On the afternoon of May 1943, on the same day that the Japanese Combined Fleet arrived in Alexandria and was about to cross the Suez Canal, the Allied Defense Line of Nairobi tended to collapse.

In fact, Arnold's judgment on the situation in Africa was too optimistic. On the 19th, he made a statement to Roosevelt that he could hold on for another 5 days, but in fact he could not hold on by the 4th day. In the eyes of the Allied generals on the front line, being able to hold on to the day was a miracle.

On the issue of encircling and annihilation of the Allies in Nairobi, Hoffman and Guderian agreed that they could not make the mistake of Dunkirk's retreat last time, and they should bravely rush forward and encircle and annihilate the enemy. Although this increased their own casualties, considering that the enemy had been fighting with the German army for a long time and were experienced veterans, Hoffman believed that it was completely affordable to pay some price. After this battle, Africa was basically peaceful except South Africa.

In order to weaken the enemy's resistance, the German army called the Marine Corps to land in Tanganyika as a prerequisite. Adding fighter jets and threatening the British and American routes is the basis of deterrence. The African Army interspersed from both wings and building an encirclement was the final effort. But no one expected that Britain and the United States finally chose to retreat from the air. German reconnaissance estimated that the total number of enemies in the encirclement was about 670,000. The staff estimated that the enemy's air transport limit retreat ability was about 1,500 people a day. Even if the German army did not interfere, it would take at least one month for Britain and the United States to retreat through aircraft. In fact, this was impossible. When there were too many retreat troops to a certain extent, the defensive troops that resisted the German offensive could not stand up and collapsed automatically, and at least a large part of the troops became prisoners.

In the chess deduction concept, Guderian's general staff believed that the most likely choice for the enemy was to fight and retreat to Zambia, because the British and American air supply forces were strong, and the ground troops did not have to worry about the materials on the way to retreat at all. At most, the wounded and important figures were transported first. The choice with less possibility was to stick to it on the spot and use the air transport capabilities to continuously transport troops and supplies for the encirclement, and fight attributable to the German army. This was also the experience of the German army in the siege of Holm and Dmyansk. The surrounded troops relied on air transport supplies and perseverance to fight. They believed that the most unlikely was air retreat and they described it as a desperate choice to escape when the general collapsed.

At this point, frontline generals, including Guderian, made misjudgments, which also affected Hoffman. He did not think that Britain and the United States retreated through air freight. In his memory, there seemed to be no such concept or war history except Berlin air freight. The British and American capabilities of Berlin air freight have been shown to him.

Not only were the Germans kept in the dark, but all the ordinary Allied officers and soldiers on the Nairobi front were kept in the dark. Eisenhower knew that once the retreat order was issued and he decided to retreat in batches, the morale of the troops retreating behind would inevitably be depressed and turbulent, so the order was only passed to the major general level and the order was strictly kept confidential. On this point, the most commendable one was Ramsden. After he took the "heavy task" of defending and surrendering, he was the one with the greatest pressure, but he still led the troops to rush to the front line. Several British generals retreated from North Africa and had a record of escaping in Egypt, so they chose to stick with great courage this time.

When the Australian and New Zealand troops first retreated from the front line, all unified external calibers were "replacement". Since the Nairobi encirclement was a large territory, everyone was not aware of the distribution of friendly forces. In addition, American generals including Patton were on the front line, the US soldiers had no doubts at all. They were also gritting their teeth and holding on. Perhaps the despair and crisis of falling into the encirclement inspired their fighting spirit, and they actually burst out with unprecedented power.

The strong firepower of Britain and the United States, sufficient materials, and the actual battlefield situation that was compressed and could no longer be interspersed with division. Allied soldiers could avoid the lack of experience in mobile warfare and weaknesses in defensive warfare, making it difficult for the German army to move forward every step. If it weren't for the US military fleet's abandonment of air strikes and ground attacks on the German army, the Nairobi encirclement could have supported more time.

Guderian found that the situation was wrong on the evening of the 22nd, because among the soldiers captured on the front line, either the US or the British, but there were no officers and soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand troops, he was very curious. The information obtained by interrogating the prisoners was that the Australian and New Zealand troops had changed defenses a few days ago. Since the German army always believed that the Australian and New Zealand troops had the strongest combat effectiveness among these troops, followed by the US and the British troops, his first reaction was that the Australian and New Zealand troops were gathered up and prepared to take on the "spearhead" of breaking out of the encirclement, but a staff officer saw that the prisoners told the Australian and New Zealand troops to leave the heavy equipment on the line of defense when changing defenses. In this state, it was simply a delusion to try to break out of the encirclement without heavy equipment.

Guderian immediately became alert and believed that the enemy might have been vaguely fleeing, but he was struggling to attack the encirclement. Finally, he thought of a solution that was not a solution, and asked the aircraft carrier fleet that stayed near Benba Island to launch a night attack at 4 a.m., indicating that his intention was to carry him was to destroy the US military airport, and to see how Britain and the United States reacted.

Although German aircraft have bombed several times at Nairobi Airport, firstly, the number of aircraft is insufficient, and the British and American emergency repair capabilities are strong, so the results are very little; secondly, the US Army Aircraft has a large number of fighter jets, and the sky raids are repeatedly intercepted during the day, resulting in great losses. However, night raids are different, and the carrier-based aircraft pilots do this very solidly.

But this tentative night attack caused the Allied camp to explode: American soldiers knew the importance of the airport and did not wait for orders to go to put out the fires spontaneously when they found that the airport was on fire. As a result, they found that there were serious military police units outside the airport, and there was a large group of Australian and New Zealand soldiers who were silently queuing to board the plane to retreat. This was the last group of retreating officers and soldiers. In addition to them, there were also many British and American school-level officers and some professional sergeants.

All the American officers and soldiers who went to rescue were stunned. It turned out that the Australians and New Zealanders did not change defenses, but they retreated secretly. The news spread to ten thousand and ten thousand hundred thousand. By the morning, all the British and American troops were completely lost and thought they had been abandoned.

Senior generals, including Eisenhower, Hewitt and others, immediately came forward to explain the reason, but the officers and soldiers of the troops could not hear it. There were voices of scolding and denouncement everywhere, and they almost opened fire at the headquarters. Finally, Patton came forward to calm down because many officers and soldiers were rescued by him, and with the swearing to ensure that the troops retreat immediately, their emotions finally calmed down a lot, but the fighting spirit that had been aroused two days ago had basically disappeared, and most officers and soldiers did not have much determination to resist to the end.

At noon on the day, the German troops, who had launched a fierce attack as usual, were surprised to find that many of the defensive points with tenacious firepower suddenly shot out the white flag to surrender. At first, they thought it was a trap, and the negotiators came to contact each other tremblingly. When the excited British and American soldiers told the Germans about the accident, Guderian, who was overjoyed, immediately ordered the full-line attack. The front-line defense positions collapsed like an avalanche. Most of the British and American soldiers chose to escape backwards, and a small number chose to surrender on the spot. There were even emotional American soldiers who expressed their intention to join the German army and redirected to beat their bastards' bosses and friendly forces, and were pulled away by the laugh-and-wrenching German military police.

The orderly retreat order at the airport was completely broken. When a burst of gunfire sounds came, all the British and American soldiers who were anxiously waiting were not at queuing up. When they saw that the plane had landed, they rushed up to grab a seat without waiting for a steady stop. The plane, which could only accommodate 1,520 people, squeezed in 30 people, and there were a large number of soldiers outside with crying tilts and unwilling to let the plane go.

Until a new plane landed, the soldiers rushed over to find a new target. The pilot knew that the plane had been seriously overloaded but not overloaded because the human body density was much smaller. However, in the face of the officers and soldiers who took out the threats had no choice but to take off forcibly. Fortunately, these newly built B29 or 47 were strong enough, and many of them were shaky but struggled to fly.

Eisenhower, who witnessed all this, was completely disappointed and almost committed suicide. It was the adjutant and the staff who forced him to take him to a secret airport to retreat. Several planes were prepared for senior generals. Patton was more excited than Eisenhower. He was almost tied and stuffed into the cabin by the adjutant and military police. When the plane took off and left the ground, he rushed to the porthole and beat him desperately. In the cabin was a group of officers crying with their heads in their arms.

At 3:47 pm, the last plane took off. At this time, the nearest German artillery shell had almost hit the runway. The plane had to bypass the large pit. But not long after, another shell continued to fall and hit the plane directly, blowing everything away. There were still planes waiting to land in the air. After witnessing this scene, they could only turn around and leave in despair.

In the evening, Ramsden surrendered to the German army with desperate officers and soldiers. Afterwards, statistics showed that a total of 24,981 officers and soldiers in the entire African theater, including the wounded who had previously retreated. In addition to more than 16,000 Australian and New Zealand troops withdrew intact, British and American soldiers withdrew less than 9,000 of which accounted for more than 3,000 wounded. The African theater command had only had time to retreat half of the personnel, including Eisenhower, Patton, Hewitt and other major generals, all escaped.

In the evening, Goodrian met Ramsden, and he said with a smile: "Dear friend, we're meeting again."

"My mission is completed. It's time for me to see General Montgomery. I hope you can treat these surrendered officers and soldiers well." Ramsden used his best to squeeze out the last sentence, and then fell to the ground. The military doctor who rushed over and heard the news was quickly diagnosed as taking suicide.

Guderian sighed: "Report the war to the head of state, and bury General Ramsden, he is a real soldier." To be continued.,
Chapter completed!