noffsinger Chapter 250 The Middle East War Begins
Chapter 250 The Middle East War Begins
On September 1944, 9, a coup took place in Turkey. The Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Army, General Alayi, suddenly sent troops to surround the presidential palace and imprisoned President İsmet İnönü. Then, together with the Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish Army, he launched a coup, quietly opened the border with Greece, and secretly allowed the German 11th Army to enter Turkey. Then, he forced İsmet İnönü to sign an alliance treaty with Germany, and Turkey officially joined the Allied Powers.
Turkey maintained meticulous secrecy during this operation, including the German 25th Army's entry into Turkey and its deployment alongside the main Turkish forces to the Turkish-Syrian border, a move conducted entirely at night. The US, UK, and other embassies and intelligence agencies in Turkey were completely kept in the dark. The Germans even secretly reached an agreement with the French Restorationist Governor-General in Syria, allowing the combined German-Turkish forces to enter Syria and move toward Iraq along the Jordan River. Finally, the anti-French colonial guerrillas in Syria, the Kurdish National Autonomous Guerrilla Army, unexpectedly discovered during an attack on colonial forces inside Syria that they were attacking a well-equipped German force.
The US and UK were stunned by the intelligence the Kurdish National Salvation Army had risked their lives to relay. A British-Indian and British-Australian force was about to rest in South Africa, so they quickly airlifted it to Iraq. Simultaneously, US and British forces in Sudan and Ethiopia were urgently mobilized, crossing the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia, a country with close ties, and then on to Jordan and Iraq. The US Fifth Army and the British Third Army in Tunisia also began boarding ships and urgently crossed the Mediterranean, planning to land reinforcements at the port of Fahai in Palestine.
Eisenhower urgently ordered Kuang Zhengqi's Second Expeditionary Force to move north quickly and attack northern Egypt. Almost at the same time, the US Second Army and the British Eighth Army split into two routes, one heading straight for Benghazi, the other crossing the Libyan Desert and directly attacking the important border port town of Salloum between Egypt and Libya!
On September 9, the German Afrika Korps' 18st Tank Corps broke through the Sinai Peninsula, crushing the British 4th Army's defenses in Jordan and Palestine, and advancing directly towards Jerusalem and Amman. Almost the same day, the British 8th Army captured Benghazi, and the defending Italian troops surrendered. On the 19th, American troops captured Salloum and then joined forces with British troops arriving from Benghazi, advancing eastward along the coast toward Matruh, another important Egyptian Mediterranean city.
In southern Egypt, Kuang Zhengqi's 2nd and 7th Armies advanced like a tiger descending from a mountain, unstoppable. In less than a week, they advanced like a whirlwind to Minya, pressing directly into the heart of Egypt. Italian defenders along the way surrendered, raising white flags one after another. This forced the expeditionary force to halt its advance, accept the surrender of the Italians, confiscate their equipment, and properly relocate them.
Wang YW had never experienced such an easy battle. Initially, the 2nd and 7th Armies split into two groups, advancing northward in columns along both sides of the Nile. Later, the troops moved more like a march, with no trace of a battlefield. The 7th Army's vanguard, the 74th Armored Division, even captured several key towns in a single day without firing a single shot. Following the German withdrawal, the Italian troops immediately formed up and awaited the Allied arrival. After negotiating their surrender, the Italians formed neat lines, excitedly singing military songs, and marched south along the Nile River to the coordinated receiving station with a complete air of victory.
The newly arrived US and British forces in Palestine faced a difficult situation. German-Turkish forces suddenly appeared on the Qal'an Heights and bombarded Safed and Great Bare with a barrage of artillery fire, attempting to seize Lake Great Bare and cut off its water supply. A Turkish division, assisted by a German tank battalion, quickly advanced on Safed, capturing the town in record time. The main force of the German-Turkish forces had already reached Irbid, Jordan, where they were engaged in fierce fighting with the Jordanian Royal Guard and a British infantry division.
At this point, the British landing force consisted solely of two motorized divisions from the 12th Army. The tank and armored divisions of the 3rd Army were still awaiting engineers to clear a path. After all, Haifa's harbor was too small, accommodating only small 500-ton landing craft. A major British landing would require more transport and time. The US landing force was forced to urgently divert, attempting to find a nearby area along the coast for a forced landing.
However, the landing operation of the US and British forces on the coast of Palestine was soon discovered by the German, Italian and Turkish Air Forces. A large number of enemy planes flew over like locusts and bombarded the landing fleet.
On the 20th, two large-scale offensives took place in Egypt.
At Matruh, the US and British forces encountered stiff resistance from the elite Italian 5th Army and the German 33rd Panzer Division. Occupying advantageous terrain and backed by heavy coastal artillery, they repeatedly repelled British attacks.
As night fell, the German 33rd Panzer Division, taking advantage of the cover of darkness, suddenly appeared southwest of Matruh and launched a surprise attack on the US-British coalition forces. The attacking US II Corps' armored units were particularly devastated. In just 2 minutes of fighting, the US lost nearly 30 tanks and armored vehicles, and the battlefield was filled with thick smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder.
The Germans then quickly retreated into the fortified concrete fortifications. Using an underground tank tunnel within the fortifications, they suddenly detoured southward, emerged from the hidden passage, and launched a covert attack behind the American lines, defeating the 2nd Army Tank Division's counterattack once again. The American troops lost over 50 tanks, and morale was severely damaged.
在明亚东岸，王 YW 第 7 集团军先遣队 74 装甲师也陷入了德军第 5 坦克师的伏击圈。尽管有从第 2 集团军调过来的经验丰富的坦克教官指挥，但 74 师仍损失了 30 多辆坦克，被迫暂停向明亚城东方向的推进。
Kuang Zhengqi rushed to the front and held a brief but tense meeting with General Wang YW. After careful consideration, they decided to leave the 114nd and 82rd Brigades of the 83th Army to siege Minya, while the rest of the 2nd Army would pass through Minya and advance north along the riverbank. On the east bank, the 36th and 74th Divisions of the 75th Army would continue to hold off the German 5th Tank Division, while the 7th Army would quickly make a detour northward.
Kuang Zhengqi predicted that the main German force on this front would be the 5th Tank Division. The key to victory in this battle lay in the swift capture of Samalut and the severing of the German-Italian coalition's retreat route to the south. He estimated that if he could destroy the enemy's 5th Tank Division's logistics support, cut off its retreat route, and ultimately eliminate it, there would be no significant German or Italian resistance within a 300-kilometer radius to the north.