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On April 6, Roosevelt received two pieces of bad news in the Oval Office:

The first was sent by Churchill, reporting to him the fall of the fortress of Gibraltar, although the telegram clearly stated that he would not be intimidated by this defeat and would resolutely fight the Nazis **** to the end, but Roosevelt had seen that the British were not confident enough;

The second was sent by a spy lurking in Portugal, reporting that the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet had entered the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar and was currently missing.

Although he was skeptical of the second piece of news, Roosevelt quickly summoned the top brass of the Navy to discuss countermeasures. According to the original schedule, Plan A, which was developed under the auspices of General Turner to capture the Azores, would be carried out on April 7-8 after being upgraded to Plan A+, but because the aircraft carrier group led by Spruance was almost completely wiped out and the number of troops to carry out the plan was insufficient, the Atlantic Fleet was forced to delay for ten days and wait for the three British capital ships (two battleships George V and the Radiant to join the Far East) to strengthen the fleet.

As a result, when the British fleet was about to arrive in the United States, the carrier-based aircraft pilots switched to F6F and there was a problem, because the experienced carrier-based aircraft pilots suffered great losses, a small number of old birds were called up as seed instructors, and now more than 90% of the US Navy carrier-based aircraft pilots are rookies, and these new pilots have a solid technique, but they have been trained with F4F, and they will face great difficulties in adapting to F6F in a short period of time if they suddenly switch to F6F.

Both Turner and Admiral King had high expectations for the F6F, believing that the new aircraft would be able to close the performance gap with the enemy aircraft, and as a result, the overall schedule was forced to be postponed for another 10 days, and at the same time, the fleet air fleet was completely adjusted, and the pilots who were proficient in F6F fighters were transferred to the fleet carrier air force, while the pilots who could only master the F4F fighters were placed in the escort aircraft carrier air force, and after some tossing, it was finally agreed to postpone the implementation date of the A+ plan until late April.

Of course, the postponement of the implementation of the plan is not useless, at least the strength of the Atlantic Fleet has been further strengthened: Admiral King detained the aircraft carriers Yorktown (Essex-class) and USS Blaurowwood (Independence-class), which had been promised to the British, and turned around and stuffed the aircraft carriers USS Bunker Hill (Essex-class) and USS Cowbans (Independence-class) to the British. The Blauure Wood was commissioned in late March and the Yorktown was commissioned in early April, and are now undergoing frantic training and sea trials to be ready for the battle later this month. The Bunker Hill was commissioned in early May, and the Cobbens would not be completed until mid-May -- Admiral King had turned the spot for the British into futures, and the Royal Navy's only remaining capital ship had to be commanded by the U.S. Navy to participate in Plan A+.

Admiral King's calculations were very fine, so that he put into the A+ program 5 regular aircraft carriers: 2 Essex-class, namely the Lexington and Yorktown; 2 ships of the Independence class, namely the USS Princeton and USS Browwood, 1 ship of the Radiance class, and HMS Radiance. In addition, two more escort aircraft carriers that have been newly completed and completed sea trials can also be put into use, so that the number of escort aircraft carriers prepared for the A+ program is up to 12 escort carriers, which is unprecedentedly large, and other forces such as the Marine Corps supporting the program can also be more fully prepared.

However, the move of the Japanese Combined Fleet to break through into the Atlantic Ocean has puzzled the US top brass, because they have just received information a few days ago that a large number of transport ships and merchant ships have gathered in the direction of Italy, and it seems that they are loaded with supplies to Japan.

Admiral Ingersoll, commander of the Atlantic Fleet, held back his anger: "What are the Japanese devils doing?" Are they the Imperial Navy or German mercenaries? They don't care if the Far East loses so many islands, and they are dangling in front of us......"

Admiral King, Nimitz, and others were speechless for a while, thinking that the capture of the Aleutian Islands would touch Japan, but they did not expect the Combined Fleet to be unmoved at all -- they could not understand how to lure the Japanese back, and whether they really had to attack the Japanese mainland.

Admiral Kim's brows furrowed and his face turned pale: Originally, he was full of confidence in the A+ plan, but after the combined fleet broke through to the Atlantic, things were not so easy, because the A+ plan was formulated based on the fact that Germany and Italy had no aircraft carriers available, and now there were so many variables all of a sudden, and trouble followed.

Turner was not qualified to attend such a meeting, but because he was the core planner, Admiral King called him anyway, and after a moment of silence, he said: "The Japanese fleet has five aircraft carriers, which has greatly changed the balance of forces and the environment in which the campaign is carried out, and the overall plan will be forced to be postponed again." ”

Roosevelt's heart sank suddenly, and as an assistant secretary of the Navy, he easily calculated the balance of power: on the battleship side, the Allied forces vs Axis was 5:11, and on the aircraft carrier side, the Allied forces vs Axis was 5:5, and Admiral King's strength advantage that he had managed to move around was suddenly neutralized. The only good news was that they had received definite information: German and Italian warships in the Mediterranean had gone to the Black Sea to cover the landing of the army, including three of Italy's cutting-edge battleships Veneto, otherwise the balance of power in the Atlantic would be unbalanced. But one thing they didn't know was that just as they received the information, the Axis fleet, which had covered the landing, had completed its mission and returned.

The Crow's intelligence shows that although it is not entirely clear what the German army is doing on the island, he estimates that the Germans have at least 300 aircraft...... "The Americans do not know who the Crow is, and there are no more than 5 people in Britain who know who the Crow is, this is completely top secret, they only know that the information provided by this person is completely reliable."

This statement was also confirmed by the Lancaster bombers who carried out air raids during the day: they found 3 large airfields and 1 medium-sized airfield in the Azores, not to mention 300 aircraft, which can accommodate 500 aircraft, Portugal, Spain, France and other Atlantic coastal countries have a steady stream of transport ships to the island every day, the Germans are working on the island like crazy, radar stations have been established, and armored batteries have been completed one after another. Although the Lancaster fleet visited day after day, they either did not hit the vital point at all, or they were often just blown up today and repaired the day after tomorrow, which made people very speechless, and for this very inconspicuous change, Britain has lost hundreds of Lancaster heavy bombers and related crews in more than a month, and the losses are greater than the strategic air raids.

The British were depressed, and the Germans were suffocating their internal wounds, which was why Paulus was disturbed that he had taken up so many engineers to conquer the fortress of Gibraltar - if Gibraltar had not been occupied, the construction and restoration of the islands would have taken much faster. Hoffman's decision to halt the construction of the Atlantic Fortress was also due to this factor, and before that, the Atlantic Fortress project was actually impossible to do - all personnel, materials, labor, and engineering equipment were prioritized to ensure the construction of the island.

If the Americans had known that the German Navy had shipped 11 356mm twin turrets out the day after the Combined Fleet had left port, they would have been even more frightened to death -- these were all naval gun turrets removed from the Ise and Hyuga, but not all of these 11 turrets were for the Azores, who were only allocated 6 of them, 3 for the Canary Islands, 1 for Madeira, and 1 for Cape Verde. However, the Germans continued to supply almost a steady stream of turrets - the 330mm main turret on the Dunkirk had to be removed, and the turret on the Jean-Bar had to be removed, both of which were potential turret suppliers.

Admiral Kim felt a headache in the face of the 300 carrier-based aircraft that appeared in the Japanese fleet at once, but he still maintained a rare calmness and said: "Now it is not only a matter of plan A+, we should quickly determine the intention of the Japanese fleet to enter the Atlantic - whether they are defending the Azores, or they are here to break diplomatic relations, or to attack us." ”

"Attack?" Roosevelt exclaimed, "Do they dare to land on America?" ”

"It doesn't have to be landing, a few shells they drop on the east coast or a few bombs on planes are enough for us to make a lot of trouble -- just like Doolittle Air Force did."

As soon as he heard Doolittle's name, Roosevelt stopped ringing, when these B-25s bombed Tokyo, provoked a strong Japanese backlash, and then there was the Battle of Midway, and now if the Japanese do the same, the consequences will be unimaginable...... Moreover, Roosevelt knew in his heart that the American people had enjoyed freedom for a long time, and they did not at all tame and trust the government like the Japanese people, and if there were really Japanese shells or bombs falling into the crowd, he was afraid that the White House would be overwhelmed by the crowd of protesters.

"Can you stop them? For example, to fight a decisive naval battle and give full play to the advantage of our aircraft carriers having a larger number of aircraft. "The Americans are a little wrong in the details, they think that Japan has brought out all 5 aircraft carriers, in fact, the combined fleet has only 3 aircraft carriers, the fourth is the Aquila aircraft carrier that has just been completed and put into service, controlled by the German Navy, and the Zeppelin aircraft carrier has returned to the Italian shipyard for repair, so the total number of aircraft carriers of the Axis Navy is only 4, but the overall number of carrier-based aircraft remains basically the same.

"You can try it, the question is, who will command the aircraft carrier formation?"

As soon as Admiral King's words came out, Roosevelt suddenly got stuck -- Spruance was criticized by all sides for losing too much in the last battle, and he could not make a comeback in the short term, and except for the Pacific Fleet, the US Navy suddenly had no reliable aircraft carrier commander. (To be continued.) )