On a sweltering summer night, without a single wind, the air humidity was as high as 70%, and the entire Klaebo barracks was like a big sauna. John stood at the window of the combat readiness duty room of the division headquarters, looking out at the camp of the 503rd Regiment in the distance. At this point in time, the soldiers had already turned off the lights and went to bed, and only a little light came out of the sentry and the duty room.

Suddenly, John remembered a book he had read in his previous life about the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union, the title of which was very meaningful, called "The Last Summer". That book was the last in Konstantin Simonov's long trilogy, The Living and the Dead, which tells the story of what happened when the Soviet Red Army liberated Belarus in 1944. But at the moment, John felt that the phrase "the last summer" was also appropriate to describe the summer of 1942.

For John and the sleeping officers and men of the 82nd Division, the summer of 1941 would be their last before they entered the battlefield. Perhaps, years from now, this last peaceful time will only leave a particularly long and difficult impression on their memories because of the endless heat and intense training.

But thousands of kilometers away in the Soviet Union, the summer of 1941 would be the last summer in the lives of countless people. At 3:15 a.m. on June 22, Germany mobilized more than 3 million troops in 151 divisions, 3,350 tanks, 7,184 artillery pieces, and 2,815 aircraft, with the cooperation of Finnish, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian, and Italian troops, to launch an attack on the Soviet Union along a 1,800-mile (2,880 km) front line from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

Overnight, with the rumbling of artillery fire, the roar of tank engines, and the screams of Stuka, tens of millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians were dragged into an abyss of hell filled with blood, tears, death, and sorrow.

John counted the time difference again (about 6 hours behind in the United States), and in a little more than 1 hour, Washington would almost have received the news. Tonight, there will be many people in the Army Staff and the White House who are destined to stay up all night because of this. Perhaps tomorrow morning, an overwhelming number of newspapers will spread this important news throughout the country, making the cloud of war looming over people's hearts even more oppressive.

John took a deep breath, turned back to his desk, and picked up the half-served cup of cold coffee. Tonight, he took the initiative to replace Brigadier General Swain and came to the combat readiness duty room, where he was to wait for the news of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

The reason why John preferred not to sleep and get the news of the outbreak of the Soviet-German war as soon as possible was not because he cared much about the Soviet Union. In fact, from a personal sensory point of view, there was not much difference in his dislike for the German Nazis and the Soviet Red regime. If Germany and the Soviet Union had been in action before the Battle of France, John would have been as happy as most capitalists would have been.

It's a pity that Hitler and Stalin, the two dirty and despicable dictators, actually shook hands and made peace after joining forces to partition Poland, and signed a "Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact". Even in 1941, there was news that the Soviet Union wanted to join the Axis powers. Soviet and German diplomats held two days of consultations in Berlin and even came up with a preliminary plan. Fortunately, Stalin and Hitler were both the ones who would rather die than suffer, and the negotiation conditions proposed by the two sides were too far apart, and in the end they were not settled.

Of course, John didn't choose to stay up late without sleeping because he wanted to see Germany and the Soviet Union fight too much.

That's right, as soon as the Soviet-German war broke out, many of John's businesses would also rise. With the Soviet Union included in Lend-Lease aid, Hughes planes, Caterpillar diesel engines and tractors, and even Draco's small arms and "Libership" orders from Kaiser Shipyard will see a new blowout. But John has long passed the stage where he can't sleep because he is so excited that he makes a few extra money.

The reason why he chose to stay up late and wait for the news was because the outbreak of the Soviet-German war was a landmark time node in World War II. Before the Normandy landings, the Eastern Front in Europe would be the most important battlefield in World War II, affecting the entire war and even the entire world pattern.

As early as 1939, when John first joined the Army, in order to determine whether the direction of the war in this life would change, or to determine whether his little butterfly would affect the general trend of the development of the world, he set himself a timetable to calibrate the direction of the war.

The launch of the Barbarossa project by Germany on June 22 is one of the most important time benchmarks. If the German invasion had been carried out on time in this lifetime, it would indicate that there had been no major changes in the general direction of historical development. Many of his memories from his past life can still be used.

If the Soviet-German war does not break out on time in this life, it means that there has been a great deviation in the development of history, and it is likely to take another path. While memories of past lives cannot be said to be completely useless, many memories of the details of the war will become unreliable. If he does it again, he will probably suffer a big loss on the battlefield.

Time passed minute by minute, and the combat readiness duty phone on the table never rang. The more John waited, the more anxious he became, and on a few occasions he almost couldn't help but call the staff directly to ask why there was no news yet.

"John, are you okay now?" When John raised his wrist for the fortieth time to look at the time, Omar pushed the door and walked in.

"It's okay, everything is fine." John first got up and reported the situation on duty to Bradley, and then asked with concern: "Omar, it's almost 1 o'clock, why haven't you rested yet?" ”

"I just finished reading the memo you gave me, and I have some questions I want to discuss with you." Omar rubbed his reddened eyes and poured himself another cup of coffee from the coffee pot.

"It's never too late to talk about it tomorrow. You're going to ruin your body if you do that. John admonished his old friend with concern. After all, Bradley is nearly 50 years old, not young, and staying up late still has a lot of damage to the body.

"It's okay, it's so hot, I can't sleep anyway." Bradley drank the coffee in his hand disappreciatively: "I just read your memo, is it appropriate to send so many people to observe the August exercise?" Other divisions only go to three or five people, and you get more than 30 people to go there at once, can the above agree? ”

"Aren't we close? And I didn't plan on having them all go to the tour. In August-September, the US Army will hold a large-scale military exercise in Louisiana to test the level of training of troops, check for deficiencies in new equipment and identify potential talent among officers.

The two sides involved were General Kruger's 2nd 3rd Army and General Ben Lear's 2nd Army. Kruger led 240,000 troops to "invade" Louisiana, while Ben Lear's 180,000 men were tasked with "defending" the United States.

Although in this large-scale exercise, there was nothing to do with the 82nd Army, where the 4th Division was located. However, the 4th Army still asked each division to send a group of officers to form an observation group to go to the exercise site to inspect and study.

Previously, Bradley and others had decided that this observation of the 82nd Division would be led by John. However, when John was working on the plan, he had a new idea, so he had the memo in Bradley's hand.

John felt that the exercise was in Louisiana anyway, not too far from the 82nd Division station. Why not take advantage of this opportunity to let more officers experience modern warfare.

So he contacted Eisenhower, who was chief of staff of the 3rd Army, and said that he wanted to send a group of grassroots officers to the battalion and company level as observers to experience the exercise at close range. Eisenhower did not refuse, but in exchange, he offered John to lead a group of 82nd Division logistics officers to the 3rd Army after the exercise to exchange experience and guide them in the pilot work of logistics reform. John agreed.

John was about to tell Bradley about his "deal" with Eisenhower, when suddenly, the phone on duty on his desk rang. The sharp ringing pierced the summer night sky, and John grabbed the phone: "Hello, this is the combat readiness duty room of the 82nd Division, and I am Colonel Vanderbilt." ”