Eisenhower took the photo and looked at it, then shook his head and said, "I didn't see anything wrong!"

"Look at its lower left corner carefully!" Montgomery reminded.

"Oh!" Then Eisenhower understood: "When the wooden board was burned through, half of the tire was exposed, this was a fake tank!"

"Yes, a fake tank!" Montgomery took the photo of Jan Eisenhower: "So..."

There is nothing to say about the following words. Germans often play such fake tricks. Rommel played once in Tripoli, and Qin Chuan played once in Sidioma and Matru.

"But why did they do this?" Eisenhower asked.

"The Germans' purpose is obvious!" Montgomery replied: "They are fighting for time so that we will mistakenly think that their main force is in Enna and attack him, so the Germans have time to retreat from the Strait of Messina."

Eisenhower couldn't help but nodded in agreement, and at the same time felt a little embarrassed that he had been fooled by the Germans.

"Silly Germans!" said Montgomery: "They thought I would be fooled! Their behavior just exposed their trump card... The German armored division is undoubtedly in Messina!"

It makes sense that Montgomery would think so, because if the Germans wanted to escape from Sicily, there was only one way to the Strait of Messina:

The port of Syracuse has been occupied by the British army, and the port of Palermo has been blocked by the Allied air force. Only one port of Messina is close to Italy and has a large throughput (the port of Messina is 4,000 to 5,000 tons, several times that of the port of Syracuse). It is no problem to withdraw an armored division in a short time.

Therefore, Montgomery immediately ordered the British Eighth Army to speed up the offensive and must seize the Port of Messina before the German Armored Division escaped, or at least leave half of the German Armored Division on Sicily.

Therefore, the British Eighth Army was even advancing towards the Port of Messina at night.

But what Montgomery didn't expect was that the German army's intention was not to retreat, but to attack.

Among them, only Patton sensitively realized that things were not that simple, but he could not convince Eisenhower and Montgomery to say a few more words... they would even think Patton was exonerating the incompetence of the 1st Infantry Division.

"Fuck it!" Patton cursed with a cigarette in his mouth, "Montgomery, this idiot, will kill us!"

"General!" the staff officer asked Patton: "Do you think the main force of the Germans is Enna?"

"Of course!" Barton replied: "I know the bastards of the 1st Infantry Division, they may often disobey orders, but they are gangsters, do you understand? Although I dare not say that they can beat Germans like murderous machines, they can definitely trample the 3rd Infantry Division under their feet. Now... the 3rd Infantry Division is progressing smoothly, while the 1st Infantry Division is unable to move forward. What do you think this means? Besides, the pilots found the tank there! Tank No. 4!"

"But they said that the tank was fake and it was a bait!"

"Of course Montgomery would say that!" Patton responded angrily: "He just thought about how to let the British and himself take advantage of him! And he is also a 'military genius' in the eyes of the British, and he will never admit that he is a fool!"

"Then what should we do?" asked the staff officer.

Patton gritted his teeth and said, "I want to chew off this Enna Highland and see if it is a fake German tank!"

So that night, Patton organized a landing craft to transport fuel and ammunition overnight, and unloaded ten tanks at the risk of being bombed in the port direction, and all of them were "Sheerman" tanks.

Patton thought to himself that even if the Germans had an armored division, these sixty "Sheerman" tanks would be enough to resist the Germans for a while.

Rommel on the other side called Qin Chuan: "Good advice, Captain, we seem to have deceived the enemy!"

"What does it seem to mean, General?" Qin Chuan asked in confusion.

"It's because I'm not sure!" Rommel replied: "The enemy's reaction was strange. The British accelerated their attack towards Messina, which means they were fooled. But the Americans...they pulled the tank up and built a line of defense in front of us."

"This is not surprising, General!" Qin Chuan said: "This shows that the British believe it, but the Americans do not!"

Qin Chuan knew that this must be General Patton who played a role in it.

Patton is similar to Rommel in some aspects. He is a general who will come to the front line. He even rides a tank himself to open the way for the entire army. As a result, the tank overturns on the side of the road. General Patton is hit with a bruised nose but doesn't care. He still waves his arms and holds a cigar in his mouth, and uses vulgar swear words to instruct the soldiers to advance.

This does not mean that the general must go to the front line in person, but that if a general is completely separated from the battlefield, he will lose some of the perception ability he should have on the battlefield. For example, Patton can feel the danger from Enna, although he doesn't know what this danger is.

"No matter what!" said Rommel. "Although it's a little trouble, the plan remains unchanged!"

However, this was not a minor trouble, because at dawn the next day, the German army discovered that the Americans had occupied the opposite highlands and confronted the Enna Heights, while the tanks blocked the road at the foot of the mountain.

Although Patton was careless, he was not ambiguous when fighting the war. He occupied the highlands and blocked the roads with tanks to prevent the German army from counterattacking. On this basis, it would be much safer to consider launching an attack on the Enna Highlands.

So from the next morning, the US military launched a fierce attack on the Enna Heights.

This time, the 1st Infantry Division was different from before. With sufficient artillery support, there were twenty "Sheerman" tanks specially allocated to them for their coordinated attack, and there were also US bombers.

So as soon as we got up, the sky and the earth were exploding in a chaotic manner. The shells exploded over the high ground for fifty minutes, and the bombers dropped bombs one after another at a time at the back slope that was difficult to bomb. For a moment, the Enna Highlands were blown into a bare mud mountain.

Then, the US soldiers rushed towards the Enna Highland like ants under the cover of firepower of tanks and combustible artillery.

"Go forward, boys!" Major General Alan stood behind the tank and waved: "Go and grab this damn high ground for me, Enna is ours!"
Chapter completed!