"Due to the peculiarities of the position, the key to the seizure of the Azores lies in air supremacy, in overwhelming the enemy's air power!"

At the operational decision-making meeting held by the US-British Joint Chiefs of Staff on the Azores campaign, Admiral King's former assistant chief of staff, commander of amphibious operations forces in the South Pacific, and rear admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, spoke very directly in his first sentence. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

This was a rescue soldier specially transferred back by Admiral King, not only because he knew Turner himself, but also because Turner also had rare experience in commanding amphibious landings - he commanded the Battle of Kuah Island, and the Azores were standard amphibious landings. Although after the Battle of Kuah Island, the United States successively attacked Bougainville, Munda Island, and Lae under the command of Halsey, but in Admiral King's view, the Pacific Fleet under Halsey was not severely challenged when the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet poured out.

In fact, Turner's superior in the Battle of Kuah Island was Vice Admiral Fletcher, but poor Fletcher first lost the Lexington in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Yorktown in the Battle of Midway, and damaged the Enterprise in the early stage of the Battle of Kuah Island.

Although Halsey was defeated in the South Solomonic Sea, first, Nimitz protected him, and second, Admiral King's chosen successor, Spruance and Halsey had a special relationship with Halsey (the latter was the former's brother-in-law and friend), and was unwilling to push the other party when he was in trouble.

In fact, in the case of repeated setbacks now, Fletcher's loss is actually nothing, but since the bad feeling has been formed, whether it is habitual or to maintain Admiral King's face, it cannot be easily changed, so in the end, Turner was selected to take the lead, and he served as the chief of staff of the US-British joint fleet and presided over the formulation of the battle plan. Spruance was temporarily transferred from the post of chief of staff of the Pacific Fleet by Admiral King, who appointed him commander of the aircraft carrier formation of the Grand Fleet, commanding all aircraft carriers, while the commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet was Admiral Ingersoll, commander-in-chief of the US Atlantic Fleet.

In this campaign, the British Royal Navy was scheduled to dispatch four battleships (2 George V, 2 Elizabeth) and three aircraft carriers (2 Radiance-class, 1 Indomitable), accounting for half of the total force, but neither the commander-in-chief nor the commander of the aircraft carrier fleet even had the chief of staff in charge, and only the new commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy's home fleet, Admiral Frazier, hung the title of deputy commander-in-chief. Although the British have learned many times about Admiral King's hard-line style, they really can't sit still in the face of this arrangement.

It was rumored in the Admiralty that Field Marshal John Grell Diere, the chief British representative of the British side of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Anglo-American Joint Chiefs of Staff stationed in Washington, visited the Admiralty a few days ago and asked Admiral King with displeasure why he had made such an arrangement, and the two men argued in the office face to face.

Unexpectedly, Admiral Kim, who was not restrained by Roosevelt, had a temper worse than Marshal Diere, and slapped the table on the spot: "Why? Based on two points: first, the Royal Navy sank the three battleships supported by Lao Tzu, and Admiral Tovey took the blame and resigned, thinking of your repeated defeats since the North Africa and Indian Ocean campaigns, and I have deep doubts about your command ability; Second, if you think you are capable of doing this, believe it or not, I will draw the main force of the fleet to the Pacific Ocean, and let the Royal Navy fight the Germans on its own? ”

The first one is okay, the second one hits the soft underbelly of the British, if Dill is a politician-turned-hob meat, maybe he can give an answer such as "the United States doesn't care about us, we just surrender", but he is a standard military background, this kind of words can't be said, and finally he rolled his eyes in anger, and could only snort angrily and ask Roosevelt to complain.

In the end, Roosevelt criticized Admiral King without saltiness, but did not make any comments on the adjustment of the appointment, and only comfortingly gave the British the post of deputy chief of staff of the fleet to assist Turner in coordinating the communication between the British and American warships.

Although Admiral King hated the British, there was a lot of applause within the US Navy, and everyone thought that he was right, and the business-minded Americans calculated their accounts as follows: Acknowledging that a few British warships constituted the main force, one of the two Elizabeth-class battleships was repaired at the expense of the United States, and the two George V-class battleships were exchanged by the US Navy for three sunken battleships, and the carrier-based planes on the three aircraft carriers were all American pilots -- what is the use of having an aircraft carrier without planes? To sum up, Britain's military strength is all provided by the United States, and it is natural for the United States to be the commander-in-chief.

If the Battle of Pearl Harbor gave the U.S. Navy a sense of shock, the occupation of the Azores gave them a sense of panic - they never found themselves so close to defeat. After the fall of the Azores, Germany was able to choke the British transport lines by the throat, and the relevant supplies were cut off, although not completely cut off, but they seemed to be dying.

The current volume of merchant ships in the United States has been steadily increasing, but the rate of increase has not kept pace with the level of German submarine sinking. Britain and the United States lost a total of 1.15 million tons of merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean in February, while American shipyards produced 1.1 million tons during the same period, and thanks to Canada and Britain themselves, the total tonnage owned by the Allies barely rose. But it takes several months to build a steamer, a few minutes to sink a ship, and once the German Azores are given this fulcrum, an even more terrifying sight awaits later.

In addition, with the British Mediterranean route and colonial route being cut off, more and more materials need to be provided by the United States, and the monthly transportation of fuel oil alone will exceed 1 million tons, and the United States' supplies and ships are not endless, so the seizure of the Azores as soon as possible has become an overriding priority!

Thanks to the information sent by the "Crows" and the information obtained by Britain and the United States from other sources, they fully realized that since the German army had already deployed a large number of land forces and built fortifications on the island, it was necessary to launch an amphibious landing war in order to occupy it, and only with sea supremacy could we talk about a landing attack, and the prerequisite for obtaining sea supremacy was not only to defeat the main German fleet, but also to obtain air supremacy in the corresponding sea area.

Although the strength of the main German fleet is not bad, and a Richelieu has recently been added, the overall strength can only be regarded as average in front of the main fleet of the British and American allies in the Atlantic, so seizing air supremacy is the key to solving all problems.

"The Azores are only 1,600 kilometers away from Portugal and Spain's westernmost point, and according to the information available, the main German aircraft, whether it is the BF-219, FW-190, HE-218, JU-98, JU-188, Joint Attack Aircraft and other aircraft, have the ability to transfer directly in good weather (some need to carry auxiliary fuel tanks), and the bases available to us have recently exceeded 2000 kilometers (Houton, UK), so there must be two ways to solve this difficulty...... Or concentrate as many aircraft as possible at sea, or we find close bases. "The problem is that the closest land to Angra do Heroísmo is Madeira, which is also controlled by the Germans and is too small to have enough planes on it. ”

"In response to this situation, I devised the idea of seizing air supremacy: the first step was for the Royal Air Force to send heavy bombers from Britain to bomb the Azores, to sabotage and obstruct the construction of the Germans, and to kill and damage the enemy's living forces; The second step is to assemble the most likely number of aircraft carriers, whether they are escort carriers or regular aircraft carriers, deploy the most aircraft and participate in the air supremacy struggle. Turner shook the telegram in his hand, "Intelligence shows that the Germans have at least 200 planes on the island, plus 100 on the carriers, so we must be far outnumbered by him." ”

But even then, the distance was too far for heavy bombers, and there were no heavy bombers deployed on Huton Island, and if you take off from the southern airfield of the mainland, the round-trip distance would be more than 4,500 kilometers...... The four-shot Lancaster heavy bomber can only fly 4,000 kilometers, and if it is necessary to reach more than 5,000 kilometers by attaching auxiliary fuel tanks, the single bomb load will be reduced. ”

"How many?"

"At 4000 km, the bomb load is 3 tons, if it is 5000 km, the bomb load can only be 1.5-2 tons."

"Prepare 5000 tons of bombs at 2 km." Before the British could object, Turner added, "If you don't think you can fly back like this, don't go back to England at all, and go straight to Portugal for a forced landing - that is certainly enough." ”

The crowd was in an uproar! The forced landing of Portugal is equivalent to the fact that the plane will be confessed after performing a mission, and the Portuguese side will definitely detain the plane, and the pilot may not be in any danger, but it is almost equivalent to a hard loss for the Allies.

Only Admiral Jin nodded with satisfaction: This courage and style are the generals I like, what is the loss of a few planes? Since the strategic bombing, which month has not lost several hundred heavy bombers?

"Don't care about planes, the United States will have more and better planes in the future." Turner added, "This is just a small section, and if you can't afford to lose this little bit, you don't listen to my plan later." ”

Everyone was defeated by this tone, and they calmed down one by one to listen to what Turner had to say, but after hearing the follow-up plan, even Admiral Jin was stunned. (To be continued.) )