"General Ramsden, although we are enemies, there is one thing I would like to remind you of." Hoffman said to Ramsden, who was still furious, "General Montgomery died by suicide, not by us." In fact, we gave him enough courtesy and everything appropriate to his status, and no one did a better job of treating prisoners of war than we did. In fact, you also know that General Montgomery is fully capable of escaping the encirclement, and he stayed not because he had no chance, nor because he was greedy for life and afraid of death, but because he had greater and more responsibilities on his shoulders. General Montgomery certainly had to bear his own responsibility for the defeat of this campaign, but the greater responsibility was borne by the politicians in London and the megalomaniac Churchill. I'm not afraid to tell you our true strength, we have less than 160,000 troops in Africa in total, and the 8th Army is far stronger than ours, and if it is reinforced by 5 more armored divisions, we will not be able to defeat it anyway. But the suicide note is very clear - when he was most in dire need of reinforcements from 5 armored divisions, London ignored his reasonable request, couldn't you get 5 armored divisions? No! You've appropriated him somewhere else, what are those stupid pigs in the cabinet doing? In planning to land in Northwest Africa and prepare to seize the colonies of the French......"

Ramsden listened to the interpreter and told him word by sentence, at first he was angry, and then he was not even angry, only sad - he knew the inside story better than Hoffmann.

"The British Empire's history and practices of doing whatever it wanted in the colonies over the past hundreds of years have profoundly educated them. Look at Egypt, are there Egyptian soldiers willing to help you fight us? Have any Egyptians sent you news? If you look at Iraq, you have formed the Iraqi army, you have appointed senior officers and you have tried to control them, and when the time comes, they have fought back and saved their own gasoline for us; You want to blow up the oil fields, but the most docile and weak local workers rebel against you. Now that your forces are still entrenched in Persia, how many Persians do you think are genuinely supportive of your rule? ”

Mussolini looked very proud, but he did not forget to mock his old rival: "General Ramsden, I'm sorry to meet you on such an occasion, to tell you the truth, how arrogant and unstoppable you were when you drove us out of here two years ago, and now ......"

Ramsden didn't bother to say anything to Mussolini, but asked, "What are you going to do with General Montgomery, and will I take him back to England?" ”

"I'm afraid this will not work, too long is not good for the preservation of the body, and it is also disrespectful to General Montgomery himself." "We will choose a beautiful, peaceful cemetery in Cairo to bury him, and we will arrange a memorial service for him, as well as in the prisoner of war camps in Italy - we respect and admire this general from the bottom of our hearts, who has done everything he can for his country and for his subordinates, and who is a true hero." ”

"I and the Italian leader are here to mourn this hero."

Ramsden stared blankly at the church, Hoffmann and Mussolini stood at the front of the line and bowed their heads first, and all the senior German and Italian officers spontaneously lined up in order of rank, and then bowed three times to the body of Meng according to the command of the master of ceremonies to show their condolences.

"Today, we are here to mourn a general who was our unrival enemy, who caused us a lot of trouble and suffering, who was a hero despite his defeat in the end. This hero fought fiercely with us on the battlefield, and after the defeat of exhaustion, he did not hesitate to give up his chance to escape in order to protect his subordinates and soldiers, and exchanged his status, power, and glory for their survival, which is the most worthy of our admiration......" Hoffman ended the mourning ceremony with a short speech.

"Führer, will you make such an arrangement?"

"Of course it's for the British, to let them know which is a good general and which is a bad general - not to be deceived by politicians, and I'm telling the truth, isn't it?"

"But ......," Keitel was still puzzled, "what does that mean?" The British will not reconcile with us because we revere their heroes. ”

"It is impossible to reconcile, but at least they will leave a little imprint in their hearts, and they will realize that the enemy is not a demon, but a flesh-and-blood person with normal feelings, which will have a subtle impact on them." Hoffman smiled slightly, "Besides, let the brave generals lose their lives and let the despicable generals be reused, who selected and appointed them?" Whose fault is it? Who is responsible? ”

"You mean Churchill." Keitel's eyes lit up, "If we can get this warmonger down, we'll save a lot of trouble." ”

"It's hard." Hoffman pondered for a moment, "But at least it can shake his prestige and threaten his ruling position." ”

"Then Dr. Goebbels will be busy."

At a time when Germany and Italy were busy holding grand ceremonies and military parades in Cairo, the 1st Guerrilla Detachment of the Combined Fleet, which had completed its combat mission, was quietly returning north in the southern Indian Ocean.

"Sir, I have received a report from Chief Horikichi that the German supply ship of supplies and aircraft has arrived on Socotra Island today, and the remaining three ships are currently receiving equipment and training, and it is said that the performance is very good, and it is better than our carrier-based aircraft in an all-round way."

"That's great." Tsukahara 243 took the telegram from Kusaka Ryunosuke and read it excitedly.

"Sir, urgent telegram ......" the confidential staff officer swept into the command tower, "Early this morning, the German submarine reported that the British and American convoys had left port and returned south, and Chief Horikichi ordered us to turn around and prepare to intercept. ”

"Volley?" Tsukahara 243 thought for a moment, "We don't have a big advantage in troops, I'm afraid the losses are not small." ”

"Sir......" Kusaka Ryunosuke carefully read the telegram, and suddenly laughed, "God help me, the enemy only has one aircraft carrier with him." ”

"Americans are crazy?"

"It's not that it's crazy, it's that the Americans have misappropriated the aircraft carrier carrier into a transport plane to urgently deliver supplies to rescue the army, so there is only one aircraft carrier to accompany them."

"Misappropriation of carrier-based aircraft as transport aircraft?" Tsukahara 243 was completely speechless, his eyes widened and he couldn't believe his ears, "Who came up with this trick, shouldn't Germany have infiltrated spies in the top echelons of the US military?" ”

"Sir, give the order." Kusaka Ryunosuke said excitedly, "How can you not eat the fat sheep that was delivered to the door?" ”

"That'...... All right. ”

Are Americans crazy? Of course not, but the Americans are almost crazy - because the German armored forces have appeared in Port Sudan and have taken Cairo, which means that the Germans have enough forces to attack south, and under the premise that Germany, Italy and Japan now have control of the Indian Ocean, it means that they can easily carry out amphibious landing operations - for example, the next landing in Somalia.

If Patton is not a remnant of the defeated army and has lost all the supplies in his hands now, the amphibious landing of the Germans is nothing to fear, and the second armored division and the British 78th Infantry Division are enough for the Germans to have a headache, but now these two are basically pure infantry units, and even the time when the rations are in crisis, they can't stop the German attack at all, do they let them use their flesh and blood to resist the German army? The thought of this horrific scene left Eisenhower, still in Mountbatten, Kenya, unable to sleep all night.

And the British soldiers who had retreated from Aswan, who had also lost their supplies and heavy equipment, made him despair - now that he was the supreme commander of the entire African theater, he had to consider not only the Americans, but also the British and the colonial garrisons, and theoretically he was responsible for the military power of all the allies, and there were only two paths before him:

First, let Patton withdraw to Mogadishu as soon as possible with the remnants of the defeated army, and then he sent a fleet to meet the south;

Second, he sent enough supplies and ammunition to Barton to be able to hold out in Somalia or simply retreat inland to Kenya.

The first one was faster and more convenient, but unfortunately, with the "North Indian Ocean Blockade Statement" issued by the Japanese Navy, Ike did not dare to send the fleet into the tiger's mouth; The second one is more secure, provided that the supplies are delivered.

It is impossible to think about sending supplies by these colonial roads in East Africa, and you can only rely on air transportation. As a result, these days, all Kenyan planes, including carrier-based planes, have become transport planes, and they have either dropped or landed in the air, transporting all the supplies and equipment, even jeeps, to Somalia, and the Somali colonial troops are also desperately looting vehicles for Patton and others to use -- you must know that the American young master soldiers do not walk for more than 5 kilometers, and if they really go all the way from Somalia to Kenya, it is unknown whether they will be able to live.

As a result, Kenya's planes, large and small, were turned into transport planes, and the Allies transported them at any cost, at any cost—even the gasoline for the return of planes from the Somali direction had to be transported from Kenya first, which could be called the second hump route, and the only advantage over the hump route was that there were no insurmountable geographical obstacles in the flight, and there were no Axis planes to interfere on the route, so that Patton's troops could still be adequately supplied, and the wounded and sick in the troops were also flown back to Kenya for treatment.

The 2nd Armored Division and the 78th Infantry Division now form the Allied African Army, and the few vehicles loaded with supplies and munitions are all consciously on foot, leading these hard-suffering soldiers to start the long march south to Mogadishu step by step.

In order to motivate each other, the optimistic and self-deprecating American officers and soldiers also told various jokes, the most famous of which was:

“…… When Washington led the Continental Army to fight the Revolutionary War, he walked on two legs, and it is said that he didn't even have his shoes, and the British were no better, and now we are back with the British back to the era of fighting on foot, and heck, this time it is actually an ally......" (To be continued. )