Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

This horseshoe-shaped harbor is located in the southeast and southeast of Cuba, divided into two parts, the inner harbor and the outer harbor, 20 kilometers long, 8 kilometers wide, the entrance is only 3 kilometers wide, the giant ship can enter and exit freely, it is one of the world's famous natural harbors, and the east is bordered by the Windward Strait, the passage of the Atlantic Ocean into the Caribbean Sea, the strategic location is extremely important.

Since 1903, part of Guantanamo Bay has been forcibly occupied by the United States as a naval base, with a total area of 117 square kilometers, including 70 square kilometers of harbor water and 47 square kilometers of coastal land. The town of Kaimanella on the north and west shores of the harbor remains under Cuban jurisdiction, but access to the sea must pass through areas controlled by the United States.

At the time of the outbreak of the German-American War, a guard fleet of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet was stationed here, with some cruisers, destroyers, submarines and patrol ships.

At the beginning of August 1924, as the German Atlantic Fleet moved south, the end of the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay and the garrison fleet also came.

On 8 August, more than 200 carrier-based planes that took off from German aircraft carriers carried out extremely fierce air strikes on Guantanamo, and most of the US airfields, warships, and material warehouses were fatally attacked. After the first wave of air strikes, the US military drove the remaining ships in the port to the port one by one and scuttled them, and then announced that they would abandon the Guantanamo naval base and evacuate all personnel by land.

That night, a German commando group landed in a dinghy 3 kilometres east of the Guantanamo base, but was stopped by Cuban armed men on the way to Guantanamo, and the German commandos were forced to retreat to sea due to the disparity in numbers between the two sides. At midnight that night, the German battleships "Albrecht", "Geertz", "Baden" and "Württemberg", escorted by destroyers, approached the coast and shelled the fortifications of the outer harbor of Guantanamo for two hours, and the 406-mm and 380-mm large-caliber naval guns easily bombarded the port defenses built by the Americans into the sky, and there was no counterattack fire in the direction of the port during the entire shelling.

The next morning. Covered by a large number of carrier-based aircraft and destroyers, more than 2,000 German marines landed in the harbor and quickly occupied the empty Guantanamo base. At 7:35, the black, white and red tricolor flag was raised on the flagpole of the base.

Although Cuba gained independence in 1902, the situation under the control of the Americans remained unchanged in the 20s, and not only was the pro-American government supported by the United States, but the only regular armed police force was funded by the United States and trained by instructors sent by the Americans. However, at a time when a strong enemy was facing a strong enemy and had no time to take care of itself, the Cuban government, which was supported by the Americans, did not obey Washington's order to resolutely resist, but chose to remain silent. At the same time, the country's armed police force was ordered not to interfere with the German movement in Guantanamo.

It is a pity that the Americans firmly control the armed police force of the Cuban puppet government, and they do not obey the orders of the so-called president and government at all, and at the instigation of the US officials, they captured the presidential palace in Havana on 9 August and arrested the president and other government officials, and then announced that the Cuban regime would be taken over by the provisional military government. That night, dozens of Cuban militants also attacked a German outpost, killing and wounding several German marines.

When the German outpost was attacked by Cuban armed men, the German High Command decisively issued an order for the total occupation of Cuba. The German Atlantic Fleet then shelled coastal cities and military installations along the coast of Brazil, while a landing convoy carrying 7,000 German and 4,000 Mexican soldiers had departed from Puerto Juárez in the northeastern corner of Mexico. It's less than 200 kilometers from Cuba!

August 11th. The German government officially declared war on Cuba, and an hour later, German and Mexican troops landed on the southern coast of ancient Brazil under the cover of the German fleet. Because there are only thousands of armed policemen and some American ** people defending Cuba. With more than 10,000 German and Mexican soldiers not putting up decent resistance, the landing force quickly advancing into central Cuba, the German fleet's artillery and bombs terrified many Cubans, and the inability of the United States mainland to send reinforcements at this time, it seemed only a matter of time before Cuba was fully occupied by the Germans.

As early as the appearance of the German Atlantic Fleet in the waters near Cuba, Washington was worried about this, because Cuba was not only the northern gate of the Caribbean, but also separated from the mainland of the United States by a 200-kilometer-wide Florida Strait, and once it became the most advanced air base for the Germans, German bombers could fly to the heart of the United States to bomb. The Germans were also able to use Cuba as a pedal to attack Florida from the sea, which was by no means what the White House and the Admiralty wanted.

So a telegram was sent from Washington to the Pacific Fleet, which was heading south: Panama by August 23!

At this time, Robert Koontz's Pacific Fleet had just arrived outside the port of Los Angeles – an important port city with German ground forces closing in, but the Star-Spangled Banner was still flying over the harbor until August 17.

At the beginning of the war, the main direction of the German offensive was the southeastern United States, so most of the losses suffered by Los Angeles came from bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe, and with the arrival of the German 5th Army and a large number of African colonial forces in Mexico, the German-Mexican coalition launched a new ground offensive aimed at capturing the southwestern states of the United States. Los Angeles has been bombed more recently than in the previous month, with German bomber formations dropping hundreds of tons of bombs and incendiary bombs almost daily — the U.S. government strongly appealed to both warring sides to refrain from using incendiary bombs that would cause great harm to innocent people, but the Germans ignored the initiative of such weak men.

Since the voyage further south was Mexico's long western coastline, and the voyage would not allow the American fleet to refuel or supplies at least until it reached Panama, Koontz's fleet had to venture out of the sea off Los Angeles, where minesweepers swept a passage through mines overnight, and freighters departed from the harbor with only a handful of military and non-military supplies—which would have become German trophies if Los Angeles fell.

Weather was good today, the breeze and waves on the sea did not prevent the ships from resupplying each other at sea, otherwise the American fleet would have to risk being bombed by the Luftwaffe and could not avoid it entering Los Angeles or sailing to Panama with a lack of fresh water and fresh vegetables, as a result of the telegram from Washington, the Pacific Fleet had made two rounds at sea in vain, and the supplies it had replenished outside the port of San Francisco had been uselessly consumed.

Looking at another city full of wolf smoke and near-darkness, the US officers and soldiers vowed to avenge their compatriots. Their commander, General Robert Koontz, was a little apprehensive at this time. The Naval Operations Department asked his fleet to arrive in Panama by August 23, when the Atlantic Fleet would also venture from Norfolk to join the Pacific Fleet. However, the time is only 12 days, and it would take nearly 10 days to get to Panama by the previous route near the coast of Mexico. In General Koontz's view, a safer route would be to make a large arc in the Pacific Ocean away from the coast of Mexico, but that would nearly double the distance and take 18 days to reach Panama!

After communicating his thoughts to Washington via secret telegram, General Koontz stood silently on the bridge and watched the fleet receive supplies at sea. Before 1920, U.S. ships traveling from the West Coast of the United States to Panama did not have to worry about the choice of routes, and both warships and merchant ships were able to sail on the west coast of Mexico. It doesn't matter if Mexico's territorial waters are violated or not, as long as it is convenient and comfortable.

Now, however, Mexico's territorial waters are not only within the range of German land-based aircraft, but also an ominous number of German submarines. Since the outbreak of the war, the U.S. merchant fleet has largely abandoned trade with South America, and most of the merchant ships that can still leave the port freely have taken the U.S. OnePlus or Pacific routes. When Japan also declared war on the United States, the only remaining overseas trade routes for the United States existed between the United States and Canada and the United States and Russia, and once the Japanese navy went north to the Aleutian Islands, then the trade between the United States and Russia would also be in jeopardy.

Four hours passed, and the replenishment of the fleet was about to be completed. But at this time. Hellish German planes have once again appeared in the distant sky! The black-pressed bomber group looks like they're preparing to bomb Los Angeles or San Francisco. After spotting the US Pacific Fleet on the sea, one of the squadrons turned around and flew in this direction.

Koontz gritted his teeth and ordered the USS Langley and USS Yorktown to take off. and told the pilots to shoot down all those hateful German bombers. The Americans did not expect that as more and more air wings were transferred from the German mainland to the North American theater of operations, the Dornier DD bombers on bombing missions were basically escorted by long-range fighters.

Under such a relatively fortuitous situation, German land-based fighters and US Navy carrier-based aircraft engaged in the first air battle since the beginning of the war. After discovering that the American fighters took off from the aircraft carrier, the Dornier 44 heavy bombers climbed one after another, and the 15 German Black Hawk DD bravely flew towards the 24 American F48s. For example, the F48 fighter manufactured by Boeing is equipped with 90 in the Navy, and the slightly slower F2A is equipped with 60, and the two fighters are F-9B and F-9A respectively. At the outbreak of the war, there were only 75 and 45 in the army. In the selection of pilots, the US Navy always has priority over the US Army, even when competing for the military budget, the Navy is always in the upper hand, and what makes the Army even more helpless is that the most important airship project before the war was actually taken over by the Admiralty.

It was for these reasons that the U.S. government had no intention of giving up resistance when the Army was in a state of collapse, because their mighty two-ocean fleet was still intact, waiting to be combined and defeat the German fleet in a naval battle. The tide of war will be reversed as sea supremacy changes hands, and the German-Mexican forces that invaded the southern part of the United States will face difficulties due to the lack of logistics and follow-up troops, and the American forces will be able to gather forces under the cover of the navy to counterattack, and victory in the war will no longer be a luxury.

When the fighters on both sides accelerated the engines and made a dull sound, the sailors and sailors on the ships below stopped their work and looked up, only to see two groups of fighters whose numbers were inversely proportional to their volume rushing towards each other, and the silver-gray fighters in a high-altitude position took the lead in firing, and at a distance of more than 1,000 meters, they shot down four white American fighters with crisp and loud machine guns. Such a scene could not help but make the US officers and men on the ship worry for a while.

Seeing the strong firepower of the opponent, the remaining distillers quickly dispersed in all directions, and the German fighters also ended the first shot in time, and the two sides immediately entered the air to dogfight. The "Black Hawk DD" has a large fuselage, firepower is concentrated in the front and rear upper hemispheres, the maximum speed is 390 kilometers per hour, and its agility is much inferior to that of the single-wing single-engine fighter; The F4B still uses the twin machine gun configuration that was popular in Europe, the firepower is concentrated in the nose position, the maximum speed is 335 kilometers per hour, and the maneuverability is among the best among the American fighters of the same period, but there is almost no armor defense, although the self-sealing fuel tank can avoid explosion to a certain extent, but there is no suspense about the fate of the fragile body against the 20mm cannon.

Ten minutes is both short and long for the US officers and men watching the battle, and today's protagonists are obviously the pilots of both sides, and the beautiful tactical moves have attracted bursts of cheers from the people below, and whenever the bullets of the US planes hit or graz the target, there will always be a "oh" or "oh" sound in the crowd. The skills of the U.S. Navy pilots were respectable, but the problem was the weak firepower of the two 7.62mm machine guns on their fighters, which were always able to hit rather than shoot down the German Black Hawk DD long-range fighters with armor protection and twin engines. Seeing that the opponent was superior in numbers and flexibility, the German pilots did not fall in love with the battle, but left the battlefield with 3 wounded fighters, and the US Naval Aviation Force, which had lost 9 carrier-based aircraft, could only withdraw its troops in the case of superiority.

After the end of the air battle, Robert Koontz hastily finished the replenishment at sea and then led the fleet south, where a long and dangerous voyage and an uncertain future awaited him.

Information about another discovery of the American fleet outside the port of San Francisco soon reached the High Command in Berlin, and the admirals were even more convinced that the American Pacific Fleet would take the Panama Canal, the fastest route they could take to the Atlantic. Thus, on the one hand, the navy ordered the engineering units that had already landed to set up a military airfield in Cuba as soon as possible, and on the other hand, it ordered the German Pacific submarine formation stationed on the west coast of Mexico to wait for an opportunity to attack the US Pacific Fleet heading south.