"Blasting! Hidden ..."

With a shout, Major General George Patton was suddenly knocked into the snow in England. His big nose was still hit by the cold snow, and then he heard a loud "rumbling" sound, followed by a few sporadic roars.

This is the main gun that a German-class armored ship anchored at the mouth of the Tyz River is firing and bombarding. It is not bombarding Patton, but bombarding the British army that was digging trenches 2,000 outside the front.

The British and American coalition forces have arrived at the German bridgeheads on the British Isle - Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. Both port cities have been completely occupied by the Germans. Now the Germans have set up defensive positions outside the city, and several large ships have entered the Tyz River to serve as floating turrets.

Montgomery, who was cautious in using troops, did not dare to launch an attack immediately, but chose to dig trenches outside the two cities to set up an encirclement, as if he was preparing to fight a position. He also requested the mobilized train guns to the Middlesbrough-Hartelpool front.

General Patton's 2nd Armored Division was no longer available. It seemed that he had no chance to compete with the German tank corps in the field. He wanted to use the tank group to attack Montgomery outside Middlesbrough but he did not agree.

So I could only go to the front line near Middlesbrough to smell the smoke, but unfortunately I was always knocked down by a timid big guard.

The somewhat annoyed general suddenly pushed away the guard pressing on him, and cried and cried: "Bastard! Coward! What's the point of fearing for German shells? We came here from thousands of miles to lie in the snow to avoid Nazi shells? You coward, you should go back to the United States and hide under your mother's bed..."

While he was cursing, an American jeep was speeding nearby, and a three-star lieutenant general who looked a bit old-fashioned and dull was Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell.

"George, you're cursing people again, it's not good!" Stilwell was a little angry, "If the war correspondents were asked to expose your behavior, you don't think about commanding the Second Armored Division again!"

Patton's bad temper is well known in the US Expeditionary Force. Not only can he curse people, but he will also hit people when he really gets angry. Several times he was discovered by reporters who followed the army and reported it out, causing a lot of trouble.

"Let those damn war correspondents go to see the hell!" Patton shouted, "I don't believe that the German generals on the other side who always win battles are all good-tempered. We are generals, not clergymen. How can we not scold people? We have to make the soldiers below afraid of our bullets that we are better than the enemy... These are taught in the military academy. Joseph, have you forgotten?"

Stilwell shook his head repeatedly. Although he had a lot of objections to Patton's hot style, he had to admit that the Second Armored Division brought out by Patton was definitely a good unit - being a general cannot be too good at being a good man.

Stilwell waved his hand: "Okay, okay, say less, keep this strength and beat the German guys!"

"What? Are you going to beat the German guy?" Patton stopped losing his temper immediately and asked with a smile, "Mongomery finally figured it out?"

"It's not that Admiral Montgomery figured it out, but that London's pressure has come!" Stilwell lowered his voice, "The Germans issued a Cairo Declaration, and offered some deceptive conditions..."

"I understand, the British will surrender soon. So what should we do? Do we have to make peace with the Germans and then go to the Pacific to concentrate on fighting the Japanese devils?" Big Mouth Patton shouted loudly.

"George!" Stilwell shouted, then looked around and didn't notice his British friend, and he was relieved.

In fact, all the generals and schoolmen in the US Expeditionary Force knew that the British mainland could not defend it - this would be impossible to see that the West Point Military Academy had not been in vain for those years? The current British mainland is no longer a springboard for the United States to counterattack Europe, but a bargaining chip for negotiations between the United States and Germany. If the Germans had not agreed to betray Japan, Roosevelt would have ordered the withdrawal of troops and returned to China.

But everyone knew it in their hearts, but they didn't even say it. Only Patton, the big mouth that could not control, was poisoning everywhere.

"Now, an exciting victory must be fought!" Stilwell quickly turned the topic to the issue of war, "George, do you have any ideas?"

"The attack must be taken immediately!" said Patton. "Immediately, immediately, it is best to start the preparation of artillery fire in five minutes. Don't worry about the German warships on the Tees River, and don't wait for the 12-inch train cannons that don't know when they will arrive."

"But the loss in this way will be huge." Stilwell shook his head.

"Hey, when is it now? How can you still care about the losses?"

Patton looked at Stilwell with some worries. He knew that this guy was very stubborn. Although he asked him for advice from him, he would definitely not listen.

But Big Mouth Barton still said to Stilwell: "The Germans also have transport fleets. Their strength in Hartelpur and Middlesbrough is increasing every day! And the time is on their side. As long as the weather gets better, it will be difficult for us to escape. So it is better to fight early than to fight late. If I were asked to command, the attack would have begun... Joseph, now we must ignore the losses and not consider winning or losing."

"Don't consider winning or losing?" Stilwell, who had served as the head of the department at West Point Military Academy, was stunned when he heard this. Can he ignore winning or losing in a war?

"That's right," Patton nodded, "I'll lose early and run away early... If we drag it here for another 2 months, then his m's will not be a problem of defeating the battle."

The spring equinox will be almost here for another two months. The polar night turns to the polar day, the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, and the Norwegian seas are also full of good weather. At that time, the German fleets and planes will reoccupy the oceans and the sky, and the tens of thousands of American troops trapped in Britain have nowhere to run.

So no matter whether you lose or win, you have to achieve a result as soon as possible!

Patton's words are all hard truths, and Stilwell can understand as long as he thinks about it, but if such political incorrectness is not correct, he dare not talk to Montgomery.

"So...if we start the attack right away," Stilwell asked, "how should we fight?"

Patton raised his finger and pointed directly in front of him, saying, "About 5 kilometers is the most important railway/highway bridge on the Tees River, and the throat of traffic between Hartelpur and Middlesbrough. A few days ago, the German tiger tanks went south from there to threaten the rear of the Middlesbrough defenders and forced them to retreat.

If we want to launch a counterattack, we should first regain the bridge and cut off the road traffic between Hartelpur and Middlesbrough. Then we dragged the 5.5-inch cannons along the highway (the road leading to the bridge) onto the embankment of the Tizzi River, and then pushed the embankment downstream to the German warships at the mouth of the Tizzi River for a few kilometers... I have consulted the officers of the British coastal defense artillery. Now the German battleships are not the German battleships, but the 10,000-ton pocket battleships. The deck armor is relatively thin, and it has a certain chance to injure it with 5.5-inch cannons. As long as the German pocket battleships leave, we will have the opportunity to counterattack with overwhelming force and firepower.

Of course, if the Germans transferred their Hindenburg-class battleships to the mouth of the Tyz River. Then, hehe..."

Although General Patton could not speak, he still had the rules of fighting, so the plan he proposed was soon adopted by General Montgomery.

On the afternoon of January 9, in the midst of a storm, the British two infantry brigades (in fact, only one regiment) and an armored brigade, as well as an American tank regiment, began to advance from both sides of the Tees River toward the bridge.

...

On the north bank of the Tiz River, a town called Stodonk happened to block the main road from the northwest to the Tiz River Bridge. When the German army occupied the bridge on January 3, they also took the town down and used it as a frontier stronghold.

When the British and American coalition forces began their attack on January 9, a reinforced company-level cluster commanded by Captain Otto Scholzne (a paratrooper company strengthened one self-propelled anti-tank gun platoon, one recoil-free gun platoon and one combat engineer platoon) was stationed here.

They drove from Hartelpool on January 4 and spent a few days deploying defenses. They transformed many solid buildings in the town into defensive strongholds, buried mines outside the town and dug anti-tank traps.

"Tank! Captain, that's the British Churchill tank... No, why don't there be a turret?"

"It should be the Churchill tank destroyer! The British also learned from us, turning the Churchill tank into a tank destroyer. Our Tiger tank will meet our opponents."

After the artillery fire of the British and American coalition forces was completed, Otto Scholzne, together with Lieutenant Heinrich Eile, the platoon leader of the self-propelled anti-tank gun platoon, boarded a church that had just been bombed by cannons, raised his telescope and began to observe the situation on the front line.

On the snow about four or five kilometers away from the town, dozens of tanks were in formation, and hundreds of infantry were also forming teams behind the wide tank bodies.
Chapter completed!