Listening to Hopkins's question, Roosevelt smiled bitterly, he really couldn't "lend" so many good things to the Soviet Union. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info He was not a fatherly leader like Stalin, he was just a cripple who became president of the United States with 53% of the vote. Although his power as president has surpassed that of any previous American president, the U.S. Congress has not closed its doors and has not turned into a vase meeting. Therefore, Roosevelt could not provide Lend-Lease materials to a neutral country, especially the Soviet Union, which was still very annoying by the name of this neutral country.

"Yes, you're right, I can't do that." Roosevelt tilted his head and said, "But we can always find a solution, can we?" Congress passed many bills that allowed me, the president of the United States, to 'spend' taxpayers' money indiscriminately, and I am now the richest president in the history of the United States, and everyone wants to get orders from me. Moreover, those on Wall Street do not want to see Frankfurt become the world's financial center and the Euromark the world currency. So the solution must exist! ”

Hopkins and Hull looked at each other, and Secretary of State Hull asked: "Mr. President, do you want private companies in the United States to send the supplies that Stalin needed to the Soviet Union under some name?" ”

Roosevelt shrugged, "They are not very constrained by Congress and can do things that we can't." ”

"But this requires the cooperation of the Soviet Union." "Private companies can pretend to 'invest' in the second Baku oil field in the USSR, they can 'open' a car sales company in the USSR, they can 'invest' in an oil depot in the USSR," Hopkins said...... After the Soviet Union entered the war, the U.S. government acquired these assets and 'lent' them to the Soviet government. But the Soviet government had to cooperate with us so that the drama could go on. ”

Roosevelt glanced at Secretary of State Hull, who actually gave an order. Hull stood up and said, "I'll go negotiate with Litvinov right away, I think he'll agree." ”

"I think so." Roosevelt said.

Now only Hopkins and Roosevelt are left in the White House study. Roosevelt sighed, smoothed back his thin layer of grayish hair with his hand, and then smiled wryly, "It's really nerve-wracking...... The Germans now had a big advantage, and they were still acting very cautiously. Colonel Donovan gave me a report this morning that the Germans were preparing to build a 2,000-kilometer-long Barbarossa line on the eastern front and the Soviet Union, and it seemed that they were not going to take the initiative to attack the Soviet Union. And the British believed that this line of defense meant that the Germans would attack the British mainland after the spring equinox next year! ”

Of course, it was not only the narrow channel that a single shell could fly over and a home fleet that had been beaten by the Germans, but in fact Britain still had an army, and it was very numerous and well-equipped. According to the Americans, by the end of 1941, the British Army would be close to 2 million in number, and would have a lot of tanks and artillery.

Therefore, even if the Germans achieved sea control in the English Channel, it did not mean the end of the British war. If Britain remained uncompromising in this situation, Germany would have to commit a large number of ground forces to a landing battle.

And this is the best time for the Soviet Union to launch an offensive on the Eastern Front and open up a second battlefield!

Therefore, before Germany could land on British soil, Germany had to build a defensive line on the Eastern Front to prevent a possible Soviet attack.

"Proceeding from the climatic conditions of the English Channel, the German offensive could take place after the spring equinox next year. And we must join the war before then! Roosevelt frowned and added, "If we had not joined before the spring equinox in 1942, it would have been very likely that Stalin would have joined Germany in seizing India by then." In this way, all our investments in the USSR were wasted. And Britain will also surrender, it will be the worst situation......"

Even Prime Minister Churchill, who has always been tough, recently hosted a banquet at No. 10 Downing Street to entertain the exiled Russian Empress Olga -- everyone knows that this woman has close ties with the British and German royal families, and the purpose of her visit to Britain must have been to bring about peace.

Moreover, Churchill also explained the British government's attempt to make peace in his letter to Roosevelt.

If the Soviet Union and Germany had formed a military alliance and entered the war, neither would have been able to stop the British peace movement.

If Britain loses India and South Africa, the British people will not be willing to continue to resist - because without India's markets, population, resources, and South African gold, there is no future for the British Empire!

As a result, the United States had to enter the war before Britain could be attacked on its homeland, while also trying to keep India and South Africa on behalf of Britain.

To achieve these two goals, the United States must step up its persecution of Japan. Not only because Germany looks too awesome now, but the American people are a little scared to see it, and it is very likely that they will be blocked on Capitol Hill if they directly attack Germany. And because Japan will inevitably take advantage of this world war to expand, either westward or southward. If the United States does not show aggressiveness, Japan is likely to bypass the Philippines and move south to Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.

Once Japan takes Malacca, it will open up access to the Indian Ocean, and once the Japanese Navy enters the Indian Ocean, then the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean is likely to be crushed by Japan. At that time, Japan and Germany will meet in the Indian Ocean, and Britain will lose India and South Africa!

The little socialist brother who supported Japan (lifting the embargo) to go west to fight the Soviet Union would cause Stalin to have a great misunderstanding of the United States and turn to Germany. So it can't be considered.

But forcing Japan down the line of a dog-jumping wall is also a gamble, because the Japanese Empire is not a paper tiger, and the country has a maritime power second only to the U.S. Navy.

Shortly after Secretary of State Hull left, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Marshall and Chief of Naval Operations Stark walked briskly into Roosevelt's study. They had come to report to President Roosevelt on the state of America's war readiness, and although Capitol Hill had not yet approved the United States in the midst of war, the process of arms expansion had already begun. In particular, the US Navy is currently almost at war.

During the Battle of Shetland in June, there were numerous exchanges of fire between U.S. Navy and German aircraft, and later on several incidents of U.S. ships attacking targets suspected to be German submarines. South of Iceland and west of Ireland, almost every day American planes taking off from Iceland would confront or exchange fire with German "broken planes". Since June, more than 50 U.S. planes have been shot down or damaged. As a result, more than 100 American pilots were killed or missing!

However, both the United States and Germany were silent about this "de facto war", and the general public, except for the officers and soldiers who participated in the war and a few high-ranking officials, did not know that such a thing had happened.

And the results of a series of exchanges of fire between the United States and Germany have made the top brass of the US military very worried. Because in terms of the exchange ratio of air combat, the Germans undoubtedly had an overwhelming advantage. The German Fokker Zero outperformed any American fighter. Moreover, the German pilots were also extremely skilled, not a little better than the American pilots who had just plunged into the battlefield from peacetime.

"Mr. President, according to reliable information, the Fokker Zero aircraft used by the Germans was developed jointly by the German Fokker Aircraft Company and Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and this aircraft is currently the main carrier-based fighter of the Japanese Navy."

As soon as Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Stark sat down, he solemnly reported to President Roosevelt a reliable source that naval intelligence had just learned—in fact, Britain and the Soviet Union had long known that there was a Japanese version of the German and Fokker Zeros, and the unresponsive Americans were probably the last to learn.

"Japan also has a Fokker Zero?" Roosevelt was silent for a moment, "This is indeed a trouble...... I think we can overcome it, don't we? ”

Admiral Marshall nodded slowly and said, "The British have been fighting with the Fokker Zero for almost 2 years, and they have suffered great losses, but they have also figured out some ways to deal with it...... Now their latest tactic is to use the 'Spitfire' aircraft and the P-51 fighter we sold them to match high and low, which can achieve better results in the fight against the Fokker Zero. However, if the Germans had allowed the BF-109 or FW-190 to cooperate with the Fokker Zero, the losses of the British would have been significant. ”

Historically, before the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Zero was a lesser-known aircraft, and therefore would not have attracted the attention of the British and American forces. But now, the Fokker Zero has long been a prestigious trump card aircraft, and the British hate it probably only the JU88.

So the RAF also spent a lot of energy on studying the Fokker Zero in order to find a way to counter it. The P-51 fighter (called the Mustang 1 in the UK) supplied to Britain by the Americans in early 1941 was considered to be ready to fight the Fokker Zero after being tested in actual combat - at this time, the P-51's engine did not have a high-altitude supercharger with excellent performance, so its performance at altitudes above 4,500 meters was poor. But in the air below 4,500 meters, the performance is excellent. The rate of climb, acceleration, dive speed, stability, handling, roll speed, and turning radius were better than any other Anglo-American fighter, and the range was large enough.

And when fighting the Fokker Zero at medium and low altitudes, the P-51 also has a better exchange ratio than other British and American aircraft.

"Then we will equip the P-51 and Spitfire in large quantities," Roosevelt quickly decided, "and the Pacific side will be prioritized." After a pause, he added, "In addition, the Pacific Fleet must be upgraded to combat readiness and be ready to send reinforcements to Guam and the Philippines." (To be continued.) )