From March 16th to 17th, An Yi, after resting for a night at Cam Ranh Bay, instructed Li Weiqing to lead the aircraft carrier formation to continue south and wait directly at Sattahip Military Port. He, his wife and entourage took two passenger planes to Saigon.
Meet Zhu Yun at Saigon Airport. (This chapter was uploaded by Suimeng netizen
After arranging the entourage, An Yi, under the strict protection of the guards, accompanied Feng Jieyun, Zhu Yun, Jiang Fengying and Zhou Ziwei, hired a cruise boat, rafted on the Saigon River, enjoyed the scenery on both sides, and visited Notre Dame Cathedral and Chahun Botanical Garden
, did not go to Saigon Shipyard until after dinner to inspect the "Putuo" class aircraft carrier under construction.
The flight deck and hangar top of the "Putuo" class aircraft carrier are made of 89mm thick special steel armor plates to prevent damage from air strikes. At the same time, the hull near the waterline and part of the bottom of the ship are all made of high-strength steel. The ammunition compartment and
The armor thickness at the waterline of the cabin is 190mm.
The ship has a standard displacement of 45,000 tons, a length of 300 meters, a maximum width of 42 meters, a draft of 10 meters, a maximum power of 220,000 horsepower, a maximum speed of 33 knots, and can sail 12,000 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15 knots. The armament system is a four-seat dual-seat ship.
Joint installation of "Houyi"i
I-type anti-aircraft missile launcher, with 120 ammunition, four twin-mounted "Falcon" II anti-ship missile launchers, with 60 ammunition, and 10 single-barreled 127mm artillery, 15 pieces are also installed on the sides.
The quadruple 40mm cannon takes both progress and tradition into account.
The "Putuo" class aircraft carrier has an iconic angled flight deck and a carrier-based aircraft capacity of an astonishing 145. However, considering that jets may be used as carrier-based aircraft in the future, this data will be reduced by at least one-third.
At best, it can accommodate ninety jet carrier-based aircraft.
In order to be able to take off and land heavy jet fighters in the future, the flight deck and elevators of the "Putuo" class aircraft carrier have been fully strengthened based on the "Kunlun" class, and the catapults have been significantly improved.
It was already late at night after the visit. After saying goodbye cordially to the engineers and workers' representatives, An Yi returned to the Chairman's Palace and had a romantic relationship with Zhu Yun, who had been there for a long time.
At nine o'clock in the morning on March 18, An Yi and his party had breakfast. At 9:30, they set off from Saigon Airport and arrived in Yaoting City after an hour and a half flight. They met with Ou Yaoting, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and people from Yaoting City who came to greet them.
The main government leaders met one by one.
After the greetings were over, An Yi invited Ou Yaoting to attend the naval parade to be held in Nanhua Bay tomorrow with him. Ou Yaoting happily agreed, and then accompanied An Yi to the 48-story Songfeng Building in the center of the city, where they had lunch together.
While witnessing the rapid development of Yaoting City from a height.
The predecessor of Yaoting City is Kampong Som Port. In the early 1930s, it was just a small fishing village. It is located on the south bank of the entrance of Kampong Som Bay on the southwest coast of Tiannan Province, adjacent to the southeast side of Nanhua Bay, just between Saigon and Beijing Nan.
In the middle of a large metropolitan area, the location is very convenient.
Especially after the opening of the Enron Canal last year, Yaoting City, which is located on the same latitude line as it, has ushered in a spring of development because of its unique location advantages.
After five years of continuous construction, Yaoting Port, a special economic zone, has 81 productive berths, including 28 berths over 10,000 tons and 53 specialized berths. Relying on the development of the port area,
The urban area of Yiu Dinh City has expanded rapidly and now reaches 296 square kilometers. From the coast to the hills in the center of the city, there are many high-rise buildings, prosperous commerce and bustling pedestrians. It has become the largest city between Saigon City and Kinnam City.
As a seaport and economic and trade center, the development potential is still huge.
The construction miracle of Yaoting City benefited from the influx of large amounts of Nanyang capital around 1939.
With the improvement of infrastructure construction such as power supply, water supply, gas, railways, highways, sewage treatment, and garbage disposal led by the government in 1940, Yaoting City's finance, commerce, transportation, ports, culture and other industries are booming.
In the emerging industrial parks, electronic tube factories, motor factories, machine tool factories, dye factories, manufacturing
Pharmaceutical factories, petrochemical factories, automobile and parts factories, shipyards, mold factories, building materials factories, food factories, etc. have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. In this era when everything is serving the war, the things produced are acquired by the state as soon as they leave the factory.
, and then sent to various regions across the country through convenient sea transportation, railways and roads.
Nearly half of the industries in Yaoting City are owned by Ou Yaoting. In addition, Ou Yaoting has served as mayor for a long time and personally planned and participated in the construction of the city. The birth of every street, the construction of every high-rise building, and the laying of the foundation of every industrial park.
All embodies Ou Yaoting's hard work.
Although the mayor of Yaoting City has been re-appointed and a dedicated person is in charge of group affairs, Ou Yaoting is still worried about urban construction. He always spends a few days every month to live in Yaoting City to personally witness the development of the city from scratch.
There was progress in establishing new cities.
Songfeng Building is located on a hill more than 110 meters above sea level in the center of the city. It was built by the Ou Shi Group over a two-year period in the summer of 1940. Nearly half of the floor is used as the group's office space, and the other half is used as a five-star building.
The first-class hotel is open to the public, and the top floor is designed as a tourist restaurant.
While dining in the tourist restaurant, you can have a panoramic view of the entire city. The unique feeling of seeing all the mountains at a glance makes people flock to it. Once it was launched, it became a famous landscape in Yaoting City.
The tourist restaurant was closed to the public today. Ou Yaoting and An Yi spent a quarter of an hour to half an hour in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in each direction, passionately introducing the situation of the city, down to every building, allowing An Yi to have a thorough understanding of the entire city.
The current situation of Yaoting City suddenly had an intuitive impression.
Just when An Yi was listening with interest, Shen Fengdao walked up to him, smiled apologetically at Ou Yaoting, and then handed An Yi a thick telegram.
An Yi's expression turned solemn after just a few glances. He smiled bitterly and apologized to Ou Yaoting. He strode to the temporary accommodation under the restaurant - the hotel's presidential suite, and carefully checked the contents of the message.
It turns out that the Allied navies and the German navy have been engaged in fierce battles in the North Atlantic waters in the past few days. So far, the German navy has suffered heavy losses, and it is expected that there will be a wave of tough collisions between the two sides in the future.
The German army deployed a Norwegian division and a German armored division in the port of Reykjavik in Iceland. A week ago, in order to guard against the Allied attack on Iceland when the weather got warmer, a German transport fleet departed from Bergen on the west coast of Norway.
Departing from the port to transport two Waffen SS divisions
Heading to Reykjavik Port, there are four aircraft carriers converted from mail ships and 16 aircraft carriers including the German Navy's "Europe", "Elbe", "Gneisenau" and "Scharnhorst"
Destroyers, eighteen frigates, and twenty-eight minesweepers provided escort.
On the morning of the 12th, when the transport convoy appeared in the waters north of the Shetland Islands, four strike echelons composed of more than 300 Allied aircraft attacked the German transport convoy, and the German navy acted as an escort aircraft carrier "
grid
"Neisenau" and "Scharnhorst" were sunk, "Europe" and "Elbe" were severely damaged. Several destroyers and frigates were sunk, five transport ships were sunk, and sixteen were seriously damaged.
The fleet had to return.
The Allied Air Force's attack made the German high command believe that the Allied Navy's attack was imminent, and the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands and Iceland were in danger. In this case, it was crucial to attack the Allied Air Force first.
The German army judged that the fleet of aircraft attacking the North Atlantic route came from military airports in northern Scotland, and immediately dispatched twelve air force squadrons that had been deployed at various airports in the Faroe Islands since last autumn to conduct a large-scale air attack on northern Scotland. At the same time, they dispatched the "Zeppelin".
A naval task force of three main aircraft carriers, the "Adolf" and the "Seidlitz", headed for an air attack on northern Scotland.
The German air attack on northern Scotland encountered resolute resistance from the Allied air forces. A large-scale air battle broke out over the Orkney Islands, the northwest highlands of Scotland and the Western Isles. In just two days, the Germans lost more than 200 aircraft. Defense law
The strength of the German air force in the Rho Islands was greatly weakened. The carrier-based aircraft of the German naval aircraft carrier group also suffered heavy losses, and air strikes had to be stopped. The aircraft carrier group was preparing to return to the port of Bergen for rest.
On the 15th, when the German Navy's aircraft carrier formation was on its way back, radar detected a large aircraft group appearing in the southern sky. It was immediately determined that it was an aircraft carrier-based aircraft strike group sent by the Allies.
On that day, the German fleet was attacked by three consecutive waves of air attacks in the waters more than 200 nautical miles west of the Faroe Islands. As a result of the fierce battle, the deck of the "Zeppelin" aircraft carrier was severely damaged and the aircraft carrier "Adolf" lost its ability to take off and land.
The "Seidlitz" suffered heavy losses in the number of carrier-based aircraft.
At this time, the German fleet also discovered the Allied Navy's aircraft carrier task force in the southwest. Unfortunately, it only had time to launch a wave of air strikes before the sky darkened, which did not have much impact on the Allied Navy.
At dawn the next day, the German naval fleet had already moved to the northeastern waters of the Shetland Islands, not far from the Norwegian mainland, but the Allied naval fleet was still pursuing it, and the two sides continued to engage in fierce battles.
The German side received support from 250 land-based aircraft from the Port of Bergen. Unfortunately, these fighters arrived on the battlefield in batches, and half of them failed to find the target, and the remaining half missed the target at all. The Luftwaffe's
Most of the senior pilots were buried in the Mesopotamia region of West Asia. Now those who perform missions are basically rookies with low sea attack capabilities. In fact, they have shot down more than 30 aircraft.
In contrast, the few carrier-based aircraft of the German Naval Air Force had some effect on the Allied Navy's aircraft carrier formation, hitting the "Essex" in the formation with a 900-kilogram bomb, causing
The "Essex" lost its ability to take off and land aircraft, and hit the "Yorktown" with two 250 kilogram bombs, but there was not much impact.
In addition, the German Naval Air Force sank an Allied destroyer and severely damaged two destroyers. However, all carrier-based dive bombers and torpedo planes launched by the German army were shot down, which greatly weakened the strike capability of the German fleet.
During the battle on the 16th, the Allied navies were also supported by more than 120 land-based aircraft taking off from northern Scotland, severely damaging the German aircraft carrier "Seidlitz" and sinking a destroyer. At the same time,
, Allied carrier-based aircraft also severely damaged the German aircraft carrier "Adolf" and sunk three destroyers.
As of yesterday, the German Navy's aircraft carrier task force had withdrawn into the port of Bergen, but it was still attacked by Allied carrier-based aircraft and two more destroyers sank in the port area.
The German land-based aviation launched continuous air attacks on the Allied aircraft carrier fleet, but failed to hit the target. Instead, twenty-two fighter planes were shot down, while the opponent only lost 19 fighter planes.
Although the main aircraft carrier of the German Navy luckily did not sink this time, all of them were severely damaged. It can be said that this is another disastrous defeat suffered by Germany in recent times.
Just as An Yi was thinking about the adverse impact this voyage would have on Germany, Confidential Secretary Andrew sent another telegram. This time there was a problem in Northwest Africa: In order to open up the Mediterranean route, the Allied forces launched an attack on the Spanish Balearic Islands.
Launched an attack.
The Balearic Islands are located in the western Mediterranean, between the Iberian Peninsula, southern France and North Africa, 80 to 300 kilometers west of the Spanish mainland. They are composed of two major island groups. The eastern island group is larger, including the main island.
The islands of Mallorca and Menorca, as well as another small island of Cabrera, the Western Island Group is called Pitirsas and consists of the islands of Ibiza and Formentera.
In order to protect the safety of Libyan oil fields, Italy began to station troops in the Balearic Islands in the second half of 1940, and transferred its fleet to the port of Palma in Mallorca in early 1942. The Spanish head of state, Franco, did not dare to offend the Italians.
Just as Portugal acquiesced in the occupation of the Azores by the US military, it also ignored the actions of the Italians.
In the evening of March 17, the Allied forces suddenly launched a landing operation on Formentera.
Formentera has a total length of 19 kilometers and an area of about 15 square kilometers. The Allies invested a total of about 7,000 British Marines and Free French troops, including 30 landing ships, 8 destroyers, and 20
Four torpedo boats and five auxiliary ships formed the landing formation. In addition, three cruisers and seven destroyers launched artillery bombardments before landing, suppressed fire for a long time on Formentera Island, and acted as joint vigilance.
At the same time, the British Navy also dispatched minelayers to lay minefields in the waters northeast of Formentera to prevent possible reinforcements from the Italian Navy docked in the Port of Palma, Mallorca at any time.
The Italian Air Force's reconnaissance aircraft discovered the Allied landing fleet, the aviation force stationed in the port of Palma, Mallorca, launched continuous assaults, the coastal artillery on the northern island of Ibiza and the four fortress guns on the island of Formentera
Heavy fire prevented the Allied landings, but the Allies continued to advance at all costs.
At nine o'clock in the evening, more than 2,000 British Marines landed on Formentera from Cape Negra in the southwest. However, during the landing process, they were bombarded by coastal artillery and fortress artillery.
The team lost all its artillery.
A company of Italian soldiers stationed on the island of Formentera relied on strong fortifications to resist repeated attacks by more than 2,000 British troops. The battle lasted for four hours. Before the report was sent, the remaining Italian soldiers carried the bodies of their companions.
We took the accompanying speedboat and left the island.
"The trees are still but the wind is not stopping. The Allies want to take advantage of the decline of the German army to regain their hegemony over the Atlantic and Mediterranean! Mussolini and Hitler are in trouble this time!"
When An Yi said this, he read the telegram again and said to Shen Fengdao: "However, the performance of the Italians is impressive. Aren't they the famous noodle army? With one company of troops, they resisted the British army of more than 2,000 people.
In just a few hours, the performance is remarkable... Let the intelligence department continue to pay attention and notify me of any new developments in the war as soon as possible!"
"yes!"
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