The members of the Azores and the Falkland Islands will not deny the important strategic value of the Azores and the Falkland Islands, and they will all believe that they should strive for victory, but because the logical starting points of the two sides are completely different, the conclusions drawn are naturally very different. The only thing that www.biquge.info agreed on was that there could be no more division of forces to fight - the United States had enough of it. Even for Falkland, a small island that hangs outside the sea and seems to be insignificant, everyone takes it very seriously.

Roosevelt listened to the argument for a long time, and he couldn't make up his mind, because what the two factions said was very reasonable, and this time the two completely different opinions were not the differences between the position of the army and the navy itself and the attributes of the military branches—there were army generals who supported the Falkland Priority faction, such as General Arnold; There are also admirals who support the Azores, such as Admiral Li Haihai.

This is a divergence between two strategic concepts: Will the next stage be Europe or Asia? But no one said it publicly, and everyone tacitly avoided mentioning the topic - no one wanted to embarrass the president until he himself had expressed his opinion.

As we talked, the focus of the debate shifted to the losses in the Battle of the Azores: will Operation Overlord be as costly as Turner portrays, or will the losses be bearable? If it were the former, then the navy, which had suffered amazing losses after the Battle of the Azores, would lose its offensive spirit, and I am afraid that it would not have a chance to fight Falkland; If the latter can be ensured, everyone will not mind letting the Germans bounce in Falkland for a few days first, anyway, the Atlantic Fleet will not be able to spare warships to support the Pacific direction, so that the Germans can taste the taste of long-distance supplies first - they believe that all the arms and equipment of the German army must be transported from the mainland 20,000 kilometers away.

The controversy was so intense that the crowd even settled it at lunch, and after a few sips of sandwiches and bitter coffee, the generals and dignitaries re-debated on a wide range of topics, ranging from politics, economics, society, culture, history, military, geography, and climate to morale, pattern, equipment, technology, combat effectiveness, and so on......

The Falklandite advocate was Turner, who not only cited but also cited numerous facts and examples of the history of the war, and a vehemently opposed to the present Azorean campaign presided over the revision of the campaign plan – which sounded like a satire; The advocate of the Azores was Clark, and although Eisenhower laid out the whole idea, and Frank received all the information from the room, his eloquence made the somewhat wooden Eisenhower unable to match it, or even a fraction of it.

Clark constantly quoted scriptures, constantly replacing the very simple and simple words of Eisenhower's words with a lofty academic system, whose level of learning and application of the military theories of Mahan, Clausewitz, Duhey, and Napoleon was second to none, and he would have doubted whether Ike had lamely plagiarized the latter's idea if Marshall had not known that Ike had never communicated with Clark at all.

However, Admiral King scoffed at Clark's performance, and in his private words, General Clark was good at everything, with outstanding demeanor, temperament, leadership, diplomacy, and planning, except for one shortcoming - "I can't fight at all!" This evaluation once made a dozen admirals laugh through their bellies.

In Stimson's view, the only good news was that Patton was not allowed to attend the meeting, otherwise he would have been beaten up by now with his violent temper - many people have recently complained to the War Department, reflecting that Lieutenant General Patton repeatedly spoke ill of him during training, which damaged the image of the commander, and his mantra was "Bastard, see clearly, it should be like this, according to the way you just did, you would have died a hundred times under the Tiger tank!" ”

However, the veterans who returned from Africa with Patton, especially the junior and middle-ranking officers, were extremely supportive of Patton, who was simply a god in their minds, and they thought that Patton was not right at all—the real battlefield was a hundred times worse than the training scene! They still insist that if the ANZ troops had not been allowed to withdraw first, the African war situation would not have been defeated at all, and they could have held out for a long time, and if there were enough supplies, "we can hold on until we are old!" ”

As soon as they heard this, they knew that they were bragging, but arguing with them was destined to lead to nothing, as long as they quarreled, they stiffened their necks and said in a tough tone: "What do you know? Did you fight with the Germans or did we fight with them? When we were fighting the Germans, you were still hiding in the queue at home......"

The U.S. Army that fought the German Army and returned alive was the same thousands (the U.S. Army believed that Panama was fighting against the German Marines, and the fighting was not very intense), and most of the unwounded soldiers remained in South Africa, and only the wounded and officers were withdrawn back home - the War Office believed that they had much-needed combat experience for the domestic forces. Facts have also proved that the feeling of fighting with the German army is different, although this group of remnants of the defeated army is not qualified to say how to win the Germans, but at least the German army's combat methods, armor tactics and equipment characteristics are very familiar.

The Sherman tank became the target of criticism again, and the War Department improved the M6 heavy tank with the opinions of this group of soldiers, removed the ridiculous 37mm tank gun secondary turret, and replaced the main gun with a tank gun improved from the 90mm anti-aircraft gun, and from August, the initial production model of the M26 began to roll off the assembly line at a rate of dozens of units per month, and the factory continued to improve it while accelerating its productivity. Marshall gave the death order, and on Christmas Eve, the new armored divisions were to have at least one M6 heavy tank battalion per division.

In addition to the M6 heavy tank, the U.S. military also has a number of heavy tank research projects such as T1, T26, T28, T30, etc., together with the Meteor jet, which is a project personally led by Marshall, the latter is progressing quite rapidly, with the efforts of British and American researchers and a large amount of money paving, overcoming many inherent weaknesses, and is expected to achieve mass production in early 1944. Due to the appearance of the German army's night combat equipment, the envy of this kind of black technology has also prompted the United States to speed up research in this area, but there is still a big gap between the two sides.

As for the direction of the next phase of the campaign, people from all sides quarreled from morning to afternoon, from afternoon to evening, and then from evening to night, and the relevant opinions were finally almost expounded, and Roosevelt stopped Clark, who did not know how many long speeches he was making, and turned his eyes to Hull, motioning for the secretary of state, who had not made much of a statement, to speak—although the latter usually had no say in military affairs, Roosevelt thought it was always good to hear more different opinions.

"I've heard everyone's arguments, and as far as I'm concerned, it's hard for me to make up my mind, both the European and Pacific theaters are areas that we can't give up, and I hope we can win on both fronts at the same time." Hull cleared his throat and said with difficulty, "But the opinion is clear, this time we can only attack one battlefield first, I don't understand military affairs, I can't judge which direction is more advantageous, which battlefield is easier to win, but I know which place is more beneficial to us - I personally think it's Europe!" Europe has been the center of the world in modern times, and we can assume an extreme scenario: if the United States is forced to stick to its homeland after losing this war, with Germany on the one hand, which unites and dominates Europe, and Japan, which encompasses the entire Asia and Pacific region on the other, which is the greater threat to us? ”

Hull didn't give a clear opinion, but the answer was imminent.

"My decision is as follows: Unless circumstances change significantly, with the end of October as the start date of Operation Overlord, we should put political, militari, and economic pressure on the countries of South America to distance themselves from Germany, while continuing to strengthen their military capabilities." Roosevelt nodded, and said quietly, "I agree with General Arnold's opinion to transfer an air force to South America; He also agreed with Admiral King's opinion to further increase military assistance to Brazil, and at the same time send 5-6 divisions to South America in advance to prevent all kinds of extreme situations; I also agree with General Eisenhower's opinion that we should first dry the enemy, and we should not follow them wherever they go, but force the enemy to maintain a supply line of more than 20,000 kilometers and consume their strength, and at the same time calmly observe these governments in South America to judge who is our friend and who is our enemy. ”

"As for the Pacific Fleet, it is recommended that they first rest at Pearl Harbor, sum up their experience, and accumulate strength." Roosevelt smiled wryly, "One thing they did well, they did everything in their power to fight the enemy to the death—whether it was for American taxpayers or for the military and civilians of the allies." ”

Admiral King, knowing that the president had not yet changed his determination to change the strategy of "Europe first and then Asia," did not make any arguments, but only asked unwillingly: "The Falkland Islands themselves?" ”

"The diplomatic mediation of Mr. Hull, in exchange for the neutrality of the Argentines on the condition of the return of the islands, and our commitment to provide military and economic assistance if Argentina is willing to join the Anti-Axis Alliance—more than they receive from Germany; Director Donovan would conduct covert operations and, if necessary, take extraordinary measures to ensure that Argentine politicians inclined to the United States were in power. ”

"For the Battle of the Azores, I hope you are more prepared, and if it is really too late in October, we can postpone it for another half a month, I think Winston will understand." Roosevelt concluded, "I am sympathetic to their plight with Russia, and whether or not Stalin will leave us alone to negotiate peace, we must at least not give up this ally, so I have decided to keep the support for him unchanged, but with a focus on maintaining supplies for a protracted war." ”

Everyone nodded with a heavy heart: the United States desperately needed the Soviets and was willing to do everything to help, but now they really had nothing to look up to Stalin, except to smash them with supplies. (To be continued.) )