Chapter 113, Bald Eagle’s Nuclear Counterattack Plan (Part 1)
February 1, 1947, United States, Washington, White House
Washington in February was still a scene of heavy snowfall, and the whole world outside the window seemed to have turned white. There was no one on the street covered with thick snow, and it seemed extremely quiet. This is not only because of the heavy snow and wind that has blocked people in their houses, but also because of the wartime martial law issued by the government. Since the outbreak of World War III, the U.S. government has declared that the country has entered a state of martial law. Any demonstrations or gatherings must go through many hoops. Approval is required, and a large part of the urban area of Washington, the capital, has been directly designated as a restricted area, and unauthorized entry by unrelated persons without documents is strictly prohibited.
Therefore, the current flow of people in and out of Washington has dropped sharply, and tourists have basically disappeared. From the Lincoln Memorial to the Arlington Obelisk, pedestrian solitude is everywhere. It is rare to see children having snowball fights or building snowmen, and due to a new round of large-scale compulsory conscription, there are also many fewer sanitation workers clearing the snow. Except for the White House and Capitol Hill, which were as busy as ever, the rest of the place was so quiet that you could hear the sound of snow falling on the roofs.
However, this quiet and peaceful atmosphere did not make the owner of the White House happy at all - after spending the most disturbing Christmas, President Truman ushered in an even more depressing New Year, and What follows seems to be an almost despairing Valentine's Day.
With the outbreak of World War III, the U.S. military on all fronts around the world is going from one embarrassing defeat to another even more embarrassing defeat.
The hateful Russian idiots are simply using atomic bombs as conventional weapons. They are constantly playing with nuclear explosions and growing mushrooms. Even during Christmas and New Year, they continue to advance and bomb indiscriminately. They are not willing to leave any traces for the US military. A little bit of respite.
——With the surrender of Britain, Eisenhower's retreat and the destruction of Portugal, the only military bases that the US military can still control in Europe, except for Iceland, which is actually closer to the Americas, is London, the second largest city in Northern Ireland. Delhi. In order to consolidate the last bridgehead that can touch the edge of the European continent, the Pentagon ignored the harsh reality that the British mainland had surrendered, and under extremely difficult conditions, transported a large amount of materials and troops to Londonderry via the Arctic route, in an attempt to overcome the trend. Continue to maintain the Irish front - if with God's blessing, the Irish Republican Army can be eliminated and the island of Ireland can be captured, then it will be able to offset the consequences of the British surrender to a considerable extent.
However, under the mushroom cloud of nuclear explosions sown by the Soviets, all these efforts and struggles ultimately proved to be in vain and in vain - after all, with the technological level of the World War II era, no matter which great power it is, it cannot be 100% Bai Di promised to shoot down every enemy plane flying above his head. The destructive power of just one atomic bomb after it is successfully dropped can completely destroy the strongest port stronghold in a short period of time.
——On the morning of New Year's Day in 1947, the Soviet strategic air force crossed the chaotic and turbulent island of Great Britain and dropped an atomic bomb on Londonderry in Northern Ireland. Thirteen thousand American troops, four thousand British troops, twenty-six ships and two One hundred and forty-five planes were destroyed, and 30,000 civilians were killed or injured on the spot...and During the "New Year's Day Bombing" that followed for half a month, the Soviet Strategic Air Force dispatched thousands of bombers, dropping countless incendiary bombs, high-explosive bombs and bombs on the Northern Ireland region currently controlled by the US military. The poison gas bombs completely turned six counties in Northern Ireland into hell.
The 30,000 American Expeditionary Force, which was engaged in a fierce battle with the Irish Republican Army in Galway City, suddenly lost almost all its logistical supplies and quickly fell into a dilemma of running out of ammunition and reinforcements. After an assessment, the Pentagon concluded that the Irish front could no longer be maintained and had to abandon Ireland and organize a retreat. However, as the Irish guerrillas in the rear destroyed roads, bridges and ports, the main force of the Irish Republican Army in the front was also determined to bite the retreating U.S. military. There were bombings from Soviet aircraft overhead and Soviet submarines on the sea. Ambushes and sneak attacks by Soviet cruisers broke up the engagement... The entire retreat was poorly organized. In the end, only about 9,000 American troops successfully evacuated Ireland and arrived at the port of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, alive.
At this point, the war organized by the United States of America in the British Isles finally ended with the loss of all capital and complete failure.
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While the European battlefield completely collapsed, the U.S. military on the battlefields in West Asia and Africa continued to show a trend of disintegration and defeat.
As the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar were successively closed, and the Soviet Black Sea Fleet broke through the Turkish Strait and entered the Mediterranean Sea, the Allied forces originally scattered in North Africa and various island ports in the Mediterranean were suddenly reduced to fish in the bottom of the cauldron and turtles in the urn. There is no way to escape , unable to resist, and even unable to assemble - control of the sea changed hands, land transportation was also harassed by the rebellious Arab guerrillas, because logistics was cut off, supplies were becoming increasingly scarce, and what was even more troublesome was that there was no hope. With no morale at all, they could only sit and wait for death at their respective stations.
Even though the situation has become so desperate, in order to save this heavily armed group with a total strength of more than 800,000 people as much as possible, the Pentagon still racked its brains and made its greatest efforts-first, ordering Crete, Cyprus, Sardinia, etc. The Allied troops stationed on the island, Sicily, Corsica and the Balearic Islands discarded heavy equipment and inventory materials, collected civilian ships on the spot as quickly as possible, and crossed the Mediterranean south to the ports in North Africa that were still under Allied control. Before the Soviets block the sea route, as many as can escape are allowed. Those who cannot escape can only wait to die or surrender.
Then, the US military repaired and expanded airports in Nigeria and other places in West Africa as quickly as possible, urgently deployed more than 400 transport aircraft, and launched an air transport line across the Sahara Desert... Of course, due to the aircraft's carrying capacity The quantity is so small that even if it only transports people without equipment, it cannot transport hundreds of thousands of troops from the north to the south of the Sahara Desert in such a short period of time.
Therefore, in addition to evacuating some senior military officers, political dignitaries, pilots and technicians from the air, the main purpose of this air transportation line across the Sahara Desert is to provide supplies to the Allied forces and their vassal forces trapped on the southern coast of the Mediterranean. Airdrop supplies and assist them in escaping southward by land
As a result, more than 100,000 British, French, Spanish, American and Italian colonial troops were scattered in Algeria, Tunisia and other places, as well as a larger number of accompanying civilians - people of all nationalities, all of whom were extremely hostile to Soviet Russia and In this way, in the last few days of 1946, the die-hard reactionaries who opposed the socialist system, totaling about 700,000 people, separately embarked on the arduous Long March across the Sahara Desert.
——Even in the Bible, the "Exodus" led by Moses who parted the Red Sea with his bare hands did not have such a large number of people or such a large scale. The only thing that can be compared is probably the Siberian death expedition commanded by Admiral Kolchak in the early days of the Soviet Union.
(After being defeated by the Red Army, Kolchak marched eastward with 1.2 million exiles in an attempt to regroup in Vladivostok. Unfortunately, he encountered a super cold temperature of minus 60 degrees. On the ice of Lake Baikal, 250,000 people froze to death in one night, and the number of deaths during the entire journey was said to be as high as one million. These dead were all the staunchest supporters of Tsarist Russia. As they froze to death, the Red Army's Victory is no longer in suspense)
Of course, there are also many British and French troops who have become desperate about the situation and are unwilling to continue to retreat. They are willing to stay where they are, waiting to surrender to the Soviets.
Due to the large number of people migrating, only a very small number of people can take cars or camels. At least 500,000 people must rely on their own feet to walk 1,800 kilometers of desert roads in temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius... …The scorching sun, high temperature, thirst, hunger, sandstorms and mirages all tortured these fleeing travelers at all times. Even regular desert trade routes leave behind a few unlucky dead every time they travel.
Especially unlike the strong and sturdy Arab camel caravans, the group of refugees crossing the desert this time included a large number of old, weak, sick, disabled, women and children - even indigenous nomads who had lived in North Africa for generations. , and usually don’t let their old, weak, women and children walk across the desert. Because I really can’t keep up with my physical strength and can’t endure it. In this difficult and dangerous desert escape, the only thing that more than 400 American transport planes could do for them was to regularly airdrop some food, fresh water and heat-relieving medicines so that they would not be starved of food during the journey.
In addition, around the Sahara Desert, there are always active desert bandits who have made a living by robbing business travelers for countless generations. Many seemingly docile and hospitable indigenous tribes do not mind being a guest sand bandit under the right conditions... and Nowadays, these fleeing teams, who are not very familiar with this desert and carry a large amount of property, have become perfect robbery targets in their eyes. Even if these refugees were all armed with guns and ammunition, it would be of little use - as long as there was a malicious guide who quietly escaped after deliberately leading the wrong way several times, they would never be able to leave this desert.
However, compared with the evil of people's hearts, the harsh nature itself is terrifying enough. Although as early as thousands of years ago in the Middle Ages, Arab caravans riding camels were like the pioneers of Western navigators who opened up new routes in the Age of Discovery. Similarly, they successfully broke out two trade routes across the Sahara Desert. After colonizing Africa for hundreds of years, the European colonists in the mid-twentieth century had also already understood and mastered the basic information of these desert trade routes. But the problem is, just as a sailing ship on a long voyage cannot do without the harbor where it stops midway, the camel caravan on a long journey cannot do without the oases in the desert - to be precise, it cannot do without the spring water in the desert oases: just relying on The physical strength of humans and camels, even without any cargo, is not enough to carry all the drinking water needed for the journey across the entire Sahara Desert. Not to mention that in order to avoid losing money, merchants always hope to put more goods in the camel's backpack. Therefore, if a camel caravan wants to carry a large amount of goods across the Sahara Desert, it needs to replenish fresh water for human and livestock drinking along the way.
The drinking water supplied midway can only come from oasis springs scattered in the vast desert. However, within a unit of time, the flow rate of any spring is very limited. If a spring is surrounded by a large number of people drinking, it can only support the drinking of a few thousand people at most.
But the vast majority of Europeans are not aware of this desert murderous opportunity, because in the vast and sparsely populated Sahara Desert, there are usually not thousands of people trying to cross the desert at the same time, and Replenish drinking water in the same oasis - when a small team of hundreds or thousands of people passes through these desert oases, they can naturally drink spring water as much as they want. Even if everyone is full and fills every water bag, in the oasis The spring water is more than enough. For those European travelers who are just passing through, even if they personally walk through this desert trade route and stop in these oases, as long as they can easily get enough water themselves, as long as there is still a lot of water in the springs of the oasis Water is flowing out continuously, and a large amount of water is idle and wasted. Then water is "enough" and "will not be lacking." Few people will carefully count the flow of spring water.
Even when planning the escape route this time, they did not carefully calculate whether the demand for drinking water by hundreds of thousands of animals in the scorching heat would be larger than a swimming pool in a palm-sized desert oasis. What can a small spring provide? Just like people living in modern big cities, they usually don't consider whether the water released from one faucet is not enough for many people to use at the same time.
——Although on the edge of many deserts, there are occasionally huge oases that cover vast areas and hundreds of miles of green fields, enough to support the survival of hundreds of thousands of people in a city-state. But in the hinterland of the Sahara Desert, most oases are much smaller than Crescent Moon Spring in Gansu, China. It is conceivable that the fresh water in these mini desert oases must be very limited. It is naturally not a problem to supply a camel caravan with a few hundred people, and it is still barely enough to supply a migrating tribe with several thousand people. But the result of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people rushing in at once was that... the small pond in the oasis was drank dry in one go!
As a result, the hungry and thirsty Allied soldiers and the civilians who fled were almost in a desperate situation. Although the US military transport planes tried their best to airdrop some rubber bags filled with fresh water to them, but compared with the daily consumption of hundreds of thousands of people, it was really a drop in the bucket. Thirsty people began to fight each other for a mouthful of water, even killing people and drinking blood. Countless horrific and cruel death tragedies broke out...
In the end, only about one-third of those who set out on the journey from North Africa successfully completed this tragic and miserable escape route
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While the Allied forces in western North Africa were trudging southward across the desert, the Allied forces in eastern North Africa were also making their desert journey amidst the hail of bullets and flying sand and rocks, but they were not heading south into the black African rainforest. , but headed east to Asia—because in Tripoli To the east, the Sahara Desert in that area becomes wider, and there are almost no oases in the hinterland of the desert. Moreover, due to the deep inland, the desert storm is more intense. Even the native Berber tribes have difficulty in successfully going south. Crossing the desert, let alone Western white people who are unfamiliar with the place.
Therefore, the Pentagon ordered the Allied forces gathered in Cyrenaica (Benghazi) to advance eastward, enter Egypt in rebellion along the coast, join the Egyptian garrison that broke out of the encirclement, and then abandon Egypt and follow the path of Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt. Old road, retreat to the area around Jerusalem.
This route was already a densely populated trade route before the Roman Empire, so there were no natural dangers. The only trouble was Soviet bombing and harassment by Egyptian guerrillas. However, the Soviets are now engaged in a bloody battle with the Turks in Asia Minor, and there is not much left to devote to Egypt. And the fighting power of the Egyptians... has been the same since the days of Cleopatra. Therefore, after losing thousands of lives as a price, about 200,000 Allied troops and expatriates successfully evacuated to Jerusalem and won a period of breathing space.
Relying on these American and British allied forces who retreated to West Asia, as well as the Iranian and Saudi troops who went abroad for reinforcements, and the Turkish troops who fled out of the country, with a total combat strength of about 600,000, since World War III, they first abandoned the Italian Peninsula, Eisenhower, who had gone from being the commander of U.S. forces in Europe to being the commander of U.S. forces in Africa, and having recently been kicked out of Africa and once again becoming the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, finally had the capital to continue dealing with the Soviets.
Although the quality of these troops varied, there was very little heavy equipment left, and there were still a lot of internal contradictions, Eisenhower gave full play to his talent for overall arrangements and coordination, and managed to unite these sixty troops in the shortest possible time. The mob reorganized themselves into two military groups of comparable size - Army Group Mosul and Army Group Jerusalem. Each army group has 300,000 men. After some political games, it was finally decided that King Pahlavi II of Iran would serve as the nominal commander of the Mosul Army Group, while the Jerusalem Army Group would be personally commanded by Eisenhower in response to the upcoming pressure on the Mesopotamia from the north and west. The coming red wave of the socialist camp.
However, even a trainee staff officer who has just graduated from West Point Military Academy can see that such a defense strategy is really problematic - the Mosul Army Group is mainly composed of Saudi troops, Turkish troops, Iranian troops and local Iraqi troops. Not to mention inferior equipment and backward equipment, there are a lot of internal religious conflicts and ethnic conflicts, and King Pahlavi II is not It is still difficult to say whether a courageous hero can conquer all the mountains in the army and establish a command system that can at least function... It is just a bunch of miscellaneous minions with worrisome combat effectiveness and no military strength. They have no advantage and do not have air superiority, but they have to face the main force of the Soviet Red Army coming from Armenia. It is really difficult for people to be optimistic about their future.
What's even more terrible is that if the Soviets are too lazy to do anything and just drop a bunch of atomic bombs, this seemingly bullish and heavily armed group will definitely be doomed. Moreover, the Soviet army may also cross the Caspian Sea and land in northern Iran... In this case, the Mosul Army Group may even be in danger of collapsing without a fight.
The situation of Army Group Jerusalem is a little better. This place is still far away from the Soviet Red Army. It has enough strategic buffer space and preparation time. The main base troops are genuine American and British troops. Although they have basically lost all their cars and tanks. It contains all the heavy equipment, but it is still relatively easy to rebuild the command system. When digging trenches on the spot for defense, it should be able to display a better tactical level.
Moreover, as a world religious holy place, the possibility that the Soviets would drop an atomic bomb on Jerusalem at all costs is extremely slim.
But the problem is that for the 300,000 troops of the Jerusalem Army Group, how to maintain the supply line is a big problem. At the moment, the Port of Etla in southern Israel and the Port of Aqaba in Jordan do not exist yet. The entire northern coast of the Red Sea, except for the Port of Suez, which has just suffered a nuclear bomb, is basically deserted. Unless it takes a year or two to build ports and roads, the US military will not be able to transport supplies from the Red Sea to Jerusalem. At present, Eisenhower has the American fleet of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships unload their cargo at the Port of Basra, then load them onto trucks to drive west across the entire Jordanian desert before crossing the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, and finally reaching the outskirts of Jerusalem. Or even more, let the transport fleet organize air transportation at the lowest cost... Such a long and bumpy supply line can only barely maintain the supply of ammunition. As for food, clothing and quilts, it can only allow 300,000 Allied troops to plunder Jerusalem itself - the result , less than a month after the 300,000 troops of the Jerusalem Army Group were stationed, the Jews and Arabs in Palestine were already overwhelmed. Various terrorist attacks and anti-tax uprisings occurred one after another, and it was about to evolve into a full-scale guerrilla war...< br>