.“ On the bridge of the battleship "Graf", 61-year-old German Field Marshal Reinhardt. Scheer silently watched the mighty fleet heading northwest. Thinking of the war that had just broken out, of the careful deployment of the three German armies, and of the goal of this fleet's trip, he felt a lot of pride in his heart.

Under the leadership of the Kaiser, the German naval officers and sailors have long surpassed the dreams of three generations of German naval personnel, and now they are making history every step of the way.

Scheer took out his pocket watch and saw that it was 6:01, and if nothing else, six squadrons of bombers had taken off from Guadeloupe and were heading for the east coast of the United States. When he first saw the four-shot land-based bombers, he didn't think they were so majestic, and compared to his beloved warships, these multi-ton heavy bombers were just small toys. However, it was these little toys that made the Americans suffer for the first time since the beginning of the war, and the 200 bombers that carried out the first bombing mission returned safely to Guadeloupe. Today, sorties number a staggering 300, and that number will continue to increase over time.

Now, the German Navy, known as the world's first, has finally begun to act.

Around Scheer, a huge fleet of 112 ships was sailing in formation at a speed of 12 knots, and he had never led so many German warships on the sea, except for the naval exercises of 1919, 1921, and 1923 and the troop transport in MayThe steel hills full of cannon barrels were moving forward steadily, and more than a dozen silver-gray warhawks were hovering over the entire fleet. At the very end of the fleet, the scene of 15 cruisers towing 4 submarines each makes it a little funny to watch, as if a mother chicken is carrying a group of baby chickens.

"Marshal, this is a cipher telegram from Guadeloupe. So far, the US Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk has not moved, and according to our estimates, it will take at least two days to clear a safe channel from the mine array! ”

Commodore Raeder, Marshal Scheer's deputy and deputy chief of staff of the fleet, came to report to Scheer with a telegram he had just received, and that the reorganized Atlantic Fleet had hit the capital ships of the German Navy after the outbreak of the war, and at the same time brought together the elite of the German Navy at present - the battle cruiser formation consisted of six of Germany's best battle cruisers, "Mackensen", "Count Spee", "Prince Frederick", "De Fllinger", "Lüzo", "Hindenburg", and "Thessaloniki". The commander was Lieutenant General Nordman, who was extremely experienced; The aircraft carrier formation consisted of six capital aircraft carriers, "Kemal", "Ernst", "Zeppelin", "Tirpitz", "Alexander", and "Lewald", and three escort aircraft carriers, "Knobsdorf", "Ludwig", and "Hermann", with Prince Heinrich of Prussia as commander. This is also his old business; Although there were powerful battle cruisers and aircraft carrier detachments, in terms of formation tactics, the battleship formation consisting of eight battleships, "Graf", "Albrecht", "Geerz", "Baden", "Württemberg", "Saxony", "King", and "Elector" was still the backbone of the entire fleet, and the commander of the battlefleet was Marshal Pohl himself.

Among the ships that have already sailed, there are also the battleships Prince William, Kai-2, Frederick the Great, Catherine, the battle cruiser "Seydlitz", the Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier "Joachim" and the escort aircraft carrier "Andhar", plus the submarine formation under the command of Commodore Dönitz and a large number of cruisers and destroyers, all of which constitute Germany's main strength in the Atlantic, and are basically consistent with the information on the ground in the possession of the Americans. But in what way this German fleet was going to perform on the stage of the German-American war, the Americans did not know.

"Let our submarines keep a close eye on every move in Norfolk Naval Harbor. Must be concave around the clock. And our long-range reconnaissance planes, too, should reconnoiter that military port as much as possible! As long as the US Atlantic Fleet is dispatched, I will receive the news as soon as possible! ”

Scheer commanded. Although he knew that the 10 battleships, 2 battle cruisers, and 3 aircraft carriers anchored in Norfolk would be almost impossible to leave the port alone until the Pacific Fleet arrived to rendezvous, and the German High Command and the local generals had reached a consensus. However, almost impossible does not mean completely impossible, and Scheer did not want the American fleet to spoil their good deeds, and of course, if they dared to go out of port and engage Scheer's fleet, then Scheer's windfall would be greater than originally planned.

In fact, after the departure of the Scheer fleet, the Americans lost the news of this fleet - they were afraid of the strong anti-submarine strength of the German destroyers. US submarines can only lurk off Guadeloupe from afar, and it is considered lucky to be able to discover the departure of the Scheer fleet, let alone find out the specific strength of this fleet and follow it forward, and as for the US reconnaissance planes, it is even more unlikely that they will appear near Guadeloupe, and the previous air contest has made the US Government realize the gap between the two sides in aviation technology, and sending reconnaissance planes to the port only increases the achievements of the German fighter pilots.

Six hours after the Scheer fleet left Guadeloupe, at 10 p.m. on 8 July, another much smaller fleet quietly set sail from Punta Pitre in Guadeloupe, following in the footsteps of the Scheer fleet to the northwest. Of the fleet, which was escorted by 1 aircraft carrier, 4 light cruisers and 15 destroyers, 3 behemoths that looked like ships and not ships and ships were the most eye-catching. The three Reinhardt-class super-large landing ships carried more than 6,000 marines and their equipment, who were an important part of the operation.

At night, the Naval Operations Department in Washington was still brightly lit, and on the walls of the Tactics Hall hung a large translucent chart of continents, islands, and ships in distinct colors and graphics, and staff officers moved icons representing enemy or their own forces in light of the latest information.

William Benson and William Himes sat in the office facing the operational instruction map with very serious expressions, looking at the icon representing the German fleet coming out of the Guadeloupe naval base without moving for eight hours, and the two naval chiefs were very angry, although this could not be entirely attributed to the incompetence of the spy officers, but it was indeed very disappointing that no relevant information could be obtained.

"Ten of the *** are coming for Norfolk! We must do everything we can to intercept them on the road! ”

At last he could not hold his breath, and he suggested that all the submarines that could be mobilized should be gathered and lurk outside the Norfolk military harbor, as soon as the German fleet approached. Just use torpedoes to give them a taste of the power of the US Navy.

"Having said that, it is highly likely that the Germans will once again use their tactic of attacking Pascalflo, that is, sending carrier-based aircraft to attack our ports from two or three hundred nautical miles away! This distance means that they can choose the starting point of attack over a large area, but our submarines cannot be widely distributed to all points in this range. Even if the German fleet was discovered and concentrated on them, the slow speed of the submarine would only miss the opportunity to attack! ”

William Benson was concerned that in the world's modern naval warfare, even the Battle of Arthur and the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War could not be compared with the German naval raid Pascafro, which completely turned the situation at sea between Britain and Germany. It has also become a battle case that has been studied the most by naval personnel from various countries.

"So you mean to focus on air defense?" Sims speculated on what the other man meant.

General Benson looked at the huge battle map outside the window and said, "With the distance from Guadeloupe to Norfolk, that German fleet will sail for at least a week!" That said, we still have a week to prepare! I wanted to protect Norfolk with more than 400 fighters, plus half of the Navy's combat airships and as many anti-aircraft guns as possible, and a large number of blocking balloons would also reduce the probability of low-altitude bombing by German carrier-based aircraft! ”

"And what about the submarine forces?" Sims still has his mind on the submarines he particularly favors, and the development of the US submarine force to this point is inseparable from him, the former deputy chief of naval operations, although the more than 200 submarines are not as good as the traditional submarine power Germany. Compared to other countries, including Japan, it is already very impressive.

"Blockade the Gulf of Mexico with all your might!"

General Benson replied categorically.

On the night of July 8th. Protected by 45 fighters, 100 Dornier 44 heavy bombers and 160 Dornier 101 medium bombers from Mexico carried out massive night air strikes on Los Angeles and San Diego on the west coast of the United States, near the southern border, destroying large swathes of urban areas and port facilities with high-explosive and incendiary bombs, although the 3rd Detachment of the United States Pacific Fleet stationed in San Diego left this important military port in the morning. But the bombing of the German fleet made it impossible for the Americans to use the port for a long time.

At 2 o'clock in the morning of 9 July, six squadrons of Dornier bombers departing from Guadeloupe bombed Philadelphia, another important industrial town on the east coast of the United States, for nearly one hour, and the most serious damage was in the oil industrial area of Philadelphia, where more than 10 large oil refineries were violently bombed, a large number of oil refining equipment and oil storage tanks were destroyed, and the fire caused by the burning of a large amount of crude oil and refined oil was not extinguished until dawn. In the days that followed, Philadelphia, the largest industrial and commercial city in southeastern Pennsylvania, was shrouded in black smoke, and not only did industry and commerce shut down, but even the daily lives of its residents could not be guaranteed, and a large number of citizens had to travel to smaller towns inland. to dodge this frightening bombardment.

On July 11 and 13, German bomber groups taking off from Mexico and Guadeloupe bombed important industrial areas in the northeastern United States again, and on the 11th alone, more than 400 Dornier long-range bombers dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Baltimore and Boston, and on the 13th, the Luftwaffe dispatched as many as the old squadrons of the Dornier, six of which bombed Baltimore for the third time, and destroyed most of the city's industrial facilities and a large number of residential buildings, and the port area was completely paralyzed. Another 10 squadrons of bombers from Guadeloupe targeted New York for their indiscriminate bombing, a once-prosperous place in a state of almost half-ruins, with most of the high-rise buildings collapsed in the bombing, and only the Statue of Liberty still stands majestically on Liberty Island in the harbor.

In the U.S.-Mexico border area, the German-Mexican Air Force, which has complete air supremacy, continues to relentlessly bomb military and industrial targets in the southern United States. Beginning on 8 July, German dive bombers and medium bombers began to focus on attacking large and small railway junctions in the four southern states of the United States, while fighter planes and attack planes used their machine guns and small bombs to clear American vehicles that dared to drive on the roads in broad daylight. During this period, more than 100,000 US officers and soldiers rushed to the southern border defense line on foot, making the number of defenders stationed in the four southern states of the United States near the Mexican border reached 10,000, but they were almost evenly distributed on the long border of more than 2,500 kilometers, and the average number of defenders on the front of a kilometer was only 376!

On July 16, with the support of more than 520 fighters, attack aircraft and dive bombers, 600,000 officers and soldiers of the Royal German Combat Army and the Mexican Northern Cluster began to cross the Mexican North Bravo River from the Mexican states of Coravera, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. In some sections, coalition forces were even able to wade across rivers. Under the cover of the air force and artillery, the German-Mexican coalition forces erected more than 90 pontoon bridges over the river in one morning, and without air supremacy, the traffic was seriously damaged, and it was difficult for the various departments of the US defenders to form effective coordination. By 3 p.m., the border defenses of New Mexico and Texas had been broken through several places by German-Mexican forces, and then the German armored units pouring in from the breakthrough began to detour behind the American lines.

On the same day, a submarine on a guard patrol off the east coast of the United States accidentally spotted the Scheer fleet, which had reached 60 degrees west longitude and 40 degrees north latitude, and was sailing away from Norfolk Naval Harbor!