Chapter 349 Female Officer

The Allied troops that landed were the 2nd Airborne Regiment of the 1st Airborne Division of the British Army and the 503rd Airborne Regiment of the United States... These troops were originally used to land in Algiers in the battle to capture Algeria, but the German army occupied Algeria first.

The 503rd Airborne Regiment of the United States was responsible for occupying Gafsa Airport.

The reason was that in this battle, the Allied forces would use a large number of American transport planes, which meant that many American ground crews would be deployed at the airport, so the airport was mainly under the responsibility of the US military.

On the other hand, it was also because the US military had little combat experience in the battlefield for the first time, so it was responsible for an area that was relatively easy to occupy and had a single clear target.

The British 1st Airborne Division, because of its rich combat experience, was responsible for a more difficult task... On the one hand, they had to fight with the Germans in the streets to completely control Gafsa and conduct reconnaissance and attack along the highway to prepare for the entry and breakthrough of the subsequent armored forces. On the other hand, they had to occupy the 312 Highland (that is, the No. 0 Highland where Qin Chuan was located) controlled by the Germans, because the 312 Highland was only 6 kilometers away from the Gafsa Airport in a straight line, and the artillery there could control the take-off and landing of the Gafsa Airport.

As Montgomery expected, the German defense in Gafsa was very weak... This is actually easy to explain. The Germans, especially Rommel, advocated mobile defense, that is, the main defense force was the two armored divisions located in the second line, and these two armored divisions were transferred to the two ends of the defense line by the British.

Moreover, even if the Germans had troops, they were deployed on the Gabes defense line. Who would have thought that the British army would suddenly raid Gafsa with airborne troops.

Therefore, the German army only had two companies stationed at the airport, one of which was the Italian army. In fact, there were quite a few troops stationed in Gafsa, with one regiment, but all of them were Italian troops... The performance of this Italian regiment on the battlefield, to use the words of the British army, was that when we were still hanging on the parachute, we saw the Italian army below us raising their hands high (surrender) to welcome us.

If there was any difficulty, it was when attacking Hill Zero... There were elite German troops stationed here, so there had to be some resistance.

However, since Hill Zero was attacked from both sides by the British army, the German army had no choice but to hide in the tunnel fortifications after resisting for a while. It took the British and American troops only more than half an hour to fully occupy Gafsa and the ground fortifications of Hill Zero.

After receiving this information, Montgomery's headquarters cheered. Controlling Gafsa not only meant dividing the Gabes Line of Defense into two sections, but also meant that the British Army could use Gafsa as a starting point to drive straight into the entire Tunisia and divide it into two sections, which means that victory is just around the corner.

"Order the 1st Airborne Division to proceed as planned!" Montgomery ordered: "The 7th Armored Division will attack along the Gafsa Highway, and the 15th Armored Division will be stationed in Gafsa!"

"Yes, General!"

It should be said that Montgomery's offensive tactics this time were learned from Germany... One day, when he felt a little helpless about the Gabes Line of Defense, a light suddenly flashed in his mind: the Germans were conquering cities and territories in Europe and were successful repeatedly, so why couldn't the British Army learn from the German offensive tactics?

Then, Montgomery was pleasantly surprised to find that the British Army had all the conditions needed for the German "blitzkrieg", such as air superiority, armored divisions, and airborne troops.

So, Montgomery dug up the previous battle examples of the German army and analyzed them carefully, and then formulated this offensive plan.

Somewhat different from the German "blitzkrieg", Montgomery occupied Gafsa as a supply base and also a starting point, and then implemented a "blitzkrieg" in Tunisia.

That is, the Air Force cooperated with the infantry and airborne troops to occupy important places along the way, such as bridges and highlands on both sides of the road, and then the armored forces quickly advanced along the road opened by the infantry.

Montgomery even used a feature of the German "blitzkrieg", that is, there was no fixed offensive route... This is completely different from Montgomery's combat style. Montgomery was always used to arrange and plan everything before the war.

But one of the characteristics of the German "blitzkrieg" is flexibility, that is, the pre-war plan generally did not stipulate which armored division must take which route to capture which city, because no one knew how the enemy would react to the German army or where to focus defense before the war.

The German army responded based on the enemy's defense and troop movements and then responded after obtaining intelligence, that is, constantly looking for the enemy's weaknesses and using the high mobility of the armored forces to launch a rapid attack on them.

Montgomery intended to adopt this offensive method.

However, what Montgomery did not expect was that all this was actually in the German army's plan, even the occupation of Hill Zero was no exception... As mentioned before, the tunnel fortifications can cover each other. If it were not for the German army's intentional action, the British army would have to pay heavy casualties to occupy the ground fortifications of Hill Zero even if they attacked from both sides.

There was also a small episode in this.

Just as Qin Chuan and others retreated into the tunnel fortifications, several guards with submachine guns hanging around their necks covered a barefoot female officer who ran away screaming from the high ground.

"Major!" After dodging the explosion of a shell, the guard said to the female officer: "We should hide in the tunnel!"

"What?" The female officer couldn't help but screamed: "You want me to hide in this hole? No, never! Even if I die under the enemy's gun, I will not step into this disgusting rat hole!"

"Major!" The guard looked at the foot of the mountain and said in a panic: "If we don't go in, we may really die from the enemy's gun!"

Another guard responded: "The enemy has surrounded us, we have no way out!"

"Do you want to come in or not?" Qin Chuan impatiently raised the mine in his hand and said, "We are going to block the passage!"

"Wait a minute, Lieutenant!" the guard begged, and then looked at the female officer.

The female officer originally wanted to be tough, but a row of bullets flying over her head made her scream and change her mind. She walked towards the pit and complained: "Fuck it, you said there would be no danger, you guys These liars! You should take me to Berlin now, I am crazy to believe you..."

When she bent down and got into the tunnel, she couldn't help but let out a painful sound: "I was wrong, this is not a mouse hole, this is a hundred times worse than a mouse hole, I am going to die!"

"If you don't like it!" Qin Chuan turned around while burying the mines and said, "Then please get out!"

The female officer's roar came from the tunnel: "Watch your words, Lieutenant, you are talking to your commander!"

These words made Qin Chuan and the German soldiers all laugh.