Early the next morning, as soon as Andrei arrived at the embassy gate, a U.S. Navy officer in a white Navy uniform walked quickly to stand in front of him. The interpreter of the pen and the www.biquge.info of the Pavilion also came, and he introduced in Russian: "General, this is Colonel Victor Henry, and he is in charge of your visit."

"Victor Henry!" When Andrei heard the name, he began to reminisce, and soon he remembered that this was also the one he had seen in the book, and it was mentioned in the War and Memories that the naval officer Victor Henry had given the president the opportunity to serve as a messenger and saw Stalin, and he returned to command a warship with a single thought, and remembered that during the Pearl Harbor incident, he yelled at the Pacific Fleet Command: "Enough of rummaging through high-level strategic pieces in our Admiralty." Four years in the Operational Planning Division, and almost three years in Europe. I don't want to drill two stars. I am a sailor and a gunner, and now I am at war again. Victor Henry waved an arm and pointed out the window at the burned-out battle fleet. If you can't give me anything else, then I'll lead a team of minesweepers. All right? I'm going to the sea! ”

It has to be said that the U.S. Navy has a complex set of scoring rules to determine whether a naval officer should be promoted, and the main task of a U.S. Navy officer, from graduation from Annapolis Naval Academy to retirement, is to get the opportunity to serve at sea again and again, and strive to reduce or even avoid any shore service resume, the former is very helpful for promotion, and the latter will seriously reduce your competitiveness...... This was true from the First World War to the afterlife. It can be said that this is also the cornerstone of a strong navy!

So Andrei smiled and asked, "Colonel Henry, did you ever go to Moscow back then?" And Henry said with a smile: "General Yakov is not only an excellent general, but also an excellent intelligence officer, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of your country is also famous!" This made Andrei a little embarrassed, in the eyes of these serious soldiers, the internal affairs army is still a little not a real army, after all, it is subordinate to a special department, although the establishment is the army, but there are some police nature, and it is also a secret police! And soon Andrei opened the topic and talked to Henry about the navy, although Henry can speak some Russian, but after all, it involves some nouns and terms, so the translator sitting in the front passenger seat is still constantly translating for Andrei and Henry.

André then talked about the Norfolk Naval Base, which is located in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Norfolk is a port city in Virginia, across the river from Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News, and is an important industrial and commercial center. After the outbreak of the war, the city developed rapidly, and successively built a huge naval and air force facilities, and was the seat of the US Atlantic Fleet Command.

The Norfolk area is the largest concentration of naval activity on your country's east coast, located in the southeast of Virginia, and has extensive shipbuilding facilities and docks for loading and unloading cargo in Newport News. The area includes Norfolk Naval Base, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Atlantic Fleet Combat Training Center, Naval Amphibious Base and Naval Ammunition Depot, Naval Aviation Base.

Norfolk Naval Base is about eighteen nautical miles west of the ocean. There are fifteen docks for ships to berth and are home to the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet Command.

The Norfolk Naval Base is located on the site of the 1907 Jamestown Exposition. During the exposition, senior Navy officials agreed that the site was an ideal venue for naval events.

In 1908, a bill was introduced to Congress to allow a $1 million purchase of land. But the bill could not be implemented because the undersecretary of the Navy had to choose between buying the land and the new coal carriers. He replied that new ships were in absolute demand.

On November 14, 1910, the birth of the US Naval Aviation. Eugene? Eugene Ely, a pilot employed by the Curtiss Exhibition Company, slowly accelerated towards the end of a 17-meter wooden runway built aboard the USS Birmingham. The heavy cruiser anchored on the James River, not far from the site of the famous Battle of Hampton Anchorage between the USS Monette and the USS Merrimac in the Civil War. [4]

In April 1917, just after the United States entered World War I, the Secretary of the Navy was persuaded to buy the land. A bill was passed to purchase 1.9 square kilometres of land, setting aside a total of $1.2 million to pay for the purchase of property, as well as an additional $1.6 million to develop the base, including docks, aviation facilities, warehouses, fuel storage facilities, a recruit training base, a submarine base and a recreation ground for fleet members. Major General Rear Admiral Dillingham was assigned the task of coordinating the development of the region.

On May 19, 1917, the Naval Air Detachment at Curtiss Field in Newport News began its basic pilot training. After almost five months, the staff had grown to 5 officers, 3 pilots, 10 sailors, and 7 aircraft. The detachment was also renamed the Naval Aviation Detachment of the Naval Operations Base at Hampton Anchorage. Until the canvas hangar was built, the planes - all seaplanes - flew over the James River and were moored on piles in the water. The new location provides a protected stretch of water in an ice-free harbor, ideal for seaplane landings, and a good anchor in front of the beach, with access to supplies from Norfolk Naval Base, as well as room for development. Its task is to manage anti-submarine patrols, train pilots and mechanics, and operate an experimental facility. [5]

After the end of World War I, the Fifth Naval District Command, which was responsible for the naval forces of the United States Central Atlantic Coast, moved to Norfolk, and the military port began to enter a period of large-scale expansion.

The outbreak of World War II made Norfolk the most important military port in the United States: after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, in order to quickly prepare for war and provide logistical support, the ships concentrated in the military port included the battleship "California", the aircraft carrier "Lexington", "Raider", "Yorktown" and "Enterprise" and more than 100 ships, and your navy even invested $75 million in Norfolk Military Port, and the various facilities of the base continued to increase and improve. An Atlantic Fleet school was also created specifically for the needs of special training, which eventually became the "soul of the US Navy."

Currently, Norfolk's entire harbor and naval base covers a total area of 25.9 square kilometers. There are more than 200 piers with a water depth of about 11 meters. There are floating cranes, floating docks, ship slipways, and docks that can be used to build and repair ships of less than 13,000 tons. The naval base has 10 docks with a total length of more than 6 kilometers and advanced dock equipment, which can be used for the berthing and maintenance of ships of any ship, including aircraft carriers, and is surrounded by ammunition depots, mine depots, above-ground and underground fuel depots, supply centers, degaussing stations and naval shipyards, in addition, there are amphibious forces bases. Norfolk became an important naval base from 1917. Prior to this, your Navy had established a shipyard near Portsmouth, a satellite city of Norfolk on the south bank of the Elizabeth River, and in 1917 the Navy appropriated funds to build an integrated multi-purpose base in Norfolk, including a small submarine base, a recruit training and reception station, and a large naval supply station. At the end of World War I, the U.S. Navy was training recruits here, and by the end of the war in 1918, the base had reached the capacity to train 10,000 recruits at a time. ”

After a pause, Andre said enviously: "Your country is really rich. And Henry directly had a hellish expression, this Russian intelligence work is too powerful, Andrei said exactly the same as what he knew, although these are only the basic operation and historical situation of the base, strictly speaking, there are no too important secrets, but thinking that his base is so well understood by the Russians, Henry shuddered a little, and Andrei looked at Henry in front of him and said: "Colonel Henry, You have to understand that in fact, your country has institutions similar to the Ministry of the Interior doing the same thing, even if our country is more strict in all aspects of management, but important naval ports, who can guarantee that no information will be leaked, is it a fool to be a peer? ”

As soon as these words came out, Henry was also relieved, that's right, the US Navy, as one of the top navies in the world, is naturally the object of attention of the intelligence departments of various countries, especially the famous or notorious Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, of course, will not be an exception, if you don't even know anything about the most important naval base in the United States, this is simply disbanded! And although the base is strictly managed, a lot of the data that Andrei just said can also be calculated based on public information, so it can only be said that the Russian nose is really smart!

So Henry continued to discuss naval affairs with Andre with 12 points of caution, and the time flew by to the airport!

As their plane landed, Andrei saw a jeep coming in the distance and stopped not far from the plane. Out of the car a second lieutenant, wearing a large-brimmed hat and a white navy uniform with gilded buttons, stood straight outside the hatch.

When Colonel Henry got off the plane, the second lieutenant hurriedly saluted him in the American style, and after glancing at me, he said to Henry: "Colonel, I am ordered to pick you up." ”

"Is the first project arranged?" Henry asked quietly. Although the translator behind him did not translate the sentence for Andrei, he still understood. It was precisely because he understood that Andrei couldn't help muttering in his heart again, guessing that he was full of precautions when he came to the United States?

The second lieutenant nodded and said affirmatively, "Yes, Colonel, the position has been arranged for you, please come with me." ”

The group sat in the jeep driven by the second lieutenant and looked in the direction of the port, only to see that the water was black and pressed against all kinds of large and small ships, which made Andrei secretly amazed. If you think that Norfolk later had 100 warships and 5 aircraft carriers, and the 5,000 battleships landed in Normandy, what a spectacular sight! O Great Waves of Steel!

Their car stopped at the door of a gray container on the shore, and the second lieutenant turned to Henry and said, "Colonel, here we are, in this container converted box, you can clearly see the whole process of the launch of the new ship." ”

"Ensign, where are you going?" Henry asked curiously.

The second lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Where else can I go, of course, stay in the car and wait for you to come out." As he spoke, he handed a bunch of keys to Colonel Henry.

Henry took the key from his hand, thanked him, and then led André to the door of the container, and opened the door with the key. André followed him and walked in to see that the facilities inside were very simple, with a long table on the left and a few chairs on the right. Perhaps because of the fact that there are often people here to watch the launching of new ships, there are several pairs of binoculars on the table.

Henry walked over, then picked up a telescope and walked towards the window at the other end of the container. Andrei immediately picked up a pair of binoculars on the table, followed him to the window, and looked out.

A few hundred meters away, I saw a brand-new gray warship, parked on the slipway by the water's edge. Seeing this situation, Andrey, a military fan, is also a little strange, because in his impression, ships are usually launched by floating docks, similar to aircraft carriers, and longitudinal launches suitable for most ships. And from the perspective of the warship parked on the slipway at the moment, it seems that the next two ways are not ah, how will he get into the water?

Andrei had just wanted to ask Henry how the new ship would be launched. He had already turned around and said to Andrei with a smile: "General, I guess you haven't seen a newly built ship launched. Did you see that destroyer? Later, it will be launched in a way you wouldn't expect. ”

An unexpected way? Andrei was a little confused, but suddenly a memory flashed through his mind, could it be this way?