Chapter 160 Bombing

General Auchinleck was indeed guilty.

He didn't know what to say when he heard that the 15th Armored Division and the 2nd New Zealand Infantry Division were almost wiped out.

This was the most embarrassing thing General Auchinleck had encountered so far.

In principle, the other failures were not General Auchinleck's fault. Some of them were due to the command of Major General Ritchie, and some were due to the carelessness of the front-line commanders. For example, the troops of the two divisions did not verify whether the supplies were really bombed when they passed through Sidioma.

But this failure was clearly due to General Auchinleck's misjudgment... He thought that the troops attacking El Alamein were real and the 21st Armored Division besieging Matruh was fake. He ordered the 15th Armored Division to break out based on this.

Facts proved that General Auchinleck was wrong.

"The enemy always wants to be ahead of us!" General Auchinleck sighed: "They have never left Matruh, and we have been fooled again!"

"General, what should we do now?" Major General Ritchie asked.

"Let the fighter planes take off immediately and bomb the German 21st Armored Division overnight!" General Auchinleck ordered.

"Now?" Major General Richie was puzzled.

It is very dangerous for fighter planes to fly at night, especially in the desert, because the desert at night is gray-black like the blue sky. Pilots cannot judge their altitude and may even mistake the ground for the blue sky and fall into the desert.

In addition, it is difficult for fighter planes to find targets at night, and even if they find the target, they cannot bomb accurately, so Major General Richie thinks this is not a wise choice.

"Yes, now!" General Auchinleck said: "They will move along the Corniche, and our planes only need to search along the Corniche, understand?"

Because of General Auchinleck's insistence, Major General Richie had to obey the order.

"Wait!" General Auchinleck stopped Major General Richie again.

"Do we have submarines near Matruh?" General Auchinleck asked.

"There is a P-class submarine, General!"

"Yes!" General Auchinleck said: "Tell it to Matruh to pick up Lieutenant General Austin!"

"Yes!"

This is the only thing General Auchinleck can do for Lieutenant General Austin, and it can be regarded as General Auchinleck's apology to the 13th Army that was defeated because of him.

British fighter planes soon appeared above the Corniche and searched along the road. Their mission was to bomb the German convoy to block its advance and buy more preparation time for the British army.

This time General Auchinleck really guessed it right. The German army was indeed advancing along the Corniche.

But even so, the British fighter planes did not achieve much bombing effect.

As usual, the British army used "Mosquito" reconnaissance aircraft to scout in front, and after finding the German convoy, they dropped flares... The flares were used to continue tracking the convoy on the one hand and to indicate the direction and target to the bombers and fighters on the other hand.

But the German convoy quickly responded as it should:

"Turn off the lights!" With an order, all tanks and cars turned off their lights.

Then, the engineers built several roads along the highway at the fastest speed... There was a desert more than ten miles away from Matrouh. Tanks and cars could actually leave the road, but they had not done so because it was faster and safer to drive on the road.

Then, the German soldiers used special fluorescent lamps to guide the tanks and cars into the desert.

This fluorescent lamp was almost like a flashlight, but its light was weaker and all other directions were closed, only some limited light was transmitted from the front. The German soldiers held it up and drew a circle clockwise to turn right, and drew a circle counterclockwise to turn left. Going up and down meant moving forward, and stopping meant stopping...

At the same time, the air defense forces turned on the searchlights and shone them into the sky. A series of sword-like beams of light shot straight into the sky. Once they illuminated an enemy plane, they followed closely, and the shells of anti-aircraft guns and bullets of anti-aircraft guns poured into the air.

The wooden "Mosquito" reconnaissance planes were not very durable at all. Soon, two reconnaissance planes fell to the other side of the desert with a piercing whistle and exploded. Other "Mosquito" reconnaissance planes hurriedly flew out of the range of anti-aircraft artillery fire, and only dared to fire one or two flares in the direction of the German army from a distance.

At this time, the tanks and cars of the 21st Armored Division had entered the desert in an orderly manner and scattered, a pile here and a piece there, and quickly took anti-aircraft cover as long as they were not illuminated by the flares.

So in the eyes of the British pilots, the entire German convoy "disappeared out of thin air" one after another in front of them, and soon not even a single figure could be seen.

Fighters and bombers came later, but they could only look at the blank space below helplessly, and finally threw bombs randomly and left.

However, since then, the German army did not dare to move along the road again, because they were worried that the British army's next bombing would be faster. If they could not avoid it in time, then they would undoubtedly suffer heavy losses if they were bombed along the road.

Marching in the desert is much slower than on the road: the reason is that the tanks may get stuck in the sand and cannot get out, so scouts must be sent ahead to explore the way, and if there are dangerous areas, they must be pointed out to guide the tanks through.

In this respect, General Auchinleck's goal has been achieved, and he has indeed slowed down the German army's march.

While the 21st Armored Division was marching all the way to the Alamein Line, Rommel was doing everything possible to prepare for the battle at Matruh.

He first ordered the German and Italian troops to attack Matruh... Although only the remnants of the British 13th Army were left at Matruh, leaving an army nearby would eventually be a problem.

Soon Matruh became a part of the German territory, but many British troops escaped from the German's loose encirclement in the dark (the 21st Armored Division withdrew and rushed to Alamein).

Then Rommel organized the engineers to build a temporary airport overnight, and ordered the transport troops to speed up the delivery of fuel and ammunition from Tobruk and Sidi Ouma.

Rommel did all this mainly to gain air superiority:

If there was a temporary airport, fuel and ammunition at Matruh, then the German fighters and bombers would not need to return to Tobruk to reload or refuel after fighting at the Alamein Line. They only needed to land at Matruh to complete the task.

This can not only save a lot of fuel for the Air Force, but also increase the number of takeoffs... Flying to and from Tobruk takes more time and energy, while flying to and from Matrouh means entering the battlefield almost as soon as you take off.