Eisenhower took the picture and looked at it, then shook his head and said, "I don't see anything wrong!" ”

"Take a serious look at the bottom left corner of it!" Montgomery prompted.

"Oh!" Then Eisenhower understood: "Burned through the planks and exposed half of the tires, this is a fake tank!" ”

"Yes, a fake tank!" Montgomery raised the photograph that Jan Eisenhower had brought: "So ......"

Needless to say, the Germans often played such tricks, Rommel played once in Tripoli, and Qin Chuan once in Sidioma and Matroux.

"But why did they do it?" Eisenhower asked.

"The purpose of the Germans is obvious!" Montgomery replied: "They are buying time, so that we will mistake their main forces for Enna and attack them, so that the Germans will have time to retreat from the Strait of Messina." ”

Eisenhower nodded in agreement, feeling a little embarrassed that he had fallen for the Germans.

"Stupid Germans!" Montgomery said, "They thought I was going to be fooled!" Their behavior just exposes their hole cards...... The Panzer Division of the Germans is undoubtedly in Messina! ”

Montgomery would think so, because if the Germans wanted to escape from Sicily, there was only one way through the Strait of Messina:

The port of Syracuse had already been occupied by the British, and the port of Palermo was blockaded by Allied air power, leaving only one port of Messina, which was close to Italy and had a large throughput (the port of Messina had a throughput of 4,000 to 5,000 tons, several times that of the port of Siracusa), and it was no problem to withdraw an armored division in a short time.

Therefore, Montgomery immediately ordered the British Eighth Army to speed up its offensive and take the port of Messina before the German Panzer Division fled, or at least leave half of the German Panzer Division in Sicily.

Thus, the British Eighth Army advanced in the direction of the port of Messina even at night.

It's just that what Montgomery didn't expect was that the intention of the German army was not to retreat at all, but to attack.

Of these, only Patton was sensitive to the fact that things would not be so simple, but he could not convince Eisenhower and Montgomery to say more...... They would even think that Patton was excusing the incompetence of the 1st Infantry Division.

"Fuck it!" Barton scolded, "Montgomery, this idiot is going to kill us!" ”

"General!" The staff officer asked Patton: "Do you think the main force of the Germans is in Enna?" ”

"Of course!" Patton replied, "I know the bastards of the 1st Infantry Division, they may often disobey orders, but they are a bunch of hooligans, you know?" Although I dare not say that they can beat the Germans who are killing machines, they can certainly trample the 3rd Infantry Division under their feet. Right now...... What do you think this says about the 3rd Infantry Division, which is going well, while the 1st Infantry Division is struggling to move an inch? What's more, the pilots also found tanks there! Tank Four! ”

"But they said the tank was fake, a decoy!"

"Of course Montgomery would say that!" Patton replied angrily: "He only thinks about how to make the British and himself take advantage of it!" And he is also a 'military genius' in the eyes of the British, and he will never admit that he is an idiot! ”

"So what do we do?" The staff officer asked.

Patton gritted his teeth and said, "I'm going to gnaw this Onna Heights and go over to see if it's a fake tank of the Germans!" ”

So, that night, Patton organized landing craft to deliver fuel and ammunition overnight, and at the risk of being bombed, he unloaded and unloaded ten tanks, all of which were "Sherman" tanks.

Patton thought to himself that even if the Germans had an armored division, these sixty "Sherman" tanks would be enough to withstand the Germans for a while.

Rommel on the other side called Qin Chuan: "Very good advice, captain, we seem to have deceived the enemy!" ”

"What does it seem to mean, General?" Qin Chuan asked suspiciously.

"Because I'm not sure!" Rommel replied: "The reaction of the enemy is strange, the British are attacking at a faster pace in the direction of Messina, which shows that they have been deceived." But the Americans ...... Instead, they pulled the tanks up and built a line of defense in front of us. ”

"It's not surprising, General!" Qin Chuan said: "This shows that the British believe it, but the Americans don't!" ”

Qin Chuan knew that it must have been General Patton who played a role in it.

Patton was similar to Rommel in some ways, he was a general who would go to the front line, and he would even personally board a tank to clear the way for the whole army, only to the tank to overturn on the side of the road, and General Patton was bruised and swollen but didn't care, still waving his arms and slinging cigars, and using vulgar expletives to order the soldiers forward.

This is not to say that generals must be on the front line, but if a general is completely detached from the battlefield, he will lose some of the ability to perceive the battlefield as he should. Barton, for example, could sense the danger from Onner, though he didn't know what that danger was.

"Whatever!" Rommel said: "It's a little troublesome, but the plan remains the same!" ”

However, this was not a trivial problem, because at dawn the next day, the Germans discovered that the Americans had occupied the opposite high ground and formed a confrontation with the Onna Heights, while the tanks blocked the road at the foot of the mountain.

Don't look at Patton's big swagger, but he was not ambiguous at all when he started the war, and on this basis, occupying the high ground and blocking the road with tanks was to prevent the German counterattack, on this basis, it would be much safer for him to consider launching an attack on the Onna Heights.

So from the next morning, the American army launched a fierce attack on Onna Heights.

This time, the 1st Infantry Division was different from before, they had ample artillery support, and there were 20 "Shermans" of tanks assigned to them to coordinate the attack, as well as American bombers.

As soon as it came up, there was a chaotic bombing in the dark, and the shells exploded over the high ground for 50 minutes, and the bombers also dropped bombs on the anti-slope planes that were difficult to bomb with artillery fire, and for a time the Onna Heights were blown into a bare mud mountain.

Then, under the cover of tank and mortar fire, the American soldiers pounced like ants on Onna Heights.

"Onward, lads!" Major General Allen stood behind the tank and waved: "Go and take this damn high ground for me, Enna is ours!" ”

Major General Allen and all the American soldiers thought that under such intense bombardment by the American army, there could be no more people alive on the Onna Heights.