On the afternoon of May 23, 1943, the same day that the Combined Japanese Fleet arrived in Alexandria to cross the Suez Canal, the Allied defensive line in Nairobi tended to collapse......

In fact, Arnold's judgment of the situation in Africa was too optimistic, and on the 19th he told Roosevelt that he could hold it for another 5 days, but in fact he could not withstand it on the 4th day, and in the eyes of the Allied generals on the front, it was a miracle to be able to hold on to the 23rd. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

On the issue of encircling and destroying the Allied forces in Africa, Hoffman and Guderian agreed that the mistake of the Battle of Dunkirk should not be repeated, and that they should bravely rush forward and encircle the enemy, although this would increase their own casualties, but considering that the enemy had been fighting the German army for a long time and had rich experience, Hoffmann believed that it was completely affordable to pay some costs. After this battle, except for South Africa, Africa is basically peaceful.

In order to weaken the enemy's resistance, the German army's mobilization of marines to land in Tanganyika was a prerequisite consideration, the addition of fighter planes and the threat of Anglo-American routes were the basis for deterrence, and the African Army group's efforts to penetrate and build an encirclement from both flanks were the ultimate efforts. But no one expected that Britain and the United States would finally choose to retreat from the air -- the German reconnaissance estimated that the total number of enemy troops in the encirclement was about 6-70,000, and the staff officers estimated that the enemy's maximum airlift retreat capacity was about 1,500 people a day, and even if the German army did not interfere in any way, it would take at least a month for Britain and the United States to retreat by plane. In practice, however, this was impossible, and when the retreating troops reached a certain level, the defensive forces on the periphery resisting the German attack would collapse automatically due to insufficient strength to hold on, and a large part of the troops would become prisoners.

In the war chess deduction scenario, Guderian's staff believed that the most likely choice of the enemy was to fight and retreat with the whole army to Zambia, because the British and American air supply forces were stronger, and the ground troops did not have to worry about the materials on the way to retreat, and at most some wounded and important people were transported by air to leave first; The less likely option is to hold on to the spot, use the airlift capability to continuously transport troops and supplies for the encirclement, and fight a war of attrition with the German army, which is also the experience of the German army in the encirclement of Holm and Demyansk - the encircled troops rely on airlift supplies and perseverance to finally hold on to the end; The least likely is an air retreat – which they describe as a desperate choice to flee when the general rout is over.

At this point, the generals of the front, including Guderian, miscalculated, and at the same time affected Hoffmann, who did not think that Britain and the United States would retreat by air - he remembered that there was no such concept and war history except for the Berlin airlift, and the ability of the Berlin airlift had been shown to him by Britain and the United States.

Not only were the Germans kept in the dark, but all the ordinary officers and men of the Allied forces on the Nairobi front were kept in the dark, and Eisenhower knew that once the order to retreat was given and the decision was made to retreat in batches, the morale of the troops retreating behind the line would inevitably be depressed and turbulent, so the order was only passed down to the rank of major general and ordered to be kept strictly secret. At this point, the most commendable is Ramsden, who was the one who was under the most pressure after he took the "heavy responsibility" of holding out and surrendering, but still led his troops to the front. Several British generals retreated all the way from North Africa and had a record of fleeing first in Egypt, so they chose to hold on this time.

When the ANZAC first withdrew from the front line, all the unified external caliber was a "change of defense", because the Nairobi encirclement is a large territory, everyone is not clear about the distribution of friendly troops, plus the American generals including Patton are on the front line, the American soldiers do not have the slightest doubt, they are also gritting their teeth and sticking to it, perhaps it is the despair and danger of falling into the encirclement that stimulates their fighting spirit, and they actually burst out with unprecedented strength.

Factors such as the relatively strong firepower of Britain and the United States, sufficient supplies, the battlefield situation that could no longer be interspersed and divided after being compressed, and the inexperience and weakness of Allied soldiers in defensive warfare to avoid movement warfare made it more difficult for the German army to take every step forward, and if it were not for the fact that the American aircraft group gave up air and ground attacks on the German army, the Nairobi encirclement could have lasted more time.

Guderian found out that the situation was wrong on the evening of the 22nd, because among the soldiers captured on the front line were either American or British, but there were no officers and soldiers of the Anzac Force. Since the Germans had always believed that the Australian and New Zealand units were the strongest in combat, followed by the US troops, and the British were the weakest, his first reaction was that the Australian and New Zealand troops had been gathered and were ready to take on the role of "spearhead" in breaking out of the encirclement, but a staff officer saw something unusual -- the prisoner confessed that when the ANZ troops changed their defenses, they left all their heavy equipment on the defensive line. In the current state, it is simply wishful thinking to break out of the encirclement without heavy equipment.

Guderian immediately became alert, believing that the enemy might be faintly fleeing, but he was unable to break into the encirclement, and finally came up with an unsolvable solution, allowing the aircraft carrier group staying near Pemba Island to launch a night attack at 4 a.m., specifying that he was asking to carry incendiary bombs -- his original intention was to destroy the American airfield, and by the way, to see how the British and Americans reacted.

Although German planes have bombed Nairobi Airport several times, the number of planes is insufficient, and the British and American emergency repair capabilities are strong, so the results are very small; Second, the US Army Air Force has a relatively large number of fighters, and it has repeatedly encountered interceptions during the daytime sky attacks, resulting in heavy losses. The night attack is different, and the pilots of carrier-based aircraft do this very solidly.

However, this tentative night raid blew up the Allied camp: the American soldiers were well aware of the importance of the airport, and as soon as they found that the airport was on fire, they did not wait for orders to go to fight the fire, and it turned out that the outside of the airport was a non-smiling military police unit, and next to it there was a large group of Australian and New Zealand officers and soldiers who were silently lining up to board the plane and retreat -- this was the last group of officers and soldiers to retreat, and in addition to them, there were also many British and American colonel-level officers and some professional sergeants.

All the American officers and soldiers who went to the rescue were dumbfounded - it turned out that the Australians and New Zealanders had not changed their guards, they had secretly retreated! By mid-morning the news had spread to all the British and American troops, and everyone thought they had been abandoned.

Senior generals, including Eisenhower, Hewitt and others, immediately came forward to explain the reason, but the troops who were in a rage could not listen to it, and there were angry scolding and denunciations everywhere, and they were almost about to open fire on the headquarters, and finally it was Patton who came forward to calm the mood, because many officers and soldiers were saved by him, and in addition he swore to guarantee that the troops would retreat immediately now, the mood finally calmed down a lot, but the fighting spirit that had been mustered up two days ago had disappeared without a trace, and most of the officers and men did not have much determination to resist to the end.

By noon on the 23rd, the German troops, who had launched a fierce attack as usual, were surprised to find that many of the defensive points that had been stubbornly resisting and blazing fire yesterday had suddenly surrendered under white flags. The defensive positions on the front line collapsed like an avalanche, most of the British and American officers and soldiers chose to flee backwards, a small number chose to surrender on the spot, and even emotional American officers and soldiers said on the spot that they wanted to join the German army, turned their guns to hit those bastard bosses and friendly soldiers, and were pulled away by the German military police.

The orderly order of retreat at the airfield had been completely broken, and when a burst of gunfire came, all the British and American officers and men who were anxiously waiting could not bother to line up, and as soon as they saw a plane landing, they rushed up to grab a position and fled. The plane, which could only accommodate 15-20 people, forced 30 people into it, and there were a large number of crying soldiers outside who pulled the wings and refused to let the plane go.

When a new plane landed, the soldiers rushed over to find a new target, and the pilot knew that the plane was seriously overcrowded (but not overloaded, because the density of the human body was much smaller than that of a bomb), but he had no choice but to force the take-off in front of the red-eyed officers and soldiers who pulled out their pistols to threaten them. Thankfully, the new B-29s or C-47s were sturdy enough to crumble but eventually struggle to fly.

Eisenhower, who had witnessed all this, was so disillusioned that he almost killed himself, but it was the adjutant and staff officers who forcibly took him to a secret airfield to retreat - several planes had already been prepared for the use of the senior generals, and Patton was more agitated than Eisenhower, who was almost tied up and stuffed into the cabin by the adjutants and gendarmes. When the plane took off and left the ground, he threw himself on the porthole in pain and slapped desperately, and in the cabin was a group of officers hugging and crying.

At 3:47 p.m., the last plane took off, and by this time the nearest German shell had almost hit the runway, and the plane had to go around the crater, but it was not long before another shell continued to fall, hitting the plane directly, blowing everything into nothing. At this time, there were planes waiting to land in the air, and after witnessing this scene, they could only turn around and leave.

In the evening, Ramsden surrendered to the Germans with desperate officers and soldiers. According to later statistics, a total of 24,981 officers and men (including the wounded who had previously retreated) were evacuated from the entire African theater, and in addition to the relatively complete evacuation of more than 16,000 officers and men of the Australian and New Zealand Forces, less than 9,000 British and American soldiers were evacuated -- of which more than 3,000 were wounded. The Africa Theater Command only had time to evacuate half of its personnel, including Eisenhower, Patton, Hewitt and other major generals.

The next morning, Guderian met Ramsden at the Allied command in Nairobi, and he said with a smirk: "Dear friend, we meet again......

"My mission is accomplished, it's time for me to go and see General Montgomery, and I hope you will be kind to these surrendered officers and soldiers......" Ramsden squeezed out the last sentence with all his might, and then fell to the ground, and the military doctor who rushed to hear the news quickly diagnosed him as having committed suicide by taking cyanide-potassium.

Guderian sighed: "Report the battle to the Führer, and bury General Ramsden - he is a real soldier!" (To be continued.) )