In the early morning of 27 August, according to the change of situation, Rommel boldly divided the landing force into two, and the main force went to land in Victoria Harbor, and he and Gauss took the command headquarters, and took an infantry division, two marine brigades, a heavy armored battalion, and an air wing to land in El Salvador. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

With the exception of 1 escort aircraft carrier, 3 destroyers and several submarines under the surface, there were no protection warships. But Rommel went so boldly, and in the early morning he entered the air defense circle of the main aircraft carrier, and when he heard that Rommel did not go to a safe place but changed his battle plan to El Salvador, even Ozawa was stunned -- this style is more ruthless than the army red deer in China!

Marcal shook his head with a smile and told him: "During the French campaign, Marshal Rommel was still a division commander, and often rushed to the forefront with tanks and armored vehicles; During the Battle of Kungunir, the Führer led his troops to play unescorted operations, and landed on the beach in North Africa under the nose of the British Mediterranean Fleet, and the commander at that time was also Field Marshal Rommel! As the king of our army's amphibious landing, no one can match the fierceness of the style! ”

"But he's all a marshal, is it really good to do this?"

"In fact, Marshal Rommel has always commanded a small number of troops, and I have the impression that the maximum is more than 100,000. The Führer has a joke that it is best to give Marshal Rommel 100,000 to 120,000 troops to ensure supplies, and he can give you the effect of 300,000, and if you give 300,000, the effect is still 300,000 - that is equivalent to a loss of 180,000 ......."

"Ha ......" all the staff officers laughed, and even a bunch of Japanese observers were amused.

The Joint Staff was stunned by the earth-shattering changes in Brazil, and Marshall was so angry that he slapped the table at the meeting, scolded Clark, and then personally sent a telegram to Patton, telling him to immediately go to El Salvador to take over the command of the 5th Army and prepare for a counteroffensive. Eisenhower and other senior staff members now understood that once the German army took El Salvador, whether it could eat the 5th Army or not, at least the contact between the US troops and the front and rear would be interrupted, and not only Roosevelt Jr.'s armored cluster would be exposed to the enemy in the future, but the US troops in Recife would also feel direct pressure.

The second piece of bad news came: "General Hewitt's transport fleet was attacked by enemy air raids, most of the ships were lost, all ships were now abandoned, the officers and men of the navy went ashore and retreated, and General Patton sent 3 battalions of land to cover." ”

Lehi didn't blame Hewitt for anything, the other party just had a transport formation, and it was good to be able to send the Roosevelt cluster to the port safely and land and save the lives of most of the people, so he hurriedly asked Marshall for help: "Be sure to let the army help them retreat safely, these officers and soldiers will continue to transport supplies to the South American theater in the future, of course, I will prepare other ships." ”

Marshall nodded in embarrassment, the Navy's request was not excessive, but in this way, the Roosevelt cluster would have to hold on to Port Seguru for a few more days, which in turn required El Salvador to continue to hold on.

On the evening of August 27, Rommel landed in El Salvador with his troops, and Sauken led the advancing armored troops to attack the preset position of Roosevelt Jr.'s armored group on the first line of Seguru.

In the early morning of 28 August, the Joint Chiefs of Staff received a third piece of bad news from Patton: a large German force had begun to land in El Salvador, and the Salvadoran Army Air Force had lost nearly 90 percent of its planes and was unable to fight at all.

"Immediately send troops there, ask for planes, the more the better."

Admiral Arnold grimaced, unable to utter a word, and only silently handed the Army Aviation battle damage report to Marshall.

Over the past week, the army aviation in the Hawaiian direction achieved certain results: it sank 5 Japanese tankers, 1 escort aircraft carrier, 4 freighters, 7 landing craft, 2 light cruisers, 3 destroyers, severely damaged the opponent 1 escort aircraft carrier and 1 cruiser, A total of more than 140,000 tons (129,000 tons) of enemy ships were sunk (heavily damaged), and more than 70 enemy planes were destroyed (49 were actually killed, half of the pilots were rescued), but the price paid by the army aviation was extremely staggering, with the loss of 517 planes and 4 heavy bombardments (including 389 planes that could not return home), and more than 4,000 personnel (killed and missing).

This is not a small number, not only the nearly 400 four-round bombardment deployed at Pearl Harbor before the war was completely lost, but also more than 100 additional planes were added, and now there are less than 200 B-29s or B-17s that are intact and can still be dispatched on Pearl Harbor (only one-fifth of them are those of HNA), and they can only continue to be reinforced.

Considering that the Army Airlines also lost an additional 103 planes when the Japanese attacked Midway, it is equivalent to the fact that the Army Airlines has lost more than 600 planes since the war in Hawaii.

The losses in the Brazilian direction were even worse, the German attack on El Salvador ate more than 600 aircraft of the army aviation in one go (because many of them were destroyed on the ground, more than 200 crew members were lost), and the army aviation of Recife confronted the enemy's artillery fleet, landing force and carrier-based aircraft, losing more than 200 aircraft, with a total loss of nearly 900 aircraft. So much so that the total number of combat aircraft in Brazil has now dropped to less than 300. The Army has arranged for the redeployment of combat aircraft from the Caribbean, Guyana, Venezuela and Colombia, but due to the destruction of the Salvadoran air base, the maximum reinforcement will be to the Recife region, the first batch of about 400 aircraft.

As for the original plan to arrange 3,000 planes to South America, it was planned to be completed one after another in more than a month, but now it is good, more than 900 planes were lost in 2 days after the start of the war, how should we fight next?

After reading the battle damage report, Marshall and Lehi gasped, and Lehi seemed to remember something, and added: "Hewitt also lost nearly 140 planes yesterday afternoon!" ”

"How many planes did the Germans have?"

"It is estimated that there are 500-600 aircraft in the Rio direction, 700 aircraft in the aircraft carrier fleet, and it is expected to be at the level of 1200-1300 aircraft, and the enemy has probably lost more than 200 aircraft in 2 days, and there are at least 900 aircraft left......"

Arnold's estimate is a bit different, but the answer is basically accurate: the South American Luftwaffe plus the naval aviation transferred by Crank adds up to nearly 500, but the 4 aircraft carriers + 8 escort aircraft carriers of Machar's main fleet are not as many as 700 even if you count the reserve aircraft, only the early 500s, so that the German army has a total of 1,000 aircraft. However, the German losses were not as many as the estimated more than 200 aircraft, only 94 in total, so the remaining aircraft were around 900.

Of course, this is only the number of August 28, and when the 1 air wing in Rommel's hand is deployed on August 29, and the 2 air wings on the main landing force will be deployed in the future, the German army will immediately be able to add 700 new aircraft, and as for the carrier-based aircraft lost by Machar, he is not afraid, in addition to the spare aircraft, he can also make up for the carrier-based aircraft in Lala Kranc, and maintain the full strength of more than 500 aircraft forever......

"We can only grit our teeth and continue to reinforce, otherwise the situation in South America risks a total collapse." Marshall knew that as the main German army began to land in El Salvador, the battle of the army would become more and more difficult to fight, and the calculation was that Patton rushed to El Salvador to control the 5th Army, what could he do with the German ground forces with naval gun superiority and air superiority?

So Arnold could only continue to carry out this order to increase troops: 4 rounds of heavy bombardment were continuously deployed in the direction of the west coast and Pearl Harbor, and now that the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet left Midway Island and began to move south, it could be slightly relieved and slow down in the next few days; Fighters, twin-engine bombers, and attack planes are stepping up to the direction of Recife, even if they cannot guarantee the army's counteroffensive to seize El Salvador, at least they must ensure that they can safely retreat to Recife: there are still nearly 20,000 troops in Port Seguru, and there are still Hewitt clusters that have broken through lightly on the way to El Salvador, and El Salvador has the main force of the Fifth Army, and there are more than 10,000 lightly armed infantry who retreated in a hurry on the way from El Salvador to Recife......

Throughout the day on August 28, the German and American armies engaged in fierce scuffle:

To the south, the Sauken group attacked the Roosevelt Jr. cluster, and to the north, Patton commanded troops to counterattack the Rommel cluster, with aircraft from both sides in position, and the Germans were assisted by artillery fleets.

But judging from the scene, the U.S. military as a whole is at a disadvantage: the Sauken cluster uses the heavily armored division as the spearhead, with strong air superiority as a cover, and forcibly eats Roosevelt Jr.'s headquarters, and the M26 heavy tank, which the latter has high hopes for, proved to be no match for the Tiger 2 equipped with 88mm/L71 tank guns in actual combat, and the German air superiority obviously hurts the Americans even more - when did the American GIs fight a humiliating battle without any air cover?

In order to increase the pressure on the ground forces, the Cranc carrier-based aircraft group also played the trick of "shuttle bombing"; the pilots of the carrier-based aircraft first set off from the Rio base to mount bombs to attack Port Saigolu, and then did not return to the Rio base, which is more than 800 kilometers away, but went to El Salvador or an aircraft carrier 400 kilometers away to land, replenish the fuel bombs and then attack again in the afternoon, and then return to Rio before the evening.

When night fell, everyone in the Chiefs of Staff was devastated: the Army Air Force had replenished 474 planes to Recife yesterday, and after a day of fighting today, it had lost more than 380 planes, which was equivalent to the total number of reinforcements in vain, while the Germans had more planes than yesterday -- in fact, it was mainly because Rommel had an air wing of more than 250 planes around him, and the Germans had lost less than 80 planes.

On the ground, Patton's offensive was defeated, the main divisions of the three attacks lost a total of more than 4,000 men, and the battle line was not only not advancing but was pushed back by 2,500-4,000 meters; And Roosevelt Jr.'s situation was even more miserable, his armored troops lost more than 90 tanks under the all-out attack of German tanks and aircraft, and he was forced to shrink 15 kilometers back as a whole, but even so, the Germans still pounced unrelentingly.

The only good news was that Hewitt's retreating vanguard and the Fifth Army were in charge - they were the lucky ones, and since the German planes were pinned down by the fighting at El Salvador and Porto Seguru, no one attacked them......