.“ They...... How did they end up there? ”

Admiral William Sims, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Naval Operations Department, had disbelief written clearly on his face, but the officers had verified the report they had just received and updated the position of the main force of the German Atlantic Fleet on the giant operational instructions - 60 degrees west longitude and 40 degrees north latitude, close to the border between the United States and Canada.

"It turns out that their target is not Norfolk ......"

Admiral William Benson, Chief of Naval Operations, had a sad expression on his face, if nothing else, the German fleet was headed for the British government-in-exile and Canada, which had recently formed a formal alliance with the United States, that is to say, the air raid alert at Norfolk Naval Port could basically be lifted, but the British government-in-exile and Canada seemed to be about to be unlucky!

"What to do? Dispatch our Atlantic Fleet? Simms was a little impatient.

"That's what the Germans are doing!" Benson shook his head, "Not to mention that our Atlantic Fleet can't compete with the German Atlantic Fleet with all its might, the mines and German submarines outside Norfolk Military Port are enough to stop the fleet!" ”

In the week that the German fleet was gone, German mine-laying submarines continued to mine the east coast of the United States, and that formidable TDD mine sank seven more American freighters and two Canadian freighters, making the German mine-laying submarines' record rise further to 11 merchant ships and five warships, with a total tonnage of nearly 20,000 tons. At this time, a limited number of American minesweepers were still busy clearing the mines that were increasing every day, and if they were not careful, they would themselves be blown up by German mines loaded with 300 kilograms of high explosives, so the progress of mine clearance was extremely slow. More than half of the ports on the east coast of the United States have been completely blocked by mines, which is something that neither the U.S. government nor the Department of Naval Operations could have anticipated before the outbreak of war.

"Submarine......" Simms wanted to talk about his submarine again, but after thinking about it, he overturned his opinion, "The submarine is too late to go north to deal with the German fleet!" ”

General Benson was silent, as a senior admiral in the U.S. Navy. He and Himes both had very German names, and now they wanted to fight Germany with real guns, which seemed to be a great irony for both of them from the beginning. According to the order of the Naval Operations Department, in the previous week, more than 70 US submarines had gone to the Gulf of Mexico to carry out blockade raid operations, and had achieved a good record of sinking 11 enemy freighters, but in the face of German destroyers, American submarines still had no chance of winning. As a result, within a week they themselves were sunk 4 ships. Benson calculated that with such a proportion of war losses, the United States still had a certain advantage, but the Germans were not stupid, on the one hand, they began to take stricter escort measures, on the other hand, let some single-ship merchant ships departing from Germany bypass South America to the west coast of Mexico, with the Chilean Navy refueling and escort on the way, and this route gradually became busy.

"Send a secret telegram to the British government and let them behave for themselves! All we can do is get the American submarines anchored in their military ports to cooperate with them. There is only sincere blessings! ”

Speaking of which. Benson sighed helplessly, rubbed his tired eyes, and walked towards the bathroom.

It was late afternoon on July 16. Edward VIII's British Navy had confirmed that the Americans had provided ground intelligence that a very powerful German fleet was heading for southeastern Canada. But what the Germans wanted to do, the British and the Americans were just as confused.

The fighting in the southern United States was fierce that night, and as night fell, the Luftwaffe's ground support was greatly reduced, giving the still strong American defenders the best chance to counterattack. In New Mexico and Texas, 560,000 U.S. Army officers and soldiers launched a fierce counterattack against the invading 400,000 German-Mexican troops during the night, but they did not want to usher in a major defeat known as the bloody night on the border. During the battle, which lasted nearly 10 hours, American infantry, armed mainly with rifles, light artillery, anti-tank guns, anti-tank grenades and machine guns, was slaughtered by heavy fire from German armored forces.

In New Mexico, the U.S. 17th Infantry Division left its position and launched an active attack on a German advance force outflanked from its back. Although there were only more than 2,000 people on the German side, their 23 assault tanks overshadowed all the anti-tank weapons of the Americans, 27 infantry fighting vehicles equipped with twin 20mm machine guns shot American soldiers exposed in the wilderness with frantic fire, and 56 half-track armored vehicles, on which the German infantry used field mm mortars, The 7.92mm G17 general-purpose machine gun was a good deterrent to the grouping charge of the American infantry, and the MP22 submachine gun, which was an improved version of the MP16, was very effective against enemy soldiers at close range. The wilderness, near Las Cruces, was filled with German gunfire all night until dawn. The German officers and men were amazed to see the corpses of American soldiers in the vast field in front of them—80 percent of the soldiers of this infantry division were killed in the fearless charge due to the hesitation of the American commander's retreat order, and the blood of more than 10,000 soldiers stained the entire land red, and even the most indifferent people would be moved by this scene.

In Texas, the fighting intensified, and with the help of armored forces, only the 4th and 9th Divisions of the 20 German and Mexican infantry divisions that were counterattacked by the Americans were forced to withdraw from their positions held during the day. On the outskirts of San Antonio, 4 American infantry divisions and 3 German divisions engaged in a fierce battle, and throughout the night soldiers on both sides were shooting and repeatedly fighting for positions, and many German tanks even ran out of their ammunition, until almost dawn, the American troops withdrew from the battle due to heavy casualties and fears of the Luftwaffe, and the exhausted German troops temporarily stopped the pursuit. After daybreak, many German soldiers were so tired that they fell asleep on the battlefield, so much so that many were taken to field hospitals by medical staff as unconscious, resulting in some jokes.

In the morning light, a large number of German war eagles were dispatched in full spirit, Junkers and Henkel continued to circle and strafe at low altitudes, Messerschmidt flew over the position with a roar, a large number of vultures were like black crows representing death, constantly looking for opportunities to attack, and on the ground, the German elite armored forces were interspersed back and forth. Guderian's Panzer Corps continued to expand its successes with the infantry divisions......

Over the sea in southeastern Canada, the sunrise is more than an hour earlier than in the southern United States. As the rising sun grew, one after another Sea Hawks took off from the flat and wide wooden deck of the aircraft carrier, and the German fleet, with its powerful vitality, was speeding towards its goal.

At 10:05 a.m. on July 17, a whimpering air raid siren sounded on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. Ten minutes later, the black-pressed German fighters flew to the port of St. John's, the most important port on the island. As the most important submarine base and outpost port of the British Empire in the Atlantic, 53 British and American submarines and more than 30 light ships were moored here, the largest of which was the Churchill-class cruiser built after 1916. Often used as a naval assault ship, it was the legendary story of the Churchill, which was chased by several German warships, eventually taking refuge in American harbors and staying until the South American War, when it was released and returned home.

When the German planes attacked, the three Churchill-class cruisers were unsuspecting in the harbor with their companions.

As the first wave of air attack aircraft, 6 Sky X-L combat reconnaissance aircraft, 40 Heinkel DD fighters, 56 Junkers Ju-DD dive bombers, and 36 Barracuda torpedo bombers flew from aircraft carriers more than 300 nautical miles away. Before they flew into port, there was less than one squadron of British fighters taking off to meet them, three medium-sized alert airships were floating over the port, and more than 30 warplanes were still stranded at two military airfields west of the port area. Many of the fighters had just been pushed out of the hangar by the crew. It will take some time for the pilots, fuel and ammunition to be fully ready.

In the face of 15 British fighters with relatively backward performance. Forty Heinkel pounced on it like wolves that had found food, the first air battle in which German naval carrier-based aircraft had participated since the outbreak of the war. In the sky, the fighters of both sides came and went, and strings of bullets flew through the air. Fighter jet after fighter jet accelerated, jerked, and rolled, the humming of the engines as they increased their horsepower was clearly audible, and the pilots were using their skills to pursue, bite, shoot, or try to keep their fighters out of the enemy's machine-gun crosshairs. Over time, planes continued to fall with black smoke or mutilated fuselages, most of which were British fighters painted with rings.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of the battle between the fighters of the two sides, more than half of the German dive bombers flew to the British military airfield, and the rest rushed to the harbor with the torpedo bombers. At the same time, 6 combat reconnaissance planes easily turned 3 airships over the harbor into 3 huge fireballs.

On two military airfields west of the port. The British fighters parked on the runway and in the hangar were soon fatally attacked by the German dive bombers, and the British fighters with backward performance were destroyed one by one by the precise dive bombing and machine gun fire before they could exert a little residual heat, and the ammunition depots and fuel depots were not spared, and the two airfields were suddenly rendered useless in the skyrocketing fire and continuous explosions. The airship hangar northwest of the harbor did not escape the eyes of the German pilots, and a team of dive bombers detonated the hydrogen tanks stored there with more than a dozen bombs, quickly killing British officers and soldiers in the vicinity and reducing the small airship base, which cost more than $1 million, to rubble.

On the harbor side, dive bombers and torpedo bombers braved anti-aircraft fire from the ground and ships to attack the warships in the harbor, although one Ju-DD was shot down shortly after the battle began. But the effects of bombs and torpedoes soon became apparent. A dive bomber taking off from the "Kemal" hit the British Churchill-class battleship "England" with a 150-kilogram semi-armor-piercing bomb under the belly, and the bomb smashed heavily on the foredeck, penetrating three decks before falling into the front main gun ammunition magazine of the hapless cruiser. With a loud bang, the bow of the "England" was gone! In the light of fire and smoke, the unlucky battleship plunged into the water with its tail turned upwards, and the aftermath of the explosion shattered a warehouse on a nearby dock, and less than 40 of the ship's more than 400 officers and sailors survived the bombardment.

Just one minute after the explosion and sinking of the "England", the torpedo bombers taking off from the German aircraft carriers "Zeppelin" and "Tirpitz" attacked the British and American submarines anchored in the southern part of the port area with horizontal bombing, and the 50-kilogram aerial bombs were very fatal to the fragile body of the submarines. For a while, the water was full of desperately struggling crew members.

The carrier-based aircraft that took off from the "Ernst", "Alexander" and "Lewald" also achieved a proud record, and three squads of dive bombers bombed the warehouses in the port area. Thousands of tons of heavy oil and tens of thousands of tons of coal were ignited, and the smoke became the best course for the second wave of German carrier-based aircraft.

The bombing of the harbor was not over, and the British fighters that had taken off before had been shot down by the Hinkel DDs. At this point, British aviation on Newfoundland was completely wiped out by the great German naval aviation.

After 40 minutes of heavy bombardment, the first wave of German carrier-based aircraft began to return with great victory, and by this time there were still 3 cruisers, 12 destroyers and patrol boats, and 19 submarines still floating in the harbor. Led by the British commander, the ships began to sail out of the harbor. But just 5 minutes after the first cruiser left the port, the second wave, which took off from 6 German aircraft carriers, arrived with 128 carrier-based aircraft!

Seeing that the British and American ships were trying to escape, the torpedo bomber squadron from the take-off site of the "Kemal" immediately launched a low-altitude torpedo attack on the warships outside the harbor and in the harbor, and the three dive bomber squadrons that took off from the heavy aircraft carrier "Ernst" roared to the surface of the sea and carried out deadly dive bombing on several British warships in the channel. At 11:08, the British cruiser "Prince Patrick" was sunk in the channel, and two minutes later, the British patrol ships "Lion" and "Antelope" also sank in the exit channel.

The second wave of German aircraft continued to target military targets in and around the port of St. John's, and this time German dive bombers prioritized British anti-aircraft fire around the port. With 75 kg and 150 kg aerial bombs hit again and again those anti-aircraft artillery positions that were covered only by sandbags. The resistance of the port air defense forces is getting weaker and weaker. After about half an hour, the sound of anti-aircraft guns died down, and the whole harbor was like sheep at the mercy of German carrier-based aircraft.

Another hour passed. The third wave of aircraft from the German fleet flew over to Newfoundland, and since the port of St. John's was no longer with many worthy targets, the German fleet turned to attack several other civilian ports, road hubs, vehicles, barracks, and communications stations on the island. When the third wave of carrier-based aircraft carried out a ground attack, a group of British fighters flew in from the direction of the Bell Isle Strait, which separates Newfoundland Island from the mainland, and the German group only separated 12 fighters and easily shot down most of the British fighters, and the rest fled in the direction of the mainland without looking back.

In the afternoon, the German carrier-based aircraft group carried out three more air raids on Newfoundland, and the British troops on the island suffered heavy casualties, and the only two coastal defense batteries were also damaged in the bombing. That night, the British and Canadian forces transported four anti-aircraft artillery batteries and their equipment by sea overnight. and redeployed 4 new fighter squadrons to St. Augustine, opposite Newfoundland.

News of the air raid on Newfoundland soon reached the United States and appeared prominently in the evening newspapers, and the Americans, like their new allies, were gradually feeling bad, but at the same time, the American Atlantic Fleet stationed at Norfolk Military Port showed no signs of leaving the port.

At 3 a.m. on July 18, the southeast sea of Newfoundland suddenly heard the rumbling sound of artillery, and then a dense raindrop of shells then smashed around St. John's Harbor, at this time there were no ships available for combat in the harbor, and hundreds of British engineers were working on the military airfield overnight. The runway at the airfield was intended to be partially repaired before dawn, but the sudden artillery fire inflicted heavy losses on the unsuspecting British officers and soldiers. The large-caliber shells shook the entire island of Newfoundland, but fortunately, most of the island's residents retreated to the other side of the channel in the first half of the night, and most of the fishing villages and towns along the coast were completely destroyed by the three-hour shelling.

After dawn, a powerful fleet flying the flag of the Black Vulture Cross appeared on the sea southeast of Newfoundland, and a large number of carrier-based aircraft once again took off from the aircraft carrier, and more than 200 naval warhawks engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the four British antiaircraft artillery companies that landed at night. More than 80 dive bombers threw bombs on British air defense positions again and again despite the fierce anti-aircraft guns and machine gun fire, although 9 Junkers Ju-DDs were shot down, 4 pilots were killed, and 14 were captured, the fearless German pilots completely crushed the British army's determination to continue resisting.

At the same time, a large number of German carrier-based fighters were constantly circling over the islands, which made the British fighters and reconnaissance planes stationed on the other side of the strait dare not cross the minefield by half a step.

Under the cover of battleships and battle cruisers, 35 German destroyers quickly approached the port of St. John's and sank two British submarines lurking in the area, after which they used their naval guns to fire targets on the shore at close range and signal the fleet behind.

At 8 o'clock in the morning, under the protection of a large number of warships and warplanes, three super-large landing ships sailed to the sea not far from the port, and the soldiers on them immediately took the landing ships and landing craft to the coast. Half an hour later, the first German marines landed on the island of Newfoundland, where there was little resistance from the British troops due to the prolonged shelling and bombardment carried out beforehand. By 10 a.m., more than 4,000 Marines and an amphibious armored combat battalion had landed and taken control of the Avalon Peninsula, where St. John's was located, and under the cover of naval aviation and tank armored vehicles, the vanguard began to advance into the heart of Newfoundland.

At this time, the British realized that the Germans did not come to retaliate for the attack of British submarines, thinking that the distance between Newfoundland and the American mainland was only 1400 kilometers, and the Americans gradually woke up, but it was too late! The British on the island had only more than 2,000 men, neither heavy equipment such as tanks and armored vehicles, but also the air defense forces were also lost by the efforts of the German naval aviation, and the two small coastal defense batteries were simply unable to confront the battleships of the German Navy.

As the battle progressed, Scheer sent the battleships "Baden" and "Fort Württem" with four Schliefen-class cruisers and eight bayonet-class destroyers along the northern coast of Newfoundland to shell the island's coastal defense batteries, and under the deterrence of the German battleships' 380-mm guns, the only two coastal defense batteries on Newfoundland raised the white flag one after another.

At 1 p.m., the remaining 2,000 Marines in the fleet also landed, followed by a large number of engineering troops and four tracked bulldozers. While the Marines, with the help of tanks and armoured vehicles, continued to clear the island of the remnants of the British army, the engineering troops worked to clear St. John's Harbor and the military airfield to the west. Although the landing operation went well, the fighting on the island continued until the 19th, when most of the more than 2,000 British defenders were killed and less than 400 surrendered to the Germans.

After that, the British army tried to regain Newfoundland Island many times at night, but was fiercely counterattacked by the superior German navy and marines, and the British actions were again and again unsuccessful. With the arrival of German land-based fighter and bomber units, the German fleet on the island has also increased to more than 40,000 people, equipped with 46 anti-aircraft artillery batteries, and a German fleet with considerable strength has also been stationed in the restored port of St. John's. At this point, the British knew that their hopes of recovering Newfoundland were becoming more and more slim, and the beautiful island of Newfoundland had irretrievably become an important strategic stronghold for Germany.

A week later, when the first German bombers took off from the base, 1,400 kilometers from the continental United States, and bombed the industrial region of the northeastern United States, the Americans began to despair.