As Halsey expected, Roosevelt immediately called back after seeing the telegram sent by Halsey: "Organize a rescue immediately!" ”

Roosevelt also excitedly said to Ernest: "If I can defeat Rommel's Afrika Korps, I am willing to pay for one air force, if I can save the Toulon fleet, I am also willing to lose one air force, if it is both, I am willing to pay for the entire US Air Force!" ”

Of course, Roosevelt's words were exaggerated, but it also shows the importance of defeating Rommel to stabilize Africa and save the Turon fleet. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The former can not only greatly damage the vitality of the German army, but also provide an excellent springboard for attacking the European continent and even hitting Germany, and at the same time solve the problem that oil may be restricted.

The latter added a powerful naval force to the Mediterranean...... The French Navy was the fourth largest in the world at the time.

With the president's authorization, Halsey immediately organized a fleet in Austria, which consisted mainly of one main aircraft carrier (the Wasp) and three escort carriers.

Such a formation is not suitable for operation, since it has only one main aircraft carrier.

The reason Halsey would do this was because the U.S. forces were only on the Wasp at Naval Base in Otellia, and the rest were still fighting in the Pacific and the Philippine battlefield with MacArthur.

The other is that these aircraft carriers are not meant to fight.

The Mediterranean Sea is an inland sea, its width from north to south is only 1,800 kilometers, and there are many island bases in the middle, and the territory of Italy is even like a hook in the middle of the Mediterranean, which makes the German and Italian bombers can easily cover almost the entire Mediterranean.

In such a narrow sea area, if the aircraft carrier enters, it will only wait to be bombed.

Therefore, this mission is actually to transport fighters.

The Wasp carried 60 fighters, and each escort carrier carried 30 fighters, for a total of 150 aircraft...... And this was only the first batch, and Halsey believed that at least the number of fighters would have to be equal to the number of German air forces, that is, 600 aircraft, in order to gain air supremacy.

Later, it turned out that this was actually an overestimation of the combat effectiveness of the German army.

This is mainly because the German army lost a large number of excellent pilots when bombing Britain on the Soviet-German battlefield, and although these pilots in North Africa at this time also had combat experience, there was still a certain gap compared with British and American pilots, especially the United States...... In the Pacific theater, Japanese planes in the middle and late stages were almost used to train American pilots, and from Japan's point of view, not to mention Japan's own losses and losses, it also trained a large number of pilots for the United States.

Fearing that the Suez Canal would be bombed by the Germans, the Wasp and its three escort aircraft carriers entered the Arabian Sea and waited until dark to fly to several military airfields in Egypt in batches.

The second batch of 150 fighters did not have to make such efforts to transport the aircraft carrier back and forth, and the "Wasp" was used as a transit point near the Arabian Sea, and then the US fighters flew to the "Wasp" in batches to refuel, and then flew to Egypt, and some of them even secretly entered the island of Malta.

In addition, a fleet of six destroyers and one supply ship also secretly entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal...... These six destroyers are either equipped with sea-to-sea radars or anti-aircraft radars, which can accurately grasp the movements of the Luftwaffe Navy and Air Force and serve the combat operations of US fighters.

All of this was deployed in just one week.

It can also be seen from this that the US military at this time has an amazing ocean-going projection capability and combat capability.

At this time, Hitler had not yet reacted, he still had his eyes firmly fixed on Africa and Tunisia, and he still wanted to achieve victory on the African battlefield.

In fact, Hitler is not to blame for this, to some extent, he still makes sense to arrange it this way.

The reason for this was the thwart of German plans in the direction of Britain and the Soviet Union.

Hitler had thought that the blockade and bombing of Britain would lead to the collapse of Britain and its eventual surrender, but this was not the case, not only was it not, but the situation in Britain was improving, while the damage of German submarines and warplanes was rising.

Needless to say, the Soviet direction, after the Battle of Moscow, the Soviet Red Army poured in from the east like a tidal wave.

That's why Germany can't afford to lose in Africa.

Because if Africa also loses, then Germany will be surrounded by Allied forces from three directions: Britain, the Soviet Union, and Africa, as if surrounded by an iron triangle.

If this happens, then Germany's defeat is inevitable.

At this time, Hitler regretted a little, why he had always regarded the African theater as a secondary battlefield...... The reason why he thought this was largely due to his contempt for the British army, thinking that it only took a few tens of thousands of German troops to crush the British army.

But now he regretted his underestimation.

"No!" Hitler slammed his fist on the map and said: "We cannot lose Africa, and to ensure the security of Africa, we must firmly control France in our own hands, and we cannot leave our fate in the hands of the treacherous French!" ”

At this moment, Hitler was finally going to make a move on France.

The importance of France is self-evident, it is right next to Germany, if France surrenders to the Allies overnight, as Algeria did, then even if Africa wins, it is meaningless, Germany will still be surrounded by the Allies from three sides.

Hitler's approach was somewhat subtle, and he first made a phone call to Vichy France to offer military aid in order to test the Vichy government's response, to which the Vichy government avoided answering.

In fact, the Vichy government did not know how to answer, it was a dilemma:

Agree to the so-called "military aid" of the German side, which means that the German army can blatantly march into Vichy France.

If you don't agree, it proves that Vichy France did not trust Hitler or had different intentions.

Therefore, the Vichy government was in a dilemma, and a group of politicians discussed for several days and did not know how to respond, and Vichy French Chancellor Reival rushed to Berlin to negotiate with Hitler.

But all efforts were to no avail, and Hitler would have asked such a question. In fact, it is to occupy France anyway.

Sure enough, the next night, three German mechanized divisions descended from the north to occupy southern France, while six Italian divisions drove in from the east......

The cities and lands of France did not bother much for Hitler, because they could not run away, and Hitler was worried about the French fleet in the port of Toulon.

Therefore, the main task of the three German mechanized divisions was to quickly capture Toulon and disarm the French navy.