Lehi asked tentatively, "Can I understand your words as ......?"

He was still considering what more euphemistic and indirect words to use to express the appropriate meaning, and Roosevelt nodded briskly: "That's what it means, it's all my own people, I'll be frank." Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ”

There are all human spirits here, and when it comes to this, how can you not hear that Roosevelt is preparing to give up Britain? Marshall, Admiral King, and a few others nodded to each other, to tell the truth, they were already tired and even desperate about this, and the endless aid to Britain not only dragged down the financial and defense strength of the United States, but also caused unnecessary internal disputes, and they thought that it was no longer necessary. Of course, this is not the most critical deciding factor, the most critical deciding factor is that it is no longer of much value.

Now that the United States has basically controlled the four major Dominions of Great Britain, Great Britain has no territory worth mentioning except for a few islands and a stormy India. In addition, under the pretext of concentrating its forces on development during the war, the United States also acquired Britain's core technologies, including jet engines, high-performance liquid-cooled engines, radars, and materials, and brought to the United States outstanding British scientists, skilled shipbuilders, and related technicians and engineers.

In other words, in addition to attracting a little firepower to the United States and containing some Axis forces, the British Empire also has a few warships and millions of Wehrmacht forces that do not know what level they are, which is no longer very attractive to the United States. In order to protect the British Isles, the United States has continued to send warships, supplies, and planes to the sea, and the cumulative expenditure has exceeded $100 billion, and it may have to spend tens of billions of dollars in the foreseeable future, and this has become a heavy burden more and more.

In addition to money, the United States of America has taken in hundreds of thousands of casualties, and only a small percentage of the troops actually lost at home or in the Americas with vital interests.

Based on this process, neither Britain nor the United States felt that they owed each other: the British Empire had betrayed its position as the global hegemon, had sold its best technology, engineers, scientists, and skilled workers, had sold its best Dominions, and had defended the Americans against the enemy's million-strong army, and it was only natural for the Americans to aid them; The United States believes that it has taken hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of casualties to save the British Empire, and that what little it has received from Britain is not enough to make up for its own losses, not to mention that if the United States does not take over those colonies and dominions, the British will not be able to save them.

"In the future, you can tell Harry that the military power of the British Empire should be doubled, but not including its political strength, he has an instinctive sensitivity to numbers, and he will understand!"

Everyone immediately understood what Roosevelt meant by "double" - the military strength of the British Empire was doubled on the side of the Allies, and conversely, if France joined the Axis, it would need to be doubled. Roosevelt had apparently taken into account this process of trade-off, but he refused to easily magnify Britain to join the Axis, and added without a trace: "We should give great understanding, support, and assistance to some of the officers and soldiers and others who are willing to continue to resist to the end, and who are willing to continue to defend the free world on the American continent, and we should arrange for them to be in Canada, together with their esteemed His Majesty the King." ”

Roosevelt, of course, was a ruthless figure, otherwise he would not have been able to call the wind and rain in the United States for 12 years. On the one hand, he did not say a word about the formation of the British government-in-exile in Canada, and only allowed George VI to continue as the head of Canada as king (which was one of his official capacities); On the one hand, they wanted to encircle the most valuable parts of the British armed forces in the service of the United States in the name of continuing to resist -- such as the capital ships that were about to be completed, and the skilled pilots and technical units with combat experience.

As for Churchill's own arrangement, he did not say anything about it, and everyone could guess the reason for it casually -- such a hard-line and cunning politician must not be put on the North American continent, and that would be a big obstacle to the continued control of Canada by the United States in the future.

Although Roosevelt had made up his mind to sell Great Britain at the right time, and even the price was not necessarily the case—the sooner the loss-making assets were apparently divested, the better—but he himself was clearly unwilling to be the villain, and the first opportune occasion that came to mind was January 1945—the day the new president was sworn in. Whether Mr. Harry Truman will be the new president is not something that everyone can predict. Perhaps, in Roosevelt's mind, the possibility of losing the election was not ruled out, so he explained this sentence to the people of the Joint Staff Council in public, and the implication was that Dewey would be the same at that time.

Only the kind-hearted Eisenhower said sadly: "Without us, the British Empire may not be able to hold out for a month, this is too difficult......"

"We've done our best." Roosevelt said calmly, "I did my best, and the next thing is up to you, I just plan ahead to tell you about the future situation, whether to do it, how to do it, and when to do it, I'm afraid it's not up to me to decide." ”

Everyone nodded, now Britain and the United States are still inseparable allies, with an unbreakable friendship - the British have half of the shares in the combined Anglo-American fleet, and if they turn their faces now, then the Axis maritime superiority will be too great.

Remembering Roosevelt's promise to send two British divisions to India, everyone sighed, and this was probably part of the future strategic arrangement.

"There is hope that we can get a decent victory." Roosevelt saw that the crowd was not in high spirits, so he cheered them up, "Scientists tell me that some inventions are likely to make a breakthrough in a year. In addition, the rocket shown by the Germans is not an unfathomable thing, and the rocket bureau says that they will be ready to launch a similar device by the end of this year - maybe the accuracy and range will be a little worse, but the principle and direction are the same, and it can be accelerated to dry up with attention. ”

The first half of the sentence is obviously a report on the progress of the Manhattan Project, and the second half of the sentence is basically bragging, because Roosevelt forcibly cut off the other half of the original sentence: "...... It may take another 2 years for us to reach the level of German rockets. ”

At present, the rocket height that the US Army Rocket Agency can master is only 15 kilometers, and the range is only 60-70 kilometers, which is only equivalent to the level reached by Germany in 1937. However, no one came forward to correct the president's mistake, and the Germans' endless new weapons put a lot of pressure on the American side, and everyone held their breath to show the Germans the real ultimate weapon after the Manhattan project was completed -- which was also the source of confidence for Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

After a sleepless night with a heavy heart, and a strategy for dealing with the possible situation the next day, Roosevelt was very calm, and went back to rest after the meeting -- at such a critical moment, he must have the confidence to be confident.

Early in the morning of 24 April, hundreds of reconnaissance planes were dispatched from all directions in suspicious directions, and observers demanded that every area of the sea they pass through be searched carefully and carefully. But the result was apparently none, and by noon the area had been extended to Bermuda and 1,500 kilometres east of Newfoundland, again with no findings. As for the British search for the German army, it was also useless - how could the fleet be found at the end of the Canary Islands to rest and replenish? After tonight, they will march in the direction of Cape Verde, and the British and American reconnaissance will be completely in the opposite direction.

Now everyone is waiting for the results of the Nimitz fleet's reconnaissance, and theoretically, the sea area within 1,000 kilometers east of the Azores is the black hole of the current Allied reconnaissance. If the TF46 fleet, which ventured into the depths, could not find the Germans, it would basically be able to put an end to this farce.

Now that TF46 is still about 2,000 kilometers west of Ireland, Nimitz decided to continue his march to the southeast to check the situation further.

On 25 April, the land-based reconnaissance planes of the two countries searched again and again, but still found nothing, and now everyone began to suspect that the original news about the German landing fleet was false information about a false alarm. The Luftwaffe continued to attack the southern radar stations with hail, and the British had no good idea other than to passively shut down the radar stations to reduce their losses - the experts experimented with deploying mobile radars at a distance as decoys to divert the bombs, but they did not expect that the bombs would still blow up as a decoy.

In the evening of the same day, the TF46 fleet arrived at a more delicate position - about 1,600-1,800 kilometers from the Azores, A Coruña in Spain and the French port of Brest.

That night, TF46 continued to move towards the southeast, but to his surprise, Ozawa's fleet also took advantage of the darkness to leave the port - after the Raven was arrested by the SS a year earlier for inadvertent actions, the British and Americans completely lost their source of intelligence to the Azores, and now this place is a black hole for them.

On the morning of April 26, the Nimitz fleet was 1,300 kilometers west due north of the Azores, and the Ozawa fleet was 400 kilometers due north of the Azores, with the two sides separated from each other by more than 1,000 kilometers. The two commanders unleashed reconnaissance planes in unison, unaware that the two fleets were approaching each other.

At 11 o'clock in the afternoon, the distance between the two sides had been reduced to less than 800 kilometers, and just as Nimitz was considering turning back to the east coast, and Ozawa was considering going to the Irish-Icelandic direction again to put pressure on the British, the reconnaissance planes of both sides sent reconnaissance information to the two commanders almost simultaneously:

"Spot the enemy fleet!"