Years later, John still remembers vividly what happened in the last month of 1939. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoIn that month, for the first time in his life, he felt the breath of war.

On December 1, the Operational Planning Division of the Army General Staff finally ushered in the first approval of arms exports after the revision of the "Neutrality Act." This is much later than many people expected.

You must know that as early as a month ago, the amendment to the "Neutrality Act" was passed by the National Assembly. It is already legal for belligerents to buy arms from the United States on the premise of "cash and self-transport". However, it seems that the new regulations did not immediately bring them a flood of orders, as the arms dealers imagined.

Because when the smoke of the Polish plain cleared, the war situation in Europe was strangely calmed down. The prelude to the war had just begun, followed not by the rumbling of cannons, but by a strange silence.

On the one hand, France, Great Britain, and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada declared war on Germany. A large number of troops drove to the German-French border, and the tragic scene of the battlefield on the Western Front more than 20 years ago seemed to be reproduced soon.

On the other hand, none of the 23 German divisions on the Western Front and the more than 100 divisions of the Anglo-French army had the intention of making the first move. Both sides assumed a defensive posture and waited quietly on both sides of the border. The media called this "declaration without war" or "sit-down war".

This situation has made the US arms dealers so bad, who have spent so much effort and so much money lobbying for congressmen to finally obtain legal permission, only to find that the expected buyer has not shown up at all.

However, this is the case, and there is really no need for Britain, France, or Germany to rush to import arms from the United States at present. For Britain and France, with their own industrial production capacity and the resource supply capacity of their huge colonies, it is simply not a problem to cope with the current insignificant material consumption.

As for Germany, the supplies they received from the Czechs and Poland alone were enough for them to digest for a while. Moreover, their fleet was not capable of breaking through the British Imperial Navy's encirclement and interception in the Atlantic.

After waiting for more than a month without business to come to the door, American arms dealers began to get into a hurry. So when the Soviet-Finnish war broke out, John was surprised by the energy they burst out.

In just one day, they got the Congress. On November 30, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, and on December 1, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution to provide Finland with $10 million in emergency aid. The money was also stipulated to be used only for the purchase of arms in the United States.

However, John did not have much time to marvel at the power of the arms dealers. Chief Boer was given an urgent task to negotiate with the military attache at the Finnish Embassy in the United States on the use of the emergency assistance as a representative of the Operations Planning Service of the Army Staff.

The military attache at the Finnish Embassy in the United States is named Guzesen, who is about 45 years old. Although their homeland is being invaded, and the strength of the opponent Soviet Union makes people a little desperate. But Guzesen always believed that the Finns, under the leadership of Field Marshal and the 72-year-old Baron Mannerheim, could teach the invading enemy a hard lesson.

Guzesen proudly told John: "The Finnish soldiers were tenacious, well-trained, and especially good at winter warfare. We will teach the Soviet Red Army a good lesson and teach them how to fight a real winter war! ”

This optimism of Guzesen made John feel good about him. With his help and coordination, the Finns were able to obtain almost all the supplies they needed. These included 50,000 rifles, 1,000 light machine guns, 80 artillery pieces, a large quantity of ammunition and 50 H-1 fighters. Almost enough to arm four light infantry divisions and one fighter group.

In particular, the 50 H-1 fighters in the end were not John faking the public interest. Who let only Hughes Aircraft Company have enough in stock? (The H-1 fighters were originally intended for the Philippine Army, but they were moved to Finland long before the deadline.) Moreover, historically, the Finns got only 44 P-35s for the same price. This kind of old aircraft was eliminated from the active duty of the US military before the outbreak of Pearl Harbor, and it cannot be compared with the H-1.

Thanks to John's active campaigning, the Finns were able to gather the supplies within a week. Guyssen and the diplomats at the other embassies were very grateful to John.

You know, although the United States condemned the aggression of the Soviet Union, imposed symbolic "arms embargo" sanctions on it, and kicked the Soviet Union out of the League of Nations. But most Americans had little hope that Finland would be able to withstand the Soviet Red Army's attack. Many even believe that Finland will not survive the arrival of this batch of weapons.

In this case, John can still enthusiastically campaign for Finland, and even use his contacts in the business community and the military industrial production committee, how can he not be moved by Guzesen.

John didn't think much about it himself, it was more of a practical drill for him. He knew that in the coming years, he would be more and more exposed to this kind of work as the Tenancy Act was implemented.

When John finally put the arms on board the aid to Finland, and before he could catch his breath, the situation in Europe changed again.

This confrontation took place not on land, but in the vast Atlantic. First of all, the Nazis' newly developed magnetic mines made a big splash, causing a lot of trouble for merchant ships traveling between the colonies and the European mainland.

Britain's new Admiralty Churchill (after Britain declared war on Germany, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain invited Churchill to join the wartime cabinet as Secretary of the Admiralty) openly admitted in Parliament that more than 300,000 tons of British ships were sunk by such magnetic mines.

Then the German pocket battleship "Admiral Spee" staged another farce in the southern waters of the Atlantic. The German Navy's most active maritime assault ship first broke into the Atlantic, engaged in a break-up engagement, and played a game of "cat and mouse" with the British Navy.

After moving to the Indian and Atlantic Oceans and sinking a number of British merchant ships, the "Admiral Count Spee" was finally blocked by three Royal Navy cruisers in the waters off the coast of Argentina and Uruguay in the mouth of the Río de la Plata. After a fierce battle, the "Admiral of Count Spee" was wounded and fled, and emergency repairs were carried out in the port of Montevideo in Uruguay in accordance with international law.

At this time, a dramatic scene occurred, and the German captain, Colonel Langsdorf, was struck by the local rumors. He mistakenly believed that the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the battlecruiser Prestige, and three other cruisers had arrived off the coast of Montevideo, and in order to prevent his warship from falling into the hands of the British, he chose to sink himself.

When Captain Lonsdorff, in front of tens of thousands of locals, drove the warship out of the harbor and sank himself in the ocean, still 3 nautical miles from the open sea, more than 20 million people around the world listened to the live broadcast of the farce on BBC radio.

This self-sinking incident not only enriched the after-dinner conversation of the American people, but also indirectly benefited the two people. One was Winston Churchill, whose domestic popularity as the new British Admiralty Secretary had grown significantly, setting him up to succeed Neville Chamberlain as wartime prime minister next year.

The other is Dönitz, who will be a headache for the Allies in the future. After this self-sinking incident, Hitler was completely disillusioned with the performance of the German Navy's surface ships and instead increased his support for submarine forces. The Nazi "wolf pack of the seas" would be the greatest nightmare for Allied sailors.