In the darkness of night, the main forces of the Axis Fleet arrived in the Azores, replenishing the ammunition, fuel, and aircraft lost by continuous battles, and on the other hand, allowing the Marines, who had suffered heavy losses in the First Battle of Bermuda, to land and recuperate. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoIt is impossible for anyone to see the miserable state of the Marine Corps not to show a side-eye, they have lost all their equipment, and in the end only more than half of the three battalions remained, and even the bodies of their comrades who died in battle did not have time to bury or take away. Machar privately apologized to them, honestly admitted his command mistakes, and prepared for training.

Unexpectedly, the telegram from Berlin was mild, and Dönitz conveyed the Führer's opinion - he did not think that the fleet had suffered a defeat, and that everything was met except for the slightly heavy losses of the marines in the Battle of Bermuda: the Falklands were taken, and the second reinforcements had successfully arrived; The destruction of the Brazilian Navy, the successful demonstration of the strength of the fleet in the direction of Guyana and, more importantly, the slowing down of the Anglo-American attack on the Falklands, was conducive to the development of the next operation.

Therefore, the medals and knighthoods that should have been given to the whole fleet were still not less, such as Ozawa received the Knight's Cross, and only Machar himself did not receive a promotion or medal among the main officers. However, these are all things outside of his body to him, and he values the attitude of the Führer towards him more, as long as there is the Führer's trust, what marshal's scepter and medal will not be obtained in the future? Now it seems that the Führer is still very tolerant of himself, which makes Mashal secretly grateful in shame, of course, he is also grateful to Dönitz for interceding for him and saying kind things and supporting him, but he knows that the old Marshal Raeder was quite unimpressed when he carried out the Berlin operation, and in contrast, Dönitz was obviously much kinder.

After receiving supplies, replacing three brand-new Marine battalions, and more importantly, receiving the Führer's message of condolence, Machar's confidence began to regain and he was determined to fight another battle with the Americans, as Berlin demanded. If you think about it, the Americans are not terrible: they are not beaten by themselves in Bermuda, but they are talking about victory with a strong face, but they know that the enemy has lost at least 800 planes and suffered 3,000-4,000 casualties, which alone is several times more than his own losses, not to mention the Bermuda Islands, which are in ruins. The "Voice of Europe" couldn't be clearer, it's all called victory, so what is defeat?

"Are we still followed by the Anglo-American fleet?"

"No, it is expected that they will also return to the east coast to rest and replenish, and the reconnaissance plane has repeatedly reconnoitred but has not found it."

"The new carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft is very good, I think we need to have a few more." Cranke suggested and asked, "What are you going to do next?" ”

"It's still necessary to look for opportunities to fight with Britain and the United States, and it's better to be closer to the Azores, even if you don't use the Azores' support......"

Ozawa muttered: "I'm afraid this is a bit difficult, the enemy has already suffered losses, I'm afraid he won't be fooled again." ”

The so-called loss in Ozawa's mouth refers to the time when the Spruance fleet was defeated by the Azores air force and the fleet, Machar nodded, this thing is really not easy to do, now the British and American fleets or merchant ships are going around the Azores, and there are almost no British and American ships within 1000 nautical miles of the Azores, and it has completely become a black hole in the Atlantic, and it is extremely difficult to lure the enemy over.

All the top echelons of the fleet, including Machar, did not know at this time that the British and American fleets had always existed in two fleets and had been divided, and the main fleet led by Admiral Ingersoll was now returning to the east coast to rest and replenish and keep an eye on the Axis fleet, while the other escort fleet with nearly 25 escort aircraft carriers was slowly moving southward, and they would cover the land forces all the way to Brazil -- after the first three divisions successfully gained a foothold in the direction of Venezuela and Guyana, the second group of four divisions of the army re-emerged from the mainland and prepared to go to Brazil, Originally, the second batch of troops had the name of the 82nd Airborne Division, but because of their heavy losses in the First Battle of Bermuda, they were temporarily replaced by other units.

The specific commander of the second wave of Army units was Major General William Hood Simpson, who served as the commander of the 4th Army, he and Patton were classmates at West Point, graduated from West Point in 1909, participated in the entire First World War in its entirety, was 7 years older than Ridgway, and graduated 8 years earlier than Ridgway.

Unlike Patton's hot temper and impulsive personality, he is an academic Confucian general, gentle and elegant, good at internal organization and training, and has also led a national division, especially in line with the appetite of the civilian defense minister in peacetime, it should have been his turn to be promoted, but I didn't expect Li Qiwei to come out of nowhere and steal the limelight, first rushed to the rank of lieutenant general, and no one dared to be promoted in the same batch as Li Qiwei, otherwise the scene must be very embarrassing, Li Qiwei has the exploits of recovering Bermuda and saving friendly troops, why do you have it? Even if he is like Collins, who has been leading his troops in Southeast Asia and sticking to the front line of the promotion of Japan; Or, like Patton, at least they went to Africa and worked with the Germans and came back and were promoted to lieutenant general.

So poor Simpson's nomination for lieutenant general was delayed, but fortunately, Marshall was not unreasonable, and immediately arranged for Simpson to be the commander of the second batch of troops to lead his troops to Brazil, and Devers, the commander-in-chief of the joint element operation army, also knew the mentality of these generals, and hoped to give them the opportunity to make meritorious contributions as much as possible, so after the Battle of Bermuda, he quickly reported the results of stabilizing the situation in Venezuela and Bolivia and recovering Dutch Guiana and French Guiana to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so that one more lieutenant general could probably be given.

The main task of the second group of troops is simple: to deploy on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, on the one hand, to suppress the separatist forces that are on the rise in southern Brazil, on the other hand, to put pressure on the Argentines, and then wait for the third group of troops to attack the Falklands together, to overthrow the Argentine anti-American regime, and then completely overwhelm the Axis in South America -- President Roosevelt wants not only the Falklands, but also a South America that has returned from a new place and has closer relations with the United States.

He has already succeeded in part, the Venezuelan authorities, who have strengthened their troops, have become even more subservient, the Bolivian authorities, who have already expressed anti-American intentions, have come under heavy pressure from the US military, and the pro-alliance and anti-axis forces in the country have been encouraged to raise their heads and prepare to plot a coup d'état again. Although the Bolivian authorities have been reluctant to take a position on whether to support the post-axis or the alliance, their preference for the Argentine populist regime is clear, and Verón is their leading brother, so they are busy seeking help. Veron's prestige had just been established, and since he wanted to act as the hegemon of South America, he couldn't do it, so on the one hand, Perón let the Bolivian authorities make peace with the United States, and on the other hand, he also transferred two divisions from China to the border with Argentina and Bolivia to cheer up the Bolivian authorities.

This is exactly in the hands of the United States, and the joint elements must have a long deployment time, and they are not in a hurry to turn the other cheek with Argentina, and it is also possible to contain the other two divisions, but I don't know how many troops the Argentines can send after Brazil is stationed in four American divisions.

Roosevelt had been in a very good mood lately, on the one hand, the defense of Bermuda had been won, and the domestic public opinion was overwhelmingly applauding, which greatly reversed the unfavorable situation and opinion against him; On the other hand, the situation in the northern part of South America, including Venezuela, Bolivia, and Guyana, is developing on a positive side, which strengthens his determination to promote joint element operations and complete the Falklands and Argentina raids. After completing Ridgway's promotion and awarding ceremony, he made an enthusiastic speech to the media, and deliberately tested the tone of public opinion with a kind of seemingly inadvertently revealing the idea of preparing to run for re-election.

According to Director Hoover's secret statistics, the media was a little surprised by this incident, because the figure who served four consecutive US presidents has never appeared in history, but now because of the news of victory, they generally agree with the idea of continuing to fight and winning the final victory, while the various conglomerates and capitalist groups with a keen sense of smell have expressed their approval of the president's current shift of war focus to South America, and vaguely expressed their willingness to support his re-election. He strengthened his resolve - once the joint element operation was successful, he would formally announce his bid for re-election.

In addition to promoting the summary of the campaign internally, because the German army did not have time to destroy or take away its own equipment, the United States was given more opportunities to study, including the G43 rifle, STG43 assault rifle, Whirlwind self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, No. 4 tank, iron fist, recoilless gun, armored vehicles, landing craft and a number of weapons (or wreckage) fell into the hands of the US military. The conclusion is that the Garand rifle currently equipped by the United States is on par with the G43 level, and the STG43 assault rifle far exceeds the level of the United States, as for the MG42 machine gun, which is mainly made of stamping parts, it looks more rudimentary and rough than the Browning machine gun, but the faces of military experts are not very good-looking, which proves the German army's superb stamping and mechanical level, although the American industrial capacity is much stronger than that of the Third Reich, but if both sides are full of horsepower only to produce machine guns, The MG42, which uses a large number of stamping parts, is far better than the Browning, which still uses traditional machining processes.

The German recoilless guns were about half a pound and eight taels compared to the Americans, but it was obvious that the Iron Fist was stronger than Bazooka, and all unbiased people thought that the Iron Fist had a better cost-effectiveness ratio. As for the No. 4 tank and self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, the US side actually has complete performance data, and this time it is nothing more than to verify it on the spot to see if there are any upgrades, but obviously there are not too many discrepancies. On the basis of the strong opinion of the expert group, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved two decisions with the highest efficiency: first, to develop and improve Bazooka according to the characteristics of the Iron Fist; The second is to quickly issue a tender document to obtain the same assault rifle as the G43.

Unfortunately, this good mood only lasted two days, and Roosevelt was disgusted by the latest news...... (To be continued.) )