"The attack on the Caribbean islands will turn into a large-scale battle. The Americans will not tolerate our occupation of Dominica, or even Cuba, which is just a stone's throw away, and they will muster all their forces against us. The entire US Atlantic Fleet, as well as all of their land-based air forces, may appear on the opposite side of our army as combat power on the chessboard. I wonder how many naval and air forces the Empire has amassed in Guyana to launch this campaign at the end of October? In the office of the Imperial Palace in Berlin, Qingying stood in front of a huge map and said with surprise.

Standing in front of his desk, Raeder, who was in a straight uniform, explained in detail to the emperor in front of him: "Your Majesty, because of the victory of the air force in the defense of the skies over Guyana, the supplies carried by the navy's merchant ships can be unloaded at the ports of Guyana led by Georgetown all the time. After more than three months of hard work, more than 830 merchant ships of various types loaded with supplies have arrived in South America, carrying a total tonnage of more than 4 million tons: including a huge unit of an air force, two independent brigades, two paratrooper divisions and related logistics personnel, as well as countless consumable war items such as arms, ammunition, mechanical spare parts, and medicines that have arrived with the ships. Oil tankers from the Persian Gulf and Nigeria no longer enter the mainland, but go directly to Guyana to replenish the fleet. ”

Speaking of this, Raeder showed a happy smile on his face and said, "In fact, basic materials such as oil and food have become the most indispensable goods in South America. With the successful establishment of the Reich in Guyana, there was a marked shift in Latin American attitudes towards Germany: Venezuela promised to sell some of the crude oil it extracted to Guyana, and Brazil began to sell large quantities of grain and building materials to our army. Supplies provided by these two countries in close proximity. It undoubtedly alleviated the logistical pressure on the empire's transoceanic operations. Right now. Even the time is not yet ripe for landing in Cuba. But the conditions for the capture of Dominica and Puerto Rico were already in place: according to air reconnaissance estimates, no more than two divisions of the defenders on the two small and medium-sized islands were to be carried out, and we were quite sure that the Americans would be uprooted here. ”

Hearing Rydell's words, Qingying let out a long breath. The biggest obstacle to the expedition to North America was to maintain a steady supply of rear supplies, and the provision of basic raw materials in Latin America obviously made it easier for the German tanks to advance with half the effort. Qingying was not surprised by this situation: South American countries such as Argentina and Brazil already had a large German ethnic population, and they not only had close trade contacts with Germany. In terms of political tendencies, they also leaned more towards the Berlin camp: the historical allotment fleet was sheltered is the most direct evidence. The oppressed Latin American countries all hate the United States, which holds high the banner of the Monroe Doctrine and is full of equality and autonomy, but in fact wantonly exports war and colonial rule. Now that this bloody executioner has finally received the punishment it deserves, where is the reason not to beat the water dogs?

Thinking of the contradictions between Latin American countries and the United States, Qingying, who was moved in her heart, immediately set her sights on Mexico in the south of the United States. Compared to countries like Panama, Mexico has a deep enmity for the United States: after the defeat in the Mexican-American War in 1848, the Americans cut off as many as 2.3 million square kilometers of land from them, almost 60% of their entire land! Even Germany's subjugation of Soviet Russia in the Treaty of Brest pales in comparison. For nearly a century since, although the Mexicans have a deep hatred for the United States, it is due to the disparity in power between the two sides. I have to bury this hatred deep in my heart. Today, however, the once-invincible United States is besieged from all sides by the Central Powers, led by Germany. All fronts were on the losing side, giving the Mexicans a godsend to take advantage of the situation.

For the Allies, Mexico, which was weak, had a priceless treasure -- its geographical location, which shares a land border with the United States for nearly 3,000 kilometers. If Germany could use this as a base for its advance, the invincible armored cluster would have a vast field to show its strength, and its effectiveness would undoubtedly be several times greater than that of Cuba, an isolated island hanging off the coast. Japan, on the other side of the world, could join Germany in Mexico after sweeping the U.S. Pacific Fleet. As for Japan's victory over the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Kiyoying was even more confident than its supreme commander Yamamoto: the U.S. Navy's lineup relative to Japan in this plane was already weaker than that of the same period in history, and almost all of the Japanese warships were born from Kiyoei's own drawings, and their combat performance was even higher. When Germany sweeps the Caribbean, the Panama Strait will also be closed; It is almost impossible for the US Pacific Fleet, which has become a lone army, to escape the fate of annihilation!

At present, the German ambassador to Mexico City is secretly negotiating with the Mexican government about entering the war. The Mexicans showed an unprecedented eagerness for revenge, and the Germans, with whom they reached an agreement on the use of ports and the transit of their troops, met little resistance. The German government, led by Qing Ying, also accepted the Mexicans' suggestion that they needed to wait until Germany occupied Cuba to enter the war, after all, this did not conflict with Germany's strategic planning, and Mexico, which entered the war a little later, could avoid being swept away by the American army in advance, so that Germany would fall into the dilemma of losing this ideal bridgehead.

On 13 October, after more than three months of silence, the German military forces entrenched in Guyana finally began to advance northward. A group of sappers traveled to the island of Grenada, 500 kilometers to the north-west, on a transport ship carrying large quantities of building materials, and began to build runways and airfields on it. The 340-square-kilometer island was a British colony in South America, about 850 kilometers from Puerto Rico; Due to its proximity to the South American continent, American power could not radiate to such a remote location shortly after the outbreak of war, and the island of Grenada was not occupied by American troops like eastern Canada. Compared to Guyana, which is in the rear, the island is clearly more suitable as a forward base for airborne and air suppression.

Due to the collapse of the U.S. Army Aviation after suffering a heavy setback, it has rarely set foot in the southern seas where German planes are infested; The German landing advance was unusually smooth, and the first jump to the north was quickly completed. By the time the Americans reacted, a new airfield for the Germans had already been built.

Although, judging from the map, Barbados was occupied one after another. Relay islands like Grenada, such as St. Lucia, were more conducive to promoting Germany's advance in the Caribbean Sea in a steady and steady manner, but Kesselring, who was in charge of this theater, decided to highlight the surprise and directly parachute into Puerto Rico from Grenada. If there is a step-by-step island-by-island scramble, then the US military will inevitably be prepared; And for paratroopers who use transport aircraft as transfer vehicles, the distance of 300 km and 850 km is the difference between 1 hour and 3 hours in the cabin. Since the Ju-52, which was on a transport mission, was capable of such long-distance flights, then from the suddenness of the battle, the German airborne forces should not be delayed in any way!

A week later, in the early morning of the 20th, the 27th Airborne Regiment attached to the Air Force boarded 96 Ju-52 transport planes and 31 gliders and flew from the island of Grenada to Puerto Rico. At the same time, the 65th Airborne Regiment was also dispatched in a group, and their goal was to occupy Puerto La Romana in the southern part of Dominica Island in anticipation of the arrival of two brigades of the Army. In order to cover the operation, Kesselring made a gesture two days in advance to land on the island of St. Lucia, near the north, and assembled a considerable number of transport ships to attract American fighters stationed at the San Juan base. The American commanders, who were blaming themselves for the German landing at Shunlì in Grenada a few days earlier, were immediately attracted by this German movement, believing that the Germans were repeating their old tactics and intending to gradually approach their own defensive circle. As soon as dawn broke, hundreds of American warplanes flew southeast with bombs, designed to attack German transport ships; The U.S. air force remaining at the San Juan base was drastically reduced, and no one expected that the other side would attack their hearts in the form of mass airborne paratroopers.

At 9:20 a.m., the radar soldiers at the San Juan base in the United States found a large number of echoes in the south, but the radar squad leader thought that it was a P-38 that had returned from his own home, and did not report to the higher command level. The careless Americans did not count the number of spots on their radar, nor did they have any suspicion that the size of their sortie was more than twice the size of their own fleet, nor did they realize why the planes had returned two hours earlier. Having lived peacefully on the North American continent for too long, these rank-and-file soldiers, who had been temporarily drafted after the outbreak of war, lacked the necessary literacy and vigilance, and they grew up in an environment where the United States dominated the Americas, and their subconscious was deeply proud of the power of the United States, so it was logical to conclude that it could only be their own warplane.

The motor roared and roared, and thanks to the strict negligence of the American radar personnel, the German transport aircraft flew almost unhindered over the island of Grenada. The paratroopers were pleasantly surprised to find that there was not a single American fighter to intercept the fragile transport planes they were flying on, which were no different from canned sardines; Amid the shouts of the officers, they quickly gathered their equipment and then leaped away from the ground below at a height of a thousand meters. Gliders, which carry heavy weapons such as recoilless guns that are not easy to parachute properly, as well as large quantities of ammunition, untie the cables that connect the transport planes to find flat ground for landing. After circling for a while, the BF-110 twin-engine heavy fighters escorted it immediately discovered a more valuable target than the opposing fighters: on the runway of the San Juan Air Force Base, nearly twenty four-engine B-17 bombers were neatly lined up at the moment! (To be continued......)

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