Chapter 421: The second night

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There are many problems in front of Montgomery. The first is how to prevent German troops from crossing Great Yarmouth and capturing the important port city of Lowestoft. Once Germany captured Lowestoft, not only did it get an important loading and unloading port, but also shortened the sea transportation line, the British team would be more passive.
The Lowstoff area now has the 5th Division of the 5th Army, as well as an armored force that Montgomery advanced along the coastline. The defense force can be regarded as quite strong. The frontal defense of Norwich consists of the 4th Army. Responsible for most of the Montgomery Armored Force, it is relatively stable, and now only the northwest region of the entire defense line is reassuring.
If the Germans cut into the northern region along the weak points of the British defense, then Wells, New Hunstanton, Kings Lynn, Swaffham, East Durham and even Westbeach and Downham Markett will be quickly occupied by the Germans, and Norwich's side will open the door wide, and he will not be able to hold Norwich even if Montgomery is the of war.
Silai wanted to go to Montgomery or decided to order troops to strengthen the defense line near Wells. He did not want to lose any of the defensive fulcrums again, hoping to hold back his current position before the turnaround came. As long as these positions are maintained for a few days, the British defenders may not fail to defeat the Germans and drive them out of the sea. Even if handled properly, it is possible to wipe out the German A Group Army.
Cutting off the German maritime supply line and letting the superior German Air Force lose air supremacy. These things that neither the Royal Navy nor the Royal Air Force can do are not entirely impossible. Montgomery pinned his hopes on the sudden weather changes in the English Channel. As long as the weather changed from clear to bad in recent days, the Luftwaffe would lose its advantage and maritime supply would become difficult. The time for the British team to counterattack would come Too.
After studying the map for a long time, General Lundstedt came up with the most stable attack plan he thought: a 2nd Armored Army of the A Group Army, the SS 2nd Armored Division that had just landed on the British land, gave up its plan to attack Wells. Together with the 1st Infantry Division as the general reserve and the 2nd Armored Division drawn from the front, they formed an assault force and crossed the river south to attack Dirham.
This plan is very bold. He gave up his ambitious Wells and crossed the river to East Durham twice in a row, directly threatening Norwich ’s flanks, at the cost of abandoning areas such as New Hunstanton, Kings Lynn, and Swaffham. Shoot out the time difference to directly capture Norwich, and then use your right to continue to capture Lowestoft in one breath-smash the British siege strategy with a right uppercut and grab all the British counterattack positions before the bad weather arrives.
The German troops started southwards that night and fought fiercely with the local British defenders. With the help of night cover, Germany forcibly crossed the river, while the British defenders used some simple fortifications to fight back violently. The two sides fought for nearly half an hour near the first river. As a result, the German forces relied on numerical advantages to win, and the river continued to go south.
East Dirham, the headquarters of the 4th British Army. The British troops attacked by the Germans were in a mess and were trying their best to stop the counterattack. The news they have received is not complete. The German team uncharacteristically launched an attack at night, which also made everyone unexpected. While organizing a counterattack on the spot, Powell grabbed the phone for help.
"Hello? I'm General Powell! I'm in East Durham! The news I just got, the German team crossed the tributary in the area south of Cromer and is attacking me. I need reinforcements now! Need reinforcements!" Originally, as the highest commander in this area, he failed to block the German landing, and he was already very embarrassed. If he lost the river bank defense line again this time, he would have no face to stay alive.
So after he lost his phone, he found his own lieutenant: "You! Take the reserve team immediately! Hurry up to the river embankment to strengthen the defense of the entire river bank! Keep every inch of land, even if you die in battle!"
The difference in combat effectiveness between the two sides is very different: Germany is almost a complete second armored army; the British are an infantry division plus a regiment of garrison. So when the German tanks rushed across the first riparian defense line on the pontoon and the captured stone bridge, and approached the second parallel riparian defense line, the British army still could not get much decent resistance.
The German engineers soon began to build a pontoon across the main channel, and at the same time, under the cover of the machine gun, the rubber boat and the assault boat were pushed into the river. The firepower of the British was more moaning than counterattack. Just after a machine gun position fired, it was suppressed by the fire net composed of two German machine guns.
The remnants of the British 4th Army, which was already the end of the crossbow, failed to play the fierce level they had against the German paratroopers the night before, and they were defeated by slight resistance on the defense line along the river. The German tank successfully crossed two rivers regarded by the British as a solid barrier, and moved quickly towards East Durham, a long-selected target.
When Montgomery found that the situation was not good and wanted to reinforce East Durham, the Germans were only two kilometers away from this important town. The 1st Infantry Division began to storm East Durham at 12:30 that night. The British defenders retreated irrevocably this time. The Frederick rocket artillery originally prepared for the landing was not able to play due to the excessive shaking of the sea. At this moment, the British people were deeply impressed. Hundreds of rockets landed on the British defense line at almost the same time, blowing the entire city into ruins.
The German soldiers captured East Durham at 2:56, and the British defending commander Powell led the surrender. The lost East Durham's British line of defense was instantly cut into two north-south sections-the south with Norwich as the core and the north with Wells as the focus.
The 2nd Armored Corps divided a Grenadier Regiment with an armored battalion and attacked it overnight. They swooped at Swaffham, Downham Market, Kingslin, New Hunstanton, west of East Durham. With a beautiful and extreme roundabout attack, he copied the back of the British defenders, surrounded Wells guarded, and even threatened the supply town of Thetford behind Norwich.
The other army, the SS 2nd Panzer Division, went east along the river and stopped three kilometers west of Norwich before stopping. The Montgomery in Norwich even heard it. The sound of SS 150mm self-propelled artillery shelling British positions on the outskirts of Norwich.
At 4:30 in the morning. Norwich ’s British Montgomery Armoured Army began to retreat, leaving the 4th and 5th Army stubs, and then retreated south to Thetford and Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket. The British 6th Army, just transferred from other places, was instructed to keep Bunge and Lowestoft, and the 7th Army in Cambridge kept the traffic center Erie.
On the morning of February 16, the bad weather expected by the British did not arrive, and the third German landing troops and supplies were sent to the British coast. The German troops have been strengthened to 160,000. Lundstedt already has three armored forces including the 5th Light Armored Division, the 2nd Armored Division and the SS 2nd Armored Division, and most of the A Group Army has entered the UK. Moreover, the German soldiers approached Norwich and could attack the important British city near the landing site at any time.
At 10:50 in the morning, the 20,000 British defenders of Wells were forced to surrender after the German Air Force bombed violently, and the fifth coastal town was controlled by the German landing forces. However, the German who was extremely sad did not laugh to the end. At 3:15 p.m. that day, the Axis Naval Joint Fleet paid a heavy price for breaking into the Wars Bay.
The battleship Roman of Italy was first attacked by British naval artillery, and was seriously injured and had to return to the Mediterranean Sea for overhaul, unable to participate in the next naval operation. Immediately after that, the German navy aircraft carrier USS Bismarck thundered in the active waters. The entire battleship was tilted 21 degrees to barely damage the tube and was successfully repaired. It almost sank in the British offshore.
The successive losses intimidated the three old battleships of the French navy who said they dared not move closer to the British coast. The plan to bombard Lowestoft throughout the afternoon was in vain. These French warships had originally come up with the mentality of taking advantage of the fire, reporting Brest's revenge and playing soy sauce. After all, the German government promised that the French Navy's participation in the war could be deducted from the 400 million war compensation every day.
Therefore, these French warships did not work. When they were in a good mood, they bombarded some British positions to vent their hatred of being attacked by the British at the Brest naval port. When they were in a bad mood, they used various excuses to neglect their work. The German navy was too lazy to manage these French "comrades" and allowed these French ships to lead high-value military pay as an advanced escort. And Lütjens did n’t dare to put these two-faced French navy too close, for fear that one day they would n’t want to shoot German fragile carrier fleets.
Compared to the wreckage of the German Air Force and the fierce fighting of the German landing forces, the performance of this joint fleet can only be described as quite satisfactory. After all, this large-scale naval joint formation commanded the Germans with little experience, and cooperation sincerely included Italy Human beings can only be regarded as ordinary, and it is already a remarkable thing to be able to maintain the operation.
The Bismarck was forced to return to William Junk for overhaul, and the German aircraft carrier fleet was reduced to three. The British navy began to move on and off, and the new indigenous fleet consisting of two aircraft carriers, the Royal Ark and the Wrath, along with the battleship Counterattack and the battleship Queen Elizabeth, who rushed back from the South Atlantic, began to attack the idea of ​​a combined fleet of Germany, France and Italy.