"Mr. President, I have to inform you of the bad news, the HMS Hood of the Royal Navy was sunk while intercepting the fleet of the Germans."

There was a five-hour difference between Washington time and London time, and the upper echelons of the federal government learned of the outcome of the naval battle of the Faroe-Iceland waterway at dinner that day.

But everyone was not so overwhelmed and shocked, because they had already been mentally prepared.

By the time it became known that the German fleet had set sail and the British had gone to intercept it, people were already predicting the outcome of the hunt - and of course, it was probably a bad situation.

"The British are no longer capable of restraining the Germans, and the Atlantic transport line will collapse in two months. If we don't respond effectively, they won't last long, and at most three months there will be mass deaths caused by food insecurity. ”

After a long period of silence, President Franklin said, "We have to be proactive...... Such a negative state is not good. ”

The people live on food, and if they are people, they have to eat.

The British Isles need to import about 20 million tons of food every year, most of which comes from the colonies of Indu, Burma, and Malaya. Imported meat comes from the United States; Dairy products are mainly dependent on Australia and New Zealand, two Commonwealth countries.

Due to the successive deployment of destroyers aided by the United States, the momentum of the German submarine force in the past month and a half has been somewhat halted, but more than 600,000 tons of food are still sinking into the sea as a result.

For this reason, the British had to re-establish the Ministry of Food Supply, and began to implement rationing and limited food supply.

Since the middle of last month, on 11 August, people in the UK have been receiving government food vouchers, which can usually only be used at designated stores.

It is also important to note that food stamps are not vouchers, but simply indicate eligibility to purchase certain foods.

The ration standard set by the Ministry of Food Supply for civilians is 227 grams of bacon, 454 grams of sugar, 113 grams of tea, 533 grams of meat, 227 grams of cheese, 454 grams of jam, 227 grams of beef, 340 grams of butter and 113 grams of lard per week.

At the same time, they called for a "root vegetable campaign", encouraging people to turn their back gardens into vegetable gardens and grow their own easy-to-grow root plants such as carrots and potatoes to reduce the consumption of grains and meat.

[Picture]

In order to encourage the public to eat carrots, the British government has issued a large number of posters, and also advertised to the public that they are rich in vitamin A, which can greatly improve eyesight.

Today, radar technology is still a secret technology that is not publicly available, so the British government claims that the reason why those pilots and anti-aircraft artillery were able to shoot down enemy planes at night was because they ate carrots.

But no matter how hard the British try to cut down on food consumption, there is still a limit, and the Anza people are certainly not the herbivorous people they have been since ancient times, and the British Isles' food reserves are dwindling every day.

At the direction of the President, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox officially gave an order to the fleet carrying out the patrol duty of the Atlantic -

hinder, prevent, or track discovered German warships or submarines by any feasible means without firing; If the opponent fires, sink it immediately.

Born in Boston, Frank was also a legend who interrupted his studies during the war between the United States and Spain to serve in the U.S. Army's 1st Volunteer Cavalry Brigade, which Roosevelt Sr. founded. Frank entered politics on the eve of the European War, actively advocating that the United States should enter the war to expand its influence in the world, and he also practiced it, and after the United States entered the war, he re-enlisted in the army, fought in France in the 78th Infantry Division, and finally retired from active duty with the rank of artillery colonel.

This order can be said to be extremely aggressive, almost tantamount to stirring up trouble.

Imagine how much headache the Germans would have had if several U.S. destroyers had been following German warships or submarines and constantly reporting the coordinates to the British.

In the Battle of the Faro-Iceland Waterway, only the Royal Navy was able to evacuate the heavy cruiser Sussex and one destroyer, and the British naval glory, the Hood, ceased to exist, and five destroyers were sunk one after another.

Vice Admiral William Whitworth and more than 1,400 officers and men sank with the ship, and only five survived.

They pulled up the floating debris and were lucky enough to be rescued by the destroyer sailors who had abandoned the ship before they died of hypothermia - except for the Firefly, the other four destroyers had time to put down the Cali life raft after abandoning the ship, so most of them survived.

Because of the impact of the Firefly and the torpedo of the Hanren, the battlecruiser Teodor could only reach a maximum speed of 26 knots, and then it was torpedoed by British aircraft.

It was sunset, and the Swordfish torpedo planes that had taken off from the USS Fury were unwilling to miss their last chance and risked running out of fuel and crashing into the sea.

The British pilots knew that the operation was more important to damage than to sink, so they did not concentrate on the attack, and the 17 swordfish torpedo planes divided into three groups to attack the Franz, Bruno, and Theodor.

The Bruno was nilly able to dodge the aerial torpedoes dropped by the slow Swordfish, but the Franz and Theodor were not so lucky.

The Franz suffered a thunder attack, lost 530 tons of heavy oil, and its maximum speed dropped to 29 knots.

The Teodor was hit by two mines, and although the damage was well controlled and there was no risk of sinking, the speed was only 20 knots, and now even low-speed battleships like the Rodney and the Nelson could catch up with her.

And the price paid by the British was...... 8 Swordfish torpedo machines.

Compared with the paranoia of the war navy in history, the workers' navy is more practical and more pragmatic, and the standard medium-caliber anti-aircraft gun is the naval version of the army's Flak36 37mm anti-aircraft gun, given the number /37, the gun mount has been replaced, and the rate of fire has been reduced, in fact, the rate of fire in battle is three times that of the historical "37 hand-pulled machine".

The sea conditions were not good for the British planes when they carried out the torpedo attack, the wind was close to force 7, and the wave height was more than eight meters, so the swordfish had to drop the torpedo at a very slow speed, so they almost became live targets.

After all, the "Baltic Sea Icebreaking" operation did not achieve a perfect ending, and Major General Hubert could only make the most favorable decision according to the situation.

He ordered the Teodor to terminate its mission, search and rescue the officers and soldiers from both sides in the vicinity, and then go to Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, to destroy classified documents and cipher machines, and then wait for diplomacy to sink itself immediately if the situation is not right.

The three warships received a telegram from the Theodor: "I wish you success and make the British realize as soon as possible that stubborn resistance is meaningless......

After this, the Teodor turned around and returned to the waters where it had previously engaged.

She fired flares to search for and salvage the Cali rafts, which were packed with British officers and soldiers, and then sailed at a cruising speed of 12 knots to her destination in West Iceland.

As for the flagship of the Broken Fleet, the Franz, although it was damaged by an aviation torpedo, it was not a big problem, the top speed of 29 knots still belongs to the category of high-speed ships, and the lost heavy fuel oil can also be replenished later.

After the two sides said goodbye, the Franz, Bruno, and Pique continued their journey.

At this point, the fleet has successfully broken through the blockade of the Royal Navy, and the three warships will penetrate deep into the Atlantic after the night, and disperse to hunt their respective prey.

As part of the plan, the German Society arranged for the supply of the Broken Fleet deep into the Atlantic, which sailed from France and were ostensibly civilian vessels, but in fact carried various types of ammunition and heavy fuel oil.

In addition, five U-boats were instructed to conduct advance reconnaissance along the route between Halifax and the United Kingdom.

After the "parting of ways", the heavy cruiser USS Peake was the most daring, first sailing southwest at a speed of 21 knots for the night, and then immediately turning due south.

It was a common place for freighters passing through the Cape of Good Hope to Europe, including merchant ships carrying grain from the Asian colonies to the British Isles.

At noon on September 5, London time, an Ar-196 maritime reconnaissance aircraft ejected from the USS Peake spotted the merchant ship Udaipur heading north.

Upon seeing the fluttering flag, the Ar-196 immediately machine-gunned the sea in front of the merchant ship, and used signal lights to stop the ship and prohibit the transmission of telegrams.

The Udaipur had to shut down its engines, and the captain ordered the lifeboat to be lowered and began destroying important documents on board, including the British maritime contact codebook.

At the same time, the captain also planned to pretend not to understand the meaning of the second half of the sentence, and insisted that the crew send warnings and coordinate information.

The AR-196 backseat radio operator sensed the merchant ship's tricks, and the seaplane immediately fired at the foredeck of the merchant ship and flew by at a very low altitude.

The crew was forced to abandon the act of sending reports and began to board the lifeboats one after another.

In the end, the Peak arrived quickly from near and far, and in order to save ammunition for the main gun, she only used a 105mm anti-aircraft gun to fire at the target's waterline.

"Boom! Rumble! ”

The /34 twin 105mm anti-aircraft gun opened fire so heavily that the Udaipur's hull fragments were scattered.

Almost twenty minutes later, the Udaipur, with its left hull riddled with holes, capsized due to an unbalanced flood of water, and soon all that remained on the surface of the sea was bubbles, ripples, and oil splashes.

After salvaging the lifeboat and crew on board, the Peake continued south along the course.

After a day and a night, passing through the Canary Islands, the German sailors threw the crew of the Udaipur and their lifeboats down.

Unlike the Peak's petty fights, the Franz was much luckier.

She met an entire merchant fleet on the Canada-England route!

The fast fleet, codenamed HX27, consisted of 32 merchant vessels, mostly from Halifax, but also a few from New York.

They are laden with iron ore, copper ore, bauxite, cheese, wheat, meat; Several British merchant ships departing from New York were also carrying P-36D fighter jets aided by the United States.

There are a total of five destroyers escorted for it, three of which are Clemson-class - from the previous base-for-destroyer deal.

There was no suspense in the battle that followed, and in four words, it was a wolf into the flock.

Having learned the lessons of the naval battle at the Faro-Iceland waterway, the Franz no longer dared to take the British destroyers lightly, so it gave priority to attacking them from the outset.

The one-sided killings continued from early morning to late in the evening, with 2 destroyers and 13 merchant ships sunk, with a total tonnage of 73,000 tons.

Interestingly, there are also two submarines U-26 and U-70 in ambush nearby, and the two were still thinking about how to get out, but they didn't expect a battle cruiser of their own side to sweep the HX27 fleet like a whirlwind?

The two submarines took advantage of this, and several merchant ships were torpedoed and sunk before they could survive the catastrophe.

For the Germans, it was a good day to celebrate, but for the British, it was a bad time for the gloom.

In the far East, the Ming people, who watched all this from the wall, were intensively preparing for future actions.

"Well, now it's really a leap from the sea, and I can't catch it at all, so I can only rely on Sunderland (seaplane) to try my luck."

"And the aircraft carrier, doesn't it mean that the British are so anxious that even the Argos is being prepared?"

The so-called Argos is the Hundred-Eyed Giant, the world's first all-deck aircraft carrier, which has a history of 20 years so far, and is rebuilt by the British on the basis of merchant ships, which can only carry 20 carrier-based aircraft and has a maximum speed of only 20.5 knots.

The British even pulled out such a veteran ship, which shows that the situation has reached the point of burning eyebrows.

Zhou Changfeng came to Hangzhou again, the first sea trial of the Lu Xun was successfully completed, and the first professional amphibious command ship was about to be handed over to the Oriental Fleet of the Ming Navy.

Anyway, it is based on the reconstruction of the B83 freighter, although the center of gravity has been significantly raised due to the addition of horizontal armor, but the seaworthiness still meets the expectations and there are no mistakes.

"I've heard that the U.S. troops in Luzon have been treated as outcasts, and MacArthur applied for reinforcements of a batch of combat vehicles and torpedo boats, but they were all vetoed."

Behind a compound at the naval base, Yan Zhong and Zhou Changfeng were walking in this quiet place of pavilions, small bridges and flowing water.

Yan Zhong's most important nephew is Yan Chenwu, so he is often in contact with someone Zhou.

When Zhou Changfeng took office as the commander of the newly formed 1st Marine Regiment, Yan Zhong was the chief officer of the 1st Battle Fleet of the Oriental Fleet. Now the former is a brigadier general, and the latter has also been promoted to vice admiral and moved to the position of admiral of the Oriental Fleet.

"Luzon as a bridgehead was originally an outcast, and the Americans are very shrewd and will not waste resources where they do not mean much." Zhou Changfeng shrugged his shoulders and said casually: "Anyway, that place is to contain our army, relying on fortifications and indigenous troops is less expensive, and the efficiency ratio is the highest." ”

"The toss of the German people is messed up." Yan Zhong took a deep breath of his cigarette, "The embassy in the United States heard that the Minister of the Navy has ordered every possible effort to obstruct the German ships, and I am afraid that it will soon go wrong." ”

Zhou Changfeng, who looked calm, nodded lightly and smiled easily: "Then it's just a matter of time." It's good, most of the things are expected. ”

(End of chapter)