Iron Cross

On the afternoon of May 23, 1943, the same day that the Japanese Combined Fleet arrived at Alexandria and prepared to cross the Suez Canal, the Allied defense line in Nairobi was on the verge of total collapse...

In fact, Arnold was too optimistic about the situation in Africa. On the 19th, he told Roosevelt that he could hold out for another 5 days. In fact, he could not hold out on the 4th day. In the eyes of the Allied generals on the front line, it was a miracle to hold out until the 23rd.

On the issue of encircling and annihilating the Allied forces in Africa, Hoffman and Guderian agreed that they should not make the same mistake as in the Battle of Dunkirk, and should bravely rush forward and encircle and annihilate the enemy. Although this would increase their own casualties, considering that the enemy had fought with the German army for a long time and had rich experience, Hoffman believed that it was completely acceptable to pay some price. After this battle, Africa was basically peaceful except for South Africa.

In order to weaken the enemy's resistance, the German army called the Marines to land in Tanganyika as a prerequisite consideration, increased fighters and threatened the British and American routes as the basis of deterrence, and the African Army Group interspersed from both wings to build an encirclement as the final effort. But no one expected that Britain and the United States would eventually choose to retreat from the air - German reconnaissance estimated that the total number of enemy troops in the encirclement was about 60,000 to 70,000, and the staff estimated that the enemy's maximum air transport retreat capacity was about 1,500 people a day. Even if the German army did not interfere, it would take at least a month for Britain and the United States to retreat by plane. In fact, this is impossible. When the number of retreating troops reaches a certain level, the defensive forces on the periphery resisting the German attack will automatically collapse due to insufficient manpower, and a large part of the troops will become prisoners.

In the war chess simulation, Guderian's staff believed that the enemy's most likely choice was to retreat to Zambia with the whole army while fighting, because the British and American air supply forces were strong, and the ground forces did not have to worry about the supplies on the way to retreat. At most, the air transport could transport some wounded and important people to leave first; the less likely option was to hold on to the spot, use air transport capabilities to continuously transport troops and supplies to the encirclement, and fight a war of attrition with the German army. This was also the experience of the German army in the Holm and Demyansk encirclements - the encircled troops relied on air transport supplies and perseverance to finally persevere to the end; the least likely option was to retreat by air - they described it as a desperate choice to escape in the total collapse.

At this point, frontline generals including Guderian made misjudgments, which also affected Hoffman. He also did not think that Britain and the United States would retreat by air - in his memory, except for the Berlin Airlift, there seemed to be no such concept and war history, and the ability of the Berlin Airlift had been demonstrated to him by Britain and the United States.

Not only the Germans were kept in the dark, but all the ordinary Allied officers and soldiers on the Nairobi front were kept in the dark. Eisenhower knew that once the retreat order was issued and the retreat was decided in batches, the morale of the troops retreating at the back would inevitably be low and unstable, so the order was only passed to the major general level and was asked to be strictly confidential. In this regard, the most commendable person is Ramsden. After he took on the "important task" of holding on and surrendering, he was the one with the most pressure, but he still led the troops to the front line. Several British generals retreated all the way from North Africa, and had a record of escaping first in Egypt, so they chose to hold on this time with backbone.

When the Australian and New Zealand troops were the first to withdraw from the front line, all the unified external calibers were "change of guard". Since the Nairobi encirclement was a large area, everyone was not clear about the distribution of friendly forces. In addition, American generals including Patton were on the front line. The American soldiers had no doubts and they were also gritting their teeth to hold on. Perhaps the despair and crisis of being trapped in the encirclement inspired their fighting spirit and burst out unprecedented strength.

The strong firepower of Britain and the United States, sufficient supplies, the battlefield situation that could not be interspersed and divided after being compressed, and the fact that the Allied soldiers could avoid the weakness of insufficient experience in mobile warfare in the defensive war made it difficult for the German army to move forward. If it were not for the US aircraft fleet giving up air strikes and ground attacks on the German army, the Nairobi encirclement could have lasted longer.

Guderian found that something was wrong in the evening of the 22nd, because the soldiers captured on the front line were either American or British, but there were no Australian and New Zealand troops. He was very curious. The information he got from interrogating the prisoners was that the Australian and New Zealand troops had changed guard a few days ago. Since the German army always believed that the Australian and New Zealand troops had the strongest combat effectiveness among this group of troops, the US troops were second, and the British troops were the weakest, his first reaction was to think that the Australian and New Zealand troops were gathered together to serve as the "spearhead" to break out of the encirclement, but a staff officer saw something unusual - the prisoners told the Australian and New Zealand troops that they left all the heavy equipment on the defense line when they changed guards. In the current state, it is simply wishful thinking to break out of the encirclement without heavy equipment.

Guderian immediately became alert and thought that the enemy might have been escaping vaguely, but he was frustrated that he could not break into the encirclement. Finally, he thought of a solution that was not a solution. He asked the aircraft carrier formation staying near Pemba Island to launch a night attack at 4 a.m., specifying that they were required to carry incendiary bombs - his original intention was to destroy the US military airport and see how the British and American reactions would be.

Although German planes also bombed the Nairobi airport several times, the number of aircraft was insufficient and the British and American repair capabilities were strong, so the results were minimal; secondly, the US Army Air Force had a large number of fighters, and the daytime air raids were repeatedly intercepted, resulting in heavy losses. But night attacks are different, the carrier-based aircraft pilots are very solid at this.

But this tentative night attack caused the Allied camp to explode: the American soldiers knew the importance of the airport, and when they discovered that the airport was on fire, they went to put out the fire without waiting for orders. As a result, they found that there were unsmiling military police troops outside the airport. There was also a large group of Australian and New Zealand officers and soldiers who were lining up silently to prepare to board the plane for retreat - this was the last batch of evacuated officers and soldiers. In addition to them, there were also many British and American school-level officers and some professional non-commissioned officers.

All the American officers and soldiers who went to rescue were immediately dumbfounded - it turned out that the Australians and New Zealanders did not change defenses, but retreated secretly! The news spread from ten to ten, and by morning it had spread to all the British and American troops-all of them were despairing and believed that they had been abandoned.

Senior generals, including Eisenhower, Hewitt and others, immediately came forward to explain the reason, but the angry troops could not listen. There were angry and reprimanding voices everywhere, and they almost opened fire on the headquarters. Finally, Patton He came forward to calm the mood, because he had rescued many officers and soldiers with him, and he vowed to ensure that the troops would retreat immediately. The mood finally calmed down a lot, but the fighting spirit he had built up in the previous two days had disappeared without a trace. , most officers and soldiers simply did not have much determination to resist to the end.

By noon on the 23rd, the German army, which launched a fierce attack as usual, was surprised to find that many defensive points that had resisted tenaciously and with fierce firepower yesterday suddenly raised white flags and surrendered. At first, they thought it was a trap, and the negotiators went to contact them tremblingly, waiting for the excited British and American officers and soldiers to surrender to the German army. When telling about the changes that had occurred, the overjoyed Guderian immediately ordered a full-scale offensive. The frontline defense positions collapsed like an avalanche. Most British and American officers and soldiers chose to flee backwards, while a small number chose to surrender on the spot. There were even emotional American officers and soldiers who expressed their intention to join the German army on the spot and turned their guns to attack those bastard bosses. and friendly troops were pulled away by the dumbfounded German military police.

The orderly retreat order at the airport was completely broken. When bursts of gunfire came, all the anxiously waiting British and American officers and soldiers didn't bother to line up. As soon as they saw a plane landing, they didn't wait for it to stop. He fluttered up to grab the position and escape. The plane that originally could only accommodate 15-20 people had to squeeze 30 people into it, and there were a large number of crying soldiers outside, tugging on the wings and refusing to let the plane go.

When a new plane landed, the soldiers cheered and rushed to find a new target. The pilot knew that the plane was seriously overcrowded (but not overloaded, because the density of the human body is much less than a bomb), but in a panic, he pulled out his pistol and threatened The officers and soldiers had no choice but to forcefully take off. Fortunately, these newly built B-29s or C-47s were strong enough. They were shaky but finally struggled to fly.

After witnessing all this, Eisenhower was so disheartened that he almost drew his gun and committed suicide. However, his adjutants and staff forced him to retreat to a secret airport - several aircraft had been prepared for the use of senior generals. Patton was in a more emotional state than Eisenhower. Excited, he was almost tied up and stuffed into the cabin by the adjutant and military police. When the plane took off and lifted off the ground, he threw himself on the window and beat it desperately. In the cabin was a group of officers crying.

At 3:47 pm, the last plane took off. At this time, the nearest German shell had almost hit the runway. The plane had to go around the crater, but not long after, another shell continued to fall, directly hitting the runway. Hitting the plane blew everything up into pieces. There were planes waiting to land in the sky at this time. After witnessing this scene, they had no choice but to turn around and leave.

In the evening, Lumsden surrendered to the German army with his desperate officers and soldiers. According to subsequent statistics, a total of 24,981 officers and soldiers were evacuated from the entire African theater (including the wounded who were previously evacuated). In addition to the relatively complete withdrawal of more than 16,000 officers and soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand troops, a total of less than 9,000 British and American soldiers were evacuated - of which the wounded accounted for another 9,000. More than 3,000 places. The African Theater Command only had time to evacuate half of its personnel, and major generals including Eisenhower, Patton, and Hewitt all escaped alive.

The next morning, Guderian met Ramsden at the Allied Command in Nairobi. He said with a half-smile: "Dear friend, we meet again..."

"My mission is completed. It's time for me to see General Montgomery. I hope you can treat these surrendered officers and soldiers well..." Lumsden tried his best to squeeze out the last sentence, then fell to the ground and smelled The military doctor who arrived after hearing the news quickly diagnosed him as committing suicide by taking potassium cyanide.

Guderian sighed: "Report the war situation to the Führer and give General Lumsden a good burial - he is a real soldier!"