"There are already a phenomenon of people driving out of the city on the expressway, and more and more vehicles..."

"People are hoarding supplies, hoarding food and other daily necessities. Some stores are robbing, and it is difficult to implement the food rationing system, and some non-government pricing providers have soared prices."

"Some local councillors asked to check the local air defense facilities, but damn it, there are almost no anti-aircraft guns there and useless, and not many people in the National Guard will use them."

"Some members of parliament asked the president to make a public speech and declare a state of emergency and mobilize all available military forces to the east coast."

"Major shipyards, steel mills and other enterprises require additional defensive forces to prevent their production from being affected, and at the same time, the government requires that workers not be allowed to strike or leave their posts."

"A reporters have verified the losses of naval ships in the past six months. They even asked the families of officers and soldiers who served on those ships if they had received letters or death notices recently. Various rumors were flying everywhere, and some even rumored that our Pacific Fleet had been completely destroyed. Otherwise, how could the Japanese come to the Atlantic Ocean?"

Hori Teiki's public statement was like a few drops of water pouring in a boiling oil pan, and immediately splashed everywhere, and everything that was touched was painful.

In just half a morning, the chaos in major cities on the East Coast had initially formed, giving Roosevelt a headache. The "Notice" even the British knew about it. Prime Minister Churchill sent a telegram to express that Great Britain was completely with the United States to overcome the difficulties. All British naval officers and soldiers firmly obeyed the command, but the last sentence exposed his fundamental thoughts and asked the United States to help Canada defend this fleet.

Roosevelt frowned. He knew that he needed to stand up and deliver a speech, which could encourage and inspire people. He believed that the American people were reasonable and that this was the war that had to face any threat from the enemy calmly. But this indirectly proved that the threat of the Axis fleet was indeed there, which forced him to put strength and military expenditure into the national defense. The Joint Conference has conducted preliminary calculations. If the defense capability of the eastern coast is to reach the level of Britain and not the level of Germany, at least $6-7 billion should be filled in and prepared for 8-1 million troops; if the West Coast also wants to meet this standard, it would easily exceed 10 billion. The key now is not this money. This money can still be afforded compared to the more than 50 billion military expenditure of the United States in fiscal 1942, but the materials, personnel and equipment that followed this money can not be changed for a while.

But the US government cannot be indifferent to this threat. If a big city is really successfully attacked by the Axis fleet, the face will be too ugly. Pearl Harbor is a treacherous sneak attack by the enemy. The people can understand that the enemy has issued a warning in advance for attacking the East Coast. If something happens, he will not know how to explain to the people. And the members of the parliament will definitely put pressure on the White House. Although everyone knows that the attack is a low-probability event, no one wants to see their constituency destroyed by the enemy. The world war has been so many years, but the parliamentarians can be a lifetime. The two are more important, politicians will clearly distinguish between them.

As long as the cornerstone of the election is unshakable, the $10 billion expenditure must be spent. The cost of an Essex-class aircraft carrier is now 70-80 million US dollars, which means that the United States will throw 140 Essex-class aircraft carriers into the country for its national defense at once. When Roosevelt thinks of these, he feels very bad.

Another piece of news that made him feel upset was that the Soviet Union's war situation was very bad. Stalin issued an urgent support request through diplomatic channels, his tone was unprecedentedly anxious and solemn, and even vaguely there were such words that would be made peace if he didn't give it. Roosevelt didn't believe it, but this sentence was spoken publicly from Molotov. He could imagine that the Russians' life was very difficult. After adopting Baku, they were almost unable to save their oil fields in Grozny. The Soviet Union, which has always been an oil exporter, has now reached out to ask the United States for oil, and has also called it to make oil. It was mentioned at a level of 1 million tons per month.

Churchill also said that it would take 1 million tons per month. Roosevelt thought about it and wanted to slap the table and curse people: Don’t say that Germany’s blockade is so tight now, even Germany will not do any blockade. The number of tankers in the United States is not that sufficient to have a monthly output of 2 million tons plus the empty load on the way back and forth, which means that at least 4-5 million tons of tankers are needed. In addition, the demand for the Asian theater and the African theater will not be able to cover the capacity without 6 million tankers, but there are still many tankers in the United States lying on the ship platform. (Author’s note: During World War II, the largest tanker tanker was only more than 200,000 tons, so don’t compare with tankers that often cost 200,000 to 300,000 tons in later generations)

In order to meet the Soviet Union's material demand, the Joint Conference held a special meeting. Although some people questioned the continued assistance to Stalin, everyone was shuddered when they thought of the result of the Soviet Union's separate peace.

"We cannot easily abandon Stalin, ally." Roosevelt's speech at the meeting was profound. "If the Soviet Union was forced to put down its weapons and surrender, Germany's 4 million troops on the Eastern Front, 5,000-8,000 tanks, and 6,000 aircraft would be able to immediately free up his hands to attack Britain. Once Great Britain fell, the future of the United States would be bleak. The Russians are relatively incompetent, but at least they are still fighting. Even if 5-6 Russians are replaced by one German, it is worth it. If they don't change, we will sacrifice the young men from the United States to replace it. Do you think it is better to provide supplies or life?"

No one dared to answer this sentence, so he decided to further expand the efforts to aid the Soviet Union and required the United Kingdom to transport Indian materials to the Soviet Union as much as possible through Afghanistan. The Joint Conference proposed that ship tonnage and steel are needed everywhere. For the sake of guarantee, the least needed ones can only be cut off or postponed, but the specific cuts must be considered by the Navy.

Aircraft carriers cannot be cut because they are the core of the operations;

Battleships cannot be cut because the US Navy has lost too many battleships and now it is urgently needed to replenish fresh blood;

Merchant ships cannot cut, and oil tankers cannot cut, because they want to provide supplies for the allies.

Finally, the navy thought about putting the place where the knife was used on the submarine. They found that the combat efficiency of the submarines has begun to decline significantly recently. It is a bit unfair to make a large number of submarines: there are few axial merchant ships on the Atlantic Ocean, and British submarines alone are enough. If you can't enter the Mediterranean now, you will die. There are many merchant ships on the axis in the Indian Ocean, especially oil tankers, but there are few strongholds available for submarines, and the enemy's anti-submarine power is very fierce. The merchant ships on the axis are walking along the coastline, which has a lot of losses and little effect. The Far East battlefield was originally the most dynamic place for submarines, but the efficiency here is decreasing significantly.

After the cooperation and exchanges between Japan and Germany increased, Germany sent a group of submarine talents to the Japanese Navy. After obtaining sonar, radar, and anti-submarine aircraft provided by Germany and absorbing Germany's anti-submarine experience, the losses of American submarines increased dramatically, but the results began to decrease. In addition to improving anti-submarine technology, Japan also made a lot of improvements in other aspects. After the password was replaced, the United States could not easily decipher the Japanese code; Japan imitated the escort mechanism of the United States, Horitiki removed the light aircraft carriers converted from several merchant ships out of the combat queue and put them into escort. The transport ships between the Japanese army and the navy were unified managed by the navy. In addition, the problems of the US navy have not been effectively solved. The effectiveness of the submarine was greatly reduced after all factors added up.

Another reason why the Navy's senior management cut the target of production tasks towards submarines is that the number of submarine troops is actually not small. So far, there are more than 400 losses, which is enough for the Far East War Zone. Another factor that cannot be ignored but has not been put on the table is that the navy's experienced officers and soldiers are losing rapidly. Since the Battle of the South Pacific, the losses of US Navy personnel are quite astonishing, and limited personnel will give priority to surface ship replenishment.

But submarines have never been the mainstream of the US Navy. Cutting off these is far from enough. The Admiralty Department could only frown and continue to shoot.

Large Alaska cruisers: Only the first 3 ships were built, and the rest were cancelled;

Baltimore-class heavy cruisers: Only the first 4 ships were built, and the rest were cut off;

Oregon City-class heavy cruisers: All are cancelled;

Des Moines class heavy cruiser: unfinished design drawings sealed;

Atlanta-class light cruiser: Starting from the cl96 Reo, replicating the independent class to change to a light aircraft carrier;

Cleveland class light cruiser: Starting from the cl64 Viees, it imitated the Independence class and changed to a light aircraft carrier.

What is even less lacking than fleet aircraft carriers is the escort carrier. The Navy has done statistics and estimated that according to the existing material transportation needs and the enemy's breaking forces, the United States needs to equip the fleet with at least 70-80 escort carriers, but due to the huge losses in the early stage, only 15 were actually available by mid-April. According to Turner's + plan, 12 escort carriers need to be drawn for combat. These escort carriers that are put into combat are likely to lose 6-8. Therefore, unless it is a particularly important merchant fleet, the Navy is reluctant to use escort carriers for escort. At most, they are old destroyers. They are attacked by large numbers of U-boats starting from Azores and suffer heavy losses.

Roosevelt has seen the data. From May to August, there will be about 10 more than escort aircraft carriers to be completed, but 10 of them are scheduled to be given to the UK. The more than 10 Casablanca-class escort aircraft carriers that formed between August and October are truly usable by the US Navy, but the number is still useless. After all, it will not be able to recover until early 1944, and this will be based on the capture of Azores. But he can't take care of so many for the time being. The most important thing is to deal with the attacks of the Axis fleet first. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!