The great victory of the Battle of Midway has greatly grown the US Navy and the Chinese Hu Ben Navy, and has also greatly inspired and inspired the American people.

In the following period, the United States of America took advantage of the situation to focus on the Pacific battlefield, and a large number of supply ships arrived at Midway Island, starting a construction frenzy.

Soon, Midway Island replaced the cannon with a bird gun, established an extremely complete defense system and supply station, expanded the land airport to the greatest extent, and prepared for the attack on surrounding islands such as Gardner Island, Lisansky Island, Johnston Island, and Hawaiian Islands.

At the same time, after obtaining the Midway submarine base, the scope of activities of the Allied submarine troops suddenly expanded to the entire Pacific Ocean, and there were endless attacks on the Japanese supply and transportation lines everywhere.

In order to deal with the upcoming threat, the Japanese government had to transfer the few remaining aircraft carrier battle groups to the Hawaiian Islands and also dispatched a large number of air forces to accompany them.

As for the domestic battlefield in China, the Japanese Air Force, which had already consumed severely, could only turn off attack to defense again and dare not continue to chew on it.

Unable to control air supremacy, the Japanese army naturally did not dare to attack rashly. They could only continue to defend vulgarly and passively wait for the Chinese Tiger Army to attack.

And during this period, a major historical turning point was taking place on the battlefield of the Eastern Front of Europe.

Yes, this is the bloodiest and largest battle in human history currently underway: the Battle of Stalingrad.

Stalingrad was the transportation throat of the central Soviet area to an important economic region in the south, and its strategic position was extremely important. To the west and south were the main production areas of Soviet food, coal and oil.

If the German army occupied this area, the Soviet Union would lose the important resources needed for the war.

The battle started on July 17, 1942. At the beginning, the German army swept the eastern part of the Soviet Union, without much obstruction or pressure on the way.

Because the German army had a large number of troops at that time, the armed equipment was very advanced, and there were a large number of mechanical troops, but a large number of Soviet troops were soldiers who had just been forced to conquer and local people who were looking forward to resisting.

But after the street fighting began, Stalingrad became a German flesh and blood mill.

In the city full of rubble and ruins, the Soviet army resisted tenaciously, and fierce gunfights broke out in the streets, buildings and factories in the city.

The number of German casualties invaded the city continued to increase, and the German army had to slow down the attack speed and adopt fuel-added tactics to continuously invest in the offensive forces.

So far, the Soviet Union has accumulated 2.5 million soldiers, while Germany has invested more than 1 million troops. During the fiercest period of the battle, more than 2,000 people died every day on both sides.

Moreover, because the weather is cold and the ground is frozen, many injured soldiers survive for no more than 72 hours, and the entire land is covered with white bones, which is shocking.

After four months of hard support, on November 20, 1942, the Soviet army began to carry out Operation Uranus, and the Southwest Front of Vatutin and the Don Front of Rokosovsky launched a full-scale counterattack against the Germans in the heavy snow.

After a series of hard and bloody battles, the Soviet Red Army finally completed the encirclement of Stalingrad.

In January 1943, the Soviet Red Army launched another stance, code-named "Operation Jupiter", trying to break through the Italian military defense line in the Don River area and capture Rostov.

If the operation is successful, the remaining German Southern Army will be completely besieged in the Caucasus region.

Unfortunately, the Soviet Red Army never approached Rostov, but this operation forced the German army to be more than 250 kilometers away from the German army in the encirclement of Stalingrad.

After this situation, the German 6th Army had completely lost reinforcements.

On January 30, the head of state awarded Paulus a scepter to the German Field Marshal to encourage him to continue to resist, hoping that Paulus could fight to the end or commit suicide to his country.

Then, Paulus sent the last telegram to the headquarters: "The 6th Army was loyal to its oath and realized its extremely important mission. For the sake of the head of state and the motherland, it has stuck to its post, and has shot and shot to the last soldier."

But the end result was that when the Soviet Red Army invaded the German headquarters in the department store, Paulus chose to surrender.

On February 2, the remnants of the 11th Army, besieged in the north of Stalingrad, also announced their surrender.

At this point, the Battle of Stalingrad ended, and the German army that attacked Stalingrad was wiped out.

Marshal Paulus, commander of the 6th German Army, Lieutenant General Pfeiffer, commander of the 4th Infantry Army, Lieutenant General Kurtzbach, commander of the 51st Army, and other 23 generals, 2,000 officers below the school level and 91,000 extremely hungry and tired German soldiers were captured, about 140,000 people died, and only more than 30,000 injured patients were airlifted in advance.

The Battle of Stalingrad lasted for six and a half months and was the turning point of the eastern front of World War II. Judging from the casualties alone, the battle was also the bloodiest battle in modern history.

The casualties between the two sides are estimated to be about 2,000,000 people, and the number of people participating in the battle is much more than other battles in history, and is also known for the casualties caused by both sides' disregard of military and civilian separation.

Because the Soviet government was afraid that excessive casualty statistics would affect the people, it refused to provide detailed casualty data at the time.

Although German official media had stopped reporting the news a few weeks before the end of the battle, it was not until the end of January 1943 that the German people learned about the tragedy in Stalingrad.

This was not the first blow the German army suffered, but this failure was incomparable to other battles in terms of scale and strategic sense.

Axis Germany lost one-quarter of its troops on the Eastern Front in this battle and never recovered until it was finally defeated.

For the Soviet side, the victory of this battle marked the beginning of the recovery of the fallen territory and would eventually usher in the final victory over Nazi Germany.

On February 4, 1943, the auditorium of the General Headquarters of the Huben Army, Gaomi, Shandong.

Yang Fan, Wu Rongbang, Miao Dadong, Yang Chengliang and other military and political officials gathered together. The auditorium that could accommodate thousands of people was full of people at this moment, and everyone also had food on their desks.

Everyone was eating and chatting, laughing and laughing, and the atmosphere of the meeting seemed extremely festive and relaxed, and it was completely less solemn and solemn as in the previous conference room.

This is not only because they just received good news from the Battle of Stalingrad, but also because today is the 30th day of the Lunar New Year, and it is the annual New Year Festival again.
Chapter completed!