The Bombing

"How is that possible!" The Bear responded, "Our planes are still in Italy. And if they were ours, they would be coming from the west, not the east..."

Before The Bear could finish his sentence, two bombers dived down and dropped their bombs on the British defensive lines.

"What's going on?" The Bear was utterly confused.

Before his words faded, two bombs exploded within the British lines, and even Qin Chuan and the others, a kilometer away, could feel the shockwaves.

These were bombs dropped by "Mosquito" bombers. The "Mosquito" aircraft had many variants, one of the more successful being the light bomber... As mentioned earlier, the "Mosquito" was faster than even the most advanced British fighters, and also faster than German fighters, so the "Mosquito" bombers didn't need fighter escorts... No fighter could catch up to them, so they were quite safe.

The drawback was that it only had one bomb bay under the fuselage, and it was quite small... The wooden wings of the "Mosquito" weren't suitable for carrying bombs, so it could only carry one 4,000-pound bomb. Because the bomb was long and tubular, resembling a packed "biscuit," British soldiers called it "the biscuit."

Clearly, the two "Mosquito" bombers had just dropped their "biscuits" to mark the target area for the other bombers... The accuracy of the "Mosquito" bombers was well known, with the most classic example being the "Operation Jericho": six "Mosquitos" conducted a low-altitude bombing raid on the Gestapo headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands. The operation was extremely precise, with the first two planes creating a hole in the building, and the next two dropping incendiary bombs right through the hole, successfully burning a large number of documents and protecting the underground resistance. Such precision wasn't seen again until decades later during the Gulf War.

With the "Mosquito" bombers marking the target, the large waves of medium and heavy bombers following them soon opened their bomb bays and released wave after wave of bombs, whistling through the air and exploding in the British defensive zone. Fireballs erupted one after another, and the ground shook continuously. The explosions kicked up a thick layer of smoke that covered the area like a carpet... No wonder this was called "carpet bombing."

Amidst the smoke, "Mosquito" bombers could occasionally be seen diving down to accurately bomb the vehicles, which were blown to pieces one after another.

The bombing lasted about ten minutes... Over a hundred British bombers, divided into several waves, dropped all the bombs they were carrying.

Qin Chuan thought, at this moment, the British pilots were probably cheering in the air, not realizing that the bombs they just dropped had actually fallen on their own troops.

In fact, most of the German soldiers hadn't realized this either. Just like The Bear, they were all dumbstruck by what was happening... It wasn't until the British planes flew away, and after a long silence, that The Bear turned to Qin Chuan and asked, "Sergeant, did you cast some kind of spell on them?"

Before Qin Chuan could answer, they heard a command: "All troops, attack!"

This was the perfect opportunity to attack... The aerial bombs had already blown away the barbed wire, trenches, and mines in the British defensive lines, and many bunkers hadn't escaped destruction either.

Of course, not all bunkers were destroyed. The British had built their bunkers very sturdily, and they were spread out across the desert, so quite a few had survived the bombing.

But the problem was...

The smoke and dust kicked up by the bombing covered everything, like a sandstorm on the battlefield. The British soldiers inside the bunkers could see nothing but white when they looked out through the firing slits.

In their extreme nervousness, they started firing blindly into the outside world... But this was the worst thing they could do because it gave away the bunkers' locations to the German soldiers, who then threw grenades or explosives through the slits...

Following behind the assault team, Qin Chuan heard one explosion after another ahead of him. Occasionally, a mushroom-shaped cloud of dust would rise in the air... This was the result of the ammunition inside a bunker exploding.

A bunker is an enclosed space, and when an explosion occurs inside, it means that not even a piece of the British soldiers inside will be found intact.

The German assault advanced like a hot knife through butter. They quickly broke through the red line and reached the blue line... Most of the mines between the red and blue lines had already been detonated, some directly by the bombs and others by the shockwaves, allowing the Germans to advance unimpeded to the blue line.

If the British soldiers on the blue line had put up a fierce resistance, the outcome might have been different.

But as mentioned earlier, most of the British troops left in Tobruk were engineers with little combat motivation or skill. Seeing the tide of German soldiers rushing toward them, they could barely bring themselves to pull the trigger, believing that this battle was a lost cause and that they would soon be captured by the Germans. Firing at the Germans would only provoke retaliation.

But perhaps more importantly... News from places like Tengefer and Tugra, where "surrendering meant survival," had already reached Tobruk. And since British engineers were non-combat troops, it wasn't considered shameful to surrender when resistance seemed futile. So large numbers of British soldiers gave up the fight.

By the time Qin Chuan and his unit charged forward, all they saw were groups of British soldiers raising their hands in surrender. German soldiers waved their rifles, shouting at them, herding them out of the trenches, and ordering them to pile their weapons outside and then line up on the other side.

The British soldiers were no fewer in number than the Germans—in fact, the total British forces were several times that of the Germans—but they had completely collapsed under the German attack.

What shocked Qin Chuan even more was that he saw several armored vehicles and tanks within the defensive line...

Of course, this could be because the British were caught off guard, not expecting the Germans to break through the red line so quickly. Or perhaps the engineers hadn't been trained to operate these tanks and armored vehicles.

But whatever the reason, it clearly demonstrated one thing... War is a combination of people and equipment, and neither can be neglected.

"Look!" Werner, who had been the first to charge through the defensive line, spotted Qin Chuan among the crowd. He shouted excitedly, "Our hero sergeant is here!"

Before Qin Chuan could react, he was surrounded by a group of German soldiers who lifted him into the air. Amid cheers, they tossed him up repeatedly.

Qin Chuan could feel the soldiers' excitement and joy—finding light at the end of the tunnel, a last-minute escape, a desperate counterattack...

But Qin Chuan felt somewhat unworthy of this honor because he knew that everything he had done was simply to... survive.