Iron Cross

After the meeting, Churchill breathed a sigh of relief, but he was not completely relieved: he had said the word "coup" to the Americans, and Secretary of State Hull, who was now representing the US government, obviously did not agree, and the United States The senior officials obviously knew about it again, and he began to regret it, thinking that he had been too impulsive that day. This extremely confidential matter should not be disclosed to Hopkins and Donovan, but should be communicated directly to Roosevelt himself.

But at night his worries turned to joy: Donovan paid him a secret visit and informed him of the alternative plan to "lead the snake out of the hole", making it clear that the Rangers had been brought.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, I will be stationed in the UK in the near future, but you have to appoint a reliable person to contact me. I can't always report to you. That would be too flawed." Donovan said, "This person needs to have secrets Operation and intelligence work experience, don’t be Big C, I don’t think he is necessarily reliable.”

"I will tell you the suitable candidate in three days, and he will choose from my family, ensuring absolute reliability." Churchill thought for a while, "His opinion is my opinion."

"Then I'll be relieved."

When the secret negotiations between Britain and Germany reached a deadlock, the Soviet-German negotiations that had been stranded in the early stage made some new progress. Now Ribbentrop is a European aerialist, flying to Portugal, Bulgaria, and Berlin all day long. Going back and forth for negotiations, he has not shown his face in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for several months.

Rommel's troops were advancing at an alarming rate in Central Asia, and the Tatars' independence and uprising were well coordinated. There was also Iran outside, which caused headaches for the top Bolsheviks. In order to block this wild horse, Zhukov had no choice but to mobilize 200,000 troops from the Far East to pursue and intercept. Vasilevskiy expressed objections, believing that this would weaken the defense capabilities of the Far East. However, Stalin believed that the Japanese army's current attention was on India and that they would not attack the Soviets in the short term, so they could rest assured.

In fact, the Kwantung Army and the Far East Army had very frequent transactions. After the Soviet army provided convenience to assist the Kwantung Army in "wiping out" border resistance elements, Japan and the Soviet Union conducted a series of material transactions. Rice, wheat, flour, soybeans, etc. continued to flow in. The scale of import into the Far East has reached hundreds of thousands of tons, and the Soviet Union sold gold and silver jewelry, oil paintings, antiques, luxury furniture, etc. to the Kwantung Army, and also used some captured German equipment that was temporarily unused. Generally speaking, RB made money and the Soviet Union obtained life-saving supplies, but these supplies were only a drop in the bucket for the Soviet Union's huge gap.

It will take time for the troops mobilized from the Far East to be deployed to Central Asia, and due to fuel shortages, the use of many mechanized troops has been severely restricted. It took nearly three weeks from the time Zhukov issued the order to the actual implementation of the troops. Moreover, these "elites" in the Far East do not seem to be able to block the German armored forces in Central Asia. Rommel had rich combat experience in the North African desert, and with 50,000 to 80,000 troops, he was able to take full advantage of his ability to come and go like the wind and have explosive attack power. He allowed the Red Army commanders to experience air-ground integration, airborne penetration, and armored assault. A variety of dazzling tactics such as splitting troops and encircling them made these clumsy Far Eastern troops miserable. They clearly had an advantage 3-4 times that of the enemy, but they were always at a disadvantage.

The continuous victories in the Central Asian battlefield have also dispelled the "slander" that Rommel can only fight against Britain and the United States, but not the Soviet Union. He is believed to be worthy of the rank of marshal on his shoulders. The only thing that still needs to be proved by him is the ability to lead a large corps. However, based on the fragile supply system in this direction, maintaining 50,000 to 80,000 troops is the limit.

On the central battlefield, the heavy German troops who had gathered the "refugees" began to launch a fierce attack. Their offensive was only late but not absent. Moreover, during the period of gathering the refugees, the front line also accumulated a lot of materials and supplies. Only 4 In one day's work, breakthroughs were made in various positions, advancing 80-150 kilometers respectively.

Although Molotov angrily stated that the German army did not abide by the agreement and broke the tacit understanding of the peace talks, Ribbentrop told him with a playful smile that at least Germany had "arranged" nearly 2 million Soviet refugees, and the Soviet Union would release at least 2 million refugees anyway. Only 10,000 prisoners of war can be considered as fulfilling the agreement.

After fierce debate, Stalin issued the order to "release the prisoners." Starting from August 13, the Red Army successively released prisoners of war. At first, they were all prisoners with physical disabilities or various diseases. Coupled with the long-term food shortage and Torture, many people were dying when they were sent back, and some died in a daze due to excessive excitement. But most people survived at least one life after suffering.

There were many prisoners of war from Italy and other countries mixed in among the people released at the beginning. By August 16, almost all those released in the last few batches were. According to them, there may be 40,000 to 50,000 Axis officers and soldiers in the prison camp. All the German soldiers who witnessed this scene gritted their teeth. Although revenge on Soviet prisoners of war was rare, many people made up their minds that they would never be prisoners when fighting the Red Army in the future, and they must fight to the end!

The excuses of both sides were humanitarian, but the unusual actions between the Soviet Union and Germany still aroused great concern. The U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union questioned the Soviet side about this, and Molotov replied: "It's very simple, we lack enough food." Instead of feeding these prisoners and letting them starve to death in the end and become evidence of our crimes, it is better to return them to the Germans, which will also increase their burden. If your country is willing, can you increase the material assistance from the Red Cross? It can be used on German prisoners."

Americans were overwhelmed speechless.

In addition to the tacit understanding of releasing prisoners of war, the Red Army began to choose to withdraw personnel from Leningrad. The German army rarely attacked and allowed the Soviet side to organize the retreat. Behind this was the decision made after full discussion between Stalin and the top leaders of the Political Bureau. Since the General Staff repeatedly asked to reduce the troops in the direction of Leningrad for the central battlefield, Leningrad could no longer be defended. Considering that the people of Leningrad were firm supporters of the Bolsheviks and the city had an important position, the impact of directly ceding it to the German side was too bad. Under the premise that the Soviet and German sides could not reach an agreement on the overall peace agreement, they first reached a partial agreement on the ownership of Leningrad:

The Red Army withdrew and took the people away, but the situation created was not to give up voluntarily, but to allow the German army to seize it. The Soviet side said that it would not destroy urban facilities, but required that the direction of the central battlefield remain stable during the retreat. After careful consideration, Berlin agreed to this request, and it became a tacit war that was ridiculous. The tacit ceasefire between the two sides was August 30, and the German army would attack and occupy Leningrad on August 31.

Although the loss of Leningrad was much uglier, Stalin's goal was at least achieved: he first stopped the German army for a month with 200 refugees, and then delayed it for nearly a month with 20,000 Axis prisoners of war and an empty city of Leningrad. Not only did he have enough troops to draw troops from the northern defense line to join the central battlefield, but he also postponed the German summer offensive to September. However, on the Central Asian battlefield, the two sides maintained a fierce exchange of fire, ignoring all tacit understandings and peaceful wars from the outside world, so that the entire Eastern Front formed a strange logic of overall calm and local fighting.

Although the military advantage was not much, the political points were great: Leningrad, as an important revolutionary town and the second largest city in the Soviet Union, had a pivotal position. The Russian Liberation Army led by Vlasov would declare the founding of the country in Leningrad and change the name of Leningrad back to St. Petersburg. Hoffman believed that once the news that the Bolsheviks had lost Leningrad spread, the Russian Liberation Army would definitely get more supporters.

On August 15, the Axis fleet implementing the "Peace Pearl" plan arrived on the island of Madagascar, and the fleet rested for five days on the island. On the one hand, all kinds of materials and equipment were transported to the island to consolidate the island's defense and build it into a solid fortress facing the Indian Ocean for Germany, defending the Axis's two-ocean advantage together with the Azores to the west. On the other hand, it was to replenish the physical strength and vitality of the troops. Up to this point, although the entire fleet had been sailing for nearly 25 days, it had only completed half of the journey, and there was still another half of the journey to the Falkland Islands.

The German army was not aware of the British and American covetousness of the Azores in the "Overlord" plan, but the construction of the Azores' defense fortifications continued to advance. Various underground fortifications were built one after another, and the air defense towers that shone brightly in the defense of the German mainland were also built. Relying on the dual cover of air defense towers and fighter clusters, the Azores became more and more a nightmare for heavy bombers.

Even so, out of the motivation of defense against British and American night air raids, the latest black technology of Peenemünde - the Hs117 Butterfly surface-to-air rocket presided over by Dr. Wagner was officially introduced into the German army, and the Azores became the first place to be equipped.

Hs117 is more like an aircraft than a missile. It has many similarities with the Me-163 rocket interceptor handed over to RB. It has a maximum range of 32,000 meters and a maximum altitude of 10,000 meters. It adopts radio command and radar tracking guidance. In addition to the main engine, two solid fuel booster rockets are installed for the take-off stage. The speed is as high as 1,000 kilometers per hour. Since the German army's large-caliber proximity fuze technology has begun to mature, Hs-117 is equipped with a super-large proximity fuze and a rather primitive friend-or-foe identification system. Thanks to the rocket's crazy heavy charge (100 kilograms), it can emit more than 8,000 fragments when it explodes, and heavy bombers within 150 meters around it can hardly escape.

Due to its small number, the superiority of Hs-117 cannot be seen in daytime air defense, but it is much better to use it at night than to chase it with night fighters. The Germans built 16 such defensive positions in one go, and all data links use the unified radar command of the air defense tower. Each position can launch four rockets at the same time, just waiting for the fearless British and American planes to crash into it at night and make big news.