"How is the CV10 made, and when will it be ready to attack?"

After November, President Wilkie, who lives in the White House, can't help but ask his aides every few days about the progress of the construction of the second Essex-class aircraft carrier.

By November 6, he finally got the good news that the Navy's second ship of the Essex-class aircraft carrier, the CV10, that is, the Yorktown, had completed its reception and was ready to attack.

Throughout September and October, he received only one bad news after another in the Pacific.

The Japanese Navy, which had annihilated the Pacific Fleet, was storming Pearl Harbor, a guard box at the doorstep of the United States of America. In the past 40 days, the small islands around Oahu, Kauai, Niihau, Maui, Molokai, and Lanai have been lost one after another, and in addition to Oahu, the core of defense, only the largest island of Hawaii is barely in the hands of the Americans. The fighting on the island was raging, and with no outside supplies, it was only a matter of time before the island was lost.

In the past month or so, the planes on Oahu have suffered heavy losses in air battles with the Japanese Navy, but the results have been very good, sinking only a few merchant ships, three Japanese destroyers, damaging several cruisers, and hitting a 454-kilogram bomb on the battleship Yamashiro and a bomb on the aircraft carrier Musashi.

In the confrontation for more than a month, the air force on Oahu suffered heavy losses, and now there are less than 100 aircraft on the island.

And at the end of October, in the first few days of the eleventh day, the closest to Oahu, several large islands to the east. With the loss of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai, and the two "big islands" of Kauai and Niihau, which were captured by the Japanese army a month earlier, Pearl Harbor on Oahu, the core base of the Japanese fort in Hawaii, has now been caught in the middle of the two islands in the east and west.

Losing the periphery, only a large island remains, losing depth. The weaknesses thus exposed in the dispatch of air defense have been undoubtedly exposed in these days. According to the news from Pearl Harbor, Japanese fighter planes are circling in the sky and monitoring the sky at all times. As long as there are planes on the island that want to take off and take off into the air, they will immediately be attacked by Japanese planes diving down from a high altitude in the process of climbing. The few remaining planes at Pearl Harbor were now protected from air raids by hiding in underground hangars, and it was very difficult to even maintain normal sorties, and the situation there was so bad that it was very severe.

The Japanese forces that captured the three islands of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai are now speeding up the repair and expansion of the airfields on the three islands. In order to facilitate the entry of more land-based aircraft, the Japanese army will then be "unsinkable aircraft carriers".

The small islands around Oahu, once fortified to defend Hawaiian forts, were lost and turned into a noose around their necks.

With Oahu's own defenses, it would take at least another two months and countless gallons of blood for the Japanese to take them. But the Japanese can afford to wait two months.

The battle that took place on Oahu. It now tugs at the heart of every American. In order to encourage the people's will, in the official propaganda. The U.S. media outlets promoted the place as an "unsinkable Wahu" and the U.S. military who defended the island as a national hero.

But there are pros and cons, Oahu is in danger and urgently needs foreign reinforcements, but now that the U.S. Navy has suffered heavy losses, Wilkie is no different. Minister Nimitz really couldn't spare a decent ship to rush to support.

However, this embarrassing situation has improved after the time entered November.

With the commissioning of two Essex-class aircraft carriers, counting the old ship Saratoga, two South Dakota-class battleships. The U.S. Navy finally has a little "sense of survival" in the Pacific.

More importantly, in the three months from July to November this year, US shipyards worked continuously 24 hours a day without interruption, and they actually renovated a whole 24 escort aircraft carriers in one go. Since the main shipyard of the United States is in the Atlantic, only six merchant ships have been refitted in the Pacific direction during the renovation process, and the rest will take time to be transferred to the Pacific Ocean after the transformation is completed, and the number of escort aircraft carriers in the Pacific direction is currently 15 for the time being.

On average, each escort aircraft carrier remodeled from merchant ships can carry about 40 aircraft, plus three combat aircraft carriers, and theoretically can fight with the Japanese Combined Fleet in service.

On November 9, President Wilkie summoned Chief of Naval Operations Nimitz to ask him about sending a fleet to support Pearl Harbor.

"No way!"

However, to the great disappointment of Mr. President, what he received from the head of the Navy Department was an extremely disappointing word no.

"President, I understand your feelings, but the current navy of the United States of America is far from the point where it can go to war immediately!"

Nimitz explained bitterly to the president.

"Our sailors are all freshmen who have just left the military academy, and many of them have not even completed the training courses of the military academy. The problem of pilots is no less severe, with naval aircraft landing on shaky decks, which places higher technical demands on pilots than at land-based airfields. Since the outbreak of the war, the navy has accepted many wonderful and excellent young men, but they are still too young and too untrained, and sending these young men who lack flight training time to the battlefield now will only make the opponent shoot down like flies. What's more"

Lieutenant General Nimitz paused, looked at the assistant secretary of state beside the president, and said dissatisfiedly: "The aircraft used by the Navy now, Yan zhòng is behind the opponent, whether it is the Zero or the Swift, they are stronger than us." ”

President Wilkee frowned and said, "Moneyworth and Grumman's planes, can't they be put into service yet?" (Note: The famous F4U Corsair fighter of World War II developed by Moneyworth, and Grumman is the famous F6F villain, that is, the developer of the Hellcat fighter)

President Wilkie knew what Nimitz's disgruntled eyes were. In the past few months, the US Navy and Army Aviation, equipped with fighter jets, have been completely crushed by Japanese planes, or more precisely, by German planes in the Pacific theater.

In terms of land aviation, the P40 and P39 fighters, which were very cheap, were very bad by the Japanese planes, and the "very expensive" fighters, the P38 Lightning, which were pinned on high hopes, were ridiculed by their opponents and their own pilots as the worst aircraft in the Pacific. The P38 Lightning fighter, which made a name for itself in the Pacific Ocean and got the nickname "half angel, half devil", became a rotten thing with a reputation second only to the Buffalo fighter when it first appeared. (Note: P38's "Angel" evaluation refers to his excellent performance in the Pacific theater, while the evaluation of "Devil" refers to his miserable situation in the European theater when he was beaten by a bunch of German planes.) ）

"The people in the Ministry of Defense are all raised by dogs, they take money from the capitalists, and they will only supply me with rotten and expensive broken planes."

The American pilots on the front line at Pearl Harbor complained to Washington every day about how bad their fighters were, but the "pirates" and "wicked women" on whom the US military had high hopes have not been able to serve until now.

Nimitz replied to the president: "The Corsair fighter has already begun to be produced, but it will not be ready until December, and as for Grumman's aircraft, it may take longer." ”

What neither President Wilkie nor Nimitz, who are at the top, know is that although the Navy can get the first batch of F4U Corsair fighters in December, there are still big problems if they want to get on the ship.

The F4U Corsair fighter is an excellent fighter, and after the Pacific War, it was even praised by General Halsey: "All I need on my ship is a pirate -- even the Grumman F6F Villain Fighter, known as the "Zero" killer, was squeezed aside by him and took away his demeanor.

But this aircraft, even after it was built in December, had a fatal problem: because the nose was too long, it affected the pilot's forward-looking perspective, and it was difficult to get on board!

Historically, for this reason, after its commissioning in December 1942, when advanced fighters were in great need of advanced fighters on front-line carriers, the US Navy was forced to use the obsolete F4F Tomcat for another half a year, until after June 1943, when it was replaced by the F6F Villain. During this period, the Corsair fighter could only be used as a land-based aircraft for the Marine Corps and made a name for itself in the Battle of Kuah.

Historically, the problem of getting on board the F4U pirate was delayed until the British were also equipped with this fighter, and the "smart" British pilots solved the method of getting on the ship. However, in the current situation, the Americans obviously cannot provide the F4U to the British, and when the problem of the difficulty of getting on the ship can be solved can only depend on God's mood, and whether or not a certain pilot in the US Navy can have an idea and open his mind, and the British pilot generally thinks of a solution to the difficulty of getting on the ship.

President Wilkie said to Nimitz: "Next January, at most, it can only be delayed until this point in time!" We must provide effective support to Pearl Harbor. We can't afford to lose there, and if we lose anything, there will be more blood shed if the United States were to return to Pearl Harbor in the future. ”

In fact, in early October, when the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor on a large scale, President Wilkie wanted to use the remnants of the Navy to fight the Japanese army to the death at Pearl Harbor at this point in time, but was vetoed by Nimitz, the chief of naval operations, with the threat of resignation.

"I reject this gambling-style behavior. The sailors on our current warships are the last seeds of the United States Navy, and if we go to Pearl Harbor now to fight the superior Japanese fleet, we will only consume this last seed in this battle! (To be continued......)

PS: I originally wanted to write the fourth chapter, but I thought that "The Reaper of the End Times" hadn't been updated for two days, so let's go write the end times first. That's all for today's 9,000 words.