Battle of the Third Reich

After a rich breakfast, Welbey and Henry left the hotel. The British are going to go to the quayside and purchase some travel equipment by the way, because according to the plan, they will have to go through a long sea journey.

At that time, the most common means of transportation from the United States to Japan was the ocean liner, which departed from San Francisco to the port of Yokohama in Japan. It usually took 15 to 20 days.

As the scale of the war of aggression against China expanded, Japan’s demand for imported raw materials increased rapidly. Nowadays, there are fewer than one hundred large passenger and cargo ships, chopping waves across the vast Pacific Ocean and sailing on this golden route.

If you have sufficient economic capacity this year, it is best to choose first-class or second-class cabins. Not only the quality of accommodation is guaranteed, but also certain priority can be obtained when escaping from an accident. Of course, the two spy bosses will not be afraid of lack of money. Their cover-up identity is a successful businessman who is fully qualified to enjoy a comfortable journey.

The cruise ship Kamakuramaru [Kamakura Maru], a subsidiary of the Japan Cruise Line, stops at the San Francisco Pier. The lowest fare for First Class is $320. Guests of the Superior Suite also receive champagne and delicious snacks.

This 17,500-ton cruise ship was originally called [Chichibu Maru]. It was the second of three cruise ships of the same class customized by Japanese cruise ships, and the other two were [Asama Maru] and [Ryutian Maru].

Because the ship’s power system was selected from marine diesel engines produced in Denmark, the Kawasaki Shipyard changed the original design so that when the cruise ship was built, it was more than 500 tons heavier than her sisters. There are also obvious differences. She only has one independent large chimney, and the other two are still the original dual chimney layout.

As the ocean liner with the largest tonnage in Japan after the 1930s, the interior of this ship is also the most luxurious. Not only does it boldly adopt British and French style designs, but also reaches the world's top level in terms of materials and craftsmanship. The Japanese media proudly called it the "Queen of the Pacific" and regarded it as the pride of the Yamato nation.

However, few people in the outside world knew at the time that this high-speed mixed passenger and cargo ship was taken by the Japanese Imperial Navy from the beginning of the design and construction, and became part of the "Strategy of Doubling the Fighting Force". In order to avoid the restrictions of the "Washington Naval Treaty", the Japanese navy was really struggling with not much brain, and came up with a "joint fleet multiplier strategy". To put it bluntly, once a war broke out with the United States , Plans to urgently convert large civilian ships owned by Japan into military ships.

It should be understood that the difference between warships and civilian ships is not just whether they are equipped with weapons. In fact, there is a huge difference between the two regardless of structural design or manufacturing process, or the selection of raw materials. The design of warships revolves around maritime combat capabilities, while the consideration of civilian ships is to obtain economic benefits. From the design point of view, the two are quite different, and there is simply no urine in a pot.

However, as long as the brains of the "genius" staff of the Imperial Navy were opened, it would be difficult to close it. Once this group of navy octopuses got into the horns of the horns, it wouldn't even be possible to start the entire joint fleet.

How to make it easier and more effective to transform a civilian ship that can't beat the military's eight poles into a warship, the way these people came up with was to take into account possible future military modifications when designing the civilian ship. For example, in terms of hull structure and cabin layout, the design scheme of the military ship should be adopted as much as possible, so as to avoid substantial changes to the structure during the transformation and reduce the materials and man-hours required for future naval construction.

In order to achieve this goal, the Japanese Navy promoted the government cabinet and promulgated an "Excellent Ship Construction Subsidy Measures". The state provides financial subsidies for the construction, maintenance and operation of high-performance civil ships to encourage shipping companies and shipbuilders to build tonnages exceeding High-performance ship with a speed of 6,000 tons and a speed higher than 19 knots. Correspondingly, these ships must incorporate elements of military use in the design, which can meet the Navy's goal of transforming into a military ship within three months.

This money is not so easy to take. In fact, there are a lot of messy conditions associated with the policy, such as not allowing foreigners to work on the ship, using domestic raw materials as much as possible, and recruiting navy retirees from the crew. Preparing for the war for the sake of war.

In the construction of this [Chichibu Maru], the Japanese government injected half of the construction funds to the Japanese cruise company, and the Japanese Naval Shipbuilding Administration directly participated in the design of passenger and freighters.

Even the direction of the transformation of this ship has been predetermined. The Navy plans to transform her and her two sisters into an ad hoc aircraft carrier as soon as the war requires it.

The Navy designed a huge cargo loading hatch for this cruise ship, which is actually a place reserved for the aircraft elevator. At that time, only the superstructure needs to be demolished and the flight deck is laid. This "Queen of the Pacific" can immediately change its face and become New member of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force.

What is interesting is that after the outbreak of the Pacific War in history, the Navy seemed to have forgotten this. After these three cruise ships were requisitioned, they have been active on the Southeast Asian routes as transport ships.

In early 1942, [Chichibu Maru], a naval transport ship (which had been renamed [Kamakura Maru in 1979]) was given a special mission by the Japanese government to become a "hostage exchange ship."

Her black hull was painted with a huge white cross mark and turned into a medical ship. Immediately, 900 Kaohsiung British diplomats, students and ordinary expatriates detained by Japan in Shanghai, Singapore and other places were loaded to the port of Maputo, Mozambique, which was then a Portuguese colony.

After handing over the detainees to the Portuguese, she reloaded the same number of Japanese, Thai and German diplomats and expatriates detained by the British army, as well as the remains of some Japanese navy soldiers killed and a large number of supplies for the Allied prisoners of war , And finally returned to Yokohama Port successfully, completing a rare humanitarian exchange between Japan and the West.

With the disastrous defeat of the Midway Islands in history, the Japanese navy finally remembered these three ships, but the naval shipyard's 10,000-ton ship berths were limited, and the maintenance of active ships had to be lined up. , Chichibu Maru's transformation plan can only be ranked behind them.

The main body used by the "Great Eagle" class is the Xintian Maru class cruise ship with a displacement of 18,000 tons. This class of ship is also a member of the ship construction subsidy program. It is planned to be transformed into [Shinda Maru] of [Chongying] and [Hachiman Maru] which is planned to be transformed into [Yingying].

[Chichibu Maru] will also be transformed into a [Big Eagle]-class aircraft carrier in the plan, but before she was sent to the ship’s platform, on April 28, 1943, she was adopted by the US Navy SS-211 [鮈The submarine (ju) Yuu sank six miles southwest of Panay Island in the Philippines.

But at this moment, the Queen of the Pacific, a Japanese shipping company, was moored quietly by the pier in San Francisco. Ling Lingbo's light was reflected on the shiny black ship, and she didn't know what fate was waiting for her in the future.

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