"The highway has seen people driving away from the city, and more and more vehicles are ......"

"People are scrambling for groceries, hoarding food and other necessities, some stores are looting, food rationing is difficult to maintain, and the prices of some non-government-priced goods have skyrocketed. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info"

"There are local councillors who ask to check the combat readiness of local air defense facilities, but damn it, there are hardly any anti-aircraft guns there - it doesn't work, not many people in the National Guard will use them."

"Some lawmakers are demanding that the president make a public statement and declare a state of emergency, and mobilize all available military forces to the east coast to defend against the invasion."

"Major shipyards, steel mills and other enterprises have demanded additional defense forces to prevent normal production from being affected, and at the same time, the government has ordered workers not to leave their posts without authorization."

"Some reporters are verifying the losses of naval vessels in the past six months, and they are even contacting the families of the officers and men who have served on those ships, asking them whether they have received letters or death notices recently.

Horikichi's public statement was like a few drops of water blatantly poured into a boiling oil pot, and it immediately splashed everywhere, hurting when it touched.

In just half a day, the chaos in the major cities on the east coast had begun to take shape, giving Roosevelt a headache, and even the British knew about the "Notice", and Prime Minister Churchill sent a telegram saying that Great Britain was willing to stand with the United States to tide over the difficulties, and all British naval officers and men resolutely obeyed the command, but the last sentence revealed his fundamental idea - he asked the United States to help Canada defend this fleet.

Roosevelt frowned, he knew he needed to stand up and give a speech, which would encourage and uplift, and he believed that it didn't matter if the truth was made clear, because the American people were reasonable, this was war, and any threat from the enemy had to be taken seriously. But this indirectly proved that the threat of the Axis Fleet was real - it forced him to devote his forces and military spending to the defense of his homeland. The Joint Chiefs of Staff has made preliminary calculations that if the defense capability of the east coast is to reach the level of Britain, which is not yet the level of Germany, at least $6 billion to $7 billion will be filled into it, and 80 to 1 million troops will be prepared; If the West Coast were to meet that criterion, it would easily break 10 billion. The point is not the money, which is affordable for the more than $50 billion in US military spending in fiscal year 1942, but the materials, personnel, and equipment that follow it cannot be changed for a while -- the United States needs time.

But the U.S. government cannot remain indifferent to the threat, and if a major city is successfully raided by the Axis fleet, it will be too ugly to be slapped in the face. Pearl Harbor was a treacherous attack by the enemy, and the people could understand that the enemy had warned him in advance of the attack on the East Coast, and he did not know how to explain it to the people if something happened again. And lawmakers will definitely put pressure on the White House, although everyone knows that the attack is a small probability event, but no one wants to see their constituency destroyed by the enemy, the world war is so many years, lawmakers can be a lifetime, the two are more important Politicians will be very clear.

As long as the elected-based cornerstone remains unwavering, the $10 billion will have to be spent. At present, the cost of an Essex-class aircraft carrier is $70 million to $80 million, which is equivalent to the United States throwing in 130 Essex-class aircraft carriers for homeland defense at once -- Roosevelt's mood became very bad when he thought of this.

Another piece of news that made his heart soothe was that the war situation in the Soviet Union was very bad, and Stalin sent a request for urgent support through diplomatic channels, and his tone was unprecedentedly anxious and solemn, and there was even a vague hint of such a thing as peace if he did not give it again. Roosevelt didn't believe it, but when this sentence came out of Molotov's mouth, he could imagine that the Russians were having a hard time -- after Baku, the Grozny oil fields were about to be unkept, and the Soviet Union, which had always been an oil exporter, now went so far as to ask the United States for oil, and asked for refined oil by name, which was 1 million tons a month.

Churchill also said that he wanted 1 million tons a month, and Roosevelt wanted to slap the table and scold people when he thought about it: Not to mention that the German blockade is so tight now, that is, Germany has not done the blockade at all, and the number of oil tankers in the United States is not so sufficient -- the output of 2 million tons per month plus the empty load on the way back and forth means that at least 4 million to 5 million tons of oil tanker carrying force are needed, plus the demand of the Asian theater and the African theater, it is impossible to carry 6 million oil tankers at all, but there are still many American oil tankers lying on the slipway. (Author's note: During World War II, the largest oil tanker was more than 20,000 tons, and it must not be compared with the oil tankers of 20-300,000 tons in later generations)

In response to the material needs of the Soviet Union, the Joint Chiefs of Staff held a special meeting, and although some people questioned the continued aid to Stalin, everyone shuddered at the thought of the outcome of the Soviet Union's separate peace deal.

"We cannot easily discard Stalin as an ally." Roosevelt's speech at the conference was profound: "If the Soviet Union is forced to lay down its arms and surrender, Germany's 4 million army forces, 5,000-8,000 tanks, and 6,000 planes on the Eastern Front will be able to immediately free up their hands to attack Britain, and once Great Britain falls, the future of the United States will be bleak." The Russians are relatively incompetent, but at least they are still fighting, even if 5-6 Russians for 1 German is worth it, if they don't change, we will have to sacrifice American lads to change. Do you think it's better to give supplies or lives? ”

No one dared to accept this sentence, so they set a policy to further increase aid to the Soviet Union and asked Britain to send India's supplies to the Soviet Union as much as possible through Afghanistan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff pointed out that the tonnage and steel of ships are now needed everywhere, and in order to ensure supply, only those that are least urgently needed can be cut or postponed, but the specific cuts are still up to the navy.

Aircraft carriers cannot be cut, because they are the core of the operation;

Battleships cannot be cut, because the US Navy has lost too many battleships and is now in dire need of fresh blood to replenish them;

Merchant ships can't be cut, oil tankers can't be cut, because they have to supply the allies.

In the end, the navy thought about putting the place where the knife was moved on the submarine, and they found that the combat efficiency of submarines had begun to decline sharply recently, and it was not cost-effective to build submarines in large quantities: there were very few Axis merchant ships in the Atlantic, and British submarines alone were enough, and the Mediterranean Sea could not enter now, and if they entered, they would die; There are many merchant ships in the Axis, especially oil tankers, in the Indian Ocean, but there is a lack of submarines to use strongholds, and the enemy's anti-submarine forces are very fierce, and the merchant ships of the Axis are walking along the coastline, with great losses and little success; The Far Eastern battlefield was originally the most dynamic place for submarines, but the effectiveness here is greatly decreasing.

After the cooperation and exchanges between Japan and Germany were strengthened, Germany sent a group of submarine personnel to the Japanese Navy, and after receiving sonar, radar, and anti-submarine aircraft from Germany and absorbing relevant anti-submarine experience, the losses of American submarines increased dramatically, but the results of the war began to decrease. In addition to the improvement of anti-submarine technology, Japan has also made a lot of improvements in other aspects, and after the code is replaced, the United States cannot easily decipher the Japanese code; Japan followed the example of the United States in introducing the escort mechanism, Hori Tsukichi removed several merchant ships into light aircraft carriers and put them into escort operations, and the transport ships between the Japanese army and navy were brought under the unified management of the navy; in addition, the US Navy's torpedo problem has not been effectively resolved, and the effectiveness of the submarines has been greatly reduced by the sum of all kinds of factors.

Another reason why the top brass of the Navy cut the target of the adjustment of production tasks to submarines is that the number of submarine forces is actually not small, and after removing the losses, there are currently more than 400 submarines, which is enough for the Far East Theater alone. Another factor that cannot be ignored, but not put on the table, is the rapid loss of experienced officers and men in the Navy, starting with the naval battles in the South Pacific, the loss of naval personnel is quite staggering, and the limited number of personnel will give priority to the replenishment of surface ships

But submarines have never been the mainstream of the US Navy, and it is far from enough to cut these up, and the Admiralty can only frown and continue to go under the knife.

Alaska large cruisers: only the first 3 were built, the rest were canceled;

Baltimore-class heavy cruisers: only the first 4 were built, the rest were cut;

Oregon City-class heavy cruisers: all cancelled;

Des Moines-class heavy cruisers: unfinished design drawings mothballed;

Atlanta-class light cruisers: from the CL96 Reno, the Independence-class was changed to a light aircraft carrier;

Cleveland-class light cruisers: In addition to the 9 ships that have been modified to the Independence class, another 11 ships have also been converted into light carriers.

The Admiralty has made statistics, according to the existing material transportation needs and the enemy's strength to break diplomatic relations, at least 70-80 escort aircraft carriers need to be equipped for the fleet, but due to the huge losses in the early stage, only 15 can actually be used by mid-April, and according to Turner's A+ plan, 12 escort aircraft carriers need to be transferred for operations, and these escort aircraft carriers put into operation are likely to lose 6-8 ships. Therefore, unless it was a particularly important merchant fleet, the navy was reluctant to use escort carriers, at most some old destroyers, who were attacked by a large number of U-boats from the Azores and suffered heavy losses.

Roosevelt had read the data that more than 10 escort aircraft carriers would be built between May and August, but 10 of them were scheduled to be supplied to Britain; The more than 10 Casablanca-class escort aircraft carriers that were formed in August and October were the real use of the US Navy, but the number was still useless, and the overall strength could not be relieved until the beginning of 1944, which was based on the capture of the Azores.

There are a lot of problems, but for the time being, he can't manage so much, and the most important thing is to deal with the attack of the Axis fleet first. (To be continued.) )