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"President, General Nimitz's fleet has arrived in Perth, and General MacArthur has telegraphed back to agree to be appointed Chief of the General Staff urgently. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 "The problem at the moment is that Pearl Harbor is under the siege of the Japanese army, and the Franklin in General Nimitz's fleet can be completely repaired in Australia, but the Wasp must be repaired at the Hawaii Navy Yard, and now the fleet is facing the situation of the combined fleet circling outside Hawaii, and it cannot be docked smoothly, and the risk of forcing it in is too great." ”

This risk is predictable, and at the moment even MacArthur's plane does not dare to fly directly to Pearl Harbor, and it would be a very terrible thing if it were intercepted.

Truman grabbed his hair in distress: "Then what do you say?" ”

"The loss of Christmas Island may be inevitable, and the only viable way is for TF48 to refill fuel and supplies in New Zealand, then make a detour off the coast of New Zealand and then turn northeast, first towards the Galapagos Islands, and then north to California." Turner drew a route, "There is our army's land aviation on the Galapagos Islands, and it is safer to enter the island's air defense circle and the Central American air defense circle, and of course a long detour is inevitable." ”

Looking at the route he sketched on the map, Truman couldn't help but smile bitterly, this is not just a long detour, this circumambulation is almost equivalent to the length of the original shipping line, more than 10,000 nautical miles. Will this fleet be able to withstand it?

As if to see his thoughts, Lehi explained: "The fleet itself can support a voyage of more than 10,000 nautical miles, and you can also go to the Galapagos Islands to replenish it on the way, so there is no need to worry about endurance, the only problem is time." ”

"General MacArthur also returned home on a warship?"

"It's safer."

"So, if all goes well, how long will it take me to see both of them."

"It can take 7-8 weeks." Lehi did the math and gave a number.

"7-8 weeks?" Lehi nodded, "If you're just going to see Nimitz and MacArthur, then it's going to take at least 6 weeks, 7-8 weeks, and I mean the fleet." ”

Transfer from Perth to East Coast and completion of repairs on the Franklin: 1 week;

Arrival in New Zealand and completion of supplies: 5 days;

From New Zealand to the Galapagos Islands: 28-30 days;

Galapagos Islands to California: 1 week

The only time saved was for the two military chiefs to disembark in the Galapagos Islands and take a plane back to the United States.

"Okay." Truman reluctantly agreed, but he was thinking in his heart that in six weeks the situation in the Pacific and South America would not know what it would become.

"After the return of Admiral Nimitz's 2 aircraft carriers and the completion of repairs, the Pacific Fleet will have 2 fleet carriers, 2 battleships and 14 escort aircraft carriers available." Turner made the math again, "If we can take out 1-2 more fleet carriers and 1-2 escort carriers of the enemy in the next air battle, we will have a chance to be evenly matched." At the same time, in the Atlantic we have 2 more Essex class and 1 Iowa-class available. ”

Speaking of the Iowa class, Turner felt a sense of rejoicing, and when Hewitt led the convoy to Port Segouru to drop off the convoy, Turner, who was frightened by the German submarines, insisted that the New Jersey return to the mainland immediately - it was useless to stay in Port Seggurus anyway. Hewitt was upset at the time, but he couldn't resist the joint order given by Turner and Lehi. As a result, before the arrival of the main German fleet, the only battleship on the east coast retreated along the Brazilian coastline under the protection of 4 destroyers and reached the Caribbean Sea, and then returned to Norfolk.

Of course, some people will think that if the New Jersey stays in Port Seguru, maybe the Roosevelt Jr. cluster can last longer, but it doesn't make sense to stay long, and the New Jersey in Port Seguru is also a dead end - a great beach as a fixed battery.

But when Truman turned his gaze to Arnold, he finally broke out: "No, I don't agree to do that!" In the past half month, we have lost nearly 1,000 crews at Pearl Harbor and nearly 1,000 crews in South America (nearly 2,000 aircraft), and the number of skilled crews we have has been reduced to less than 3,000 (excluding the strategic airlift part, which is the result of Arnold letting a large number of novices follow and participate in the attack). Otherwise, not only will the pilots mutiny, but next year you will stop setting up an independent air force and simply abolish the army air force -- because no one will fight. ”

As soon as these words came out, Eisenhower, representing the Army, and Turner, representing the Navy, were silent - and now the two were in a striking similarity, with Ike acting in Marshall's position until MacArthur came to take over, and Turner acting in Admiral King's position until Nimitz came to take over.

But the next second, the two of them opened their mouths in unison.

"Abandon South America for the time being." Turner spoke first.

"Abandon the Pacific air war for the time being." This was Eisenhower's opinion.

"Ike, you can't give up on the Pacific Theater, weaken it a little more, and we'll open up to level the main force of the Combined Fleet - you are the deputy commander-in-chief of the Pacific Theater." Turner bitterly persuaded, "Besides, in addition to Hawaii, we also have Australia and New Zealand!" ”

"No, I am first of all the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Army, and now the situation in South America is more dangerous than in the Pacific. You have said that at the current level of attrition, the Japanese in Hawaii will not be able to defeat it, but not necessarily in South America, the Germans are aggressive, George is too dangerous, even the Clark department in Recife does not dare to say that it is safe. Eisenhower explained, "They are more urgent and need support!" ”

"Hawaii is native, Brazil is just ......"

"Brazil still has more than 100,000 troops, once South America is lost, the next domino will be the Caribbean, if the Germans deploy planes, fleets and even rockets to the Caribbean, will the United States still be safe in the future?"

Seeing that the two were arguing louder and louder, Truman slapped the table fiercely: "Don't quarrel, I'll give you a suggestion." Army Airlines is responsible for Pacific air warfare, and HNA is responsible for supporting the South American Army, how about it? ”

Now it was the turn of the two of them to face bitter melons: it took Truman a long time to figure out that all the better land-based pilots of the East Coast Navy were drawn to the carrier-based aircraft training team by Turner, and although there were many remaining crews and planes, they were all new rookies, and it was simply wishful thinking to expect them to go to South America, and it was almost the same to give them away.

As for the carrier-based pilot, there is no need to think about it at all, Turner will not hand it over if he dies!

"How so? How so? Truman clutched his head in pain.

Li Hai, who had not spoken, sighed: "In this way, I will give a compromise plan: the main force of the army aviation is mainly to maintain the South American battlefield, supplemented by the Pacific air war - the maximum loss of crew per week shall not exceed 100 groups, and the navy will provide another 50 groups, which is equivalent to a total of no more than 150 groups a week, and we will continue to maintain pressure on Japanese oil tankers." ”

Now that Lehi had spoken this, Arnold, Turner, and Eisenhower could only nod their heads in agreement—not the most satisfying, but barely acceptable.

Thinking of Eisenhower's mention of rockets just now, Truman asked with mixed feelings: "What about the situation with German rockets?" What about our rockets? ”

"I can't tell you about this, I'll have to consult Professor Carmen and other experts."

Carmen, who was in charge of the American rocket project, heard the president's call and immediately arrived, but there was not much optimism on his face.

"At the beginning, we found some rocket wreckage in London, and after analysis, we thought that the range of the other side was between 400-500 kilometers, and from the situation of the Brazilian rocket, the range was at least between 600-800, maybe there is more room for improvement. After two comparisons, we believe that Germany has made three improvements in the field of rocketry:

First, the accuracy has been improved, the accuracy of the Brazilian rocket is more than a third higher than that of the London rocket, and we have not yet fully figured out how to do it;

Second, the propellant has been innovated, not only to be safer, but also to improve the combustion efficiency, which is conducive to supporting a longer range, and we have fully mastered the old fuel formulation, and the new fuel formula is still being analyzed;

Third, in addition to ballistic rockets that escaped from the atmosphere, the Germans also developed vehicles for use in the atmosphere, which as a whole resembled an unmanned jet, with high technology content and lower cost. ”

"When will we have the same thing?"

"It could be another 3-4 years."

Von Kármán is embarrassed to explain: "The only progress we have made so far is to bring to life the ideas and designs proposed by Professor Goddard in the 30s and re-experiment with complete success and better results - but this is the state of the art 10 years ago; We made 24 imitations of German rockets in London, made 19 launches, and failed completely nine times - immediately after liftoff or in situ; 7 mid-course failures - after taking off, they exploded or crashed due to unstable attitude after flying for a period of time; Only 3 were successful, but the best one lasted only 47 seconds and covered about 190 km, with the worst being less than 130 km. ”

The British actually fished out a complete V2 rocket from the mud of the Thames, but the three major military leaders unanimously concealed Churchill, let alone handed it over to the Americans, but did everything possible to hide it and prepare to imitate it themselves. The Americans reverse-copied the samples with only some collected wreckage, and their skills were very good. Of course, a lot of money was burned, and more than 300 million US dollars were burned out without much seeing.

Listening to Carmen's report, Truman was a little disappointed, but his face did not show that nothing can be achieved overnight, and even more so with high technology - the capture of the Tiger tank has been there for a long time, and now it can't be imitated? According to the Army, the newly developed M26 and the M26/SP obtained after hybridization are still not the opponent of the German Tiger 2.