On the afternoon of 4 November, two days later than planned, Admiral Ingersoll led the fleet out of Norfolk Harbor in a torrential rain and headed for the deep sea, and at 11 o'clock in the evening, Cunningham quietly set off with the aircraft carrier formation. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info Although several fleet commanders want to stay for a few more days to let the aircraft carrier Brave who joined the formation in advance have more run-in time, but time waits for no one, the lifeline of the British Empire has been completely cut off, and Churchill sends telegrams every day to ask for a solution to the route problem as soon as possible - at present, the entire Anglo-Canadian route is suspended, Newfoundland has a large backlog of fully loaded cargo ships waiting to leave the port, and the British Isles have accumulated a lot of empty ships ready to go back, but the Germans' broken fleet is turning around on the route every day, The Atlantic Inspector flew stubble after stubble, and in the end no one could go.

Poor Britain itself does not have a large warship at present, the closest to completion are two Grudge-class armored aircraft carriers, but one will not be completed until February next year, the other will not be completed until April next year, and there is a light aircraft carrier Giant will not be completed until August, and the completion date of the only battleship Avant-garde is even more far away, it is said that the earliest will be in the spring of 1945, which is already the speed of the construction of the core warships after the other warship construction plans (such as the Giant-class, the Halo class, and the Centaur class) are cut down. If you still start working here and there as you did at the beginning, the pace will only be slower. So Churchill could only pin all his hopes on the combined Anglo-American fleet.

It is a pity that the last time the British and American fleets returned as soon as the Axis fleet was dispatched, it was impossible to do it again, and this time the Germans were determined to have another good fight with the Americans in the North Atlantic.

According to the results of the war games, assuming that the command of both sides is normal and the luck is normal, the loss of enemy and our warships is about 2:1, in general, Britain and the United States will lose about 4-6 battleships, the axis will lose 2-3, the aircraft carrier enemy will lose 4-5 ships, and the axis will lose about 2-3 ships; It is expected that Britain and the United States will lose another 6-8 escort carriers, and Germany will lose 5-6 submarines. Aircraft losses will be between 3:1 and 4:1, as Germany is fighting at home and has the geographical advantage of the Azores, and the loss of pilots is expected to be 6:1.

The overall outcome was worse than the Combined Fleet's success in the Caribbean, but Hoffman agreed to fight the battle after careful consideration. Because he knows that the speed of building aircraft carriers in the axis is not as fast as that of Britain and the United States, if he does not fight now, when the Americans have saved up enough 15-20 aircraft carriers, there is almost no chance of winning by relying on the German-Italian axis alone, and the combined fleet seems to be in great trouble again when it goes west again -- Cole sent a secret telegram saying that Hori Tsukichi has been squeezed out in Japan and has been attacked on all sides, and life is very difficult, and the Japanese debate on the next battle plan is very strong, and the specific details are still unknown.

Hofmann had anticipated what happened to Horiyoshi, and during his time in Europe, the other party expressed some concerns, so he also sent an invitation to Germany to serve as commander-in-chief of the navy, but realistically speaking, Horiyoshi came alone and led the main force of the combined fleet to come to Germany with a completely different meaning. He never expected this to be the case, and after careful consideration, he sent instructions to Kohl: to help Horikichi to consolidate his political position and promote the westward movement of the Combined Fleet as much as possible, to do his best to maintain Japanese-German relations, and if necessary, Germany could meet some conditions put forward by Japan economically and industrially, but could not directly take a position to intervene in its internal conflict, and in the most unfavorable situation, to protect the core officers of Horikichi and his faction as diplomatic envoys and get them to Germany to serve as advisers.

Against this backdrop, it is opportune to use existing forces to engage Britain and the United States in a war as soon as possible – now is the moment when the gap in naval power between Germany and Italy and Britain and the United States is minimal. However, everyone did not expect that the Brave had already been commissioned, and the number of British and American aircraft carriers was still extrapolated by 6.

In fact, Ingersoll used more troops than the German side expected, except for the battleships that could not be changed in the short term (the Wisconsin and the Missouri will not be commissioned until the turn of spring and summer next year), the fleet aircraft carrier increased by one, and the escort aircraft carrier dispatched a total of 14 aircraft carriers - not the German side expected 6-8 ships, and the rest of the auxiliary warships, including destroyers and cruisers, were also more than the German estimate.

The United States mobilized a total of 35 escort aircraft carriers, of which 25 followed the Army to South America, and the remaining 10 were added to the escort aircraft carriers that had to be retained on various routes during this period of time, and the US Navy had a total of 14 left, and Turner brought them all out in one go. Admiral Kim did not object to this, and now is the peak period of escort aircraft carrier service, almost every 2 weeks, 3 Casablanca-class escort aircraft carriers are in service. In fiscal year 1944 (beginning October 1, 1943), Congress allocated enough budget to build 150 Casablanca-class, and Admiral King had issued instructions to build them! Built to the Dead!

At present, the speed of the American-built Casablanca-class is almost as fast as the German-built XXI submarines, the problem is that the former has a displacement of up to 8,200 tons, and the latter is less than 2,000 tons.

After three days and four nights of covert sailing, on the evening of 7 November, the German submarine U-607, which was more than 300 kilometers south of Bermuda, suddenly discovered in astonishment that a large number of enemy ships had suddenly appeared within the periscope's lookout range.

"2 Iowa-class, 2 George V-class, 2 Queen Elizabeth-class......" Captain Ackerman asked puzzled, "Hell, this is obviously the main fleet of the Americans, but what does it mean that they ran south of Bermuda?" Also, where did the enemy aircraft carrier go? ”

"Captain, don't worry about so much, hurry up and send out the information."

"I'll have to see again."

Two hours later, Machar and others received a telegram from the submarine command, and to everyone's surprise, the main force of the enemy fleet did not rush in the direction of the broken fleet, but went southeast.

"Let the submarine find a way to follow the enemy." "See what the enemy wants," Marchar advised. ”

This hope was quickly dashed - the U-607, which had ventured to follow the movements of the American fleet in a floating mode at night, was sunk by the opposing side, and the Germans suddenly became deaf and blind.

"The enemy seems to have spotted us."

"That's just right, otherwise I'd be worried about how to let the Germans know." Turner was confident and smiled and suggested, "Now the fleet turns due south, and after six hours of travel, turns due east, and at the same time informs Admiral Cunningham of our location." ”

Ingersoll nodded, immediately agreed with the opinion and issued the battle order.

The Anglo-American operation, codenamed "The Mousetrap", meant to catch the rat of the Broken Fleet, but it was evident that it took a lot of thought to prepare the strategy, and according to Turner's suggestion, the fleet would act according to the following plan:

1. After leaving the port, the fleet turned to the southeast, put on a posture of going south to reinforce and attack the Falklands, ignoring the Anglo-Canadian route, and luring the main fleet of the Axis, including the Broken Fleet, to chase after it, so that the Anglo-Canadian route would naturally resume, and the fleet could fight with the Germans in a relatively advantageous position;

2. If the Germans do not take the bait or are not aware of their own movements, they will prepare to attack and occupy Cape Verde, and lure and mobilize the German troops;

3. If the Germans continue to ignore it, they will launch a further offensive, preparing to take Dakar in the name of Free France and gain a foothold in West Africa.

In the final analysis, the whole set of plans was to not directly open up the Anglo-Canadian route, emphasizing the use of methods to contain the offensive to mobilize German forces, and to create opportunities for the fleet to annihilate the enemy in the process of mobilization.

Turner's report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff made it very clear: "The enemy broke the Anglo-Canadian route and forced our army to go to battle, this is obviously a conspiracy, we can't fall for it, we must fully mobilize the German army, Cape Verde and Dakar are important strategic points in West Africa, the German army is not strong in deploying forces on it, if we can successfully take it, it will be equivalent to opening a gap for the United States on the African continent, which is more sudden than attacking the Azores or the Falkland Islands, I don't believe the Germans can ignore it." ”

As for the army forces to attack Cape Verde and Dakar, Turner also thought about it, and directly called in the second batch of army units that are currently going to Brazil.

After the plan was submitted, it caused an uproar at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and there were two reasons for opposition: first, if this strategy was followed, the solution of the crisis of the British-Canadian route would drag on for a long time, and Britain would probably not be able to hold on; Second, an attack on Cape Verde or Dakar would seriously affect U.S. relations with Portugal and France.

Turner scoffed at the second opinion, arguing that Germany was using the Azores to interfere with and attack us, and that the United States, on the contrary, was worried about relations with Portugal and completely put the cart before the horse, and as for the Dakar, the British had fought once in the first place, and it was not a big deal to fight again. This is very much to Admiral King's appetite, and he has long looked at the Portuguese and French unpleasantly.

As for the first, Admiral Kim agreed more, for the Navy it was imperative to deal with the German fleet, and to open the Anglo-Canadian route was only "incidental". The news came to the British and American Joint Chiefs of Staff, of course, it aroused strong dissatisfaction among the British representatives, and even threatened to withdraw from the Atlantic Combined Fleet to open up the route alone, but Admiral Kim scolded them and yelled at them: "You can withdraw, after you withdraw, don't expect the United States to send you supplies and warships, even if the president orders, I will not carry it out, what do you like, or you replace me!" ”

This sentence made Marshal John Greer Deere (the head of the British regiment) so angry that his face turned pale, and Li Hai was just about to come out to play a round, but he didn't expect Arnold to suddenly stand up and help: "Since you can do it alone, then don't ask the US Army Airlines to send you this and that, and transport that, I would rather put the capacity in the direction of South America." ”

Even Marshall couldn't suppress this, and Roosevelt was even more helpless. The meeting was noisy around this plan, and Admiral Kim was not in a hurry, there was a great deal of the British not going to sea for a day if they did not agree to the fleet, and he could afford to drag it out, but the British could not afford to drag it out - the Anglo-Canadian route was still blocked!

In the end, the British had no choice but to compromise and pinch their noses and agree to the battle plan. (To be continued.) )