Field Marshal Brooke's portrayal vividly outlines the current state of the war in Africa:

After the German air raid on the port of Mombasa and the occupation of Pemba Island and Zanzibar Island, the coast of Kenya, including Mombasa, was completely blocked, and at this time, a total of nearly 70,000 British and American troops from the African theater were stranded in Kenya, and the demand for all kinds of materials was extremely urgent. Food can basically be solved on the spot, but other combat resources are very scarce, especially the British troops retreating from Egypt, Patton retreating from the Horn of Africa, and other units have almost become unarmed soldiers in addition to carrying light weapons, plus a large number of wounded and other civilians, and the African theater is in urgent need of fuel, medicine, ordnance, and other supplies.

The sea route to Kenya has been cut off by the Axis Navy, the land distance from South Africa to Kenya is more than 5,000 kilometers, and there is basically no systematic rail or road network to use, so the "American Logistics Company" can only quickly organize air transportation - a large number of supplies are replenished by air, and the African route across Cape Town, South Africa, and Nairobi, Kenya, is forcibly constructed. Because the straight-line distance of the entire route is too long (more than 4,000 kilometers), a refueling transfer station was deliberately set up in the middle of the route - the location was chosen in Zambia.

Nearly 200 B-17, B-25, B-24 and C-47 aircraft in South Africa and all the B-17, B-25, B-24 and C-47 aircraft stranded in Kenya at the beginning were put into transport.

The only thing that the Allies are thankful for is that because the entire route is across the interior of Africa, the nearest point is more than 600 kilometers away from the German-controlled base, and the bombers and transport planes fly at a relatively high altitude, the Bf-219s, which control Pemba Island and Zanzibar Island, have the longest range in the German Navy, are not suitable for this kind of interception mission, and only the Fw-190A with auxiliary fuel tanks can go to the route to sneak attack, but the Germans found that the effect is very bad after several attempts - although the American fleet has no escort, But the self-defense firepower of the dense formation made the limited Fw-190 pilots feel overwhelmed by a porcupine.

The results of the fighting were not great, and several additional Fw-190s were lost, and the situation was reported to Hoffman, who reasoned that the focus of the HNA was to control the coastal zone and not to let the British and American transport ships pass, because the amount of supplies transported by one ship was equal to half a month's transportation by Allied aircraft, and the air supplies were left to the Americans to toss at will -- he personally expressed his disapproval of this. With the Führer's clear instructions and practical difficulties, the German pilots attacked when they were in a good mood and did not bother to look at them when they were in a bad mood.

In fact, the US Army Airlines is still famous, when the weather is good, the African route can have more than 100 planes from South Africa to Kenya every other day, the average daily transport volume can reach 500-600 tons, although there is no need to airdrop food for 70,000 people, but a large part of the scale of transportation is fuel and must be consumed in the middle of the way, so the African theater can really get more than 200 tons of supplies every day, the German high command has made an estimate of this, thinking that the harm is not great. The African theater cannot sustain operations with more than 50,000 troops on this level of material supply.

The Americans did not give up, and tried to secretly deliver supplies to Kenya through fast merchant ships, but as soon as German planes and U-boats were closely watched, almost none of the merchant ships could reach the Kenyan coast alive; Second, the port of Mombasa has been completely destroyed and is almost impossible to transport unless an artificial wharf is built first. After evaluation, the African theater of operations believed that the results were too slow and could not be slowed down, and finally chose to completely airlift, otherwise, with the existing bomber group, the United States could carry out large-scale air strikes on the German troops on Pemba Island and Zanzibar if it really considered building an artificial wharf.

To the relief of the British and Americans, a large number of wounded and sick were evacuated to South Africa with the group: after ten days of efforts, nearly 2,000 wounded were evacuated from Kenya and sent to South Africa for treatment - which ensured the morale of the troops, and then more than 3,000 civilians stranded in Kenya - mostly Egyptian, Somalia, Sudanese, Kenyan colonial officials and expatriates - all lined up for the plane to South Africa.

Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of the African theater, thought that his ability to command and fight a war was inferior to Patton's, but he was very handy in doing this work, so the top level of the command quickly formed a tacit division of labor, with Eisenhower focusing on the overall situation and focusing on logistics and management, and Patton and Ramsden focusing on the training and reorganization of British and American officers and men.

The overall situation in the African theater of operations has stabilized, but a small episode occurred during this period: the Australian and New Zealand troops, who have suffered unfair treatment many times, said that although Ramsden was a good commander, they did not want to be with the British troops anymore and asked to join the US army. This was a blow to Great Britain's prestige, and there was a lot of criticism of Churchill for the matter, but he had put all the blame on Admiral Alexander. After coordination between London, Washington, Canberra, Wellington, and other parties, it was finally agreed that Australian and New Zealand troops would be added to Patton's Second Armored Division, and that British troops from Egypt and other quarters would be added to the British 78th Division -- since the commander of the division had been killed, Ramsden would temporarily assume the post of army commander. In this way, the African theater has a total of 5 divisions, and the strength is barely full, but the equipment is really too poor, especially the Second Armored Division, which does not even have a tank or an armored vehicle in the name of the armored division, and is almost an out-and-out light infantry division, and finally Eisenhower handed over heavy equipment including 40 tanks, 50 armored vehicles, and 80 artillery pieces from other units to the Second Armored Division.

The supply problem has eased for the time being, but the situation in Africa is getting worse.

Brooke said in an anxious tone: "The Germans have driven their forces to the border between Sudan and Ethiopia after taking Khartoum and overwhelming the local forces of Sudan, and Emperor Haile-Selassie has been resisting, but this time it is obviously not the clumsy Italians, but Guderian's most prestigious armored troops, those Ethiopian troops that are not much better equipped than the Chinese army may not be able to support it for long, and the border troops have broken down one after another, although Addis Ababa is still in his hands, but it is a matter of time before it falls." ”

Originally, Churchill had a plan to place the Australian and New Zealand troops in Addis Ababa to assist the Ethiopians in resisting the German army together, so as to gain time for the deployment and reinforcement of the African theater of operations, although Ramsden argued that the Australian and New Zealand troops, which had been pursued by the German army since Egypt and were desperately short of equipment, could not complete this task, but London still insisted on its own opinion -- as a result, the commanders of the two divisions, who were extremely angry, resolutely "went alone" and not only directly pulled away the troops and retreated southward. They also complained to Churchill that he had "deliberately murdered the troops of the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand," and the two division commanders thought very clearly -- after the Aswan "mutiny" once, it was impossible to make peace with the British, so they simply stubbornly demanded to join the US military to the end.

They had the confidence to do this - not only did all the soldiers support it, but they also aroused outrage after crying to the elected parliamentarians in Australia and New Zealand, and some even raised the question of why they should send troops to fight in Europe. The Germans didn't hit us again. Thus the whole thing had to be put to rest, and the British troops retreated south with the British troops - which in turn violated Churchill's original promise to the Ethiopians, and made him not human inside and out, for which he had to be questioned again by parliamentarians.

The congregationists did not understand why the Germans had to take the trouble to fight for the Italians, but no one was optimistic about the prospects of Ethiopia, and they estimated that the fall of Ethiopia would not take more than half a month, and further south was Kenya.

After careful study, the military top brass, represented by Field Marshal Brooke, came to a conclusion: It is not enough to save the African theater by relying on air supply alone, and even if the African theater is now fully manned, it may not be able to defeat the German African Army Group, so it is necessary to increase the number of troops, and then they hope that the United States will increase its troops in Africa on the grounds that the British ground troops are extremely short and the armored units are still being trained. The subtext is obvious: if the United States is unable or unwilling to increase its troops, then the African theater can now begin to consider retreating to South Africa.

Unexpectedly, President Roosevelt and the US military actually agreed to the troop increase plan, but in turn they brought the British into one army: The United States can send reinforcements to non-land forces, but the main force of the US Navy must deal with the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean, and it is hoped that the British will send corresponding naval forces -- anyway, the British capital ships can be put into use after they are withdrawn from the Pacific theater, and the US Atlantic Fleet will send other warships, and the campaign to aid Africa can be launched.

The Americans made it very clear: the Royal Navy's capital ships did not have much combat duty now, the main Japanese navy had entered the Mediterranean Sea again, and the Axis might launch the Maltese Campaign, and the fall of Malta was inevitable, but it was the best time to carry out the campaign to aid Africa, and if Britain was willing to take on this responsibility, the United States could return one more battleship George V to China.

This counter-proposal hit the weakness of Britain, to increase the number of troops to open up the sea line of communication, a naval battle is inevitable, Churchill originally hoped to pull the main force of the Pacific Fleet over, but the Americans obviously did not think so, so the Royal Navy was forced to consider relying on the existing forces for the Kenya landing battle. (To be continued.) )