During the first two months of 1941, the war in Europe calmed down for a while, at least on the surface. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

To the north, General Timoshenko of the Kiev Military District took over command of the front from Marshal Voroshilov and General Meretskov and began to adjust the deployment of the Soviet army and accumulate energy for the second round of offensives.

The Führer Mannerheim, on the other hand, made every effort to strengthen his own defenses, and at the same time made diplomatic efforts in the hope of gaining more international support before the Soviets launched a second offensive. No way, that's all there is to the war potential of the Finns. Even with a victory like last month's, they can't afford to do it a second time.

On the Western Front, French and Belgian armies continued to retreat into fortifications to escape the harsh winter. Some 300,000 British expeditionary forces had arrived in France, and support units from various Commonwealth countries had begun to set off.

According to the latest information, there are about two divisions of Canadian infantry on their way to Europe, most of them from French-speaking areas.

The arrival of these people further aggravated the strain on domestic supplies, especially food. Shortly after the New Year, the food-loving nation issued its first post-war executive order on food rationing.

Residents of the city began to be required to use ration cards when purchasing food, and food items including bread, vegetables, meat, fruit, French pastries and chocolates were either restricted or simply banned.

Even in hotels and restaurants, the menu is limited to two, one of which is meat, and drinks are served only four days a week.

Interestingly, rabbit meat is not restricted. Soon, this small, long-eared creature was at the top of the French family menu. The know-how of making dishes from rabbits began to spread everywhere, and some people even began to try to breed rabbits in captivity.

On the German side, the situation is even worse. Food was also scarce, and the Imperial Ministry of Food and Agriculture imposed much stricter food rationing standards than the French. That's about 16 ounces of meat and 10 ounces of fat per person per week.

But the long economic recession after the last world war has allowed Germans to adapt to this life. The residents consciously plucked the flowers from the courtyard and began to grow vegetables and potatoes.

The greatest difficulty faced by the Germans was the shortage of iron ore. For a long time, German military industrial production relied on iron ore imports from Sweden. (Sweden has remained neutral, but it has close ties to Germany.) After World War I, many German military enterprises, such as Krupp, preserved their strength by transferring assets to Sweden. ）

In the past, iron ore could be transported to Germany via the Gulf of Bothnia in northern Sweden in warm weather, rather than through the Baltic Sea. But now, the cold snap has completely frozen that sea, and the thick ice makes it impassable for any boat.

During this period, Swedish iron ore had to be transported by rail to the Norwegian port of Narvik and then by ship along the Norwegian coast to Germany. As a result, German ships transporting iron ore were kept within range of British naval ships and bombers.

British destroyers and submarines began to appear more and more frequently in the waters near Norway. In just a few weeks, the Germans lost seven freighters and more than 80,000 tons of iron ore, and some steel mills have almost bottomed out on raw material reserves.

In order to solve the problem of iron ore supply, Hitler had to put aside the attack on France for the time being, and re-picked up the proposal submitted by the navy last September to go north and annex Denmark and Norway.

Although the bitter cold has temporarily calmed down the war in Europe, both sides are quietly gathering strength. The whole of Europe is like a volcano that has suddenly frozen, and the hot lava under the ground could break through the ice at any moment and start a new and more violent eruption.

On the other side of the Atlantic, most people in the United States no longer have much hope for peace. Although President Roosevelt sent Deputy Secretary of State Sumner Wells to Europe to mediate, no one was optimistic about the diplomatic trip.

In Italy, where Wells was warmly received by Mussolini, Foreign Minister Count Chiano, and King Victor Emmanuel III, Berlin, Paris, and London reacted lukewarmly to his arrival.

These days, John has been busy trying to get the Ground Airlines Statistics Control Office up and running as quickly as possible. Ostensibly, the work was carried out by Colonel Rovett, deputy chief of the Army Air Corps' Operations Division. But the actual work was almost entirely done by John and a major named Thornton. John was responsible for selecting the right people for the office, and Thornton was responsible for sorting out the specific statistical operations.

John had known Thornton for a long time. When he recruited McNamara, he considered whether to recruit the leader of the "Blue Blood Ten" under his command.

But in the end, he gave up, because this Texan's talent is true, but his temper is too stinky. Historically, when he was the head of the Statistics Control Division, he offended almost all the generals of the Army Air Corps. So much so that as soon as the war ended, he was kicked out of the army.

John focuses more on teamwork than on individual talent. Thornton was a great manager, but John would rather not work with anyone else on the company's management team.

Even though John was mentally prepared, after working with Thornton for a few days, he was still surprised by the hot temper of the other party. Historically, Thornton's nickname "Napoleon Reincarnated" was not in vain.

On one occasion, Thornton discovered that Deputy Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Bennet Meyer, was using false figures in a report on aircraft production, and he not only unceremoniously pointed out the mistake in public, but also accused Lieutenant General Meyer: "Your numbers are even more outrageous than nothing!" ”

A temporary major who had just enlisted in the army actually took the initiative to provoke a senior lieutenant general, and the scene at that time can be imagined. Lieutenant General Meyer had never been so humiliated in his life, and was so angry that he threatened to get Thornton into the gendarmerie.

The Statistics Control Office had just been established, and Thornton was still making enemies there, making John's work difficult. He had recruited several staff officers from other departments, but now none of them were willing to come to the Statistics Control Office on the grounds that they did not want to work with Thornton.

In the end, John had to run to Arnold to intervene, and he managed to get together the team of the Statistics and Control Office.

It's not enough to have people, you have to have the necessary equipment. Just as infantry need guns, sailors need boats, pilots need airplanes, and statistical controllers need their own "weapons".

That weapon is the computer. After all, not everyone is a pervert like McNamara, and no one can handle such a huge number crunch without a computer.

One day at the end of January, John traveled to IBM in New York with a second lieutenant officer from the Statistics Control Division to inspect a new punch computer for the department.

This IBM 405 punch-hole computer, which was recommended to him by Tom Jr., is said to be the latest product of IBM. Although it cannot be compared with the electronic computers of later generations, it is already the best computer of this era.

John felt that the calculations of the machine were average, but he was intrigued by another advantage of the machine. This punch computer can be used with fly-by-wire systems.

In other words, as long as each base sends the data by telegraph, the machine can automatically convert the information brought by the telegraph into a punch card on the punch machine, and then calculate it.

In this way, John only had to build a large central computer center, and did not have to equip every branch unit with computers.