Chapter 106: A Christmas Story During the Third World War (2)
The afternoon of December 25, 1946, the United States, Washington, White House
Although it is the Christmas holiday, in the whirlpool of this world war, the White House staff still have to work overtime, busy holding folders or carrying boxes. And for some reason, everyone seemed to have a gloomy face, walked in a hurry, and rarely smiled.
Except for the Christmas trees erected in the corners and courtyards at unknown times, there is almost no trace of festive atmosphere in the entire White House.
In the Oval Office, President Truman, who has become increasingly haggard recently, is reviewing documents with his head hanging down. Although the Christmas tree in the corner of the room was already filled with various beautifully packaged gifts, he still had no desire to open them until now.
——There is no way, all fronts are losing ground, and the mood is really bad, so naturally I can’t get excited about these Christmas gifts.
According to the latest statistical data compiled by President Truman, the Third World War has only begun for more than two months, and the U.S. military has already lost as many as one million troops. At the western end of the Eurasian continent, the US military retreated from Spain and Italy to Iraq and Iran, completely losing the entire Mediterranean in one breath! At the eastern end of Eurasia, the U.S. military was also forced to abandon its occupation of the Japanese archipelago, almost returning to the state after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
During this period, astronomical amounts of materials, personnel, and funds were lost. Even with the wealth of the United States, it was a heart-wrenching pain.
At present, the only good news is that the Philippine battlefield, which made MacArthur shine, has brought great pain to the Pentagon's logistics department. With the abandonment of the Japanese occupation zone and the fall of all the South Pacific islands, the battle across the Pacific from the west coast of the United States to the Philippines The route has now been completely cut off. Today, every artillery piece and every bullet requested by General MacArthur must first be shipped from New York Harbor on the east coast, then across the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, and then continue across the Indian Ocean to Singapore, and finally from Singapore crossed the South China Sea to the Philippines so that it could be delivered to MacArthur. Due to the twists and turns of the route, the entire journey is 40,000 kilometers long, equivalent to circling the earth once.
However, every sea area along the way is not considered safe now - in the Atlantic, Soviet submarines have taken over from the German U-boat "Sea Wolf", hunting American transport fleets that dare to go to sea, and ambushing and chasing them every time. The hunting is surprisingly accurate, making people doubt that there are people in the Pentagon Are there Soviet spies (Doraemon’s high-tech reconnaissance satellites monitor closely 24 hours a day)? In the Indian Ocean, there is the threat of Japanese submarines based in Western Australia; in the South China Sea, the Soviet Union is also active and Japanese submarines, as well as camouflaged attack ships. According to the latest statistics, the loss rate of such an entire route is about 50%. That is to say, on average, for every two ships loaded with supplies, one ship cannot reach the final destination.
Not to mention that at the end of this long and dangerous supply line, not only MacArthur's four U.S. Army infantry divisions and six Filipino native divisions had to be supplied, but also U.S. aid supplies had to be delivered to His Excellency Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who had millions of troops in Taiwan. Damn it, the monthly transportation volume must be more than one million tons, which makes the Pentagon complain endlessly. In the end, in order to reduce losses, they had to learn from the experience of the Japanese Empire and only transport firearms and ammunition to the front line. The remaining food, clothing, quilts, etc. were all ordered to MacArthur and his men to "recruit on the spot"... As a result, due to lack of experience and the indigenous With the help of the puppet army, "recruitment on the spot" soon turned into inhumane large-scale massacre and robbery...
Of course, compared to the Third World War that is now in full swing, the turmoil in the Philippine Islands is not worth mentioning at all.
At present, there are only two key issues that really bother President Truman:
First, how many atomic bombs do the Soviets still have? Second, when will the next batch of nuclear bombs in the United States be produced?
——Since the Soviet Union dropped the first atomic bomb on Gibraltar in World War II, the Pentagon has been speculating when the Soviet nuclear arsenal will be exhausted. However, as Great Britain and Asia Minor were reduced to radioactive wastelands one after another, and mushroom clouds bloomed one after another on the land of North Africa, the Soviets had dropped at least fifty atomic bombs on the battlefield, but still no one had exhausted their inventory. Any sign.
This really makes the United States shudder - if there were not enough nuclear bombs during the three wars, it would be the same as sitting idle.
Just as firearms ended cold weapons and machine guns ended cavalry, with the widespread use of atomic bombs on the battlefield, the original war model has undergone earth-shaking changes, which has made traditional military strategists from all over the world They were stunned and at a loss.
——No matter how we arrange our troops, no matter how we defend ourselves, as long as one atomic bomb is dropped, they will all turn into powder and dust!
To be honest, General Eisenhower, who killed millions of Allied troops in two months, was not clumsy in his tactical deployment and response measures. Even if he could not be called amazing, he was at least quite satisfactory... But in the context of the atomic bomb, Under the mushroom cloud, all these plans were in vain!
well! Atomic bomb! Atomic bomb! The Soviets were throwing atomic bombs everywhere like fireworks! And we don’t even have an atomic bomb in our hands anymore!
Not long ago, Truman had just inspected the Oak Ridge Factory and learned that no matter how overtime the workers and technicians there worked, the next batch of atomic bombs would not be completed until early February next year. Before that, the United States can only continue to tolerate the Soviets "planting the sun" everywhere...
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Thinking of this, President Truman could only sigh, turned around and picked up a letter from the table - "On Limiting the Use of Warfare" drafted by Einstein, the master of quantum science, and signed by more than 20 experts from Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. Proposal for the Use of Nuclear Weapons in China.
Because it involves so many great figures in the academic world, this letter was just written yesterday, and today it appeared on President Truman’s desk through a special channel. Those lines of compassionate words made Truman feel deeply moved. I feel the same - it's a pity that it's too late, nothing can be said
Although Truman still agreed to publish the initiative publicly, he knew clearly that it would be useless. So what if Einstein was the originator of the atomic bomb theory? Even if he regrets the quantum research he was engaged in and said, "If I had known this, I would rather be a watch repairman"? Although science has no national boundaries, scientists do. The agreement on the restriction of the use of nuclear weapons proposed in the name of American scientists would not be easily agreed to by the Soviets even in peacetime, let alone in wartime.
Indeed, after the devil, nuclear weapons, jumped out of Pandora's box, it posed a huge threat to the survival of all mankind. Both the United States and the Soviet Union suffered astonishing trauma in this nuclear war. However, as a party at a disadvantage in a nuclear war, no one in the United States will listen to such things. For Stalin, General Secretary of Steel, it seems like nonsense - rather than for the future and destiny of all mankind. , foolishly throwing away the sharpest weapon in his hand, it would be better to speed up the destruction of the United States and end the war completely!
What's more, even if this nuclear war continues, what harm will it cause to the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union?
——The current situation has become very obvious. U.S. bombers cannot penetrate layers of obstacles and drop atomic bombs directly into the heart of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. It was also difficult for Soviet bombers to cross the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and drop atomic bombs on the United States mainland.
In this way, no matter how many nuclear bombs both sides take out, they can only be dropped on each other's allies, occupied areas, and colonies... In this regard, the Soviets are not at all concerned about Europe being filled with mushroom clouds. If the US military really If you have a way to blow up European countries and make them uninhabitable, you can drive fish out of the abyss and force these proud Europeans to leave their homes and immigrate to Russia to contribute their youth and energy to the development of Siberia.
Although the United States is not that gloating, at best it will squeeze out a few crocodile tears - Britain was bombed into a radioactive wasteland, and there are almost as many people in the United States crying and celebrating. At the same time, North Africa, the Middle East, East Asia and Southeast Asia, with the exception of the Philippines, turned out to be either British territory or French territory. No matter how many natives were killed and how many cities were bombed, the Americans would not feel anything about it.
——In addition to feeling extremely depressed about having to send so many good young men from other countries to be bombed under mushroom clouds in the distance...
Despite this, President Truman still felt increasingly powerless in this increasingly tragic nuclear war.
Counting from the time of the Pearl Harbor Incident, the United States has suffered approximately eight million casualties in the past five years of war. Currently, there are still seven million troops deployed overseas, and the entire country's youth has been wiped out. More than 25 million tons of ships were sunk during the war, and the wealth lost was incalculable. However, the gains from the war were very few, and the entire country's strength showed signs of serious overdraft. Although everyone from the White House to Wall Street is still gritting their teeth and hoping that one day they can recover their losses, they have also begun to explore secret peace talks behind the scenes.
However, the armistice requirements put forward by Moscow are really shockingly harsh. They are simply imitating the terms faced by Germany in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, and copied the United States in the same way. Even the most anti-war members of Congress said they simply couldn't accept it.
——In response to the olive branch extended by the United States, the Kremlin initially put forward the following six basic opinions:
First, the United States gives up all overseas military bases and special overseas rights and interests, and abolishes unequal treaties with all countries.
Second, the United States ceded Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and handed over the Panama Canal to the Comintern for free.
Third, the United States must punish domestic war criminals, be responsible for compensating governments and civilians for losses, and bear part of the costs of post-war reconstruction.
Fourth, the U.S. military is only allowed to maintain the minimum self-defense force after the war. It must unconditionally abandon all nuclear weapons. The army must be reduced to 100,000 men. It must not possess tanks or heavy artillery with a caliber of more than 120 mm. The navy must not possess ships with a displacement of more than 5,000 tons. , are not allowed to own aircraft carriers and submarines.
Fifth, during the period of disarmament, the Soviet Union and various socialist camp countries will station troops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and other cities for supervision.
Sixth, the Soviet Union was allowed to establish concessions in Washington State, Florida and Texas and station a certain number of troops.
——In the view of Stalin, the loving father of steel, these six opinions are already very tolerant. After all, he neither asked the United States to accept socialist transformation, put all bankers and capitalists on street lights, nor did he cut the United States into eight pieces. Ten small countries...
However, for the arrogant Americans, just asking them to accept the status of a defeated country is already an intolerable shame.
Therefore, after reading Einstein's "Proposal for Limitation of the Use of Nuclear Weapons in War" several times, President Truman threw it away and shelved it - under the current situation, whether it was an armistice and peace negotiations or restrictions on the use of nuclear weapons, Nuclear weapons are all naive and extravagant talk of scientists. Facing the Soviet nuclear attack, the only thing the United States can do is to quickly create more and larger nuclear bombs and retaliate severely!
Only by truly hurting the Soviets and letting them know that the majesty of the United States of America cannot be insulted will this war have a chance of ending with dignity.
"...So, in order to really attack the Kremlin's arrogance, no matter how difficult and dangerous it is, we must try to nuclear bomb the Soviet Union and slap Uncle Joseph in the face, just like we bombed Tokyo before..." Truman wrote in his Christmas diary. ——Obviously, this mutually destructive nuclear war will continue and allow more mushroom clouds to stand on the earth...