Chapter 738: Rescue

The sun was gone, the dark clouds were enveloping, and the visibility in the sky decreased sharply as the light of the setting sun faded, and soon everything in the distance was shrouded in a faint place. The night breeze blew, and the shadows of the Po Pao trees danced and swayed, and from a distance, it seemed that countless black monsters were writhing in the dark night.

Dick slung his rifle to his waist and crept forward with his feline steps, his whole body covered in dust and sand, except for one pair of eyes that remained clear. Beside him, the dusty comrades-in-arms also marched silently in a silent atmosphere without saying a word, and there was hardly any conversation between the crowd, whether it was giving orders or giving feedback, they all used gestures to solve everything.

After nearly an hour of fighting, the soldiers of the 107th Airborne Regiment finally withstood the last attack of the American forces before sunset. The burning wreckage of six tanks and the bloody corpses of nearly 200 American soldiers were scattered on the battlefield nearly two kilometers long, adding another heavy and heavy touch to the bloody slaughter in this area. The German paratroopers also suffered more than 100 casualties, the most in previous battles; After a full day of fierce fighting, their physical strength and ammunition have decreased significantly, and it is already difficult to cope with the enemy's offensive.

After a careful weighing of the pros and cons, the regimental commander, Colonel Barak⊥ decided to retreat eastward at night. If the current position of the troops was already far away from the predetermined airborne position, if they could retreat to a more easterly position, not only would there be more wooded mounds to rely on to defend the tanks, but they would also be able to shorten the distance between them and the landing force, so that the latter could join them as soon as possible after the resistance had been destroyed. Furthermore. You can also use this to get heavy artillery support from the naval fleet. This is exactly what was envisaged in the original battle plan. Since it was impossible for the infantry to escape during the day with their backs to enemy tanks. Otherwise, it would be a catastrophic situation for the whole army to collapse, and the only thing Barack could hope for was the precious night now. As long as his movements are stealthy and swift, his troops will be able to retreat undetected by the American troops in front of them.

In the dim light of the stars, the German paratroopers began to leave the battlefield where they had been fighting all day. After a few hours of rest, their bodies were restored to a certain extent, and the strong physique they had gained from long-term training on weekdays allowed these paratroopers to move at an almost normal speed. According to Barak's plan of retreat. They will withdraw 15 kilometres in three hours and build fortifications on the spot when they arrive in the new war zone, with little time to rest. In 1913, the French 4th and 5th armies, which suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of the Western Front, fought during the day and withdrew at night under the pressure of the Germans in front of them, and after ten days of unfavorable conditions, launched a large-scale counteroffensive that everyone expected. As the commander of the regiment, Barak had full confidence in the soldiers under his command; Although they were exhausted from the continuous fighting during the day, they were still the core elite of the team that could come and fight when they came!

The dark clouds are closed, and the night is deep. The retreat of the Germans proceeded unusually smoothly. The whole process was quick and orderly, and there was no surprise attack by American soldiers. Because the daytime battles also consumed a lot of energy and vitality of the American troops, they no longer forcibly violated the laws of nature to carry out field warfare; And they were busy recuperating and redeploying their troops, although they greatly stabilized the combat effectiveness of the troops. But it also gave the Germans a breathing space to retreat calmly. At the officer's orders, the German soldiers who arrived at their destination did not bother to sleep peacefully, but swung small shovels and struggled to dig foxholes that could accommodate their own cover, and planted mines and set up machine guns and mortars to cover these areas in areas where American tanks and infantry could easily attack. When this was done, they were able to drag their tired bodies and snore one after another. As airborne troops with arduous tasks, they have long been trained to seize every free moment to quickly catch up on sleep; With every quarter of an hour's rest, their chances of surviving the battle increased by one more point.

The next morning, while Dick was still asleep, the loud explosion became a deafening alarm for his nerves. The U.S. forces discovered the German retreat and quickly gathered a large number of forces to attack. Waves of intense fire rose one after another over the German positions, and their dense and furious Cheng dù made Dick's remaining sleepiness disappear without a trace. Judging from the frequency of shelling, the next round of offensive by the US military will be extremely fierce, and it seems that they no longer want to continue to delay with themselves. In less than half an hour, a full ten tanks appeared in Diel's pupils, and they, together with more than 500 infantry behind them, only wanted to attack their own narrow formation area of less than 300 meters!

The tracks were clanging, the machine guns were neighing, and the fire from the tanks instantly suppressed Diere's fire, and the 76mm guns that fired again and again shattered the sandy breastwork outside the foxhole, and the blazing sand and stones that were fired and thrown scraped a few blood marks on his face. A blaze erupted beneath an American tank, and a violent explosion halted its advance, but before Dick could taste the small joy of the enemy strike, the American tank proved its survival with the roar of machine guns and artillery. It had only been blown off by a mine, but it could still be used as a stationary battery with that gun.

"Boom! Rumble! A short time later, two more American tanks struck mines in the process of advancing, and one of them finally ignited the long-awaited flames of the German soldiers, and several members of the team immediately fled through the opening in the turret and hull. However, since their mines had been heavily depleted in the previous day's battle, the American artillery preparation before the attack had detonated another part of the buried in the earth, so that this sparse minefield simply could not completely block the attack of a large number of enemy troops. Soon, the remaining 7 American tanks approached the German line with a large number of infantry. Although mortar shells fell on the infantry behind them from time to time, the Americans quickly returned the color with tank guns, and this sporadic artillery fire was obviously unable to stop the group of American troops from attacking. The US tanks, which had learned from yesterday's combat experience, did not run over the German positions directly, but let the infantry follow closely behind the tanks and advance steadily, which undoubtedly greatly increased the difficulty for the German army to hit the tanks with their iron fists.

The gunfire was intense, the bullets rained down, and the soldiers on both sides launched fierce fire on the distance they entered. Hours passed quickly, and the casualties and losses of the various divisions climbed sharply in this battle. With their combat qualities and assault rifle superiority, the German paratroopers always had the upper hand in infantry encounters, but the tanks were so difficult for them to deal with that they often had to withdraw from their positions in front of the rumbling tanks. A German paratrooper tried to ambush a U.S. tank with the help of a hollow, but before he could get up and put his target in the center, he was shot into a hornet's nest by the nervous U.S. infantry around him. Although this individual anti-armor weapon has the ability to destroy any tank, its 50-meter range is destined to not replace the role of a regular anti-tank gun.

"Retreat, retreat!" Seeing that the casualties of the soldiers under his command had increased sharply under the steel bullying of the other party, and the combat strength had decreased sharply, the officer in charge of the defense of this area immediately ordered loudly. Dick forced several American soldiers to crawl down again with a series of point shots, and immediately turned over and jumped out of the foxhole to run quickly, but in this lightning and flint, there was a sudden pain in his waist and abdomen, and the pain of the muscles being torn and burning made him stumble, and he almost fell to the battlefield where the bullets were flying. Dick gritted his teeth and pulled a few pieces of gauze from the medical package in his coat pocket for a simple bandage, but blood was still spilling through his uniform. When he reappeared in front of the platoon commander, he found that there were only seven or eight robes left in the original team of thirty people at the moment, and even so, several people, including the platoon commander, were wrapped in red-dyed gauze like himself, and one of them was nowhere to be found with his left hand below the elbow!

"We ......" As soon as Dick, whose heart was full of anger and grief, opened his mouth, the fishy sweetness in his throat surged out uncontrollably; The tearing pain in his waist and abdomen made him no longer able to support his body, and he immediately fell to the side. The frightened comrades-in-arms hurriedly stepped forward to apply medicine and wrap yarn for him to stop the further outflow of blood. Looking at the sad faces of the people around him, Dick's heart gradually sank to the bottom, did the Americans really want to break through the defense line of their own army and wipe everyone out in this area?

Just as he was at a loss, the angry roar of large-caliber shells cutting through the air was loud in his ears, and Dick's heart was crossed, and he was ready to use his wounded body to make a final fight with the Americans: instead of giving up resistance to being captured in shame, it was better to die in battle with his own robes! Moments later, however, the experienced Dick was stunned to hear that the shells were not directed at him, and that the frequency of the shells based on the Doppler effect was significantly different. After a while, a thrilling fire wave exploded near the US troops in the distance, thunder and rage, and more than a dozen US soldiers were immediately thrown high, falling in an area nearly 100 meters away like a cloud!

"It's ...... Our naval heavy artillery! Dick, who reacted, whispered weakly, but his words were full of ecstasy that could not be concealed. And not long after, an army with a strong lineup also appeared in the east, and it was the No. IV tank that was led by the German Army as a pillar in the front. (To be continued......)

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