Chapter 1038

Hearing Henry's reply, Elman's face showed an unexpected expression. He finally understood that his old superior had not given me permission to take me on the destroyer.

I carefully observed the look of Elman center, and I could see that he was also hesitating. Although I didn't know what the regulations of the US Army were, it should not be allowed to take people on a warship without the permission of the superior. Even if Colonel Henry was Elman's old superior, there was no possibility of flexibility.

Henry saw Elman's embarrassed expression, looked at me, turned to Elman and said, "commander, if this makes you embarrassed, we'll get off the ship immediately."

I had thought that Elman would push the boat with the current and agree that Captain Henry would take me with him. But he reached out to stop Henry, turned and whispered a few words to the sergeant.

"Yes, sir!" The sergeant made a loud promise and turned to leave.

After the sergeant left, Elman said to Henry with a smile: "Captain, you can't take your guests to visit our warship without permission from the superior, but it doesn't prevent me from inviting you and your guests to have a cup of coffee in the cabin. It's time for you to have lunch with me. " Then he made a sign to Henry, "Sir, please!"

I followed Elman and Henry to the narrow command cabin and saw a long table fixed on the deck covered with White Linen Tablecloth, with folding chairs on both sides of the table.

When Elman called us to sit down, he yelled out, "come on in."

At his command, four sailors in white cooks' hats came in from the hatch. At the front was a black man. He put his shining knife and fork in front of the three of us one by one. Then he stepped back and stood with his back against the bulkhead. The remaining three sailors put lunch in front of us.

After the sailors left, Elman first broke the silence. He pointed to the rich lunch on the table and politely said to me, "Sir, please try our American sailors' food."

I purposely waited for Colonel Henry to translate for me, then I said thank you to Elman with a smile, and then I took up the knife and fork to deal with the delicious food in front of me. The U.S. Navy's lunch was really rich, with hamburgers, eggs, large pieces of pork ribs, a salad with ham and vegetables, and a cup of steaming coffee, which was more than any meal I've had in the past six months.

"Isn't it delicious, general?" Henry showed a friendly smile on his amiable face. "If you think the food is delicious, you should eat more and have more after eating." At this point, he seemed to think of something, and added, "I know that because Ukraine, the largest granary of the Soviet Union, was occupied by the Germans, what you are now implementing is the supply system, and the food you can get is very limited. But you can rest assured that your food supply will be improved in one month at most, because our aid materials for the Soviet Union include a large number of canned meat, sausages, lard, vegetable oil, egg powder, milk powder and cheese. "

I know what Henry said is true. Before he went to Russia to do business, he always thought that after the great defeat in the early days of the patriotic war, the Soviet Union finally held its ground and could barely resist the attack of the German army with its own strength. The assistance of the United States was nothing but icing on the cake and became the last straw to crush the camel of Germany. But when I was in Moscow for a few years, I was stunned to see the US military's aid list occasionally. It's more than just a straw, which obviously pushes the whole camel up.

With 500000 transport vehicles, 2.6 million tons of oil, 22000 tanks and armored vehicles, and 14000 aircraft of all kinds, the Soviet Union would be a real "ah Dou" if it could not defeat the Germans. Zhukov himself said after the war: "if there were no American gunpowder, we would be in a very difficult situation. We could not produce so much ammunition for the war; We can't transport our cannons without American stebeck cars. They really guarantee our front-line transportation to a considerable extent. The special steel that is needed in all aspects of the war is also provided by the United States. "

"... the Americans rapidly produced and supplied us with a lot of materials, without which we could not build our reserve forces and continue the war. We don't have explosives and gunpowder. Without these things, rifles don't have bullets. The Americans sincerely produced and provided us with a lot of steel. Without the steel provided by the Americans, can we produce tanks quickly? "

"... without the assistance of the west, the Soviet Union could not win the patriotic war, nor could it even resist the invasion of Germany, nor could it produce enough weapons and technical equipment, nor could it guarantee the fuel and ammunition used in the war."

Although I have been in this world for more than a year, there is one thing I have never understood, so I took this opportunity to ask: "Captain, I have a question to ask you."

"Excuse me, general." Said Colonel Henry politely.

I organized some words in my mind, and then asked, "Colonel, I want to know why American aid to the Soviet Union is not transported from the mainland of the United States, via Canada to Alaska, and then from the Bering Strait to the Far East of the Soviet Union?"

When he heard my question, Henry sighed softly and said, "if you look at the local geographical environment and the climate change in the four seasons of the year, you will understand that it is very difficult to transport materials on this line, and the loss on the road will be amazing. Even if we managed to reach the Far East, we were still tens of thousands of kilometers away from the Soviet front. "

"That's why," Herman continued, "the fleet of goods and materials would choose to transit through Britain, take the Arctic Ocean, and finally reach the Soviet Union's Murmansk, which is a natural ice free port. All the supplies for the Soviet Union were unloaded there and then transported to various regions of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, this road is not very safe. It is easy to be attacked by German submarines. Almost every time you go out, you will lose several ships. "

"By the way, commander, there's something I want to ask you." After Henry translated Elman's words to me, he suddenly turned to ask the other side, "will the Atlantic Fleet deliver a batch of ships to Russia next month?"

Elte looked at me alertly when he heard Henry's question. Henry probably saw his worry and said in a low voice, "don't worry. She doesn't understand English. You can think that there are only two of us here. You can say it boldly."

After I understood what Henry said, I went on eating and listened to the conversation.

"Yes, according to the plan, we will provide landing ships to the Russian Pacific Fleet next month, so that they can use them in landing war on the Japanese mainland," Elman said in a nagging voice. There are two types of landing ships to assist Russia, LCI and LCT. The former can carry 21 soldiers each, while the latter can carry 250 soldiers. However, as our navy is also in urgent need of landing ships of various types, the delivery date of landing ships to the Russian navy has been postponed to one year. "

"The decision of the commander of the navy is not very wise." As he sipped his coffee, Colonel Henry expressed his opinion: "since we have agreed with Russia on the delivery date of the ship, when it comes to the delivery time, we have to postpone the date by one year. I think Russia will be very angry."

"It's OK. Although they don't provide landing ships for the time being, it has no impact on their next strategy. Anyway, they won't have any landing operations this year." "We will provide them with 10 am minesweepers and UMS minesweepers," Elman said

"Yes, this is the ship they need badly." Henry put down his coffee cup and continued: "after the outbreak of the Soviet German war, one third of their Baltic Fleet was sunk by German mines. Last May, the UK provided them with a number of minesweepers that could use sound and electromagnetic systems. The Soviet army had never used such an advanced minesweeping system before. "

"Yes," Herman continued, "the minesweepers we provide to Russia are very advanced. Among them, the AM type is 914 tons, the speed is 14 knots, the ship is of steel structure, equipped with sound detection system, and the weapons on board include nine guns. The UMS is a wooden ship with a displacement of only 350 tons... "

"Is there no warship?" Henry asked curiously, "you know, it won't take long to build a ship at our industrial level."

"There are also four Tacoma class frigates," they really thought I didn't know English, because sitting opposite me, they talked about the secrets of the US Navy recklessly: "this kind of ship has a displacement of 2270 tons, a speed of 19 knots, a cruising distance of 15000 km, and its weapons include three 76mm naval guns, two 40mm naval guns and nine 20mm naval guns. In order to make them better able to deal with * *'s submarines, this type of ship is specially equipped with sonar system and deep-water bomb. And we also provide radar and sonar to their navy every month. "

"Report!" Just as I was trying to hear more U.S. Navy secrets from them, a voice calling for a report came from the door. "Come in!" Elman called without looking back

Soon, the person who called for the report appeared in front of the three of us. It turned out that it was the sergeant just now. Henry looked at him and asked, "sergeant, what can I do for you?"

"Sir, I'm sending a call back to Fleet Command for the captain." The sergeant quickly straightened up and reported to Henry.

"Show it to me." Before Henry could ask again, Elman reached out to the sergeant and was ready to take the message. Sergeant is also smart, quickly handed the message to the captain's hand.

Henry waited for Elman to finish reading the telegram and put it on the table before he asked, "what did Fleet Command say in the telegram?"

"Sir!" Elman looked at Henry and said solemnly, "I just ordered the sergeant to send a telegram to the Fleet Command to report what happened here and ask if you are allowed to visit the ship. Now the reply from the command is back."

Henry glanced at the telegram on the table. Instead of reaching for it, he asked slowly, "what does the telegram from the headquarters say?"

"Sir, the command's order is very clear. Visiting warships is absolutely not allowed." Elman said with some tears and laughter: "but you can introduce the parameters of the ship to the commander of the friendly forces."

"In that case, commander, you can introduce yourself." Henry heard the command is such an order, but also some helplessly said: "anyway, the general, she is only the army, also do not understand the Navy, even if you take her to visit, it is estimated that in the end nothing can be remembered, it is better to directly report to her the parameters of this destroyer, let her have a general understanding."“ This is also a way, so I'll give her a brief talk here. " At the same time, Elman begged Colonel Henry: "Sir, I need you to translate for me." Seeing Henry nodding in agreement, Elman turned to me and said politely, "general, I can't show you my warship because I haven't got permission from Fleet Command. But in order not to let you fly this trip, I can still tell you about our destroyer. " After Henry finished his translation, I put on a regretful expression and said, "it's a pity that I can't go around the ship. However, if I can hear the commander's brief introduction about the situation of the warship, I will be worthy of this trip. "“ General, our ship is a frigate destroyer. Its main task is to escort the merchant fleet. " When commander Elman saw that Henry was ready, he began to introduce the situation to me: "we are Mahan class destroyers. Although we don't have the firepower control of attack weapons and destroyers, and we don't have faster speed, then our ship has more maneuverability and a smaller turning radius than destroyers. In order to keep up with the aircraft carriers, warships and cruisers in the fleet, destroyers often need a speed of more than 30 knots, while a escort destroyer only needs to be able to maneuver relative to the slow escort transport team, and can resist the attack of enemy aircraft, detect, pursue and attack the enemy's submarines. These lower requirements greatly reduce the size of the ship The cost and the crew required to escort the destroyer. "“ All right, commander, be brief. " After translating the series of words for me, Henry suddenly whispered to Elman, "don't talk about what you shouldn't say." Elman nodded and then introduced: "Eldridge is 104 meters long, 10.8 meters wide, 3.2 meters deep, and its maximum speed is 37 knots. It is equipped with five 5-inch 38 times diameter main guns, four 50 mm machine guns, three quadruple 533 torpedo launching tubes and two deep-water bomb launching tracks. "