Major General Dowding Hughes was in a very bad mood right now, and with a gloomy expression on his face, everyone who passed by him was cautious.

There is no way, it is all to blame on those moles who went to the island, it is really the next news that disappointed him too much. Paphos, Larnaca, and Nicosia, all three airfields were captured by the enemy in one night, and only Limassol airfield, which was not captured by these Romanians because of its large garrison and the large number of troops stationed nearby.

However, in the midst of the attacks on all sides, Major General Dowding Hughes found an important problem, that is, he made some mistakes about the scale of this airdrop. It was not two or three hundred people as he thought, but thousands, and they occupied the airfield and fought fiercely with reinforcements.

"We can't go on like this, we need to deal with these paratroopers as soon as possible, otherwise we will be left behind."

"I know, no matter how many people need to be sent, how long will it take? One of the enemy landing flotillas came during this period, what should we do? ”

Major General Dowding Hughes and Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Ross, then quarreled, mainly over the size of the troop sent. The chief of staff hoped to be able to send 20,000 men, carrying heavy firepower, to extinguish it in one fell swoop.

But in the opinion of Major General Dowding Hughes, this is simply not realistic. Because they lack air supremacy, a large gathering of troops will inevitably be heavily bombed by the other side. It will not be possible to achieve the situation he said at all, but will reduce the size of the defenders of the coast.

It's just that neither side can convince anyone now, which also makes Major General Dowding Hughes feel very uncomfortable, but both of them believe that they need to increase their forces to recapture the airport as soon as possible.

"Then send three regiments of troops first, let them take the airfield back first, I feel that these paratroopers are going to blame."

In the end, the two decided to send three regiments to recapture the airport first, and if you add the reinforcements that had been discharged before, the strength would have reached more than 10,000, and it was a fully equipped infantry regiment. And in order to enhance its attack power, they also equipped it with armored vehicles and tanks.

These are all decisions made in order to retake the airport as soon as possible, but it is too late to decide.

They didn't wait long, and in the early morning sun, the first wave of support fighters took off from the aircraft carrier arrived.

"Wow~"

In the face of the fighters that came to support, the paratroopers who fought very hard in the defensive battle below cheered even more.

Even Captain Krul, who has always been steady, cheered for this. Because the previous fight was too uncomfortable, they had a total of more than 400 people in three companies, and they needed to block the enemy's attack of more than 1,000 people. And when there are no fortifications, it is even more difficult to fight.

Take his third company, for example, after the capture of the airfield, the third company had 124 men in combat, and when reinforcements came to fight the attacking British army, there were now only 89 people.

This is the battle of more than an hour, so that the three companies suffered such a big loss, in addition to the enemy's absolute superiority in strength and equipment, there is also the reason that they have no fortifications at all, and there is no single soldier pit, this is not to let the enemy blow up one accurately.

This is also a situation where there is no way, because the remaining soldiers are busy repairing the runway to ensure that the airport can take off and land transport planes. And that's also the number one priority, above all else.

And with the desperate blocking of three companies, finally waited for the first wave of air support.

"Boom!"

"Boom, boom, boom!"

A cannon that had been looting before was destroyed by bombardment from the air, and the ammunition that was placed aside was also detonated, causing a secondary explosion, which caused a further chain reaction.

"Da, da, da!"

A fighter plane fired at a low altitude, which made all the British soldiers run away. No one has the heart to attack anymore, their morale is rapidly crumbling under the air raids, and if they want to reorganize their attacks, at least after the air raids.

This made Colonel Bernie, who was about to make a breakthrough, extremely annoyed, but now he had nothing to do. There are not many anti-aircraft weapons on the island, and there are too many places that need to be guarded, which are simply not enough.

It is impossible for one's own troops to attack under bombardment, which will collapse the troops. Because this is not a few planes, but twenty or thirty planes, it is not difficult to make a wise choice, but I am a little unwilling in my heart.

In fact, Colonel Bernie didn't know that he had no chance in the future. After the British retreated, the paratroopers defending here were now busy doing one thing, which was to dig foxholes so that they would have a place to hide, otherwise the terrain alone would not be able to stop the next attack.

Although they are a little tired now, no one wants to relax when their lives are at stake.

So after the British retreated, the defending paratroopers were even busier, and they used their own sappers to shovel in the gravel land, digging incessantly.

As they continued to dig, a new batch of transport planes arrived, and another batch of bombers came with them. They came to the airfield under the protection of HF201 fighters.

"What, the Romanian transport plane landed at the airport, then hurry up and attack, otherwise it will be more difficult to fight later. I know your difficulties under the opposing side's air supremacy, but if you refuse to carry out the order, then I will report your performance to General Wavell and London as such. ”

After the angry Dowding Hughes put down the phone, the whole person immediately languished a lot. Because it was only then that he reacted, and it seemed that the Romanian paratroopers could not be encircled and suppressed now. The Romanians could have arrived by plane to transport people and supplies non-stop, especially after the air power on their island was exhausted, which made the other side lawless.

"Rescue the Egyptian side, inform them of the current situation on the island, and say that we need an air interception."

Dowding Hughes plans to play again, hoping that Egypt can draw air power to prevent the other side from attacking him from the air, and give himself time to deal with the paratroopers entrenched at the airport.

And in the three airports, transport planes from Crete are parked on the runway one by one.

At the Nicosia airport, the hatch of a transport plane that had just been parked was opened.

"Come down, hurry."

An officer shouted and gestured into the cabin. Inside the cabin was the airborne regiment of the 1st Parachute Division, which, with their own equipment, quickly jumped out through the hatch.

And in the tail of the engine room, more than a dozen officers and men are pushing a plate cart and are unloading a 37-mm anti-tank gun that is urgently needed by paratroopers at the moment. They put a rope around the anti-tank gun, lowered it down the slope of the cart, and then resisted the ammunition they were transporting together, in less than five minutes.

And the transport plane, which unloaded the supplies, immediately turned around and rushed into the sky again.

A transport plane with weapons and personnel like this is easy to handle, and it can be unloaded in about five minutes. Only the planes loaded with ammunition and supplies were difficult to handle, and it took them eight or nine minutes to unload one.

However, this smooth situation lasted less than two or three hours.

"Boom!"

An artillery shell landed on the side of the runway, causing some panic among the paratroopers who were unloading supplies. Not many people can do it, and they are carrying ammunition, and if a shell hits anyone, they can't run.

"Get rid of all the ammo!"

The officers who were directing the transportation summoned gave orders to the soldiers, but this time no one stepped forward. The officer was furious at this situation, and saw that he stepped forward to pick up a box of ammunition and planned to put it elsewhere.

"Boom!"

It was another shell that landed on the side of the airfield, but he turned a deaf ear to it, and the hand carrying the ammunition box did not shake.

His performance encouraged the other officers and men, and everyone stepped forward to follow with the ammunition that had been piled up.

"Boom!"

A large crater was suddenly blown up in front of a landing transport plane, so that the pilot did not have time to react.

"Smack!"

The front take-off and landing gear was directly broken, and the RY58 transport aircraft, which lacked the front take-off and landing gear, was directly planted. As a result, the transport plane, which was supposed to run in a straight line, slid directly diagonally, and the metal fuselage flashed sparks in the friction with the ground.

"Get out of the way."

In the face of this situation, several paratroopers who were pushing the cart hurriedly tried to hide on the left and right.

The friction sound of "bang, bang, bang" made the transport plane keep taxiing in this posture for hundreds of meters, and the transport personnel in the cabin fell and fell to the ground, with their feet facing the sky.

After rowing all the way out of the runway, the transport plane stopped, so that the driver who was holding the handbrake breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, the personnel loaded by themselves are not ammunition, otherwise there would be no future.

It's just that the scene in the cabin is not good at all, everyone is bruised and swollen, and a few people even broke their arms.

When the transport plane stopped, the crowd rushed up, carrying fire extinguishers, stretchers and other items to the rescue.

"What's going on, why is there shelling."

Major Saltu, who was the temporary commander of the airport, immediately complained. "Immediately get the air station to contact the fleet, they need to protect the security of the airport."

In fact, the group has already spotted the artillery of the airfield that is being shelled, these cannons are 6 kilometers outside the city of Nicosia, and it is the British 140mm howitzer firing, which is its main howitzer. Its maximum range: 14800-16460 meters, the range is good, but it is too heavy, and the weight of nearly 6 tons is also full of weight.

It's just that if it's discovered, it's hard to keep it alive. Although it was well camouflaged, it was completely exposed to the aerial surveillance aircraft after the fire was fired.

For this artillery position, consisting of 4 140-mm howitzers, the bomber carved will not be polite at all. Even if there were six 2-pounder guns next to it, it still couldn't stop the bombers from coming.

"Boom, boom, boom!"

The precision bombardment from Stuka reduced four 140mm howitzers to scrap metal, and incidentally lost five of the exposed anti-aircraft fire.

That's right, the duel between air defense weapons and fighters has always been the absolute superiority of aircraft, not to mention the huge gap in numbers between the two.

After the threat was resolved, the airport returned to normal, and a large number of transport planes were still passing through the airport to transport people and supplies.

This gave the paratroopers defending the perimeter of the airport an opportunity to push the front farther away from the airfield with the help of the air force.