Approaching dusk, a huge group of Allied bombers flew to Tersel's capital city of Angra Heroma again, and after a fierce bombardment, this harbor, once known as the pearl of the ocean, was full of ruined walls, and the American and British officers and soldiers stationed here were all disgraced, completely missing the arrogance of confidence not long ago. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 After the air raid sirens were lifted, the main U.S. and British fleets, which had left the port to avoid the bombing, returned to Texel Bay, where Xu Bo was not alarmed. At this time, the acting flagship "Indiana" issued an order for all ships not to anchor and to keep all officers on alert, and in the name of Admiral Shandley, the commander-in-chief of the fleet, summoned the commanders and main staff of the detachments to come to discuss combat matters.

Admiral Alfred Chatfield, commander of the British Ocean Fleet and commander of the British combat forces on the Azores front, arrived first and had a one-on-one meeting with Admiral William Standry, commander of the US-British Joint Combat Fleet and commander of the US Atlantic Fleet, for more than 40 minutes.

When the generals arrived in the conference room of the acting flagship, the two admirals sat side by side, their expressions unusual—Standley's expression was a little lost, and some relieved and relaxed, and Chatfield looked full of ambition, and when he looked closely, he seemed to be heavy-minded, and with a little discernment he realized that something big was happening.

After everyone was seated, Stander said in a calm tone: "Ladies and gentlemen, our Joint Operations Command sent a telegram this afternoon, proposing that I be transferred to Hawaii as Commander of the Pacific Fleet, and that Admiral Chatfield temporarily assume the post of Commander of the Joint Combat Fleet, and that both I and Admiral Chatfield have decided to accept this proposal. In view of the current operational needs, only the fleet staff will be adjusted accordingly, and the commanders of the detachments will continue to remain in their original posts. If nothing else, the formal personnel change order will come down at a later date. Gentlemen, this battle has been fought so far, we have seized some opportunities, but also missed some opportunities, the reason why we have lost a good situation, resulting in today's passive situation, every one of us here should deeply reflect and strive to reverse the situation through the subsequent combat operations, but in any case, the experience of working with you will become the most precious memory of my life, thank you for the support and understanding you have given me! Good luck to all! ”

Judging from the reaction of everyone, not many people expected such personnel changes before, but the battle of the Azores has started high and low, and it has suffered consecutive defeats recently, and the high-level leaders of the two countries will definitely not be able to sit still, especially the British, who are betting on the survival of the country, will never sit idly by and watch the Azores battle fall into a passive stalemate. Objectively speaking, Stendley was not a conservative and incompetent commander, during the First Battle of Texel, he showed his courage and sharp thinking, the capture of Texel allowed the United States and Britain to quickly open up the situation in the Azores, and then captured five islands in succession, only a stone's throw away from winning the Battle of the Azores, at that time Stendley became the naval god of war in the minds of the military and civilians of the two countries, and the speed of the fall from the altar was beyond everyone's imagination - from the Battle of Flores has only been three weeks, The fact that the US-British coalition forces lost the initiative on the battlefield in the Azores despite their overall superiority in land, sea and air forces has no way to explain what is really going on behind this.

After making a final speech for his curtain call, Standley did not get up and leave, but sat quietly in his seat, giving up the stage of the performance to Chatfield, who had been low-key until now. Born into a family of admirals, he began his naval career at the age of 13, and during the last World War, he served as captain of a battle cruiser and commander of a squadron, and experienced the Battle of Jutland, the Second Battle of Flanders, and the Battle of the Faroe IslandsGeorge V, who was on his sickbed, once said to his heir, Prince Edward, "If there is one man who stands up to save the British Empire in times of crisis, it must be our Alfred." (Alfred of Germany was the late Count Alfred von Tirpitz, the founder of the Navy)

"In view of the special circumstances of wartime, I have agreed with Admiral Shandley that I will act as Commander of the Combined Combat Fleet with immediate effect." Without any polite opening, Chatfield announced to everyone in the first sentence that he would exercise his new powers, and since his predecessor had just said that he would not make major personnel changes for the time being, he skipped the topic and succinctly described the current combat situation.

"According to the latest reports, we will have at least four capital ships back on the front line in the coming August, but even then we will face a very painful problem, which is the lack of available aircraft carriers. According to the most optimistic estimates, we will not be able to ease the aircraft carrier crisis until the end of the year, so it will be difficult for us to regain the strategic initiative in the Atlantic in the next few months, which means that we will fight very hard most of the time, and everyone must be mentally prepared. ”

Explaining the unfavorable situation in which he was found, Chatfield changed his words: "If you don't want to be depressed for months like this, the only way now is to find a way to inflict heavy damage on the enemy's air force and regain the battlefield air supremacy that originally belonged to us." Specifically, we need to move two moves, one against the enemy's aircraft carriers and the other against the growing number of land fighters on the island of São Miguel. ”

What the British admiral said is nothing new, and anyone with a bit of military acumen can think that the key lies in how to achieve this seemingly simple two-step move, especially in the absence of naval aviation, to severely damage the enemy's aircraft carriers, and the slightest negligence may make one's own warships a delicacy for the opponent's carrier-based aircraft.

Seeing that the generals were silent, Chatfield said slowly: "I know what everyone is worried about, this is indeed a two-step risky move, which requires accurate calculation and careful deployment to be successful, and once we succeed, we will reopen the passage to attack Sao Miguel Island, which will not only boost the morale of the entire fleet, but more importantly, it can restore the confidence of victory to the people in the rear." ”

Admiral Yanel, commander of the US Battlefleet, said frankly: "Your Excellency, Honorable Admiral, after hearing what you have said, I must have considered the overall battle plan, and I have absolutely no intention of questioning your ability, but ...... I wonder if you have the confidence to defeat the god of war shared by the Germans and the Irish? ”

Yanel's words spoke to the hearts of the generals present, and that prestige was like a mountain, pressing on everyone's chest, making them fall into panic and uneasiness, and gradually lose confidence in victory.

Rather than being displeased, Chatfield recounted: "Joachim Franz Hubert, born on December 17, 1890 in Berlin, Germany, spent his childhood at the Royal Castle on the shores of Lake Pullen, entered the Kiel Naval Academy at the age of 14, and graduated three years later, leaving behind an astonishing record of excellent academic performance; His first warship was the Alsace, which was captained by Reinhardt-Schell, who served in the German Navy for eight years, playing the roles of a career officer, a ship designer, a shipbuilding tycoon, a football star, and Tirpitz's right-hand man in building the High Seas Fleet. In 1915, he led the German troops to land in Ireland, helped the Irish drive out the British garrison, and ascended to the Irish throne...... It seems impossible to defeat such a perfect person. ”

At this point, Chatfield swept his gaze over the crowd and then said to himself: "To tell you the truth, I have spent a great deal of time studying this man in the past twenty years. As far as military command is concerned, his style is quite strange, his sense of smell is unusually sensitive, his judgment is unusually accurate, his thinking is unusually bold, and he is repeatedly favored by good fortune, which creates the myth of his invincibility on the battlefield. However, there were weaknesses in his layout in every battle, and there were even less obvious flaws, and if we had been able to grasp these weaknesses or flaws at that time, we would definitely have had a chance to turn defeat into victory. Following his way of thinking, I conducted several wargames for the Battle of the Azores, each of which was recorded in written form. If you are interested, when you return to Halifax one day, you can come to my office to check it out, and the two methods of warfare of annihilating the advance fleet by luring the enemy into depth, and using the bait to inflict heavy damage on the main aircraft carriers have all appeared in the wargame I have described, and I regret that the intelligence services could not warn the Irish king to lead the fleet in time, so that we were still responding according to Paul-Beinck's operational ideas, and the result was a catastrophic blow. ”

With that, Chatfield paused for a moment, rubbing his hands against each other. His words rekindled the hope of some of those present, while others remained skeptical.

"As we all know, the vast majority of commanders have their own habitual combat thinking, just like the posture of holding a cutlery - whether it is eating steak, lamb chops, fish steak or vegetables, unless it is deliberate, they will subconsciously adopt the posture that they feel most comfortable, and the habitual posture of this undefeated god of war is to attack continuously, inflict two or even three damage on the opponent in a short period of time, let the opponent suffer losses in terms of equipment, soldiers, confidence, morale, etc., and let those who are not determined lose the courage to fight him. Even if he is forced to fight, he will look forward and hesitate, and then make mistakes that he can take advantage of. In the end, Chatfield deliberately accentuated his tone, and looked at several of the squadron commanders present with deep meaning.

Several commanders heard the meaning behind these words, and whether they wanted to or not, they held their heads high and straightened their chests, waiting for the new commander to give the order to fight to defend their honor.

(End of chapter)