Just when Stalin was exhausted in order to cope with the sudden deterioration of the situation in the Caucasus, Vice Admiral Spruance, who commanded the fleet to drift in the North Atlantic, also turned pale, and on the third day after he led the fleet out of port, the fleet received reports of two more attack accidents: one was that the freighter returning to Canada from Great Britain was directly bombed and sunk by German aircraft, but fortunately it was only an empty ship, and the damage was not too great, judging from the location of the ship's sinking, it was undoubtedly caused by the aircraft carrier of the German fleet; The other is the Brazilian cargo ship to the United Kingdom, which is a refrigerated ship full of 18 million eggs and more than 3,000 tons of frozen meat, ham, fruits and vegetables, but the end is very bad, and all the people on board were captured. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

And that's not even the most infuriating, the offending thing is that the accident site is less than 900 nautical miles from British ports and less than 800 nautical miles from the re-deported Y Fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Brown. In Spruance's view, this was a serious provocation that did not take Anglo-American maritime hegemony into account, and after the British suffered successive defeats, not only Spain openly stood on the side of Germany and shouted, but even Portugal, which had always been submissive, secretly sent a wave to the Axis camp.

The Tropics was definitely one of the most unfortunate merchant ships of recent times: after receiving instructions from the German fleet to rush into the Atlantic and ask all Allied merchant ships to find a reliable port nearby, the Tropics sailed honestly to the Azores, the nearest port to them. As a result, halfway through, news came that the Azores had been controlled by the Germans, and they did not want to fall into the net, so they had to temporarily turn around and continue to look for a suitable port, at this time the captain helplessly found that in addition to the Azores, they were almost the same distance from the Canadian ports and British ports, in view of the fragile cargo on the ships, and heard that the German fleet was stationed in the Azores, so they had a fluke mentality to let the ships sail in the direction of Britain, hoping to get through the customs in the dark.

Unexpectedly, the North Sea Fleet stayed in the Azores for a few days before re-going to sea to break diplomatic relations, and coincidentally sailed to a place only more than 100 nautical miles away from the "Tropical", and the whereabouts of the "Tropical" were detected by the AR-272 at the first time. According to the usual practice, this kind of ordinary merchant ship, which is more than 100 nautical miles away from the fleet and is only a shadow, the Germans do not bother to look at it at all, and they can easily send it to the bottom of the sea by taking off a wave of bombers, but Machar, who commanded the fleet, read the information sent by the reconnaissance plane, saying that it was a refrigerated ship flying the Brazilian flag, and he immediately thought of the harvest of the broken fleet during the "Berlin" operation, and immediately ordered the Hippers to take the destroyer to intercept it, and the result was such a fruitful return.

Everyone was smiling, and now not only did the whole fleet have endless food, but also could make this batch of supplies more useful, and Mashal immediately ordered two destroyers to escort the "Tropical" to the Azores, and he was sure that the 20,000 to 30,000 newly arrived troops on the island would welcome this great gift. When the Japanese advisory group on board heard of this gain, their eyes lit up and their smiles widened, and their expressions were even happier than those of the Germans. In their opinion, if the supplies on this refrigerated ship were rationed to the Combined Fleet in Europe, at the rate of 2 eggs per person per day, it would be enough for them to eat for nearly half a year - and now they finally have a deep understanding of the meaning and value of the word "broken relations".

After getting a vote from the noses and noses of the British, Mashal did not fall in love with the battle, and immediately led the fleet to turn around, ready to receive the support forces protruding from the Strait of Gibraltar - including the newly acquired Kitakami, the two mine-strike cruisers Oi, and the battle cruiser Strasbourg.

"You mean that the British blocked the Strait of Gibraltar?"

"Yes! The Scharnhorst, after emergency repairs in Spain, had secretly crossed the strait off the Atlantic Ocean to Italy the night before, without any disturbance, but we encountered a minelayer while crossing the strait the next night. Cranke carefully recalled the scene of that night and told Ozawa one by one.

Due to the continuous air raids and artillery bombardment of the fortress of Gibraltar by the German army, the radar station of the fortress was completely destroyed, and the lookout post could only rely on traditional visual observation of the enemy, but it was obviously not easy to monitor the strait with a width of more than 20 kilometers at night, and the rumbling of the cannon successfully drowned out the sound of the steamer's movement, so the Ojing, the Kitagu, and the Strasbourg were all smooth when they forced their way into the Strait of Gibraltar at night, until they met with the British warships that came to lay mines, in order to avoid revealing their positions, the Strasbourg did not dare to open fire, However, its strong body and speed of up to 27 knots gave it the ability to rampage, and finally the three warships broke through into the Atlantic Ocean without danger.

As for Ozawa's appointment, due to Raeder's overt and covert resistance, he was finally flexible, and he was appointed as the first deputy commander of the mobile detachment as a German admiral, and the commander was still Field Marshal Richthofen, and then the day after the appointment order was issued, Richthofen reported that he was unwell and needed medical treatment and flew back to Berlin, and Ozawa immediately took over the command.

The Japanese advisory group was dumbfounded: Nima, who said that the Germans have a tendon in their brains? Isn't that also flexible? After receiving the appointment, Renori sent a congratulatory telegram to Ozawa, encouraging him to make meritorious contributions in a foreign land, and saying that in the future, the United Fleet would definitely have more than one mobile fleet. The change in things made Ozawa himself quite overwhelmed: he didn't expect to get such an opportunity in Germany after losing the appointment of commander of the domestic mobile fleet, and now he is also in charge of two motherships, and his strength is not small. Moreover, although Machar was the supreme commander of the entire fleet, due to the central role of aircraft carriers in the operation, coupled with the heroic performance of aircraft in the Barents Sea and the North Sea battles, the German Navy accepted the concept of aircraft carriers first faster than the Japanese Navy, and Ozawa's actual status was far higher than that of Tsukahara in the Combined Fleet.

In addition to commanding the fleet, Ozawa also brought two additional students, one is Machar, he came to humbly learn the essence of aircraft carrier combat command, Richthofen is not from the Navy after all, it is too difficult to transform into a fleet commander, and it is relatively easy to transform as a traditional surface fleet commander like Machar; The other is Admiral Crank, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, and the reason why he was allowed to break through to the Atlantic on the Strasbourg is that Hoffmann hopes that the latter can also learn the essence of aircraft carrier combat command, because the Aquila aircraft carrier from Italy is intensively carrying out the final outfitting work, and is scheduled to be delivered to the Mediterranean Fleet in early April, and by the beginning of June, the Harrier Eagle aircraft carrier for the Italian Navy's own use will also be put into use - no experience in aircraft carrier command is not possible.

After experiencing the influence of Germany in the past few months, Ozawa's thinking has changed a lot, first, he appreciates the promotion system of the German army more, although it is the same as Japan, the bureaucratic atmosphere is also very deep, but there is no shortage of meritocracy, eclectic system, there is no such rigid seniority as Japan, especially the Japanese Navy, although Richthofen is the marshal, but Mashal still serves as the commander-in-chief of the fleet and commands the former; Zeitzler, the chief of the General Staff of the Army, only with the rank of general, was still able to command a large group of army group commanders or army group commanders with the rank of marshal or general; Originally, in Ozawa's thinking, although carrier-based aircraft pilots were precious, they did everything they could to achieve their operational objectives, and the German side obviously gave more consideration and absolutely refused to let technical personnel die needlessly.

What touched Ozawa even more was that the concept of hierarchy in the German army was not as strong as in Japan, and the ace pilots with the rank of lieutenant could still talk and laugh in front of Richthofen with the rank of marshal, without so much restraint or unnaturalness, and many of Richthofen's ideas came directly from these grassroots officers and soldiers.

Hearing the news of the Gibraltar Bray, Machar instinctively frowned: "This is very troublesome, it means that we can't even send minesweepers to clear mines before we solve the firepower of the fortress, and the rest of the warships in the Mediterranean Sea can't enter and exit for the time being, but this in turn shows that the British are thieves - they know that they can't hold it, otherwise what are they blocking the shipping lane?" It should be kept to provide support to the fortress. ”

Ozawa nodded and then shook his head again: "I'm afraid things are not so simple, Britain and the United States may be preparing a big plan." ”

"Not so fast, right?" Mashal's mood seemed very relaxed, he had received clear information two days ago, and Ozawa's judgment made him a little unimpressed:

First, the British had a very big heart, and they were not at all worried about the loss of the Azores, and they actually cooperated with the Americans to attack Attu Island in the past few days, and the Japanese side informed the fleet of this situation, saying that "the battle was fierce, and our army had inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy." Machar knew that Japanese intelligence could not be fully trusted, but one thing was certain, the Royal Navy's support forces were at least still in the Far East, and even if they rushed to the Atlantic immediately, it would be a month later.

Second, spies lurking in the United States sent a telegram that the US military had just commissioned one fleet aircraft carrier, one light aircraft carrier, and one battleship, and that the data on performance and aircraft carrying were unknown, and that according to normal circumstances, it would take at least six weeks for these warships to complete sea trials and run in place.

Considering that Britain must stay behind part of its fleet in the North Sea direction, coupled with the superiority of the German aircraft carriers' carrier-based aircraft, he believes that even if he encounters the enemy's main force, he will have the strength to fight and will not be afraid of any challenge at all.

Cranke added: "I think that regardless of whether Britain and the United States have such a plan or not, we should carry out the instructions of the Führer, maneuver around all waters in the Atlantic Ocean as much as possible, expand the momentum and power of breaking diplomatic relations, cover the construction of the Azorean defense system, and do our best to delay the possible counteroffensive of Britain and the United States." ”

This is the unanimous idea of the three of them. (To be continued.) )