The Rise of the Third Reich

March 17, 1943, 9:45 p.m.

Eastern Pacific Ocean, 180 nautical miles off the coast of Ecuador. Several dazzling searchlights pierced the dark night, like several lightsabers, straight into the sky.

A large Japanese fleet aircraft carrier with a full load displacement of more than 40,000 tons turned on the searchlight in the waters near the Panama Canal, which were full of American reconnaissance planes and submarines. This was almost courting death!

However, at this time, the young Hessman on this aircraft carrier knew that the commander of the First Mobile Fleet, Jisaburo Ozawa, had no choice.

The First Mobile Fleet suffered too much loss in this Panama Sea Battle... Not only the two "Soryu" class aircraft carriers, but also medium-sized aircraft carriers such as the "Soryu" class and the "Unryu" class (the evolution of the Soryu) may take some time to build by Japanese shipyards, but if they are built by the shipyards of the European Community, 18 months from laying the keel to completion is enough.

Now that the UK has become a member of the European Community, the European Community has abundant shipbuilding capacity, and it is not a problem to start building 10 or 20 ships at a time. The only problem is whether the Japanese are willing to spend money - Germany is not a rich American country after all, and cannot afford the Lend-Lease Act, so it can only engage in "barter trade", so Japan must take out something valuable in exchange... Of course, money is not a problem in the face of national survival. So what Japan lacks now is not aircraft carriers, but pilots who fly carrier-based aircraft! And Japan's biggest loss in this Panama Sea Battle was not the two medium-sized aircraft carriers, but the pilots on the aircraft carriers. Little Hirschman didn't know about other aircraft carriers, but he knew the situation on the Akagi very well. This morning, there were 72 regular aircraft and 18 backup aircraft on the Akagi, but now there are only 35 aircraft left on this aircraft carrier! Among them, there are only 10 carrier-based fighters left, 19 carrier-based dive bombers left, and only 6 carrier-based torpedo attack aircraft left without crew backup aircraft, and 2 Zero fighter pilots without aircraft (some pilots still carry parachutes).

In other words, there are still 41 crews that have not returned, including Hessman's good friend Major Itaya Shigeru - he has now been confirmed as "a god" by the Akagi Air Force, but Hessman believes that Itaya Shigeru is likely to eat prison food in the American prisoner-of-war camp.

However, this is irrelevant to Ozawa Jisaburo. For Ozawa, the crews of the Zero carrier battleships and Comet carrier bombers that have not returned are now lost... The Japanese Navy will not let seaplanes take risks to search and rescue pilots who fell into the water. If only the captains with the greatest value are counted, the losses so far have reached 182 people!

If all the Tianshan torpedo bombers that have not returned are abandoned, the losses will be as high as 290 people, which is almost two-thirds of the number of captains of all carrier-based aircraft (aircraft carriers) in the First Mobile Fleet.

These are two-thirds of the most elite naval pilots in Japan! If Hirschman were to evaluate, the value of these 290 people would definitely exceed that of four Soryu-class aircraft carriers.

Moreover, Germany and the European Community could build aircraft carriers for Japan, but it was impossible for them to supplement Japan with 290 elite pilots. Because Germany's own elite pilots were also limited, and they had to deal with the battles in the Atlantic and Soviet-German battlefields, and they didn't have much spare.

Therefore, when the Akagi ventured to turn on the searchlight, all the ship decks on the sea were filled with people looking forward to the return of the fighter planes, and many Japanese devils were muttering in their mouths, as if they were praying to Amaterasu.

"Commander! Radar detected a group of aircraft, flying from the southeast, more than 50, 100 kilometers away..."

Someone suddenly shouted in the bridge of the Akagi aircraft carrier. Ozawa Jisaburo, who was looking out of the bridge with his neck tilted, immediately turned his head and asked: "Are they our planes?"

"Identifying."

At this time, all the planes have an identification friend or foe device, which is actually a set of radio interrogators. The interrogator is installed on the ground/ship, and the transponder is installed on the plane. After the radar finds the target, the interrogator on the ground/ship sends a coded signal, and the transponder on the plane can decrypt the signal and then answer. Such a system is also available on Japanese aircraft and surface ships.

"It's our plane!" The radar officer on the Akagi shouted again after a while, "Commander, it's our plane... They are finally back!"

They are back, but not 108, but 56.

Although the 108 Tianshan attack aircraft sent by Ozawa carefully flew at ultra-low altitudes and avoided the American radar, they happened to encounter the US military's own aircraft returning. So they caught the Americans off guard and successfully bombed several airports. However, the American anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns deployed near the canal sluice played a role when the Japanese aircraft raided, causing heavy losses to the Tianshan attack aircraft that were flying at low altitudes and dropping torpedoes! It is no exaggeration to say that the four destroyed canal sluice gates were exchanged for the lives of Japanese pilots! The 52 Tianshan attack aircraft and the 156 crew members on board naturally all became gods. So March 17th was really the day when the Japanese naval aviation became gods. "233 captains... What a heavy loss!"

Seeing the last Tianshan attack aircraft landing safely on the deck of the Akagi, Ozawa Jisaburo turned his head and gave a wry smile to the chief of staff next to him, Furumura Keizo. He added: "Now, I am the sinner of the Combined Fleet and the Empire... With 2 aircraft carriers and 233 crews, the Combined Fleet's vitality has been greatly damaged!"

"No, Commander, you are a hero of the empire!" Furumura gritted his teeth and said, "No one will regard you as a sinner, because the Panama War is extremely difficult and dangerous. At the beginning of the war, Commander Yamamoto once predicted, Even if the surprise attack is successful, our initiative in the Pacific can be maintained for up to 12 months. This is caused by the gap in national strength and cannot be completely made up by vigorous fighting... But now our initiative has been maintained for more than 15 months. In August, Your Excellency, the Commander, now commanded the fleet to destroy the Panama Canal locks, allowing our initiative to be extended for another 6-10 months. With these 6-10 months, the defense of the Hawaiian Islands will be impregnable.

Therefore, all the heroes who have become gods today have no regrets! "

Ozawa Jisaburo sighed softly. In fact, he made no mistakes in his command today, and he also successfully completed the task of blowing up the ship lock...if the pilots of the Tianshan ship attack did not lie.

Although the loss of the First Mobile Fleet was due to bad luck, the main reason was still due to the strength of the enemy!

"The United States is indeed as powerful as we imagined!" Ozawa Jisaburo smiled bitterly. "It seems that the bitter battle between the Combined Fleet and the Japanese Empire is about to begin."

"Immediately?" Gucun Qizang was stunned, "The Panama Canal has been destroyed..."

"But the United States still has two large aircraft carriers, at least four light aircraft carriers, and a large number of escort carriers in the Pacific." Ozawa sighed, "According to intelligence, most of the US escort carriers are in Seattle and Porter on the West Coast. Built by Lan.”

"But those are just escort carriers." Furumura Keizang said.

Ozawa Jisaburo's "grandma's face" wrinkled up and said: "Furumura-kun, don't you understand yet? In the eyes of Americans, aircraft carriers are just consumables, and what Americans are fighting with us now is consumption.

In today's air combat, the exchange ratio between us and American aircraft is likely to be less than 1:1, and the United States can equip and train an aviation force 10 times larger than ours! If you were the commander of the U.S. Navy, would you give up the opportunity to compete with us because the aircraft carrier is too small and thin? "

…

"233 crews, 2 aircraft carriers..."

On March 18, Hessmann, Chief of the General Staff of the German Wehrmacht, looked at the report sent by his son Hessmann Jr. using the radio on the Kaiser Friedrich III. Ed, Weaver, Redl and others smiled and said: "Fortunately we captured the British mainland in time, otherwise these American planes would use the British mainland as a base to deal with us sooner or later."

The outbreak of the Americans was actually anticipated by Hessman. If the atomic bomb was not considered in World War II, it would have been an oil fight to put it bluntly! Both the Axis camp and the Allied camp actually have enough mechanized equipment production capacity. The question is, is there enough oil to operate them?

The United States now controls the largest oil production, about 260 million tons a year, the Soviet Union has more than 40 million tons, Germany also controls more than 40 million tons, and Japan controls about 8 million tons.

In other words, the Axis side has 50 million tons of oil, and the Allies still have 300 million tons!

The United States and the Soviet Union still have a 6-fold advantage!

If the British mainland had not knelt down in January, as long as the United States could increase the fighter exchange ratio with Germany to 1.5:1 or even 2:1, the United States would still have a fight in Europe.

Even now, the United States cannot say that it has no chance. As long as the Soviet Union can exhaust Germany enough, the United States will still have a chance to counterattack the European continent. It’s just that the losses will be greater, it will take longer, and most likely there will be no victory – after all, Germany will definitely have the atomic bomb by then!

So the question now is whether Stalin fell first or Japan's Emperor Hirohito became MacArthur's gray grandson first.

If the Soviet Union kneels down, the United States will not be able to fight the war even if it has several times more oil. Because at that time the United States was almost at war with the whole world. At that time, peace will be the only option for the United States.

If Emperor Hirohito kneels down first, then Hessmann's European Community will have a big headache in the future...