Shadow Spy

Chapter 469 A sudden battle

On Wednesday, November 11, Stilwell took up his post at the War Department, but before he could get familiar with his job, Marshall assigned a special task: to visit northern Shaanxi, China on behalf of the U.S. military, and invited Underground party leaders will attend the allied summit meeting around the end of January or early February next year.

After returning to the office, he patted his head. Why did he feel like he was being plotted by his little brother Pan Sen?

Facts have proved that even if he really plotted against Stilwell, Li Junhao was very loyal. He prepared his latest upgraded special plane to send him to China. If the Ministry of War had not sent him an entourage, he would have prepared it for him personally. Got it!

Of course, it wasn't that Stilwell didn't want to take on this mission. After two years away from the Far East, he really wanted to go back and have a look, especially since he had always had a good impression of northern Shaanxi. This time he was actually able to visit as an official official. It was really a good job, but he was always being arranged by his little brother, which made him a little unhappy!

The result of thinking this way was that he got drunk again in Li Junhao's Villa No. 1...

The next day, after having breakfast and saying goodbye to Li Junhao, Stilwell was sent to Andrews Air Force Base and took a special plane to the Far East.
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In the following period, Li Junhao fell into busy routine work.

The work on the sea and land side has been relatively streamlined, and the various departments under the headquarters are now running smoothly. The main forces have now formed a regular combat rotation model. Two specially organized amphibious landing fleets have been basically fixed and can conduct continuous operations in the two oceans at the same time.

Each amphibious fleet is equipped with two command ships and can carry troops from two armies for landing operations. If necessary, it can be split into two squadrons and conduct two small and medium-sized landing operations at the same time.

With the help of the professional amphibious fleet, the island seizure and landing operations in the two oceans went very smoothly.
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Li Junhao's work focuses on intelligence work...

As the war progresses, the intelligence agencies of various countries have become increasingly mature, and intelligence cooperation among allies has become more frequent. The number of CIA partners has increased rapidly, the number of branches stationed overseas has increased, and the amount of various intelligence obtained has increased. The CIA even expanded its intelligence analysis team to thousands of people!

As a result, the workload of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which he was responsible for, continued to increase and it had to be expanded repeatedly.

At this time, Congress required that government intelligence work must be legal and subject to effective supervision. To this end, the two intelligence committees of the Senate and House of Representatives and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence made a special division of labor.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is responsible for supervising the personnel and legality of operations of domestic intelligence agencies at all levels;

The House Intelligence Committee is responsible for reviewing the budget and final accounts of the intelligence agencies;

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for the coordination, management and business leadership of various intelligence agencies.

However, in this division of labor, the three parties have a tacit agreement not to raise the issue of the CIA - everyone understands that this agency is specifically responsible to the president. When the president is relatively strong, it is difficult for Congress to get involved; of course, if the president is not strong enough, , that's another story. Now Roosevelt has determined to be re-elected as president for the fourth time, which can be regarded as extremely strong. Therefore, the CIA is now a truly independent agency. Li Junhao is taking advantage of this rare time to implement his will throughout the department to achieve absolute Take control.
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Time has entered December. On the European battlefield, the Soviet counterattack on the Eastern Front has defeated the German defense line and advanced towards the German mainland. However, on the Western Front, due to a serious shortage of supplies for the Allied front-line troops, the offensive has stalled, giving the German army More reaction time; and because the German army lost the supply of Romanian oil fields and was extremely short of oil, it was also extremely difficult.

However, the battlefield conditions unexpectedly gave the Germans an advantage they had no choice but to defend - they finally no longer had to defend the entire Western Europe, and the front line was greatly shortened and closer to the heart of Germany. Even if the Allies had sufficient air superiority, the Germans Or because the supply problem has been improved.

In addition, the widespread telephone and wired telegraph networks in Western Europe meant that the German army no longer had to rely entirely on radio communications. Instead, it evaded the Allies' most powerful secret weapon: Ultra interception (Ultra - the Allied forces specialized in deciphering German messages). organization of secret radio communications)!

In early December, both the CIA and the Army Intelligence Bureau of the United States discovered signs that the Germans were planning a counterattack and promptly notified the Allied Commands, but did not attract the attention of the Allies.

On the 16th, the German army suddenly launched a large-scale counterattack against the Allied forces in the Ardennes region of Wallonia, Belgium. The unwary Allied forces were caught off guard!

The German army used a total of 30 ground troops from the Fifth Armored Army, the Sixth SS Armored Army, the Seventh Army, and the Fifteenth Army to launch the attack - this was also their last mobile force. The German counterattack took shape in the Ardennes region. A raised protrusion. At the same time, the German army implemented the "Greif Plan" to form a company that could speak English, put on U.S. military uniforms, and broke into the U.S. defense zone to create chaos.

The Ardennes region selected by the Germans was an area that the Allies had previously considered peaceful. It was used as a training ground for new troops and a resting place for front-line troops to retreat. When attacked, the troops in the area were inexperienced U.S. 99th, The 106th Infantry Division and the U.S. 2nd and 28th Infantry Divisions, which had gone through many battles, retreated here to replenish.

It was not until the 17th that Eisenhower and the main Allied commanders determined that the battle in the Ardennes was a large-scale German offensive rather than a local counterattack. They hastily ordered a large number of reinforcements to be sent for reinforcements. Within a week, 25 Wan's troops were sent here; in addition, the 82nd Airborne Division was also dropped near Liège to support the battle north of the salient.

On the 19th, Eisenhower held a combat meeting to study and confirm that the purpose of the German attack was to capture Liege and Antwerp, encircle and eliminate some of the Allied offensive forces, and gain local battlefield advantages.

Therefore, Eisenhower decided: the Allied forces on the southern side launched an attack on the 22nd, forcing the German army to switch from offense to defense; the Allied forces on the northern side took the defensive first and waited to switch to the offensive.
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The U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff was very concerned about the sudden fighting in the Ardennes region, because the main target of the German attack was the U.S. Army.

Because the CIA had warned the Allies beforehand but was not taken seriously, the Joint Chiefs of Staff was very dissatisfied with Eisenhower.

Li Junhao was also very unhappy because of this. The key information that the intelligence front agents took risks and worked hard to obtain was ignored by the Allied Expeditionary Force, resulting in the current battlefield disadvantage. It is really disgusting!

(End of this chapter)