The decisive battle against the Third Reich - Chapter 960

c957 Battle of wits and courage

There were screams on the river immediately, people were drowning, burned to death, burned, and those on the amphibious boat were about to sink due to water leakage. There was chaos and calls for help.

But no one could save them, because no one could put out the fire burning on the water. The American soldiers on both sides could only watch their comrades struggling and wailing in the sea of ​​fire.

Only a few of them were lucky enough to swim to the shore. The American soldiers rushed up to put out the flames for them, but even so, they lost half their lives and were about to die… In fact, for both the enemy and us, such wounded people are more beneficial to the German army, because they not only cannot provide combat effectiveness but also need more care and supplies, such as medicines.

The German soldiers cheered, although most of them didn’t know what was going on at this time… They thought it was just an accident during the transportation of the US military, and some even thought it was a mistaken bombing by the US artillery, because the German soldiers knew that their artillery was almost gone and could not provide such firepower, and more importantly, there was no movement of firing shells.

But the soldiers who were directly in charge of the production of “wooden shells” organized by Colonel Becker quickly spread the news one by one:

“That was done by our people. They used the water flow to flow the shells to the enemy’s transportation section of the river, and then there was this “bombing”!”

“It’s a good idea to use the waste shells!”

“Who thought of this idea?”

“God, do you still need to ask this?”

“You mean the ‘legendary sergeant’?”

“Of course! No one else would come up with such an idea except him!”

…

So there was another round of cheers from the German camp.

This is a very strange phenomenon, because no matter who came up with this idea, it actually made no difference. Its result was to hit the US amphibious landing ship force and block the river to cut off the US military’s transportation line.

But this idea was thought of by Qin Chuan, which made the trainees more excited.

Qin Chuan didn’t know how to explain this phenomenon. Perhaps it was a star effect, or perhaps Qin Chuan did not disappoint the cadets’ expectations. What’s more, the cadets believed that no matter what difficulties they would encounter in the future, the “legendary sergeant” would be able to find simple and practical ways to deal with them.

So, in this mentality, they had a winning mentality.

War is sometimes very strange. If everyone believes that they can win this battle in the end, then this battle will really have a little more hope of victory.

On the contrary, if everyone does not think that this battle will win, then it will be very difficult to win.

The baker also had this mentality when he reported to Qin Chuan on the phone.

“They stopped attacking, Lieutenant Colonel!” The baker said, “I knew you would find a way, and they believe this too!”

What the baker didn’t say was… Because they firmly believed in this, they did not lose heart when they were isolated and helpless. On the contrary, they could fight desperately with enemies that were several times stronger.

Otherwise, the Shambher Island would have been captured by the US armored forces at this time.

The news soon reached the headquarters of the 3rd Army Group.

“General!” The staff officer hurriedly handed the phone to Patton and said, “Our transport troops suffered heavy casualties under the enemy’s bombing!”

“Bombing?” Patton, who was bending over and looking at the map, answered without raising his head: “They won’t have any bombing, our artillery and planes have been waiting for them for a long time! Tell them that they can transport with confidence, as long as the German artillery fires one shell, we will return them ten shells!”

“But General…” the staff officer said, “We can’t return it!”

“What do you mean by can’t return it?” Patton raised his head and looked at the staff officer. The first thing he thought of was that these guys must be telling some joke, or today was that stupid April Fool’s Day.

“General!” the staff officer replied, “Their shells were not fired by artillery, but floated down the river from upstream!”

Patton was stunned when he heard this: “Floated down?”

“Yes!” the staff officer replied, “They tied the shells to wooden stakes and threw them into the river… I believe they installed delayed fuses on the shells, which made them explode automatically when they floated to our landing point! We lost thirty amphibious landing ships because of this!”

Patton’s face changed, and then he immediately found the river on the map, walked upstream along the river, pointed to a point, and said, “Little Solsey Island?”

“Yes, Little Solsey Island!”

“These bastards!” Patton couldn’t help cursing.

“Colonel Nathan reported that they didn’t have enough ammunition to attack Shambher Island!” the staff officer continued to report.

“Let the transport team continue to transport!” Patton said.

The staff immediately passed the order down, but soon the staff replied: “Colonel Torres refused to execute this order. He thought it would only cause meaningless casualties!”

“Tell him that this is my order and it must be executed!” Patton almost slammed the table and yelled.

Patton’s order seemed to be justifiable, because he knew what it would mean if the supplies could not be transported… An armored regiment with more than 100 tanks and an infantry regiment landing on the east bank of the Moselle River would not only fail to complete the designated task of taking Chambre Island, but would be surrounded by the Germans due to insufficient supplies.

More importantly, all this was caused by Patton.

When the order was passed to Colonel Torres, he was in trouble.

After thinking for a while, Colonel Torres ordered: “Ten amphibious landing ships in a batch, pass through when the upstream is safe!”

“Yes, Colonel!”

Torres’ method is also very simple. Let several soldiers equip walkie-talkies for reconnaissance in the upstream. When they see that there are no wooden stakes flowing down the river, they will pass the information down, and then ten amphibious landing ships will pass through quickly in this gap.

Although this greatly reduces the transportation volume, it ensures the safety of the amphibious landing ships.

But the situation is not as simple as Colonel Torres thought.

There are constantly wooden stakes floating down from above, some will explode and some will not, and reconnaissance will not work at all…

Qin Chuan does not need to remind this point. It is a method spontaneously thought up by the German soldiers, targeting the US military’s tactics of reconnaissance and then rapid passage.

Simply put, the German soldiers almost kept throwing wooden stakes into the river.

Of course, some are fake and some are real… The fake ones are not tied with shells, and the real ones are tied with shells.

But no one can tell them apart when thrown into the water, and they look almost the same on the surface.

This perfectly illustrates the saying “The higher the virtue, the higher the evil”.

The enemy and our side fought a battle of wits and courage on the battlefield, but it was clear that the German army had the upper hand in this regard.