"What? The target of the Germans could be Newfoundland? ”

White House, Washington, D.C. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 As soon as President Truman, who was having breakfast, got out of bed and heard the bad news that made his heart tremble.

"Could it be a feint?" He asked Wallace and William, who had come to the White House to report. Leahy.

"There is the possibility of a feint, but we can't ignore the danger." Wallace's eyes were red as he answered the question, apparently having not slept all night. It turned out that he had a meeting at the highest level of the Pentagon and the military last night until midnight, and as soon as he wanted to squint for a while, the report of the German bomber taking off from the Azores arrived. So Wallace was busy arranging interception missiles and air defense work in major cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. It was five or six o'clock in the morning, and even worse news came!

William. Leahy also looked as haggard as Wallace, with an elderly face listless, and he frowned and said: "Mr. President, the scale of the German air raids is very large, according to the AWACS report, they have dispatched at least 1,200 warplanes, including about 900 fighters. ”

"900 fighters?" Truman gasped, "Are their aircraft carriers all near Newfoundland?" ”

William. Leahy nodded: "It should be...... So their targets are likely to be Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, St. Pierre or Miquelon, or possibly Sable, 160 kilometres from Nova Scotia, in the Atlantic. ”

Because the United States lost its supremacy in the Atlantic after the Battle of Bermuda, and lost the air supremacy of the Nova Scotia-Bermuda line in the Great Battle of Newfoundland. As a result, the defense of the eastern coast of North America fell into a great passivity, and it was necessary to defend the long coastline and many islands. The Germans, on the other hand, could take advantage of their superiority in the sea and air to attack at will, and as long as one point was breached, the entire defense line would face collapse - this collapse was certainly not the German armored forces that killed New York and Washington, but allowed Germany to obtain a starting base for dropping atomic bombs!

And now, Labra's defensive line against the Allies was already in danger. If there were any more problems on Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, St. Pierre, Miquelon, and Sable, the United States would be in real trouble. Because that area is only a little more than a thousand kilometers away from the most prosperous area in the eastern United States, not only the range of the Me264 bomber can be covered, but even the range of a considerable number of German fighters is enough to escort the Me264.

In addition, once there was cover from islands close to the continental United States, it would be easier for the German aircraft carriers to get closer to the eastern coast of the United States. This means that the carrier-based version of the Me262 jet can also escort the Me264 with an atomic bomb!

"Can you hold it?" Truman asked, "Do we have enough troops there?" Is it to send reinforcements? ”

"Not yet," said William. Leay shook his head, "We have enough ground troops there, and our forces at sea are able to handle the landing. ”

Ground forces seem to be sufficient, and on the island of Newfoundland, where the terrain is difficult, the total number of ground troops of all kinds reaches 250,000; On the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre or Miquelon, there were tens of thousands of elite French troops (Free France); More than 350,000 ground troops were stationed on Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, where the terrain was more favorable for landing; On Sable Island, which is 160 kilometers away from Nova Scotia Peninsula, has a narrow terrain and a land area of 80 square kilometers, an elite marine division is also stationed on it, and more than 30,000 magnetic mines and anchor mines have been laid around the island, completely blocking all possible landing beaches, so that even the island's maritime traffic has been interrupted, and all supplies are transported by air.

In addition to these troops already deployed on the front line, the Allied Northeast North American Command also had a large number of reserve troops at its disposal, including 4 armored divisions, 12 infantry divisions (American-style mechanized infantry divisions) and 4 airborne divisions for a total of 20 divisions.

In addition, the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet has also deployed the 1st Fleet (home port is in New York) along the northeast coastline of North America, and although there are no large ships, the number of destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, various troop carriers (including landing ships), and transport ships is still sufficient.

The Royal Navy (Canada) also deployed a formidable Canadian fleet (home port of Quebec City), a main fleet of battleships and heavy cruisers. Although it could not fight a decisive battle with the European Combined Fleet on the ocean, it could rush out of the St. Lawrence River when the German troops landed, and give the German landing fleet a hard blow to the German landing fleet that was going ashore.

"What about aviation? Do I need to add more? Truman also knew that there was enough troops on land in the northeastern theater of North America, and there was no shortage of troops at sea -- even if there was a lack of troops, there was no way, and what could really be considered for increasing the number of air forces was actually the air force.

William. Raisi replied: "The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that there will be no problem in being ready to send planes from the Caribbean and the East Coast to reinforce them at any time." ”

At present, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff does not have much reserve air force available, so it has to tear down the east wall to make up for the west wall. And this "eastern wall" cannot be dismantled casually, what if the actions of the Germans on the northern front were a bluff?

After all, on the northern front, the Germans basically had no way to put in shore-based fighters, which made them rely on carrier-based fighters to fight for air supremacy.

Moreover, the distance from the Azores and Iceland to Newfoundland is too far for most shore-based bombers to reach, and only a small number of Me264s can be used in air strikes on Newfoundland.

As for Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Sable, even Me264 is not enough.

So even if the Germans could fight for air supremacy with carrier-based aircraft, there weren't too many bombers to drop bombs, which greatly reduced their air superiority.

In addition, the American F-13 reconnaissance planes have not so far found a particularly large fleet in the Atlantic Ocean near the islands of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, St. Pierre, Miquelon, and Sable.

If the Germans wanted to land in these areas, they would have to transport at least 100,000 well-equipped officers and men ashore at a time, which would require at least hundreds of transport ships and landing ships - this was not an unguarded Labrador, and the landing would not have been possible without a large force and fire support fleet.

It is impossible for such a large fleet to evade the detection of the S-band radar on the F-13, and their failure to appear indicates that a large-scale landing operation will not take place for the time being.

Based on these judgments, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff still insists that the main direction of the German attack will be in the Caribbean.

……

"Check the gear one last time to see if there's anything missing?"

"Who else doesn't have a will? Hurry up and go to the lawyer with the army to make a will......"

"Hurry up, hurry up!"

"Line up and get on the plane one by one......"

"One last check on the fixture!"

Truman and Wallace and William. While Leahy was debating whether to send more troops to the northeastern North American theater, scenes they never dreamed of were appearing at more than a dozen large airfields in the Azores.

The huge tarmac on every airport is now filled with huge transport planes. There are two models of these transport aircraft, one type of transport aircraft is the "pot-bellied" ZSO523 "Super Giant" air assault transport aircraft, which looks almost twice as large as the Fokker 42, with a wingspan of 70 meters, a fuselage length of more than 40 meters, and the fuselage is particularly fat.

The other is the famous Fokker 42 long-range transport aircraft, which has a fuselage length of 30.5 meters, a wingspan of 41.5 meters, and a fuselage height of 8.8 meters. The empty weight is up to 19.5 tons, and the maximum take-off weight is 38.3 tons. The maximum speed reaches 515 km / h, and the maximum range is up to 9800 km. In the case of a full load, 10 tons of cargo or 60 heavily armed paratroopers can be sent to the battlefield 2,500 kilometers away for airdrop.

Among them, the ZSO523 "Super Giant" air assault transport planes arrived one after another, and they all stopped at the airport of Terceira, the main island of the most heavily guarded island in the Azores. At the same time as the planes arrived, a large number of heavy equipment and personnel belonging to the 1st Air Assault Brigade of the Wehrmacht were also sent to Terceira Island by sea.

All heavy equipment belonging to the 1st Air Assault Brigade, including E-25 tank destroyers, Type 4H tanks, wheeled armored vehicles of the Puma series, Steyr command vehicles and trucks, and artillery pieces of various calibers, have been loaded into the "big belly" of the ZSO523 and are firmly fastened with chains. Ammunition, fuel and other supplies that could be used by the troops for five days were also loaded onto the aircraft. Now it's time to send the fighters on board!

The Fokker 42 landed at the airfields of the islands of the Azores between the early morning and early morning of April 25. They used the same airfield used by the original Me264, and because there were more than 500 aircraft, the planes filled the already very spacious tarmac and took up part of the runway.

By the time the Fokker 42 planes landed, the soldiers of the brigade and the various airdropped supplies loaded with trucks had already lined up on the road outside the airport.

Under the terms of the Columbus Plan, 260 ZSO523s would transport more than 4,000 officers and 200 vehicles of the 1st Air Brigade, which is equivalent to a brigade-sized armored group, to Newfoundland - these giant aircraft, which cost millions of European marks, could well become disposable!

These aircraft alone will cost 260 million Euromarks and tens of thousands of tons of expensive aluminum alloys and special steels!

The 508 Fokker 42 transport planes will send nearly 15,000 officers and soldiers from 18 paratrooper battalions and 2,580 tons of various airdrop materials to the airdrop site 2,500 kilometers away.