"Our grassroots commanders and soldiers are inexperienced. Whether it is the concealment of the battlefield, the combat skills, or the cooperation between the various arms, our officers and men are far from being able to compare with the enemy. Although we have been learning how to fight from the enemy since the end of October last year, less than three months is clearly not enough; In addition, the only troops in direct confrontation with the Germans were the 1st Brigade of the Detached Division, which defended on the island of Haiti, and a large number of the main army corps assembled in Cuba were never tempered in any way, and their level of combat was not fundamentally different from that at the beginning of the war. A young infantry battalion, fresh from home, launched an attack on the enemy's position with the hope of victory, and within three hours of the battalion's more than 700 officers and men were able to retreat in their entirety. The survivors were like zombies with glazed eyes, just kept numbing their nerves with cigarettes. Some of them have developed mental disorders, and every day in the field hospital are some able-bodied but babbling soldiers......" wrote Lieutenant General McKelly, commander of the United States First Army stationed in Cuba, in a report sent to Washington.

After three days of fighting, the U.S. forces advanced an average of less than 2 kilometers in the offensive in eastern Cuba, and the wreckage of nearly 100 Sherman tanks and the corpses of more than 5,000 soldiers were exposed in the field. This horrific scene would have continued had it not been for the fact that the Germans, out of humanitarian and disease prevention considerations, had they acquiesced to the white flag Red Cross members collecting their bones within their own firepower. Less than 800 German troops were killed or missing, and only a handful of tanks were destroyed. Due to the defensive position on the inner line, the German tanks were not only able to conceal themselves in advance. The amount of time the flanks are exposed to the enemy's guns is also significantly reduced. The reliable front armor allowed German tankers to face enemy vehicle attacks with ease. As a matter of fact. Even if it were not for the frequent sorties of bombers and the dumping of tons of bombs on the German positions, the US military would not have been able to make the current progress!

From the fourth day of the large-scale American offensive, the German air resistance over eastern Cuba also increased significantly. As the field airfield continued to expand, a large number of German fighters taking off from the island of Haiti landed directly at the nearby Baracoa airfield after completing the battlefield support mission, which undoubtedly made the balance of air power originally tilted in favor of the Americans. Began a gradual shift towards the side of the Germans. The ground crews, fuel and ammunition, and all kinds of spare parts that supported the normal sorties of these fighters were constantly transported by sea, and whenever the air defense sirens sounded, German pilots drove these warhawks out of the sky to fiercely meet the invading American fighters.

Since the US military dispatched a large number of warplanes to carry out fierce attacks on German positions every day, the intensification of German air interception was immediately discovered by them. In order to interrupt this process, the U.S. military launched a number of countermeasures: bombers began to violently attack German field airfields, using a large number of saturation bombing to blow up the flat runway to the surface of the moon, and the navy also gathered a large number of ships with several light fleets rushing from the mainland to support the core. A night attack on the German landing grounds was launched on an unprecedented scale. However, to the disappointment of the US command, neither of these operations achieved the desired results.

In the face of enemy bombardment of the airfield. German soldiers refilled the runway with great efficiency by moving earth and sand, and the entire restoration process was usually completed within four to eight hours. Under these circumstances, German fighters were still active on the battlefield for a considerable part of the day, while American bombers suffered far more than usual losses in their adventurous assault on airfields. The airfield has always been a key defensive area for anti-aircraft artillery units, and after the replenishment, the German army has a full 16 anti-aircraft artillery batteries pointing their fire at the sky of the airport; Although the efficiency of ground air defense in this era is generally a tragedy, when a large number of anti-aircraft guns are deployed in a centralized manner, they can still pour shell-like concentrated fire and beat down a batch of bombers that are raging in the sky!

In the anti-strangulation operation at sea, the German navy, which incorporated the fleets of Italy and Austria-Hungary, was even more adept. In the early afternoon, two or three fast transports left the port in front of ten times the number of warships, and sailed out of the Luftwaffe umbrella on the island of Haiti at nightfall. At this point, they were less than 50 nautical miles away from the landing site. The radar and sonar of the German ships were fully turned on, escorting the transports all the way to the vicinity of the beach, and as soon as the radar screen showed a sudden point of light in the distance, the German fleet would immediately prepare for battle and meet the enemy after showing his intention to approach. Even during the night artillery battle, the German commander did not ignore the threat from underwater, and a small group of destroyers remained around the light-controlled transport ship to guard against possible sneak attacks by enemy submarines.

The German Navy's tight defense made the night attack on the beachhead by American ships a frontal war of attrition with superior enemy forces. In the Battle of Baracoa, which broke out in the early morning of January 21, a total of 3 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser and 3 destroyers were sunk, and more than 1,500 officers and men were killed; The Allied fleet also had 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser and 4 destroyers sunk, and the two sides were almost a tie in terms of losses. But almost half of the losses of the Allied fleet were Italian ships, the German fleet at the core suffered much less damage than the Americans, and more importantly, the night landing of the German army was not disturbed by the fierce battle. When artillery was blazing on the sea more than 10 kilometers away, a large number of landing craft delivered tons of supplies to the beach, and they were quickly received by the army with various vehicles that had been waiting for the area for a long time.

Despite the fact that the American bomber swarm, as always, appeared over the beach and dumped and exploded in large numbers with the help of flares? objects, but the capture of the target in the dark is far less than in the day; After a round of air raids, most of the bombs were off topic, and the few bombs that hit the target could not cause substantial obstacles to the night supply of the German army. Another concern for the US commanders is that their bomber units have suffered considerable losses in the continuous sorties, and the number of sorties that can be carried out has dropped significantly compared with a few days ago. Although the damage of the B-17s in large groups was not as high as that of the previous small group sorties, this did not mean that they could take off and use without restrictions: due to the fierce interception of the German troops from the air and the ground, many B-17s returned with minor or severe damage, not to mention a large number of bullet holes in the fuselage, and some important lines and equipment were also damaged. In such a situation, it is obvious that the bomber can no longer attack with injuries, and can only wait in the airfield for the repair to be completed!

While the fighting in eastern Cuba was bogged down, the situation of the American army on the island of Haiti also deteriorated dramatically. The German mountain infantry, commanded by Dieter, launched another aggressive offensive, while the supplies available to the American troops on the island were dwindling. The U.S. land-based air forces, which had used the main force of the air force to fight in Cuba, were no longer able to compete with the main force of the Luftwaffe for air supremacy on the island of Haiti, and groups of Ju-88 bombers immediately repeated the actions of their American counterparts in Baracoa, and bombed Port-au-Prince, the most important cargo handling base of the U.S. military, into a sea of fire. The Allied Navy also stepped up patrols in the waters southeast of Cuba, and with the help of radar, it continued to intercept American destroyers carrying supplies to the islands at night. Every destroyer laden with supplies being forced to turn back was a complete disaster for the American soldiers on the island of Haiti: without guns and ammunition, how could they confront the wolf-like elite of the German army?

"Now the situation is already clear. We must be prepared to abandon the island of Haiti and withdraw those divisions to Cuba for defense. The German blockade of the seas southeast of Cuba has made it increasingly difficult for us to supply the island of Haiti, and it is better to retreat to Cuba in order to regroup and prepare for another battle, rather than having these troops annihilated by the Germans in one fell swoop with little food and ammunition. Standing in front of the huge operational map, Johnson, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, said in a calm tone, "At present, the shipping between the mainland of the United States and Cuba can still be well flowed, and after being withdrawn to Cuba, they will definitely play a greater role than on the island of Haiti, which is short of supplies." ”

A few steps away, a thin Marshall had a heavy face: his strategy of retarding the defense with the help of the mountainous terrain of the island of Haiti, which was not suitable for large armies, had been completely disrupted by the German counter-general in Cuba. If this situation is allowed to develop, the island of Haiti will inevitably be lost before the defeat of the German forces in eastern Cuba, and the Germans can use it as a rear base to carry out their all-out attack on Cuba. And if the sea and air forces were returned to the island of Haiti, the German expansion in Cuba would lose its due limits; Once they gain a foothold in Cuba, the situation of the defenders of Haiti, who are surrounded by the front and rear, will inevitably become even more dire. Whether it is the weakness of the army that Barakoa can not attack, or the lack of naval ships that cannot provide sufficient supplies, the ultimate reason points to one thing, that is, the United States is not ready to engage in a full-scale war. The lightning collapse of Britain and France caused the United States to rush into this war on its doorstep with a rusty and dull wood knife; Faintly, Marshall felt an unspeakable fear that the prosperous and powerful United States would probably collapse in this catastrophe!

"Let the army on the island of Haiti prepare to retreat." After a long silence, Marshall finally spoke slowly. (To be continued......)

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