The British moved very quickly, and as soon as Garibaldi's Italian army had finished its combat deployment to support the French army, Wavell's British army had already advanced to the defensive positions built by the French army around heights 3 and 4.

But the movements of the Italian army were not too slow.

Individual vanguard infantry divisions of the Italian Mixed First Army had reached less than 10 miles from the French defensive positions on Heights 3 and 4.

The situation now is that the French colonial 5th Infantry Division is divided and surrounded by the British on several hills on Heights 3 and 4, but the Italians are attacking the British forces surrounding them from a farther position.

Major General Anthony, who was in charge of the British offensive force, judged from the results of several attacks that the French position on Heights 4 was the weakest at the point held by the 5th Division of the French Colony.

In order to prevent the encircled French from successfully breaking through or counterattacking, the British had to first uproot a black infantry regiment of the French army nailed to Heights 4 and knock out the flanks of the French army.

As the commander-in-chief of the French army, in order to keep this nail embedded in the encirclement of the British army and wait for the arrival of the Italian army, he even used a small air force in his hand to support the 5th Infantry Division of the colony.

The purpose of the British army was obvious, they wanted to take Heights 3 and 4 at all costs, and then occupy or destroy the vast oil fields behind the Heights.

Although a small number of French air forces in Belante, with the cooperation of Garibaldi's Italian Air Force African remnants, joined forces to gain air supremacy in part of the battlefield, the British air force planes continued to fight the French and Italian planes in order to disrupt them and prevent them from bombing the British troops attacking the high ground with all their might.

At the same time, the British army also mobilized enough artillery units, and used the large number of artillery previously captured from the Italian army to bombard the French positions incessantly.

Therefore, the positions of the colonial regiments on the French army on Heights No. 4 were bustling with activity from dawn in the morning.

The British first used artillery to bombard the two small hills held by the French black soldiers for half an hour.

These two small heights were the support points for the defense of the black regiment, and once they were lost, the French army on Heights 4 would inevitably be routed and annihilated in the face of the British army, which had the advantage of strength and firepower.

The more important the place, the greater the firepower of the British army.

As a result, the British rained heavy artillery shells, covering almost the entire defensive position of Heights 4.

Although Heights 4 was partially and urgently reinforced at the behest of Colonel Jefferson, under the indiscriminate bombardment of the British army, many fortifications were soon blown down, and some temporary anti-artillery holes were also blown up, and none of the French soldiers inside were spared.

Even more unfortifying, the command post of the black colony stationed here was one of the first fortifications to be destroyed.

Speaking of bad luck, the concealment department of this regimental command post was originally built quite firmly, but there were still two howitzer shells fired by the British army immediately, which were impartially in the middle of the regimental headquarters.

As a result, French Colonel Jefferson, who was directing operations in the regimental headquarters, was blown to pieces on the spot, and the radio station set up at the regimental command post was also blown up, thus cutting off the regiment's communication with the headquarters of the 5th Colonial Infantry Division.

When the soldiers of the regiment came out of the anti-artillery hideout after the bombardment was over, they found that their commanders and division staff officers had been sacrificed, leaving only the broken walls and various limbs of the ground.

The regimental commander of the Jefferson Regiment was basically all killed in this bombing. This can now only be done by the commander of a white French battalion, acting commander.

In fact, the three battalion commanders of this regiment are now only the commander of one battalion, and if the commander of one battalion is killed again, the Jefferson regiment will no longer have a white French commander.

The commander of the first battalion was also glad that he had escaped death because he did not stay around the regimental headquarters when he was bombed by the British. And just a few minutes before the shelling of the headquarters, Colonel Jefferson had just informed him to go to the regimental command post to discuss combat missions.

Now he could only immediately take over the command, leading a regiment with less than a battalion of troops left to continue to hold the position.

Soon, the British army launched another fierce attack on Heights 4, and the British Army, with the cooperation of an armored battalion of the 7th Armored Division, advanced slowly and orderly in an orderly and calm manner.

Heights 4 is in a hurry!

Seeing that the defense was hopeless, the French troops on Heights 4 had no choice but to retreat to Heights 3. The commander of the first battalion chose to withdraw to Heights 3 with about two remaining companies of black soldiers, where he joined the French army in resisting the swarming British troops.

But as expected before the war, after occupying Heights 4, the British army occupied a geographical advantage, condescendingly, launched an offensive on the flank of Heights 3, and in a short time, the French troops on Heights 3 suffered nearly 300 casualties.

"Damn! Ask the Italians how long it will take to arrive? We're all going to run out, why haven't they come yet? Seeing such heavy casualties among his army, Major General Stephen of the French Army, who was personally sitting on Heights 3, finally couldn't help it.

I saw him scolding, "Go! Call Jefferson to me, I'm going to ask him what kind of battle he fought, and he lost Heights 4 to me! ”

"Divisional commander, Colonel Jefferson has died." Stephen's lieutenant whispered, "Don't think about Heights 4 anymore, let's concentrate on guarding Heights 3 for now."

In fact, at this moment, it was not only the No. 4 heights that were shelled by the British army at the beginning, but even the No. 3 heights where the division headquarters was located were also shelled by the British for half an hour.

It was only because of Major General Stephen's insistence in advance that the fortifications on this high ground were stronger than those on High Ground No. 4, so the casualties were smaller.

As a result, the British also found that the effect of their artillery bombardment here was obviously not as good as that of the artillery bombardment of Heights 4, except for a small number of black soldiers who were wounded, and some soldiers who were slow to move during the British shelling were killed, the French troops on Heights 3 did not suffer great losses.

And the commanders of the regiments under Stephen are basically fine, the command system is still relatively complete, and they can still get in touch with the division headquarters.

On the other side, after a new round of shelling by the British army, the ground forces also began offensive operations on Heights 3.

Their tactics were still the same, with tanks and armored vehicles at the front, and infantry attacking behind tanks and armored vehicles like ants in black.

The 5th Colonial Division was not well equipped because it was a black unit, and it was only equipped with a total of 18 anti-tank guns, 6 47 mm and 12 25 mm guns.

Major General Stephen attached great importance to the anti-tank guns in his hand and built semi-underground fortifications for these anti-tank guns.

However, two 25-mm anti-tank guns were still blown up in the British shelling just now, and there was also a 47-mm anti-tank gun.

"The Italians haven't arrived yet!" After repelling another round of British offensive with great difficulty, Stephen roared.

"Division commander, I have received news from the Italian army!" A staff officer suddenly reported to Stephen that his voice was crying: "The Italian front commander said that they had run out of ammunition in the first round of the attack and could not launch a new offensive for the time being. ”

"They told us to find a way to hold on a little longer, because it would take a long time to restock." The staff officer finished the last sentence of the telegram sent by the Italian commander with some distraction.

With a plop, Major General Stephen finally fell to the ground in anger by the words sent by the Italian reinforcements.