Iron Cross

Someone reported to Guderian the trouble between the Egyptians and the British, and he immediately understood it, but he did not think Ramsden could run away. Facing the map, he quickly found a way to deal with it: sending troops to take over quickly. The city defended the city and allowed the air force to station at the airport, while instructing each unit to separately launch a pursuit.

The attack unfolded in a jaw-dropping state. Three armored divisions quickly advanced southward, almost walking with the retreating British army - except that the British took the water route and the Germans took the land.

Soon, Lumsden felt the pain of being hunted.

On January 17, Guderian's main force arrived in Aswan. In the afternoon, the first wave of planes departed from Aswan to attack the British retreating troops in the Nile River. General Ted's Desert Air Force had no power to fight back and could only watch. They watched the German army unilaterally attack their own troops. On this day, the British lost 2 ships and more than 900 people were killed;

On January 18, the African Army quickly moved south. The British troops in the Nile River lost three ships and more than 1,200 people were killed. In addition, German aircraft also accidentally shot down some normal cargo ships between Egypt and Sudan. The entire Nile River was Sailing was stopped, and only the British retreating fleet was still escaping;

On January 19, the leading troops of the African Army crossed the dividing line between Egypt and Sudan and arrived at Wadi Halfa, where the British troops gathered. This was the only way for the British troops to break away from the Nile waterway and board the Sudanese train to continue fleeing south. It was only a short distance away. Battalion, the German reconnaissance force with only armored vehicles and no tanks launched a fierce attack on nearly 10,000 British troops, leaving the enemy with corpses everywhere and devastation. All the British troops just wanted to flee, and no one wanted to stay to stop them. As soon as the German army attacked, it was not until the Australian and New Zealand coalition forces, who had only small weapons, arrived. They used simple machine guns, rifles and a few mortars to fend off the German army, at a cost of nearly 2,000 casualties.

On January 20, the main force of the German army arrived. Due to the continuous supply of fuel and logistics, the army was trapped in Wadi Halfa, but the gains were still considerable - more than 2,000 Australian and New Zealand coalition rear guards were captured, and the British army Two of the retreating trains were blown up, causing more than 3,000 casualties, including two colonels.

In just a few days, the British, Australian, and New Zealand coalition forces that fled from Aswan lost nearly 10,000 people. Their number dropped from more than 30,000 at the time of departure to more than 20,000. The morale of both the Australian, New Zealand, and British troops dropped. When they reached the bottom of the valley, they were still 900 kilometers away from Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. In later generations, this section of the retreat from Aswan to Khartoum was called the Blood Road. Pursued by the German army, the number of Allied officers and soldiers who successfully retreated without illness or injury did not exceed 2,000, and the vast majority All fell before dawn.

Eisenhower once thought that the African Army would be trapped on the Sudanese border due to supply and fuel constraints, but the Germans used inland water transportation to perfectly solve the dilemma: a fleet of ships loaded with supplies, fuel, and Egyptian infantry divisions sailed south from Alexandria and Cairo. , whether it is ships, fuel, or supplies, they are all trophies left by the British in Alexandria. With the help of these materials, by January 21, the African Army received the supplies to continue moving forward. Their next step is very clear - —Advancing southward along both sides of the Nile River and heading towards Khartoum.

In the other direction, the U.S. 2nd Armored Division and the British 78th Infantry Division led by Patton ended up no better than the British. Although they met the British troops stationed there after landing in Somalia, they received much-needed logistical support. , and did not encounter any enemy aircraft or enemy forces, but the news that the Flying Fortress Armored Brigade landed in Port Sudan and attacked Eritrea made Patton keenly feel the crisis-Mogadishu is too close to the coast, as long as the Axis organization lands once , you don’t need too many troops, as long as you have an armored regiment and corresponding infantry, you can completely eat up the little strength you have. Therefore, while gathering his troops and retreating inland, he desperately called Mombasa for support.

With an extremely limited number of aircraft, Eisenhower only took half a minute to make the difficult decision of rescuing Lumsden or rescuing Patton - a decision that spelled the death of the British, Australian and New Zealand troops in the West. .

According to the original idea, Patton should lead relevant troops to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to prepare to accumulate strength and rest and recuperate there. However, the nearest national border to Ethiopia is more than 600 kilometers away, and apart from two legs, his troops There simply weren't enough transportation. Moreover, in Patton's view, going to Addis Ababa was a dead end. The German armored forces moving south would obviously place their follow-up attack targets there. Under his suggestion, the African Theater finally agreed to lead his troops to go more than 1,000 kilometers away. outside Kenya and retreat directly to Mombasa.

Like more than 20,000 other people, Patton walked on the land of Somalia with one foot deep and one foot shallow. All the vehicles in the army could only carry a maximum of 4,000 people, which was not enough for everyone to retreat, but this did not hinder the logistics capabilities. Top-notch Americans, they quickly came up with a good idea: the entire army moved forward for 10 hours every day, divided into two halves in the morning and afternoon. All officers and soldiers with operational capabilities, including Patton, must obey the unified arrangement-each half Each person takes a car for 1 hour, walks for 3 hours and rests for 1 hour. Patton divided the soldiers into five waves, and each time the trucks carried away the last wave of personnel, they continued to roll towards Kenya by making the cars drive back and forth five times.

Anxious Eisenhower collected all the vehicles he could find to meet them. Compared with pure walking, this itinerary was faster, and they could move forward about 120 kilometers every day. Many soldiers complained that they had never walked such a long distance since they were born. In this regard, American soldiers were inherently insufficient. Both the Soviet and German armies had a large number of foot soldiers, and only American officers and soldiers had to rely on vehicles for more than 5 kilometers. This march almost cost them their lives.

Throughout the process, in order to ensure the supply of materials for Patton's troops, the US and British air forces really tried their best. All aircraft with sufficient range, whether B-17 bombers or C-47 transport planes, took off from South Africa, first landed on Madagascar Island to refuel, then transferred from Madagascar to Mombasa, and finally loaded various materials from Mombasa to Somalia for airdrops. Fuel, supplies, medicine, and a steady stream of materials were transported to this huge army through the air corridor...