On March 20, the day after Anjiajun's naval fleet review was held, the Pacific Fleet, which was originally just an existing fleet, underwent earth-shaking changes.
According to the order of the Military Commission, Lieutenant General Li Weiqing, Commander of the First Fleet, was transferred to the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Lieutenant General Du Bo, Commander of the Second Fleet, was transferred to the Political Commissar of the Fleet, and the Chief of Staff of the Fleet was Lieutenant General Ben Weige, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Navy.
The Pacific Fleet will be reorganized from now on. The reorganized fleet will consist of four aircraft carrier formations and one battleship formation, which will be mainly used for operations in the Pacific.
Among them, the First Task Force, led by Rear Admiral Luo Yaomin, the former commander of the Third Fleet, has the aircraft carriers "Mingshan", "Huangshan", "Dashan" and "Yanshan", as well as two heavy cruisers and two
Light cruisers, fourteen destroyers.
The Second Task Force, led by Colonel Chi Muyi, the former captain of the aircraft carrier "Lishan", has the aircraft carriers "Lishan", "Lushan", "Changbai" and "Yinshan" and three light cruisers.
, twelve destroyers.
The Third Task Force, led by Colonel Feng Hong, the former captain of the aircraft carrier "Mingshan", has the aircraft carriers "Lüliang", "Zhongtiao", "Phoenix", "Lianhuā" and two light cruisers.
Fourteen destroyers.
The Fourth Task Force, led by Colonel Niu Han, the former captain of the "Huangshan" aircraft carrier, has the "Changbai", "Taiyue", "Wuzhishan", "Wanquanhe" aircraft carriers and three light cruisers.
, twelve destroyers.
The battleship formation is led by former Fourth Fleet Commander Major General Zhou Zhenyuan and consists of the battlecruisers "Honour" and "Glorious". The battleships "Nanhai", "Beihai", "Victory" and six heavy cruisers and
Eighteen destroyers.
The destroyer detachment of each fleet includes a guided missile destroyer with extremely high technological content. Coupled with advanced radio and radar systems, it can maximize the combat effectiveness of the fleet.
When the Pacific Fleet was formed, the Indian Ocean Fleet had also completed its assembly. Lieutenant General Zhao Lei handed over the defense area to the Fourth Fleet, which came to take over the defense. He commanded the aircraft carrier task force and went to Ceylon Island to pick up three divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army.
The fourth and fifth armies turned around and headed south, heading towards the vast sea.
Just when the North Atlantic was turbulent and Anjia's navy and army were dispatching their troops, Montgomery led the Allied forces in the Sinai Peninsula to launch a campaign to forcefully cross the Suez Canal.
At nine o'clock in the evening on the 25th, the Allied forces launched a five-and-a-half-hour bombardment from 1,800 guns purchased from the Anjia Army. After the bombardment ended, each gun had fired approximately 600 rounds.
During that time, a total of nearly 500 tons of artillery shells fell on the German positions on the other side.
Amidst the rumbling artillery, at two o'clock in the morning, infantry and engineers were the first to attack. They carried rubber boats and ran towards the canal. Hound tanks roared and approached the bank of the Suez Canal, shelling the positions on the other side and suppressing the German firepower.
The infantry and engineers leapt towards the river from behind the charred alder tree stumps and from the undulating sandy slopes, braving the intensive "crackling" gunfire and explosions of fire from the other side and rushed to the river.
“Porphyrin —”
General-purpose machine guns on the German positions on the west bank of the Suez Canal were firing wildly against artillery fire.
Among the continuously falling flares, many exploding black smoke columns swept into the air like a whirlwind on the rugged sandy land across the north and south, occasionally holding broken rubber at the top of the cyclone.
Boats and human viscera, limbs, and minced meat were thrown everywhere, and the situation was extremely strange.
In the flickering light of the fire, the artillery positions behind the German positions continued to fire dense rain of bullets. The shells fell on the east bank of the Suez Canal and the surface of the canal. The shell fragments fired were raging crazily, and the machine gun bullets were raining down.
, like a rhinoceros dividing water, splitting apart the attacking Allies.
The black fireworks produced by the explosion of the artillery shell swept across the ground more and more rapidly.
Grenades flew out one after another at an angle, and the piercing screams became more and more dense on the attacking Allied officers and soldiers. The machine gun firepower stuck to the ground. Fire whips were fired without stopping for a moment, and the dense bullets destroyed the attacking Allied officers and soldiers.
The Allied soldiers were swept to the ground like wheat, and the attacking soldiers with rubber boats were not allowed to get close to the river bank.
Many rubber boats were riddled with holes in the process, and the canal was littered with deflated and battered rubber boats.
On the Allied position, hundreds of machine guns sent a hail of hot bullets to the other side. The Allied Hound tanks, Rhino assault guns and high-level dual-purpose machine guns on armored vehicles fired directly at the other side. The German firepower was quickly suppressed.
.
The Allied infantry and engineers took advantage of the situation and threw the rubber boats into the river. The soldiers jumped onto the boats from the shore. Some rubber boats had an unstable center of gravity and overturned, while others hurriedly headed towards the west bank before being filled with people.
The soldiers kept paddling with rifle butts and helmets, but the river surface dozens of meters away seemed out of reach.
From the bunker of the German position opposite, more tongues of flames emerged from the sand embankment, and dark cement holes were exposed from the sand, and dense machine gun bullets sprayed out.
However, Montgomery's staff department had already been prepared for this. As soon as the German firepower points were exposed, they were quickly suppressed by artillery fire. Half an hour later, the first batch of Allied soldiers landed on the beach on the west bank of the Suez Canal. The German troops had already
The position was riddled with holes and was torn apart bit by bit by the Allied forces.
As the pontoon bridge was built, Allied tanks and armored vehicles began to cross the river one after another.
Since the Allied forces were shelling on a front of more than 90 kilometers, the Germans did not know the specific location of the Allied breakthrough, so they had to evenly distribute the response reserve forces throughout the canal fortifications within five hours, especially
Coincidentally, the Allied bombardment broke the telephone lines of the German headquarters. The German commander Georg Stumm, who commanded the canal defense line, died of a heart attack due to Lieutenant General Ritter. He was temporarily replaced by Ritter.
.Major General von Thoma.
The German army laid countless mines behind the river defense position. Allied engineers who crossed the river from three locations: the town of Ismailia, the north bank of the Great Bitter Lake and the north of Suez, began to move forward to urgently clear mines, and the troops crossing the river advanced.
Abnormally slow. Fortunately, at this time, there was also a problem with the German command system. Otherwise, the Allied attack would most likely be pushed back.
All day long on the 26th, the Allied forces, under the cover of the air force, gradually crossed the river at various crossing points.
At ten o'clock in the morning, the first section of the German 21st Armored Division stationed southwest of Fagus was ordered to drive an Allied infantry division that had crossed the river in the town of Ismailia back to the east bank. It was equipped with anti-tank guns and rocket launchers.
The Allies relied on the defensive positions dug by the Germans and resisted bravely, but the Germans made slow progress.
In the evening, the German 15th Armored Division and the Italian Litterio Armored Division set out from the town of Feid on the west bank of the Great Bitter Lake to intercept the Allied armored forces crossing the river from the north bank of the Great Bitter Lake.
More than a hundred tanks were invested, and by late night, half of the tanks had been destroyed, but the two sides were still in a stalemate.
The two sides continued to fight on the west bank of the canal for two days. During this period, the Allied forces not only occupied the cities of Suez and Fayed, but also successfully passed through the minefields laid by the Germans and prepared to launch a surprise attack deep into the German army. But at this time, the German army was already within a few meters of the canal.
Twenty kilometers behind the river bank, a second line of defenses was built in the Gobi area, relying on anti-tank guns, rocket launchers and iron fists to confront the Allied forces.
Montgomery made a prompt decision and ordered the troops to end the fighting on the northern and central lines and move south.
In the early morning of the 28th, the pursuing German 21st and 15th Armored Divisions and the Italian Litterio Armored Division launched a series of attacks. However, the Allied forces retreating south fought and retreated, and the German troops exhausted all their strength.
They tried their best to search for the weak points of the Allied forces, but found nothing.
At sunset, the main part of the Allied forces on the right wing of the southern front began to attack. At midnight, three attacks on the right wing of the Allied southern front failed. Facing the iron wall of the German army, the Allied infantry suffered heavy losses.
On the left wing of the southern front, the Allied forces took advantage of the darkness to capture a high ground more than 200 meters high.
This is a hill more than 200 meters high located on the southern part of the west bank of the Suez Canal. It is at the protrusion of the entire German defense line. The German army has deployed a regiment of troops here. This place was identified as a key attack target by Montgomery that morning, on the right wing.
The attack was nothing more than a feint.
The left-wing Allied forces launched an attack at midnight. Air Force planes dropped more than 100 tons of bombs on the high ground. Then the Allied forces advanced rapidly. After more than two hours of fierce fighting, they finally occupied the hill and captured more than 100 people.
The scarred prisoner.
After taking control of this high ground, the Allied forces quickly used it as a breakthrough. The air force bombarded the left and right flanks of the defense line for seven consecutive hours. After that, more than 900 cannons bombarded it for four and a half hours. Then the armor
The troops attacked across the board, and the defense line built by the German army collapsed.
Because Rommel was still stranded in Matruh Port, Libya, he was unable to command the Egyptian war in time in response to the Allied Northwest Africa landing force that had expanded its power to Tunisia. This directly led to chaos in troop mobilization. After one point was broken through,
All fronts failed.
Two days later, the Allied advance occupied Cairo.
Rommel, who rushed to Alexandria, immediately deployed a defense line in the northern area of Cairo. At the same time, he urgently mobilized the troops still in Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia in East Africa to go north. He called Hitler and asked for reinforcements to be sent as soon as possible, otherwise the Afrika Korps would not have time to shrink its strength.
, there will be the danger of being divided by the Allies.
At this time, the African Army consisted of the 15th, 21st, 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st Armored Divisions and the 90th Light Division.
The 164th Infantry Division, as well as three corps and eight divisions of the Italian Army Group East.
Among them, the 27th to 31st Armored Divisions of the German Army were specially formed by Hitler for the African Army. Most of the tanks and armored vehicles were obtained through trade with the Democratic Republic of China, and their armaments were not to mention.
However, currently the five armored divisions, the 27th Armored Division and two Italian infantry divisions are deployed in Sudan, the 28th Armored Division and two Italian infantry divisions are deployed in Somalia, one Italian infantry division is deployed in Ethiopia, and the 28th Armored Division and two Italian infantry divisions are deployed in Somalia.
The 29th Armored Division and two Italian Armored Divisions are rushing back to support the Suez Canal defense line via railways and roads. The 31st Armored Division is deployed on the Tunisian border, and the 90th Light Division and the 164th Infantry Division are in Said.
The port reached the northern section of Ismailia and confronted the Anjia army.
Therefore, the only ones Rommel can currently rely on are the 30th Armored Division stationed in Tobruk, the 15th and 21st Armored Divisions that retreated from the front line, and the Italian Litterrio Armored Division.
Facing three battlefields in the east, west and south at the same time, it has to be said that the African Corps is undergoing an unprecedented test.
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