The United States has not yet recovered from the tremendous grief of Roosevelt's death, and it has been slapped in the face again, but thanks to Hoover's effective control, the relevant content of "My Complaint" has not been reported in the US public opinion circles, but the "Voice of Europe" has seized on this point and vigorously criticized it. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Most of them blame this on enemy propaganda, but only a few people at the top know that the news is true, and although there are other reasons, it is an indisputable fact that the image of the United States in São Paulo, Rio and other regions has plummeted. Fortunately, with Patton's troops in the north of Brazil and the presence of the U.S. Army and Army in Recife (northeast), Brazil's most populous region, the situation did not deteriorate.

It is also a coincidence that Lieutenant General Clark, the supreme commander of the US Brazilian garrison, happened to take a large number of staff officers to Recife to inspect the defense, so he was not involved, but because Clark was not there, the US troops in Rio did not know how to deal with the coup d'état, and it was too late to intervene when they reacted.

President Truman, who had been formally sworn in, had a gloomy face at the plenary session of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first thing he said after taking his seat was: "How do you plan to deal with the Brazilian problem?" ”

With regard to the political situation in Brazil, an emergency meeting of the Cabinet has just been convened, and since Vargas is imprisoned and his fate is unknown, and Montero seized power through a coup d'état, the US authorities have directly announced that they will not recognize it. Now Montero has pushed out the former Minister of War, the also pro-German Admiral Dutra, as head of state, while he himself is also Minister of War and is trying to manipulate behind the scenes; Therefore, the United States must also support its own Brazilian political leader as soon as possible, and at Hull's suggestion, Brazilian Foreign Minister Osvaldo Alanya, who accompanied Clark to Recife and has always been pro-American, was selected.

But the actions of the Americans were clearly much more covert, and Alanya only acted as president in view of the urgency of the situation.

In this situation, the Brazilian army also began to split, originally the Brazilian army was pro-German, the navy was pro-American, when the navy was almost beaten by Germany, the army gained unprecedented momentum, but in the area controlled by the US military, this part of the Brazilian army even if it wants to support Dutra and Montero has to consider other factors, so it is not afraid to make a public appearance, and some of them have announced cooperation with the US military.

This was by no means the situation Truman wanted, and he had a clear understanding of the fighting power of the Brazilian army, believing that they could only do some logistics at best, and that a head-on battle could never be used. His expectations for the U.S. Army have also been lowered to a very low level, believing that there must be at least a scale advantage of more than 2:1, and that it will be completely impossible to defeat under 1:1.

"At present, the second batch of 6 divisions is being reorganized, and when all are in place, we will have about 14 divisions...... Forehead...... There are at least 13 divisions. ”

Originally, the U.S. military had four divisions in South America, but later it successively reorganized four divisions, with the overall layout of one division in Colombia, two divisions in Venezuela, one division in Guyana, two divisions in the Recife region of Brazil, one division in Salvador, the capital of Bahia in the east, and one division near Rio. Originally, according to the plan of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, South America should have at least 500,000 troops, and all the countries of the La Plata Group should have a US military presence on their borders for deterrence. But in fact, due to the repeated transfers of the Navy and the continuous interruption of the German army, this task is far from complete.

Of course, the current troop distribution formation is very unsatisfactory, but the terrain of South America dictates that the only way to distribute troops is to -- because the transportation conditions in the hinterland of South America simply cannot support the passage of large troops and heavy equipment, and the US military has particularly heavy logistical needs, and it is impossible to survive without ports and fleets.

As for Eisenhower's sudden change of words to 13 divisions, it was because the infantry divisions near Rio had now collapsed, and the actual losses in personnel may not be much, but they no longer became a force that could undertake combat missions.

"We want to increase the strength to 20 divisions, with 2-3 armored divisions." Eisenhower explained to the map, "Due to the special terrain of Brazil, our army cannot march through the hinterland, and can only use the amphibious landing operation to carry out the offensive, and we have two offensive directions, one is to go directly to Rio; The second was to bypass Rio and go to the rebel states, but in either case, the navy would have to clear the German fleet off the coast of Brazil first. ”

Truman couldn't help frowning, the Navy had already said that it would not be able to move until the beginning of July, and the Army said that it would wait for the Navy.

In the midst of silence, Clark suddenly received a new battle report: "After a bloody battle, our 442nd Regiment blocked the pursuit of the enemy and repelled three enemy attacks...... Covering the retreat of the 7th Division, it is now tentatively estimated that more than 8,000 officers and men have been gathered, and I have led the staff and other powerful troops to the south......"

Marshall was very annoyed by this situation, less than 10,000 German troops actually fought a complete division and retreated in a hurry, and was still rescued by a regiment of 442, the contrast between the two is a bit amazing.

Truman was pleased: "This regiment is good, it is good!" From commanders to soldiers, they should be rewarded, where is this troop? ”

"This ......" the crowd fell silent for a while.

"What's wrong?" Truman asked suspiciously, seeing that everyone was looking wrong.

The 442nd Regiment was originally formed by the 100th Independent Infantry Battalion of Hawaii, which originally served in the 298th and 299th National Guard Infantry Battalions in Hawaii, almost all of them were Japanese Americans, after the Pearl Harbor incident, the situation was very embarrassing, and the US military was not disbanded, nor was it retained, and finally they were sent to form an independent 100 battalion, originally to do some logistics support work, but they all strongly expressed that they wanted to go to the front line, coupled with the exclusion of Japanese officers and soldiers by the rest of the troops, and finally the army system could not do it, All the officers and soldiers of Japanese descent were gathered together and formed a separate regiment, the 442nd Regiment of the Army. Eighty-five percent of the soldiers and mid- and lower-ranking officers are of Japanese descent, and only the rank of captain and above and some technical branches have more other ethnic groups.

After this regiment was formed, no division was willing to accept it, so it always existed independently, and the army did not dare to send them to the Pacific theater to fight Japan, nor could they let them go to Europe for fear of causing chaos. It just so happened that Clark, who was at the top of the diplomatic ranks, was willing to ask for them, so they became direct troops of the Fifth Army. Unlike the average high-ranking American officer, Clark liked them very much, believing that they were hard-working, tenacious, and rare excellent troops, and even proposed to let them serve as headquarters guards. Although this did not work out despite the dissuasion of others, it was clear that Clark had given them a lot of confidence and encouragement.

Truman slapped the table after hearing all the explanations: "Japanese and German, who have become citizens of the United States of America, sworn allegiance to the country and the Constitution, and are now willing to sacrifice themselves for the country and the people on the battlefield are our compatriots. After verifying the merits of this unit, the president will be given a commendation. ”

"Yes!"

Truman explained why the presidential commendation was awarded: "Now that the Germans are so arrogant that they have formed the American division of the SS and dare to use it to fight Stalin, in the name of 'defending social justice and freedom,' although we don't have too many Axis prisoners, isn't it a great political victory to let the German troops fight Japan and use the Japanese troops to fight Germany?" ”

"I suggest that you adopt a more active strategy, and in the case that the navy is temporarily unable to occupy the sea and sea dominance, the army will advance step by step, steadily and steadily, and if it cannot recover São Paulo and Rio, at least the destructive power must be contained in these two areas and not continue to spread." Truman said, "I know that there are still German reinforcements coming, but our reinforcements are also on the way, every day, every hour is extremely precious, and I don't want to see the kind of battle report that a division is easily routed by an enemy far inferior to them." What the 442nd Regiment can do, why can't others do it? If you can't fight the level of the 442nd Regiment, how can we say that in the event of a German-American armistice, we can easily sweep away Japan - Japan has thousands of 442 regiments waiting for us on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean! ”

While Truman was distraught by the situation in Brazil, Count Ziano was pacing back and forth in his room in distraction. Historically, after the complete defeat of the North African campaign, Ziano tried to engage with the Allies, and anti-German sentiment grew, and Mussolini was dismissed as foreign minister and replaced by the nominal ambassador of the Holy See. But now, with Axis winning, Italy is in good shape and Ziano is firmly in his position. The entire cabinet is his supporter or subordinate.

As Hoffman said, Mussolini only spends 1-2 hours a day dealing with national issues, and the rest is blamed on Ziano, both big and small, which makes Ziano have special feelings.

On the one hand, Mussolini promoted and reused him, not only clarifying his heir status, but also marrying his daughter Ida to Ciano. The two separated a few years ago, but reconciled just a year ago - the reason is, of course, that Ziano was stealing outside, but Ziano was just playing on the spot, and he was a saint compared to the situation where his husband had been kept for a long time. Besides, Italy is such a romantic place, everyone laughs at the romance of the upper class, and no one takes it seriously.

On the other hand, Mussolini's problems Ziano saw very clearly: vanity, exaggeration, arrogance and unreality, erosive personal life. If it was usual, everyone would laugh and laugh at this kind of thing, and anyway, Ziano would often stand up and wipe his ass in the end. But today's mess and ass are not easy to wipe.

"From your words, Count, I think that the Führer has reached the point where he can no longer bear it, and if it continues like this, Italy will be destroyed."

"I knew it, I knew it......" Ziano sighed, "what can I do?" I promised the Führer, but they wouldn't listen......"

"That's because your location invalidates the guarantee, you have to use a different location......"