"What the Germans could have been aiming for Newfoundland" White House, Washington, D.C.
As soon as President Truman, who was having breakfast, got out of bed and heard the bad news that made his heart tremble.
"Could it be a feint," he asked Wallace and William Leahy, who had come to the White House to report.
"There is the possibility of a feint, but we can't ignore the danger."
Wallace's eyes were red as he answered the question, apparently having not slept all night.
It turned out that he had a meeting at the highest level of the Pentagon and the military last night until midnight, and as soon as he wanted to squint for a while, the report of the German bomber taking off from the Azores arrived.
So Wallace was busy arranging interception missiles and air defense work in major cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.
It was five or six o'clock in the morning, and worse news came William Leahy also looked as haggard as Wallace, with an elderly face listless, and he frowned and said: "Mr.
President, the scale of the German air raids is very large, according to the report of the AWACS, they have dispatched at least 1,200 warplanes, including about 900 fighters. ” "900 fighters," Truman gasped, "their carriers are all near Newfoundland" William Leahy nodded: "It should be, so their target is likely to be Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, St.
Pierre Island or Miquelon, or possibly Sable Island in the Atlantic Ocean, 160 kilometers from Nova Scotia." ” Because the United States lost its naval supremacy in the Atlantic Ocean after the Battle of the Bermuda Islands, and lost the air supremacy of the Bermuda Islands on the Nova Scotia Peninsula in the Great Air Battle of Newfoundland.
As a result, the defense of the eastern coast of North America fell into a great passivity, and it was necessary to defend the long coastline and many islands.
The Germans, on the other hand, could use the sea and air superiority to attack at will, and as long as one point was breached, the entire defense line would face collapse, and this collapse was of course not the German armored forces to New York and Washington, but the starting point for Germany to drop the atomic bomb And now, Labra's defensive line against the Allies was already in danger.
If there were any more problems on Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, St.
Pierre, Miquelon, and Sable, the United States would be in real trouble.
The range of the E264 bomber could be covered, and even a considerable part of the German fighters had a range that was enough to escort the 264.
In addition, once there was cover from islands close to the continental United States, it would be easier for the German aircraft carriers to get closer to the eastern coast of the United States.
E264 escort "Can we hold it?"
Truman asked, "Do we have enough troops there to send reinforcements?"
"Not yet," William Leahy shook his head, "we have enough ground troops there, and our forces at sea are capable of handling the landing." ” Ground forces seem to be sufficient, and on the island of Newfoundland, where the terrain is difficult, the total number of ground troops of all kinds reaches 250,000; On the tiny island of Saint-Pierre or Miquelon, there were tens of thousands of elite French Free French troops; More than 350,000 ground troops were stationed on Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, where the terrain was more favorable for landing; On Sable Island, which is 160 kilometers away from Nova Scotia Peninsula, has a narrow terrain and a land area of 80 square kilometers, an elite marine division is also stationed on it, and more than 30,000 magnetic mines and anchor mines have been laid around the island, completely blocking all possible landing beaches, so that even the island's maritime traffic has been interrupted, and all supplies are transported by air.
In addition to these troops already deployed on the front line, the Allied Northeast North American Command also has a large number of reserve troops in its hands, including 4 armored divisions, 12 infantry divisions, American-style mechanized infantry divisions, and 4 airborne divisions, for a total of 20 divisions.
In addition, the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet has also deployed the First Fleet's home port in New York along the northeastern coastline of North America.
The Royal Navy Canada also deployed Quebec City, home port of the powerful Canadian Fleet, which was a major fleet of battleships and heavy cruisers.
Although it could not fight a decisive battle with the European Combined Fleet on the ocean, it could rush out of the St.
Lawrence River when the German troops landed, and give the German landing fleet a hard blow to the German landing fleet that was going ashore.
Truman also knew that the land forces in the northeastern theater of North America were sufficient, and there was no shortage of troops at sea, and there was no way to increase them.
William Leahy replied: "The Joint Chiefs of Staff believes that there will be no problem in being prepared to send planes from the Caribbean and the East Coast to reinforce at any time." ” At present, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff does not have much reserve air force available, so it has to tear down the east wall to make up for the west wall.
And this "eastern wall" cannot be dismantled casually, in case the actions of the Germans on the northern front are a bluff After all, on the northern front, the Germans basically had no way to put in shore-based fighters, which made them rely on carrier-based fighters to fight for air supremacy.
Moreover, the distance from the Azores and Iceland to Newfoundland is too far for most shore-based bombers to reach, and only a small number of 264 can be used in air strikes on Newfoundland.
As for Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Sable, it's not even 264.
So even if the Germans could fight for air supremacy with carrier-based aircraft, there weren't too many bombers to drop bombs, which greatly reduced their air superiority.
In addition, the American F-13 reconnaissance planes have so far not found a particularly large fleet in the Atlantic Ocean near the islands of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Saint-Pierre, Miquelon, and Sable.
If the Germans wanted to land successfully in the above-mentioned areas, they would have to transport at least 100,000 well-equipped officers and men ashore at one time, which would require at least hundreds of transport ships and landing ships, which was not an unguarded Labrador area, and without a large number of troops and fire support fleets, the landing would not have been possible at all.
It is impossible for such a large fleet to evade the detection of the S-band radar on the F13, and their absence indicates that a large-scale landing operation will not take place for the time being.
Based on these judgments, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff still insists that the main direction of the German attack will be in the Caribbean.
"Check the gear one last time and see if there's anything missing" "Who else hasn't made a will, hurry up and go to the military lawyer to make a will" "Hurry up, move quickly" "Line up and get on the plane one by one" "One last check on equipment security" While Truman and Wallace and William Leahy discussed whether to send more troops to the northeastern North American theater, scenes they never dreamed of were appearing at more than a dozen large airfields in the Azores.
The huge tarmac on every airport is now filled with huge transport planes.
There are two models of these transport aircraft, one type of transport aircraft is the "pot-bellied" ZSO523 "Super Giant" air assault transport aircraft, which looks almost twice as large as the Fokker 42, with a wingspan of 70 meters, a fuselage length of more than 40 meters, and the fuselage is particularly fat.
The other is the famous Fokker 42 long-range transport aircraft, which has a fuselage length of 305 meters, a wingspan of 415 meters, and a fuselage height of 88 meters.
The empty weight is up to 195 tons, and the maximum take-off weight is 383 tons.
The maximum speed reaches 515 km/h, and the maximum range can reach 9800 km.
In the case of a full load, 10 tons of cargo or 60 heavily armed paratroopers can be sent to the battlefield 2,500 kilometers away for airdrop.
Among them, the ZSO523 "Super Giant" air assault transport planes arrived one after another, and they all stopped at the airport on the main island of Terceira, the most heavily guarded island in the Azores.
At the same time as the planes arrived, a large number of heavy equipment and personnel belonging to the 1st Air Assault Brigade of the Wehrmacht were also sent to Terceira Island by sea.
All heavy equipment belonging to the 1st Air Assault Brigade, including E25 tank destroyers, Type 4H tanks, wheeled armored vehicles of the Cougar series, Steyr command vehicles and trucks, and guns of various calibers, have been loaded into the ZSO523's "big belly" and are firmly fastened with chains.
Ammunition, fuel and other supplies that could be used by the troops for five days were also loaded onto the aircraft.
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Now it's time for the fighters to board the plane The Fokker 42 landed at the airfields of the islands of the Azores between the early morning and early morning of April 25.
The airport used by the E264 has more than 500 aircraft, so the planes are crowded with the already very spacious tarmac, and it also occupies part of the runway.
By the time the Fokker 42 planes landed, the soldiers of the brigade and the various airdropped supplies loaded with trucks had already lined up on the road outside the airport.
According to the provisions of the "Columbus Plan", 260 ZSO523s will transport more than 4,000 officers and soldiers and more than 200 vehicles of the 1st Air Brigade equivalent to a brigade-sized armored group to Newfoundland These aircraft alone will cost 2.6 billion euromarks and tens of thousands of tons of expensive aluminum alloys and special steels The 508 Fokker 42 transport planes will send nearly 15,000 officers and soldiers from 18 paratrooper battalions and 2,580 tons of various airdrop materials to the airdrop site 2,500 kilometers away. t1706231537: