Speaking of the 7th Armored Brigade, it should be said that it is still an old friend of the Chinese army. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Because they were the same tank unit that the British sent to support the battlefield in Burma...... Needless to say, they drove a lot of M3 and M4 tanks aided by the Yankees, but they were only used to escape, and finally gave a large number of equipment to the Japanese, and only one tank managed to escape back to India.

So the name of the 7th Armored Brigade is really not wrong: Desert Rat.

As the name suggests, it is to run away like a rat.

What makes people feel even more infuriating and ridiculous is that it is such a unit, and its division commander, Major General William, does not take the Chinese Expeditionary Force in his eyes.

Here's how it happened:

The 1st Panzer Division advanced behind the 30th Army...... The 1st Armored Division is an ace unit, and the main direction of attack is, of course, the ace unit.

The posture of the 1st Panzer Division was as follows: the 7th Panzer Brigade was on the left and the 20th Panzer Brigade was on the right.

Such an arrangement would have been more advantageous for the 20th Panzer Brigade, since the right flank of the 20th Armoured Brigade was the Mediterranean, and there was also a Corniche suitable for tank maneuvering.

The 7th Armored Brigade could only grope its way forward slowly in the dark.

As mentioned before, the demining work was slow in the offensive, the troops stopped and stopped, and the enemy's artillery fire occasionally bombarded the British troops who were opening passages in front.

At this time, a few shells accidentally hit several armored vehicles of the armored brigade, causing the armored vehicles to ignite a raging fire, and the fire soon illuminated the slowly advancing tank group nearby, this scene did not escape the eyes of the German artillery observers, so they immediately called for more intense artillery fire to smash the 7th armored brigade, and soon the 7th armored brigade fell into chaos.

At this time, the commander of the 7th Armored Brigade, Colonel Gathouse, was furious, so he hurriedly reported the situation to the division commander, Major General William.

Colonel Gethouse was well aware that this was nothing more than an attack by German artillery, but because he wanted to stop the advance, he lied about the military situation, saying that it was attacked by the enemy. At the same time, the battle situation was described as dark, saying that it was impossible to make a breakthrough before dawn, and it was recommended to cancel the attack.

Wilhelm listened to Gathouse's words, and then thought that the Germans had most of the air supremacy, and if they could not make a breakthrough by dawn, then the armored forces should be disguised on the spot.

He agreed to Gethouse's suggestion, suspended the offensive, and reported the situation to the command of the Eighth Army.

Montgomery was sleeping at this time, and he didn't allow anyone to wake him up while he slept.

Ramsden didn't know what to do when he received this telegram......

Report it, then you have to wake up Montgomery.

If you don't report it, then this attack will probably be all in vain because the 7th Armored Brigade does not advance as planned and stops the offensive without authorization.

At this time, a sentence came to mind in Zhang Chi's mind: "Fuck, the whole army is fighting and fighting, but the commander is sleeping!" ”

Perhaps Montgomery wanted to show that he had everything in place, but anyone with military knowledge knew that the battlefield was ever-changing, and emergencies could arise at any time.

Ramsden thought about it for a long time, but finally decided to be ready to wake Montgomery up.

He first informed Major General William to the headquarters, and then woke Montgomery to tell him what had happened.

Montgomery couldn't help but be furious when he heard this, and his first sentence was to ask Major General Wilhelm: "The Germans are attacking your armored brigade?" Do you see the Germans? ”

"Oh no!" Major General William replied: "I didn't, Colonel Gatehouse said......"

"I would like to know where the Germans came from!" Montgomery interrupted Major General Wilhelm: "In front of you are three infantry divisions, they are clearing minefields, none of them reported the German troops, only you were attacked?" ”

Major General William couldn't help wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Then Montgomery ordered: "Go on the offensive, you must not allow any change in your plans, and you must strictly carry out my orders!" ”

Montgomery then told Major General William that if Gatehouse was still not in favor of moving on, then he would find someone else to replace him.

Major General William carried out the order before leaving the headquarters, and the 7th Panzer Brigade continued to advance.

Montgomery thought everything was going according to plan again, but the destruction had already caused a chain reaction that he didn't know yet.

"A tough fight, isn't it?" Zhang Chi handed Montgomery a cup of coffee and reminded him, "It's only two hours until dawn!" ”

"Yes!" Montgomery replied, "I hope my plans won't be delayed because of this!" ”

Zhang Chi couldn't help but smile.

Secretly, if you don't sleep at this critical time and don't allow others to wake you up, you may not be able to delay much time at all.

There is a saying: "Don't do porcelain work without diamonds", you Montgomery is not Zhuge Liang's reincarnation, can you think of all the situations and arrange everything?

Then Montgomery sipped his coffee and flipped through the papers.

At this time, Ramsden hurriedly walked in and said: "General, the New Zealand division and the Austrian division stop advancing and ask for the attack to be canceled!" ”

"What?" Montgomery couldn't help but jump up from his chair: "What's going on?" ”

Before he could finish speaking, a communications soldier came in with a telegram and reported: "The Indian division and the Greek brigade have stopped advancing and request that the attack be cancelled!" ”

Then telegrams came one by one, including the British Mountain and Panzer Divisions.

This situation is actually easy to understand, the British Commonwealth army is generally not strong in the will to fight, especially the British colonial forces...... They have always been dissatisfied with their existence as "cannon fodder".

In fact, there are also political factors in this, and the countries where the British colonial troops are located hope to be independent, such as Austria and New Zealand.

People are not stupid, knowing that they gave their lives for the British on the battlefield without any benefit, and even if they won in the end, they were still under British colonial rule, and the whole thing was a job of "being sold and paying for the number of people".

As a result, the British colonial armies actually had the intention of preserving their strength, but no one dared to take the lead and dare not be the first bird.

At this time, they just made an excuse: the 7th Armored Brigade of the 1st Armored Division of the British ace unit actually stopped advancing and was two kilometers behind the vanguard!!

Is this okay? We didn't speak as cannon fodder in front, but the troops who picked up the fruit in the back struck first...... The British troops can not fight, why can't we not fight?!

So one after another, the offensive of the Commonwealth army stopped.