Chapter 771: Churchill's Death 2

"Bombard! Take cover quickly..."

With a shout, Major General George Patton was thrown down in the snow in England. His big nose bumped against the cold snow, and then there was a loud "boom" and then a few sporadic booms.

This was a "Germany" class armored ship anchored at the mouth of the Tees River, firing with a 283mm main gun. It was not bombarding Patton, but bombarding the British army digging trenches 2,000 meters ahead.

The British and American coalition forces have successively arrived at the German bridgeheads on the British Isles - Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. Both port cities have been completely occupied by the Germans. Now the Germans have deployed defensive positions outside the cities, and several large ships have entered the Tees River to act as floating artillery platforms.

Montgomery, who was cautious in using troops, did not dare to launch an attack immediately, but chose to dig trenches and set up encirclements outside the two cities, as if preparing for a positional war. And he also requested to mobilize 305mm railway guns to the Middlesbrough-Hartlepool front.

General Patton's 2nd Armored Division was no longer useful. It seemed that there was no chance to fight the German tank corps in the field. Montgomery disagreed with the tank group attacking the outskirts of Middlesbrough.

So he could only go to the front line near Middlesbrough to smell the gunpowder, but unfortunately he was always knocked down by a timid big guard.

The somewhat annoyed general pushed away the guard who was pressing on him, and climbed up while cursing: "Asshole! Coward! What's there to be afraid of German artillery shells? Did we come here from afar just to lie in the snow to hide from Nazi artillery shells? You coward, you should go back to the United States and hide under your mother's bed..."

As he was cursing, an American jeep sped nearby, and a three-star lieutenant general who looked a bit old-fashioned and slow got off, and it was Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell.

"George, you are swearing again, this is not good!" Stilwell was a little angry, "If the war correspondents expose your behavior, you can forget about commanding the Second Armored Division!"

Patton's bad temper was well known in the American Expeditionary Force. He not only swore, but also beat people when he was really angry. Several times, he was discovered by the reporters accompanying the army and reported, causing a lot of trouble.

"Let those damn war reporters go to hell!" Patton shouted, "I don't believe that the German generals who always win battles on the opposite side are all good-tempered. We are generals, not chaplains. How can we not swear? We have to make the soldiers below fear us more than the enemy's bullets... These are all taught in the military academy, Joseph, have you forgotten them?"

Stilwell shook his head again and again. Although he had a lot of opinions about Patton's hot temper, he had to admit that the Second Armored Division led by Patton was definitely a good unit - a general really can't be too nice.

Stilwell waved his hand: "Okay, okay, stop talking, save your energy to fight the Germans!"

"What? We're going to fight the Germans?" Patton stopped getting angry and asked with a smile, "Has Montgomery finally figured it out?"

"It's not that Admiral Montgomery has figured it out, but the pressure from London has come!" Stilwell lowered his voice, "The Germans issued a Cairo Declaration, which offered some rather deceptive conditions..."

"I know, the British will surrender soon. So what should we do? Should we make peace with the Germans, and then go to the Pacific to concentrate on fighting the Japanese devils?" Big Mouth shouted loudly.

"George!" Stilwell shouted, then looked around, and was relieved when he didn't find any British friends.

In fact, all the officers and soldiers in the American Expeditionary Force knew that the British mainland could not be defended - if they didn't see this, wouldn't they have spent those years at West Point in vain? Now the British mainland is no longer a springboard for the United States to counterattack Europe, but a bargaining chip for the United States and Germany to negotiate. If the Germans had not refused to sell out Japan, Roosevelt would have ordered the troops to withdraw and return home.

Everyone knew it, but they kept it to themselves. Only Patton, who could not control his big mouth, was spreading poison everywhere.

"We must win an exciting victory now!" Stilwell quickly turned the topic to the issue of war, "George, do you have any ideas?"

"We must attack immediately!" Patton said, "Immediately, right away, it is best to start artillery preparation in five minutes. Don't worry about the German warships on the Tees River, and don't wait for those 12-inch railway guns that may arrive at any time."

"But the losses will be huge if we fight like this." Stilwell shook his head.

"Hey, what time is it now? Why do you still care about the losses?"

Patton looked at Stilwell with some annoyance. He knew that this guy was very stubborn. Although he asked for his advice, he would definitely not listen.

But Big Mouth Dun still said to Stilwell: "The Germans also have a transport fleet, and their strength in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough is increasing every day! And time is on their side. As long as we wait until after the spring equinox, once the weather improves, it will be difficult for us to escape. So it is better to fight early than late. If I were in charge, the attack would have started long ago...Joseph, now we must ignore the losses and don't consider winning or losing."

"Don't consider winning or losing?" Stilwell, who was the dean of the department at West Point, was stunned when he heard this. Can we not care about winning or losing in a war?

"That's right," Patton nodded, "defeat sooner and escape sooner... If we delay here for another two months, then it won't be a matter of losing the battle."

The Spring Equinox will be almost here in another two months. The polar night will turn into the polar day, and there will be more good weather in the North Atlantic, North Sea, and Norwegian Sea. At that time, the German fleet and aircraft will reoccupy the sea and sky, and the hundreds of thousands of American troops trapped in England will have nowhere to run.

So no matter whether you lose or win, you have to get a result as soon as possible!

What Patton said was a hard truth, and Stilwell could understand it as long as he used his brain to think about it. However, he did not dare to say such politically incorrect words to Montgomery.

"So...if we start attacking right away," Stilwell asked, "how should we attack?"

Barton raised his finger and pointed directly in front of him and said: "About 5 kilometers ahead is the most important rail/road bridge on the River Tees, and it is also the traffic chokepoint between Hartlepool and Middlesbrough. A few days In the past, the German Tiger tanks went south from there to threaten the back road of the Middlesbrough defenders and forced them to retreat.

If we were to launch a counterattack, the first step would be to recapture the bridge and cut off road traffic between Hartlepool and Middlesbrough. Then we dragged the 5.5-inch cannon up the embankment of the Tiz River along the road (the road leading to the bridge), and then pushed a few kilometers downstream along the embankment to bombard the German warships at the mouth of the Tiz River... I have already I have consulted the officers of the British Coastal Defense Artillery. What is now anchored at the mouth of the Titz River is not a German battleship, but a 10,000-ton pocket battleship. The deck armor is relatively thin, and there is a certain chance of damaging it with a 5.5-inch cannon. As long as the German pocket battleships are gone, we will have the opportunity to counterattack with overwhelming force and firepower.

Of course, if the Germans moved their Hindenburg-class battleships to the mouth of the Titz River. Then, haha..."

Although General Patton couldn't speak, he still had rules for fighting, so his plan was quickly adopted by General Montgomery.

On the afternoon of January 9, in the midst of a snowstorm, two British infantry brigades (actually only one regiment) and one armored brigade, as well as one American tank regiment, began to advance from both sides of the Tiz River towards the bridge. .

…

On the north bank of the Tiz River, a small town named Stodonk blocks the main road from the northwest to the Tiz River Bridge. When the German army occupied the bridge on January 3, they also took over the town and used it as a forward stronghold.

When the British and American coalition forces began their offensive on January 9, a reinforced company-level group commanded by Captain Otto Skorzeny (1 paratrooper company reinforced with 1 self-propelled anti-tank gun platoon, 1 recoilless Artillery platoon and 1 combat engineer platoon) are stationed here.

They arrived from Hartlepool on January 4th and spent several days setting up defences. Many solid buildings in the town were transformed into defensive strongholds. Mines were also laid outside the town and anti-tank traps were dug.

"Tank! Captain, that's the British Churchill tank... No, why doesn't it have a turret?"

"It should be the Churchill tank destroyer! The British also learned from us and turned the Churchill tank into a tank destroyer. Our Tiger tank has met its opponent."

After the artillery preparations by the British and American coalition forces were completed, Otto Skorzeny and Lieutenant Heinrich Eller, the platoon leader of the self-propelled anti-tank gun platoon, climbed onto the second floor of a church that had just been bombarded by artillery. Pick up the telescope and start observing the situation on the front line.

On the snow about four or five kilometers away from the town, dozens of tanks were forming a team, and hundreds of infantry were forming a team behind the wide tank body.

The tanks that appeared in the eyepieces of the two men's telescopes all looked quite big, not much smaller than the German Tiger. At a cursory glance, Lieutenant Ayler discovered two models. One seemed to be an M4 medium tank, but the barrel was much longer. It should be a specialized anti-tank model. Another type of tank surprised Eller. The body of this tank looked like a Churchill tank, but it did not have a turret. Instead, it had a 75mm-level cannon installed directly on the body. Moreover, the barrel of this cannon is very long, and it is obviously a model specially designed to deal with tanks.