The decisive battle against the Third Reich

With a roar, Colonel Bennett set off with his flying wing.

The British Air Force lost more than a hundred fighters in the last naval battle, which can be said to be their heaviest loss since the North African campaign began.

Originally, because of this heavy casualty, the British Air Force had to keep a low profile over North Africa for a period of time... Germany transferred the battlefield and the main force of its air force to the Soviet battlefield, which was definitely a good thing for Britain.

Therefore, Colonel Bennett believed that Churchill's strategy was correct, which was to let Hitler and Stalin fight one more time so that Britain could have a chance to breathe.

It is precisely because of this that the British Air Force was able to urgently transfer two air wings from the United Kingdom to North Africa for reinforcements, so that the British Air Force continues to have five air wings in North Africa with more than 400 fighters of various types.

Among them, there are two air wings on the island of Malta, which are mainly aimed at the 24th Air Wing originally deployed by the German army in Sicily... Two air wings against one German air wing, which is enough to keep the British army in the air Advantage.

The other three aviation wings are deployed in North Africa, targeting the German 27th Air Wing in Tunisia and bombing and combating the German Gabes defense line.

In fact, Bennett believed that this was completely unnecessary. The British army only needed three air wings plus the US air wing, and the cooperation of two aircraft carriers was enough to suppress the German air power in North Africa and gain air supremacy.

In other words, the UK did not originally need to transfer air wings from the UK mainland, as long as it maintained such combat effectiveness.

But the British still did it... They traveled thousands of miles and spent all their efforts to move two air wings over even though the Germans had blocked the Strait of Gibraltar. However, they actually did not perform much in the Battle of Sicily. .

The reason is that the British army does not want to be outmatched by the huge air power of the United States.

But does Britain still have the power to compete with the United States?

Bennett didn't know, all he knew was that he hoped to end the war as soon as possible and go home to his family.

"091, 091... Please answer when you receive it!" A call from the command center came from the communication device.

"I am 091, please reply!"

"Report your location!"

"Uh..." Bennett adjusted the shape of the fighter plane and then looked outside the cabin. A bunch of warships and transport ships vaguely appeared not far ahead.

"We are flying over the fleet!" Bennett replied: "We will reach Syracuse soon!"

"Very good!" the headquarters replied: "It's going to get light, be ready for battle!"

Bennett responded, and then gave the order to his subordinates: "Get ready for battle!"

A bright light suddenly shone from the east. The sun rose from the sea level in the east. The ground seemed to light up instantly. The warships and transport ships on the sea were bathed in the sun and rose and fell with the waves. Bennett saw the deck. Several British soldiers were waving to them, while bursts of gunfire and explosions came from Syracuse on the other side.

Then, Bennett heard the excited shouts of his subordinates: "It's time to perform, let's show off to the Germans!"

"Hey!" the British pilots responded with cheers.

However, at this moment, a plane suddenly swooped down from the clouds, followed by a burst of "ta-ta-ta-da" fire, and two fighter planes plumped black smoke and fell towards the sea.

"Yellow 14" Bennett couldn't help but screamed loudly when he saw the number of the fighter plane: "Damn it, why is he here?"

There is a reason why Bennett is so surprised. "Yellow 14" is the car of German ace pilot Marceiu. He belongs to the German 27th Air Wing. He should be in Tunisia at this time, and Tunisia is at least 100 kilometers away from here. It is impossible for the BF109 with a maximum range of 350 kilometers and only 700 kilometers to appear here.

Then Bennett felt that something was not good. If "Yellow 14" appeared here, then the German 27th Air Wing...

Just as he was thinking about it, fighter planes with black cross marks sprayed on their wings appeared from the clouds. They swooped down at high speed with a piercing roar, and at the same time they fired rows of bullets with green smoke from the wings. , where the bullets passed, injured British fighter planes dropped out of the formation.

"Damn it, Germans!" Bennett shouted while pulling up the nose of the plane to fight: "We are ambushed, fight freely!"

When Bennett's fighter plane passed through the clouds, he discovered that the enemy's fighter planes were much more numerous than expected... because he saw Italian "Markchi" fighters and BR.20 bombers.

Montgomery, who was commanding operations at the headquarters on the island of Malta, jumped out of his chair like a pinprick when he received the news that his fleet had been ambushed by a German fleet and that it was most likely the German 27th Air Wing.

Montgomery soon realized that the Germans had secretly moved Tunisian fighter planes to Sicily.

Montgomery guessed correctly. Just when the German army launched a counterattack, the 27th Air Wing in Tunisia set off... The German counterattack focused all the attention of the British army on Sicily.

Moreover, in order not to attract the attention of the British army, the 27th Air Wing also made a large circle at sea: from Tunisia to Sardinia, and then from Sardinia to southern Italy.

The reason why they had to fly to southern Italy instead of Sicily was because most of the airports in Sicily had been bombed to a great extent by the Allies, and large-scale landings of fighter planes were likely to be discovered by the enemy and bombed again.

As a result, the German army deployed two air wings in Italy, and together with the two Italian air wings, its strength even exceeded the two British air wings deployed in Malta.

After thinking about it, Montgomery asked: "Why did they choose to intercept the fleet?"

De Gangan replied: "This may be just a coincidence! Maybe they hope to get there before we attack the German Armored Division..."

"No!" Montgomery shook his head: "They can wait until we launch an attack on the German armored divisions. They do this because... the navy is also their target!"

Montgomery was right, because at this time, a melee was taking place over the Syracuse fleet: various types of fighters and bombers from Germany, Britain, and Italy were mixed together, making it dazzling.

Of course, the fleet was also prepared for air defense, but they found that their anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns didn't know where to shoot... because they couldn't tell which of the fighters in the air were theirs and which were the enemy's, Stuka, Spitfire , Hurricane, BR, March...

"God!" Lieutenant General Tovey, the commander of the British Navy, couldn't help but screamed: "We are simply helpless and can only watch the bombers dive towards us!"