finally defend the Suez Canal depended on the few troops taken away by Patton.
"Bastard! Where did these damn Germans come from? Has there been any reply from the British? Is there any news yet?" In the shaking armored vehicle, Patton asked his combat staff with a pale face.
He had to abandon most of his troops and led the elite to defeat all the way. This was definitely a great shame for him. His well-prepared counterattack plan could not be implemented. The idea was smashed to pieces by the opponent before it even started.
"There are eyewitnesses claiming to see a large number of German planes flying westward. Some say they are bombers from Turkey, some say they are bombers from Crete, but no one saw these planes drop bombs, so it is still unclear what it is The situation." The combat staff officer put down the walkie-talkie in his hand and replied to his commander.
"Airplane? It's an airborne soldier!" Barton's eyes suddenly lit up. He knew that if he could, he might still be able to earn some interest in this situation before escaping. If the German troops behind them are really paratroopers, then they have no way to fight against their own armor torrent.
"It's the airborne troops! The German airborne troops on Crete! They didn't withdraw to the German mainland, they were in Crete, waiting for this surprise attack! They are the fastest reinforcements, and they are the fastest reinforcements. Come to reinforce Rommel's German troops!" In Alexandria, Montgomery slapped the table loudly and yelled at his panicked subordinates: "Draw troops from Alexandria and counterattack immediately! Is there any news from General Patton? I'll get in touch! Hurry up!"
"General! General Patton must be retreating. After all, they are not like us. They saw the huge German fleet." A staff officer looked as sad as his dead mother. He saw at least 500 German planes with his own eyes. Flying over the positions of both sides, due to the delay in air defense communication, when the British anti-aircraft artillery fired, only a dozen German aircraft were shot down. After all, no one expected the German army to appear from behind them, so when they realized it, some of the anti-aircraft artillery positions had been bypassed by the German army.
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The war has gone 70 years, but the blood and pain are still worthy of our deep thinking. Forgetting history is betrayal, and only by striving for self-improvement can we stand in the forest of nations in the world!