When Montgomery climbed out of the trench, about a hundred meters away there was a fire lit by incendiary grenades, which were dancing and burning near the building, and charred corpses and other craters could be seen around it.

He was dragged back to an underground headquarters that had been dug up in recent months to strengthen the defense of Alexandria, and before anyone could get back the report of the damage caused by the bombing, he heard the hoarse air defense siren sounded again, and the piercing sound echoed in the sky, making people feel a kind of desperate sadness in their hearts.

The 100 butcher bombers from Crete once again visited Alexandria, and although they still did not destroy the port facilities, they dropped more bombs in other parts of the city, and in terms of load capacity, the butcher bombers were obviously much more than the DO-217 bombers, so the second bombardment, although only aerial bombs were used and not napalm incendiary bombs, but the damage was not much less.

Collapsed buildings and rubble littered the streets, the once spacious streets were now blocked with bricks, and people searching for the bodies of their relatives and friends in the rubble were everywhere, crying and rummaging through the rubble, and wandering around the buildings that were still burning.

The sound of explosions continued, the second explosion after some munitions and combustibles had been hit by the bombs, and from time to time there would be a cloud of black smoke rising in the distance, and the entire perimeter of the port was blown into ruins, and only a few buildings were not destroyed by the bombs.

When Montgomery came out of his basement headquarters again, the Alexandria he saw in his eyes no longer seemed to be the beautiful port he knew, full of smoke and rubble, and the bustling port city was no different from hell now.

He held on to a sandbag with shrapnel in it, and looked at the reddish horizon with a frown, and the German shelling was still smashing on the outskirts of the city, one after another, although not as loud as the explosions in the city, but it was really dull as if it had smashed into people's hearts. These distant explosions are a constant reminder that the war is far from over, and that everything is just the beginning.

Just when the city was greeted by the overwhelming German bombers for a whole half a day, the British defenders outside the city were also worried about the situation of the friendly troops in the city, because the high-density bombing destroyed many telephone lines, so that the front-line troops in many places could not contact the rear command and logistics department.

"Sir, there's chaos on the radio, there are pleas for help and shouts everywhere, and we can't get in touch with General Montgomery. The radio operator raised his head and looked at the British division commander who was waiting anxiously, and on another occasion, next to the two telephones, the staff officer and the telephone operator shook their heads helplessly.

The whole communication was in disarray, the telephone lines were probably blown up or burned, in short, the division headquarters could no longer contact the military headquarters and the general headquarters of the group army, and the superior institutions had just repelled an Italian attack, and the ammunition consumption had reached a very worrying point.

The people who rushed to contact the rear supply department had already set off, and now there was no news, and even if the huge supply depot had not been destroyed by the bombers, there was no manpower and energy to distribute the supplies requested by so many front-line troops.

"We can't wait any longer, send someone to drive the remaining two trucks back! In any case, we must go to find some ammunition and come back first, and the medicine and troop replenishment can be put aside first!" After the chief of staff grabbed the phone for the tenth time and found that there was no response in the receiver, he said helplessly to the division commander: "It seems that the losses in the port are even greater than imagined, and there is already a state of collapse." ”

"The first batch of people sent out should have already arrived over there, and it is estimated that they will be able to bring back the exact news soon. The division commander glanced at the city that was burning not far away, then looked back at the Italian military flag fluttering in the distance, sighed and shook his head, and carefully studied the map of the defense area spread on the table.

When the war came to this point, everyone knew that these soldiers were dying and hopelessly struggling for their British allies in other directions, they were just trying to delay the Germans as much time as possible, stumbling on Rommel's eastward advance, so as to gain a pitiful dignity for the future of the empire on which the sun never sets. At least now almost all British soldiers here understand that the future Britain can no longer be a world power, it can only be regional, and it will be suppressed by both allies and enemies.

But the war still goes on, their battle is not over, but at this moment, everyone has despaired of their future, no one thinks that they can escape this catastrophe, no one thinks that they can live until the end of the war.

Outside his command post, Montgomery saw a number of signal corps arriving from the west and south, many of whom had sent soldiers to find him because the grassroots troops could not reach him. The city was in such chaos that few people could remember that they once had a commander named Montgomery. However, the signal corps worked hard to restore some of the communications and contacted some front-line troops, and the fighting on the periphery continued, and the bombing caused the British to lose several pillbox garrison areas on the periphery at once, which can be said to be a heavy loss.

"Shrink the line! I'll speak when communications are restored. Montgomery looked at the soldiers who came to him, and finally opened his mouth a little tiredly, his voice was a little low, and he looked a little lonely and sad without the high-pitched and spiritual spirit of so many days.

At his side, the chief of staff reluctantly announced the loss of this bombing, almost all the ammunition and weapons piled up on the field waiting to be distributed were destroyed, and several Stuka also deliberately patronized the places where these supplies were stored, almost half of the wounded died in the attack, and two-thirds of the medicines and beds were lost, so the overall shortage of medicines was even more serious.

At least 5,000 wounded and 900 soldiers of all degrees were killed in the bombardment, at least 7,000 civilians were killed in the carnage, and more than 50,000 people were left homeless tonight.

"Ammo! The line directly ahead needs more ammo!Can someone help collect some ammo?" shouted a British officer standing in a truck to the listless wounded crouching on both sides of the road. No one answered his shouts, and the wounded sat there as if they had lost their souls, saying not a word.

Many Indians looked at the British soldiers on the truck in horror, the habit he had developed over the years had made him accustomed to submitting to British rule, common sense told him that the British were too strong to provoke, but he saw many British people torn apart by bombs dropped by an airplane with iron crosses painted on the wings, and saw these British soldiers crying and shouting to escape the destruction of German planes.

Some of the British soldiers handed over some spare ammunition in their hands, and some of the smarter, lightly wounded, knowing that they would not find a place to sleep in the city tonight, boarded their trucks and returned to the front as reinforcements, where at least there was a sheltered trench that would be much more secure than in the city—and as for the danger, how could it not be here?

So a few rounds of bullets were thrown onto the truck, as if they were giving alms, but more people were indifferent, the scene looked a little chaotic, and even a little out of control, and in the end, a few soldiers from the logistics supply carried two boxes of ammunition over, plus a machine gun on an armored car, which was a little stable of the military spirit that was on the verge of collapse.

"There is not much ammunition, I don't know if the Germans and Italians will start a night fight, but I can only promise you to resume the normal supply of ammunition tomorrow morning, after all, it is too chaotic here, some underground ammunition depots have been blown up, some are buried, and we need time to clean it up. The officer of the logistics department at the head pointed to the place where there was still smoke and explosion not far away, and explained that he was already too busy to find his way, but he still could not meet the soldiers who came to apply for ammunition supplies from various positions.

Montgomery, who was standing on the sidelines, looked at everything in front of him, his heart was like a knife, he had fought for his ideals and persisted here for so long, and today he realized that it was all just a pitiful struggle. Churchill fought for his persistence in turning Britain into ruins, and the century-old empire collapsed overnight, but he continued to stick to this path, and as a result, another place was turned into a scorched earth.

"Let's all go back, and if communication resumes in the evening, I'll give you an explanation!" Montgomery seemed to have made up his mind, glanced at the position of the sun, and then said to the soldiers around him, "No one should bear all this, it's time to end this senseless war." ”

With this in mind, Montgomery turned and walked back to his air raid bunker, and then he gave the order to summon all the division commanders of the entire 9th Army to the headquarters for a meeting, and then the astonishing news came that the British troops would surrender in the evening.

The British envoys then rushed to the German positions for consultations, and then rushed back to their own lines as quickly as possible, bringing back the news that Rommel had accepted the conditional surrender, and Rommel promised that the British soldiers could return home instead of being sent to the terrible concentration camps.