Chapter 284: Rommel

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“You should all receive a medal,” Rommel said to the young commander of the 88mm cannon beside him, looking at the wreckage of an Anglo-Fren

“You should all receive a medal,” Rommel said to the young commander of the 88mm cannon beside him, looking at the wreckage of an Anglo-French coalition plane burning on the riverbank not far away.

“We just did our best to fire on the enemy,” the young officer said shyly, scratching his head.

As they were speaking, an off-road vehicle stopped not far away, and several officers got out and walked over. One of them was the staff officer who had left an hour before.

“General! Your corps headquarters has already crossed the river. They are looking for you everywhere,” the staff officer said as he brushed the dust off his body.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, brave soldiers. Good luck to you,” Rommel said, turning to say goodbye to his new friends. He then took a few steps, turned back, raised the camera hanging on his chest, and took a precious photo of the soldiers.

After taking the picture, he waved the camera in his hand at the soldiers and said with a smile, “If you don’t object, I will send this photo with my personal signature to the Greater German Newspaper.”

After speaking, he jumped into the open-top off-road vehicle amidst the cheers of the soldiers and drove away with the several officers. Following this off-road vehicle were several trucks fully loaded with supplies and equipment. These were all the supplies for the 7th Panzer Corps headquarters.

“The reason we were able to advance so quickly is not solely our own achievement,” Rommel said, having witnessed the combat of the other branches, which had left a deep impression on him. “I think the people of Germany should also remember their contributions.”

He was absolutely right. To ensure the advance speed of the German armored forces, the pilots of the Stuka bombers only rested for 15 minutes each time they returned to base—this was the time they waited for the ground crew to re-inspect and rearm their planes. Then they would take off again to destroy the enemy forces that were assembling in an attempt to counter-attack.

And the German combat engineers had created an engineering miracle. They had unloaded tons of equipment from trucks and trailers with simple tools and then had assembled it at the fastest possible speed. A combat engineer battalion had connected the steel cables and fixed the barges on the other side of the wide river in just 38 minutes. They had worked frantically, sweating profusely in the cold river water, and had finally completed the erection of the pontoon bridge in time.

On another front, the logistics troops were frantically pushing their transport capacity to the limit. They had tied wire baskets, removed from the front of bicycles, to the outside of their trucks to transport a few dozen more barrels of gasoline at a time. Even the signal corps were required to carry two more barrels of gasoline on their motorcycles to relieve the pressure on the logistical supply. Behind the tanks in the rear were piled several barrels of spare gasoline to ensure that the entire unit, in the process of continuous advance, could still push forward another hundred kilometers even if it were cut off from its supply.

And the infantry, who were silently and tirelessly marching, had not slacked off in the slightest. They carried heavy ammunition, with their rifles and steel helmets on their backs, their sleeves rolled up, trudging through the ice and snow, often marching through the night, advancing dozens of kilometers every day just to cover the vulnerable flanks and rear of the German armored forces.

These units had silently contributed to the glorious combat record of the German armored forces. They were not highly regarded, nor were they talked about with relish, but they had indeed contributed their strength to Germany’s victory and were an important part of Germany’s invincible and powerful army.

“General, a few minutes ago, our forward reconnaissance units engaged the French. We broke through their defensive lines and have several thousand prisoners,” the staff officer said with a light smile, indicating his agreement with Rommel’s view. He then handed Rommel a piece of intelligence and, pointing to the text on it, said, “The French have no will to fight and are retreating on a large scale.”

“Don’t make camp!” Rommel said with a wave of his hand as the car swayed. He pointed to the map spread on his knees and said to his staff officer and other officers, “We will rush to this location as soon as possible. When we stop to rest in a bit, you go to the command vehicle behind us and send a telegram to the armored units in front. Tell them not to stop, to continue the attack! I am right behind them!”

“Contact the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division. Ask them what they are doing. They should have captured this village half an hour ago, but they still haven’t acted!” he said to an officer sitting in the front row of the off-road vehicle. “If they have encountered resistance, have them report the enemy’s strength and equipment so I can support them.”

“I understand,” the officer nodded.

“Give me the radio,” he said, beckoning to the signalman in the third row. “Tune the channel to the regimental headquarters of the 1st Regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division.”

The soldier immediately handed the headset and microphone to Rommel. He grabbed it, held one earpiece to his ear, and then, holding the intercom, began to call. “This is L, this is L. A, please respond. Please respond.”

“Heil Führer. This is A command. We are advancing,” the voice of the commander of the 1st Regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division came through the headset.

“I command you to maintain the attack! I will arrive at your command post in an hour and a half! By the time I get there this afternoon, your troops must be resting and reorganizing in the village of Corroy, no matter how many French troops are in front of you. You must get there.”

“As you command! I will keep advancing! But you must help me arrange for fuel supplies,” the 1st Regiment commander on the other end said with a laugh. “My men can’t push the tanks forward.”

“Chief of Staff, contact our supply detachment and get the fuel to the 1st Regiment!” Rommel said loudly to his chief of staff beside him. Seeing the chief of staff nod, he continued into the intercom, “There is no problem with the fuel. Your troops are to continue the attack!”

After speaking, Rommel dropped the headset and pointed to the fork in the road ahead. “Stop.”

The car and the trucks behind it came to a stop. Rommel looked at his officers and said, “Go and take care of business! The mission I just assigned! Then wait for me at the regimental headquarters of the 1st Regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division. I’m going upstream to see how the grenadiers’ river crossing is going.”

“General! There are still scattered French troops in this vicinity! You can’t take the risk,” his chief of staff said with a frown.

“That’s why I brought a guard!” Rommel said, pointing to the only guard in the car with a long rifle. The guard looked at his general and then at the chief of staff, embarrassed, not daring to speak.

“You and you! Get in the car with the general! No matter what happens, bring him back safely!” After finding two soldiers with G43 rifles from the truck behind, the chief of staff finally and helplessly agreed to Rommel’s decision.

The car quickly started up again. At the fork in the road, Rommel’s car left the main road and turned onto a small forest path, heading toward another pontoon bridge upstream, from which thick smoke was rising.

Soon, the out-of-contact 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division was found. They had been blocked on the road by a herd of dairy cows belonging to the local residents. No one would have thought that what 5,000 French soldiers setting up a defensive line along the river had failed to do had been accomplished by twenty stubborn dairy cows.

The final solution was one that made people not know whether to laugh or cry. The SS battalion commander had taken out all his cash and given it to the owner of the cows, and then, amidst the cries of the Frenchman, had ordered all the cows to be shot, and the tanks of this battalion had been able to continue their advance.

“Our troops have already advanced to the designated position, driven a squad of French defenders out of the village, and are now preparing to continue our advance,” the battalion commander reported the situation there and then continued on his way with his troops.

And at another river crossing, due to chaotic command and a StuG III that was stuck in the mud on the riverbank, the crossing speed of Rommel’s motorized infantry division was extremely slow. Rommel’s arrival changed this situation. He immediately jumped out of his car and, with his guards, went to help push the tank. By the time he, covered in mud, had gotten the tank out of the large pit, the captain who was shouting orders to the pushing men finally recognized his general.

Then, Rommel, covered in mud, stood at the head of the pontoon bridge and directed traffic, as slovenly as a grunt. But the traffic miraculously resumed, and the troops’ cars and armored vehicles rumbled across the pontoon. All the soldiers in these vehicles saluted Rommel and shouted “Heil Führer.”

The river crossing operation of the 7th Panzer Corps continued. Rommel and his men left in a hurry, and when the last military vehicle of the 7th Panzer Corps had crossed the pontoon, they were a full 45 minutes ahead of schedule.

When Rommel arrived by car at the regimental headquarters of the 1st Regiment of the 2nd SS Panzer Division in the village of Corroy, everyone was dumbfounded by the general’s adventurous behavior. There was a cut on his face, which, according to him, was because a piece of shrapnel from a French shelling had grazed his cheek.

And in his car, there were actually two French prisoners. These two had been routed by the German army on the riverbank. They had been hiding in the woods, hoping to escape back to the French-controlled area. But their luck was really not very good. In the process of escaping, they had been discovered by Rommel, and then had been captured and brought along.

After a simple bandaging, Rommel once again stood on the dangerous front line, personally commanding the tanks of the 1st Regiment to repulse the French infantry’s attempt to retake the village. He personally drove a tank and was once again almost hit by a shell. The vibration from the close-range explosion had slammed his eye socket into the commander’s periscope. When he got out of the vehicle, he had to have his eyebrow and the corner of his eye bandaged again.

“Our General Rommel is everywhere! Therefore, we will be victorious!” a captain wrote in his diary. “Besides sending the Führer to save Germany, God also sent a great general. We are proud of him!”