Roosevelt took the information with a puzzled face, and his brows furrowed after reading it, and the information was mainly two:

First, in the French internal line in North Africa, Germany sent 2 armored divisions, 2 infantry divisions, 1 paratrooper division and 3 aviation wings into the French-controlled area of North Africa according to the agreement with the Vichy government, they secretly infiltrated it 3 days ago, the French did not notice, and when the French found the German troops, the Germans had basically deployed in place, and under pressure from France, the Supreme Commander of the North African Army, Admiral Darlan, could only let it go, and it is expected that the Germans will be fully deployed in place this evening (November 6), And there was an armored division in the direction of Casablanca.

Second, the task force escorting the landing of the "Project Torch" Army troops reported being ambushed by German submarines at night - not an ordinary encounter, but a completely well-choreographed, well-prepared wolf pack ambush. On the night of November 5, the two navies were sunk by submarines with a total of 1 escort aircraft carrier, 27 transport ships, 4 destroyers and 1 cruiser, and on the 27 transport ships there were 2 regiments of American soldiers, materials and equipment for the landing, and more importantly, tanks for the British (a total of 200 were prepared, but 97 were sunk), and more than 3,000 army soldiers and a large number of supplies died in the belly of the fish before they could see the shadow of the African continent.

Now the United States is completely caught in the aircraft carrier crisis, not only is there not a single aircraft carrier in the regular fleet, but only three escort aircraft carriers are left with a serial capacity of only 30 aircraft and are only used to escort ships on the Atlantic route. At the end of the report sent by the escort fleet, there was also a speculation: Was there a problem that our information was leaked, the code was leaked, or deciphered by the German submarine ambushing our fleet so accurately and efficiently?

This last point made Roosevelt very sensitive. Because the super-secret destruction had just happened, and the Torch Project had been ambushed again, was there really nothing wrong with the two such precise sabotage operations of the Germans?

The three of them have not yet fully digested this news. The adjutant hurriedly delivered new news, and Hopkins felt his whole body tremble when he saw it.

The information was sent by Van der Grift, commander of the 1st Marine Division of the defenders of Kuah Island, who described the terrible encounter on Kuah Island: under the baptism of more than 200 naval guns of caliber above 203mm and more than 30,000 shells of the Combined Fleet, the defenders of Kuah Island, with a total number of nearly 20,000 people, lost more than 8,000 people, wounded more than 5,000, and went missing more than 1,000 people (except for a few people who were rescued, all the others died). It was one of the few cases in which the number of casualties in the battle was outnumbered, because the unit's medical forces were unable to carry out rescue during the prolonged shelling in the middle of the night on the 4th, and then the Japanese shells also caused a bushfire. Many of the minor and serious wounded who could have been saved were either dragged to death after bleeding out, or they were unable to move and burned to death by the fire.

On the occasion of this battle, the 1st Marine Division was almost completely destroyed, and the entire small area of Kuah Island was full of corpses, severed limbs, and scrapped military equipment. Not even body bags are enough. Utterly scarier than hell, Vandergrift crawled out of the sturdy bunker almost insane at the sight of the scene.

After the statistics and screening of the medical and rescue team who landed on Kuah Island, many of the more than 10,000 people who survived (most of the wounded survived) had serious mental disorders, and even trembled when they heard the word Kuah Island, and the suicide rate has remained high. The bombing of Kuah Island is so famous that it has been a shock for many years later, when a famous talk show host mentioned Hell on a live TV show, and a bunch of viewers described the horrors of Hell as they could imagine. Only one veteran spoke: "I have seen and experienced it." ”

Everyone was curious about this sentence, but the veteran's next sentence made everyone laugh: "I think hell is on the island of Kuah on the night of November 4, 1942." At that time I was serving in the 1st Marine Division......"

Roosevelt knew something was wrong when he saw Hopkins' face twitch and his hands trembling, and he wept after reading the exact battle report, and Admiral King fell into a long silence after reading it. I don't know how long it was, but Roosevelt sighed: "Now the situation is very troublesome and tricky, maybe we should hold a special study meeting on the question of war, and the time should be set for the afternoon." ”

While the US forces were being saddened and licking their wounds, the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet's artillery bombardment fleet had turned to Rabaul as a whole, preparing to continue its advance with the mobile fleet that had been waiting there for a long time. The commander of the Yamato, Tari, was overjoyed, and congratulated Commander Horikichi on the complete victory of the combined fleet and the defeat at the Battle of Midway.

Horikichi smiled bitterly: "If this kind of loss is put on Japan, of course, it will hurt the muscles and bones, and if it is put on the Americans, it is just a drizzle, and it is estimated that they will fight back in 3-4 months......"

Everyone was stunned, and they couldn't believe his words at all, but the chief had confirmed his foresight on a series of previous occasions, so everyone couldn't say a word.

If Hoffman had been here, he would have appreciated Hori's instincts: December 31 was the day the Essex-class lead ship, the USS Essex, commissioned in the U.S. Navy's own timetable; Half a month later, the lead ship of the Independence-class light carrier, which was converted from the hull of the Cleveland-class light cruiser, the USS Independence, will be commissioned, and in late February 1943, the Essex-class No. 2 ship Lexington (formerly known as the Capote, renamed in honor of the USS Lexington, which sank in the Battle of the Coral Sea) and the Independence-class light carrier No. 2 ship Princeton will be commissioned, and then the Essex-class or Independence-class aircraft carriers will be completed and commissioned almost every month in 1943.

"Sir, what are we going to do next?" Everyone is very enthusiastic about the Indian Ocean Raiders, and there are also inappropriate illusions about the situation in the South Seas.

Horikichi was silent for a moment and then said, "First lead the main fleet to Singapore to replenish, and then abandon all the islands east of Bougainville and south of Lae according to ......the predetermined plan."

"I have to give up." A group of staff officers muttered, their faces full of reluctance, "We thought we could use this to advance the Australian and New Zealand operations." ”

"What can I do if I don't give up?" Horikichi smiled bitterly, "I'm running out of planes on the island, I'm afraid that the next days of defense will be difficult." ”

Hearing the word "aircraft," the crowd fell silent, and this time the air force played a tremendous value and role in the campaign, and if it were not for the continuous supply of fighter planes over the shelling fleet, the loss of the fleet this time would not have been so small, and even Yamato might have been sunk. As a result of this campaign, not only did the air faction strengthen its determination to reuse aircraft and seize air supremacy with air forces as a guarantee for naval warfare, but even the fleet faction like Kondo Nobutake believed that it was simply unthinkable that there would be no air cover in future operations.

"As for the war between Australia and New Zealand?" Horikichi smiled bitterly, "I want to too, but our strength is not good, how many carrier-based aircraft are there in the United Fleet?" More than 200, right? Not to mention the Australian mainland, there will be no less than 400 US planes on the islands of New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Zealand, etc., and they will not attack for the time being without the navy, but it is more than enough to defend, so they can't run headlong into it, right? And then you look, the airport on Kuah Island is available to the Americans again in less than 10 days......"

The people in the command tower could only nod helplessly at this, and put away the unrealistic fantasy of seizing Australia. According to Hori's order, the mobile fleet and the artillery fleet retreated and turned to Singapore to assemble and prepare for the Indian Ocean Raid, where the fleet would readjust and replenish, study and draft a specific battle plan, and set off again after completing all preparations.

What they didn't know was that the greatest benefit of this campaign to Japan was to preserve the veteran pilot corps that had been tested in the Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, and Midway battles, and at the same time to give a group of junior pilots the opportunity to fight in real combat, because 80 percent of the carrier-based pilots who hung up during the attack had never participated in the Midway operation, while 70 percent of the victories were experienced veteran pilots, and the value of pilot combat experience far outweighed the importance of quantity. In contrast, although the US warships have been replenished quickly, after the pilots of the TF16\17 carrier-based aircraft have almost run out, the United States has less than 60 pilots who have participated in more than one aircraft carrier operation, and only more than 30 have participated in more than two operations.

Of course, the Japanese mobile fleet is not much better, with only two large and two small aircraft carriers (a few more are useless, because almost all the qualified carrier-based aircraft pilots are on them), and they are facing a situation of lack of follow-up. In sharp contrast to the United States, which seems to produce aircraft carriers, the Combined Fleet has fallen into a situation where there are no new aircraft carriers available -- according to Japan's own timetable, let alone three months, there will be no new regular aircraft carriers in service within a year, and only one light aircraft carrier with a capacity of 31 aircraft (basically the same level as the Ruifeng) can be put into service within three months, and the combat strength of the mobile fleet will inevitably decline.

After much deliberation, he rejected the proposal to convert the three merchant ships of the Great Eagle, the Cloud Eagle, and the Rushing Eagle into aircraft carriers for accompanying operations, and demanded that it be used entirely for training and training pilots, and issued a death order to use at least 300 people in the reserve pilot corps in three months. The Naval Aviation Headquarters' decision to increase the pilot training budget and its ambitious plan to increase the number of pilots by eight times a year have been supported by both the Ministry of the Navy and the Military Command Department. (To be continued.) )