After playing with Lucius for more than half an hour, John said goodbye and went back to the dormitory. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoHe's still happy with what he got tonight. Through this exchange, he already knew how to deal with Lucius in the future. It's not quite what I expected, but the goal has been achieved, isn't it?

Back in the dormitory, John put Lucius's business aside and continued to be his good student. Now, he's thinking more about choosing the topic for his final thesis. There is no way, their short-term course only has three months of theoretical classes, and there is no internship link, so the final thesis accounts for a large proportion of the assessment results. Many students start preparing when they first enter the school, and John is certainly no exception.

At present, there are two dissertation topics in front of him. The first, of course, is about the training and combat of the Airborne Forces. Who told him to go to the 82nd Infantry Division soon? At present, the United States can be said to be still blank in this field, much behind Germany and even the Soviet Union.

Needless to say, the brilliant results achieved by the German paratroopers in Europe some time ago. The Soviets also used airplanes to drop troops into Central Asia as early as 1927 during the battle to annihilate the Batuma Invaders. Even though the plane they used at that time did not have side hatches, and paratroopers had to climb onto the back of the plane to jump down, many scholars in later generations defined this skirmish as the first airborne operation in human history.

Funnily enough, although the Soviet Union established a formal paratrooper unit in 1930, their paratroopers still continue the tradition of climbing on the back of the plane to parachute. Before coming into contact with the combat experience of his German counterparts, Lao Maozi never seemed to feel that there was anything wrong with doing so. Anyway, they were too lazy to open the side hatches of the Teb-3 heavy bombers used by the paratroopers, and generations of Soviet paratroopers could only climb the skylight.

Fortunately, neither Germany nor the Soviet Union has a very long history of studying airborne operations, and it is completely too late for the United States to start catching up now. As far as John knew, Colonel William Lee (the father of the American Airborne Forces and the first commander of the 101st Airborne Division) had already formed a parachute school at Fort Benning with the support of Roosevelt and Marshall. Early next year, the US Army will form an experimental regimental paratroop unit.

Therefore, it is still very appropriate for him to write a thesis on the Airborne Forces in combination with the experience of his previous life. John believes that his "theoretical level" in the airborne troops' personnel training, tactical tactics, and weaponry is the best in the army at present. Perhaps, after this paper is written, it will help him get a hat of "the founder of the American airborne combat theory" in the future.

However, after much consideration, John gave up the temptation to become a theoretical pioneer and chose another topic. This topic is an important branch of psychological warfare -- concealment and camouflage tactics. In a previous psychological warfare report he co-authored with Joseph Kennedy Jr., he mentioned this tactic of deceiving and disrupting local commanders and inducing them to make wrong judgments by concealing and camouflaging their own troops.

John's decision to write this topic was actually for Major General Leslie McNair, the principal of the Fort Leavenworth Military Academy. Historically, General McNair has been a master of concealment and camouflage tactics, and has made important contributions to the development of this tactic.

The most famous example of the war is the two large-scale psychological warfare carried out by the Allies before the Normandy landings, "Northern Tenacity" and "Southern Tenacity". At that time, under the vigorous promotion of McNair, the Allies staged a series of big dramas to deceive the German army, such as the appearance of the fake General Patton, the visit of the fake Marshal Montgomery to the thousands of troops, and the virtual First Army Group. At one point, McNair even took the position of commander of the First Army Group himself.

John was going to use this paper to get close to the headmaster. Of course, he wanted to "stammer" McNair, definitely not to get a good graduation grade. What he values is Major General McNair's status as the new standard-bearer for the Army's conservatives.

All along, because of his relationship with Stimson, John remained "neutral" in the battle between Marshall and the conservatives in the military. But as he got closer to many of the Marshalls, this "neutral" stance began to blur in the eyes of outsiders. Stimson had reminded him that there were already people on the conservative side who were unhappy with him "moving closer to Marshall."

John was genuinely wronged by this. It's not that he wants to drill into Marshall's circle with red and white. His eyelids weren't so shallow. He knows very well that the conservatives have now been suppressed by Marshall, but as a former mainstream faction within the Army, its influence is deep-rooted and cannot be eliminated at all. Especially in the troops below, officers from conservative positions abound.

Moreover, this kind of big faction, which has been inherited for a long time, still has a strong ability to judge the situation and self-regulate. Even if the veterans with a hard-line and conservative attitude retire, there will be a group of "new leaders" who have strong ability and a high degree of acceptance of Marshall's reforms to be pushed to the forefront.

It's not that John doesn't want to engage with conservatives, it's just that he's been on the General Staff, which is Marshall's home base. Even if he wants to get on good terms with conservatives, he has to find a way. The reason why John asked Middleton to be the godfather of little Eric is because he wants to connect with conservatives through him.

And this "Mai" principal is the main "strategy" target selected by John after careful consideration. Don't look at the history of McNair is not as famous as Patton, Bradley and others, but he is indeed one of the most powerful people in the United States Army during World War II.

In particular, after the Army Command was reorganized in 1942 and split into three parallel commands, the Army Ground Forces, the Army Aviation Units, and the Army Service Units, McNair, as the commander of the Army Ground Forces, took over the overall authority over the establishment, training, and personnel of all ground combat units. His series of reforms in the Army establishment of those years have had an impact on the U.S. Army into the 21st century.

It can be said that if he had not been killed by an Allied bomber in 1944 while inspecting the Normandy front in France, McNair would not have been much worse than Bradley in the future. If it works well, it's not impossible to mix up a five-star general.

It's a pity that a generation of heroes died too aggrieved. By the way, as the highest-ranking officer of the U.S. military to die in World War II, McNair's death was rated by later generations as one of the three major oolong events of World War II.

The other two were that the plane of Italian Air Marshal Barbo was shot down by the anti-aircraft artillery of his own navy, and the German Wehrmacht General von Varnze. Schubert (commander of the 11th Army) flew into a minefield next to his airfield.

A concealed expert was blown up into the sky by his own bomber because he was too well hidden, an air force hero was blown to pieces by his own anti-aircraft artillery, and an army general sat in an airplane and "stepped on" a mine planted by his own engineers. These three oolong incidents, until later generations, often appear in various forums and post bars on the Internet.

In John's view, however, McNair's tragedy was not inevitable. Because his visit to the front line was not an official operation at all, it was purely at Bradley's private invitation to "observe" Operation Cobra on the spot. When the time comes, it would be nice to find any reason to leave him in Bradley's headquarters and run around below. John felt that with his relationship with Bradley, this was not difficult to do.