Chapter 274: Illusory Victory
Hobart's ultimatum produced no effect at the General Staff.
The soldiers of the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions were happy about the order to rest. They had no idea that the day they spent resting was the most chaotic day for Madrid, and indeed, for all of Spain.
If they had chosen to attack that day instead of resting, they might have achieved rather good results.
But it was already too late.
José Sanjurjo returned to Madrid to take charge of the overall situation.
Vorbeck's mountain troops bypassed Ávila.
Reinforcements from France were already on the way.
To ensure air superiority, Kesselring even transferred the French Auxiliary Air Force to coordinate the attack.
From this moment on, the British Expeditionary Force was completely cut off from victory.
Two days later, after Hobart formally resigned, the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions finally set off toward Madrid under the command of a temporary commander.
And they ran straight into Spain's ace unit, the 2nd Armored Division.
The British Expeditionary Force's Tank Crew 032.
The tank commander was joking with the driver.
"I heard the division commander was transferred. Is Montgomery personally commanding our operations now?"
The commander poked his head out of the turret, holding binoculars as he scanned the endless plains.
"That is what I heard."
The driver pushed the tank's speed to the limit, the roar of the engine echoing across the wilderness.
"But don't you think that is a good thing, Cole?"
"Hobart is great in every way, but he is too strict with us. Every day, it is either maintaining equipment or listening to him lecture and nag about training and precautions."
"We never have any time to ourselves. When I was in the 15th Tank Brigade, I had plenty of personal time. I could even play cards."
Cole shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
At first, he thought the black dot in the distance was an enemy tank. But after checking the lens of his binoculars, he realized it was only sticky leaf debris.
But why, after he picked off the leaf debris, was that black dot still getting bigger and bigger?
"Mr. Cole."
A voice came urgently through the communication line.
"Headquarters ordered us to retreat immediately. We are about to run into the Spaniards. If we do not leave now, the Air Force will hit us by mistake."
The next moment, several aircraft streaked across the sky above Cole.
But the more he looked at them, the more he felt something was off.
"Are those our planes?"
He frowned.
"They do not look like the Germans' either, do they?"
Cole was not wrong.
The aircraft coming to assist the attack were not German.
They belonged to the German Auxiliary Air Force.
The French Air Force.
"Mur, what do you say we fly this plane to Britain right now?"
Inside a two-seat Potez fighter, the pilot in the rear seat asked half-jokingly.
"Shut up, Muller."
Mur's reply was cold.
"Make that kind of joke again, and I will tear your mouth off."
"You know how ruthless the German intelligence services are. When I went to Paris, I saw with my own eyes how they hung underground resistance members on the Eiffel Tower to bake in the sun."
"They smeared something special on those people to attract crows and other birds to peck at their flesh."
"I sat under the tower for an hour and watched a man get pecked to death while he was still alive."
Mur pulled the plane up, vigilantly scanning the surroundings and checking every cloud bank that might conceal British fighters.
"I was joking, Mur. Really, I was joking."
Muller's voice quickly softened.
"I am not stupid. It is obvious the British cannot hold on much longer, and the Americans are not stepping in."
"In less than two years, Europe will belong to Germany."
"I might as well fly a few more missions, accumulate some points, and exchange them for a genuine German passport instead of this scrap paper I have now."
After saying that, Muller still felt uneasy and added, "Their intelligence agents did not install recording equipment on the plane, did they?"
"Mur, if I get caught later, you have to testify for me."
"Testify for you?"
Mur sneered.
"You know as well as I do. The Germans do not like jokes."
"Watch the left."
His voice suddenly sharpened.
"Your passport is coming."
A British plane emerged from the clouds.
Muller gripped the rear machine gun.
"Pull up. Get behind them."
Before he could finish speaking, gunfire tore through the air.
Rat-tat-tat.
Bullets ripped through the wing, and metal fragments clattered against the glass canopy.
Looking back, Muller saw a British fighter locked onto them.
"Damn British."
He cursed loudly.
"We cannot beat the Germans, but I can still trade blows with you lot."
Mur pulled the aircraft upward, but the British fighter stayed locked behind them like a hungry hound.
Muller laughed while pulling the trigger toward the rear.
His bullets were nimbly avoided by the opponent. Only one or two rounds pierced the other plane's canopy.
He even faintly saw the Englishman raising his middle finger at him.
"Fuck. If you had given me a German plane, I would have shot you down already."
"Stop saying fuck, Muller."
Mur's voice remained tense.
"I am going to dive and get close to that bomber first. We will shoot it down."
"One plane is still one plane. If we do not get one, we will have to bail out."
"Who knows what will happen to our point tally then?"
With that, Mur drove the fighter into a dive toward the British bomber.
The fighter behind them was clearly startled by Mur's suicidal pursuit of glory and poured bullets into the clouds frantically.
The wing was riddled with holes.
The already damaged two-seat fighter was getting closer and closer to the abyss of a crash.
Fortunately, Muller pulled the trigger of the fighter's forward cannon at the same time.
Just one round.
Bang.
The shell struck the bomber's ammunition bay.
The exploding bomber burst into a ball of fire in the sky.
At the same time, life-saving words came through the headset.
"X321, acknowledge if you receive this. We are below you. Lead the British down."
"Damn it, your right wing is hit. It is a miracle you are still flying."
"Fly down. Leave that hound behind you to us."
As they descended, Muller saw a brand-new German fighter climbing up toward them.
With a sharp side pull, the fighter banked, and its bullets seized the opening, piercing the British fighter.
Looking back, Muller saw no parachute.
That meant those few bullets had cost Britain a pilot.
Because of the pressure of points, and even survival, French pilots were often far more reckless than many German pilots.
They engaged British pilots in dogfights while clinging to one simple belief.
Shooting down one plane meant one point.
German pilots rarely held such thoughts anymore, because the Air Force had added an iron rule established by Kesselring.
A pilot's life was above all else.
Every lost pilot meant a vacancy in a combat unit.
That was a loss no number of aircraft could compensate for.
The desperation of the French pilots was not good news for the British.
But the bad news had only been half revealed.
When the air battle first began, the British could still put up reluctant resistance and barely maintain air superiority.
But once the German Air Force arrived, they lost control of the skies in a single morning.
The Black Eagles, once again galloping over Spain, beat them back to their original form.
The situation on the ground was equally grim.
The 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions were repeatedly beaten back when facing Spain's elite 2nd Armored Division.
The difference in equipment was only part of the reason.
The more important reason was that without Hobart, the commander appointed by Montgomery completely misunderstood armored warfare.
Not only did he fail to use their numerical advantage, he weakened it by scattering the tank clusters across the battlefield.
This caused many isolated British tanks to be destroyed by several German-supported Spanish tanks working together.
By the time the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions retreated, their tank losses for that single day were greater than their losses during the entire previous week.
…..
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