France advance Halfaya 9/8/40

[robot]

Halfaya Egypt
9/8/1940
1900 Hours

Well here we are in Egypt ready to advance against the Italians. We have got all our repairs done and have recieved our replacments for the men we lost at Arras. We have been training for the last 4months very hard to prepare our selfs for the battle to come. We must push the Italians out of Egypt at Halfaya pass. This is our chance to cut them off and finish them here in Egypt at this time.

We will begin our move forward with a 3 company front at the north edge of our map. Visability is about 500 feet and it is clear with the wind blowing somewhat. It is not too long before it begins to get dark and the heat of the day has disapated some what. Will begin to turn chilly in another hour or so. Adequate water has been givin out to all our men.

It has been hard to get the men really up as they dont think that the Italians are goin to give us much of a fight . I have been drumming into them for the past month that this is going to be a heck of a fight. The Italians have crack troops goin up against us today.

We will move out against the top two objectives first. Then after they are secure we will move on the two rear ones. I am not really concerened about the southern most one. If we have time and things go well we will try and take it but it is not a major concern of mine today.

Our heavy guns have begun there bombardment and this battle has started. They will hit the ground in front of our 3 companys for at least 15 minutes before we begin our move. I hope this will make the Italians heads down so we can get up close.

Hq: IV Dragoons
Col: Marcelle DuBois Commanding

[robot]

Halfaya Egypt
9/8/1940
1940 Hours

Our shelling of the Italians is working perfectly so far. As we move forward and spot the enemy they are so shell shocked they dont even fire at us. We have managed to move up to with in 150 feet before we are spotted this has allowed us to get the first shots off. Our legioneer squads have managed to take out at least 10 t33 tanks with there grenade launchers. This is while recieving no return fire from there tanks at all.


The extreme southern flank had two heavy MG open up on them a few minutes ago. One squad was almost completely killed and another lost 4 men. We located them and dropped 81mm morters on them this silenced them so we could return fire and chase them away. We eliminated one and still searching for the remnants of the other mg team.

The north wing of our inverted V formation has almost reached the northern objective less then 300 feet to go. A has the left flank of our line and has run into some enemy troops and light tanks.We had to slow the whole movement of our line forward in order to wait for them to clear there area.

The heavy initial bombardment we laid in seems to have routed or killed a lot of the center enemy. Anyways the center has not seen nor had much conflict from the enemy at all. A couple of light tanks have been taken out by them with no losses to our men. Even C on the right flank has not seen much action today except for those 2 MMG teams which were delt with as soon as they appeared.

A lot of our men have gotten there great coats from there packs and I see alot of them appearing even more as the day gets later and the wind has turned some what chilly. I believe if this goes on for another hour or so it will get dam right cold out here on the desert. The wind blows thru the pass from the sea and can turn down right cold.

The men are following my orders to the letter. I had told them I wanted no haste we have plenty of time to accomplish our mission. Take there time and root these guinas out and do as much damage as possible. The battle so far has gone as planned. We will be victorious today for France. Viva La France !!!!

HQ: IV Dragoons
Col: Marcelle DuBois Commanding

[robot]

Halfaya Egypt
9/8/1940
2045 Hours

We have pushed the Italians back far enough for us to capture all three of the forward objectives. Our losses have not been heavy less then 200 men and maybe 3 or 4 pieces of armor.

We have been tearing the heck out of the Italians tho. There losses have to be gettin up close to 1400 men and at lease a 100 of the light tanks they use all the time. Have also taken out at least 25 pieces of Artty.

I have given orders to three platoons of tanks to start a move towards the rear objectives as they can get there faster then our ground troops. In the recon photo you can see how they have already begun there advance on the rear objectives. They took the southern front objective by there selves with no losses and a lot of damage to the Italians as they plowed ahead.

Our goals will be met and we will do it easy it seems as the Italians arent really putting up much in the way of resistence today. We have cut a wide swath thru there lines inflicting severe losses to them in men and equipment. It is a great day for france and all free men in the world today.

Viva La France!!!!!

Hq: IV Dragoons
Col: Marcelle DuBois Commanding

[robot]

Halfaya Egypt
9/8/1940
2110 Hours

Slightly over two hours to put the Italians in full retreat. We beat them and beat them bad. We lost 219 men 2 trucks and 8 tanks. We killed 1760 of there men plus took out 42 pieces of artty and 113 of those little pesky tanks they have. They never realy came at us with any kind of decent tanks that could really hurt us. Our armor was way too strong for what they put up against us today.

If this is all the Italians can muster to go up against us then our tour here in the desert should be a lark. Our heavy tanks took anything they threw at us today and turned it into usless junk. We even blew up there whole Head Quarters today killing I dont know how many high level officers.

Our orders have come down and we will be off for about 3 months then we are to move to Bardia over on the coast in Libya. There we are to set up static defenses and stop any advance the Italians may try to make towards Egypt.

Every since our men have come back to the desert where most of them started there army careers the change in morale has been tremendous. I would say morale has went up at least 80 percent since we set foot on land down here. It was very hard to witness what the Germans have been doing to our homeland. All we can hope is to one day be strong enough to go back and push the hated Nazis out of our homeland and to once again free Paris.

HQ: IV Dragoons
Col: Marcelle DuBois Commanding