afterglow

Chapter 634 Is He Really a Genius? Night Attack!

From three o'clock in the morning to sunrise, the Ming army's naval aviation sent out two waves of shore-based attack formations, trying their best to block the US military transport fleet.

The TF-53 task force also fought desperately. Many destroyers had consumed most of their ammunition in previous naval battles, so they quickly used up their remaining shells when resisting Ming army aircraft, and the Mk12 dual-purpose guns had no bullets available.

American sailors even used rifles and submachine guns from the armory to shoot at Ming planes in the sky.

Shells and bullets of all sizes were flying all over the sky. The night sky was filled with the blinding glare of flares. The roar of airplane engines and all kinds of gunfire sounded like a tune together.

In the end, 10 shore-based torpedo planes of the Ming army's naval aviation were shot down and one was missing.

A total of three LSM medium landing ships and four LST tank landing ships of the US military transport fleet were sunk. Most of the soldiers who fell into the water were rescued, but more than 3 people from the 4nd Marine Division drowned, and more than 2 tanks and half-track vehicles and thousands of tons of supplies were lost.

The fiery red sun rose from the east where the sky and the sea met. On the sea surface several kilometers northeast of Maui, the traces left by the fierce battle that lasted for half a night were quite conspicuous.

The American officers and soldiers couldn't help but feel a tightness in their hearts when they saw the desolate and solemn scene.

Craven (DD-382) had been abandoned an hour earlier, and despite the best efforts of the crew, the destroyer was still burning, with thick black-gray smoke rising into the sky.

Pools of thick, viscous black oil floated on the sea, and everywhere were the bodies of officers and soldiers from both sides and debris from damaged warships, including clothes, hats, mop poles, fragments of teak decks, and so on.

At this point, the first formal naval confrontation between the Ming and American armies around Maui Island came to an end.

The Ming army sank three destroyers and the battleship Longshuo was severely damaged. 3 officers and soldiers were killed or missing, and many more were injured.

The U.S. military sank one anti-aircraft cruiser Juneau and four destroyers. The heavy cruiser Northampton was severely damaged. The commander, Lieutenant General Robert Ghormley, became a one-armed general. 1 naval officers and soldiers were killed and 4 Marines drowned.

Washington was unhappy to learn of such an ugly result because the Navy had previously promised them that they would defeat the enemy.

Didn't they say they were well prepared? How did they end up like this?
Chester Nimitz gave a long speech to his homeland explaining the significance of this naval battle - at least tactically, his side had won, albeit a pyrrhic victory.

Although Washington suspected that Fleet Commander Robert Ghormley might have made command errors, he was conscientious in his duties and even had one of his arms blown off. It would be too cold-blooded to get to the bottom of it.

The significance of the First Battle of Maui was that the US military successfully delivered reinforcements ashore in an organized manner, which was exactly what Zhou Changfeng was most worried about.

The landing location of the US military was 7 km east of Kahului Port. In the early morning, the 2nd Marine Division opened up a stable landing site, followed by tanks and artillery. As of 10:30 in the morning, people had landed, and the number was still increasing.

Not only did the U.S. military successfully carry out the reverse landing operation, but the fleet also provided strong artillery support for the ground forces defending Kahului Harbor. The dense artillery shells fired from the sea forced the Ming army to suspend the attack. The 5th Battalion of the 2nd Marine Regiment had more than half a platoon wiped out by several rounds and a half of volleys from the North Carolina.

At this time, there were only more than 700 American troops and a few armored vehicles left defending the port. If there were no obstacles, it would only be a coordinated infantry and artillery attack.

While cursing the navy for being unreliable, Zhou Changfeng ordered a retreat. The 1st Marine Brigade and the 38th Division retreated to the suburbs of Kahoolawe to re-establish defense lines to guard against possible large-scale counterattacks by the enemy.

During this period, the Air Force dispatched a total of more than 2 aircraft to bomb the landing site of the nd Marine Division of the US Army. More than aerial anti-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs destroyed a large amount of supplies and incidentally blew up an LSM landing ship.

What is puzzling is that the US military has not taken any action yet and there is no sign of active counterattack.

This puzzled the officers and soldiers of the Ming army, and some cautious people were quite uneasy.

"I'm so angry!" Xie Wancheng was very unwilling to accept it, and he shouted, "It's just one last shot. Another half an hour and those hundreds of defeated soldiers will be finished. What the hell are those guys in the navy doing?"

"Okay, stop shouting. It's useless to blame you no matter how much." Zhao Hanfeng waved his hand.

"We have to hold out for a while now. I don't think the Air Force can hold out any longer."

"Ah."

The officers were talking among themselves. Zhou Changfeng, who was sitting on a small stool, took a deep puff of his cigarette and then stood up.

"It's okay. Just follow the backup plan we made earlier." He shrugged his shoulders in a casual manner, waved his hand, and said calmly, "Come here, the orders are as follows. The 23rd Division will advance to between Hill 245 and Hill 197. The 31st Division will end the current offensive as soon as possible and withdraw its position."

There is no point in regretting. As a general, Zhou Changfeng can only bury his worries and unhappiness deep in his heart.

Things are finally taking a turn for the worse, and the battle situation is not favorable!

The Hawaii Air Force said two days ago that it could no longer continue - the continuous high-intensity attacks have exhausted the crew members, and many aircraft also need maintenance. Now the aviation units are struggling to hold on.

Now that the original plan has failed, there is no need for the Air Force to hold on. In the next few days, it will suspend its blocking operations against the enemy and only try to cover its own side.

The US Air Force was also struggling and on the verge of its limit, but the situation was slightly better. According to the confessions of captured pilots, they had a large number of spare aircraft and a considerable number of substitute pilots, thus ensuring the maximum combat efficiency of the Air Force.

Following Zhou Changfeng's order, the First Landing Army and the 38th Heavy Infantry Division began to retreat in an orderly manner. After moving away from the city, they re-established multiple lines of defense in the suburbs.

The 23rd Infantry Division, which served as the reserve, sent out an advance force of a reinforced battalion to occupy the area designated by Zhou Changfeng. The main force of the division did not set out until after dark to avoid casualties from U.S. air raids.

Fortunately, the U.S. military was quite cautious and conservative. The 2nd Marine Division and the 27th and 33rd Divisions on Maui did not launch a counterattack together. They only sent small units to conduct infiltration or fire reconnaissance.

It was obvious that Lieutenant General Simon Buckner realized the fact that his side was weak and the enemy was strong, and he had no intention of taking advantage of the situation to launch a counterattack. If he failed in the field battle, all his previous efforts would be wasted!
He was determined to use the most prudent strategy to win the battle and regain ground for the United States.

In his plan, his side would use the firepower of the army, navy and air force to continuously consume the manpower and technical equipment of the Ming army, occasionally launching exploratory attacks to test their strength. This process might last for several weeks or even months until the final general offensive was launched to defeat the Ming army with overwhelming force.

In short, what Zhou Changfeng was most worried about did not happen.

As for the wishful thinking of the US commander Buckner, he quickly guessed it.

At a meeting of major military officers held that evening, he briefly analyzed the current battle situation and elaborated on the next response strategy.

Deng Siquan, whose military uniform was covered in dust and dirt, marveled and commented, "Buckner is a capable guy. He is able to keep his composure. If it were any other general, he would probably take the opportunity to launch a counterattack." Is he really a genius?
"This shows that there are still some good generals in the US military." Zhou Changfeng replied calmly.

In this regard, the Ming Army had no qualifications to laugh at the U.S. Army. Although the theoretical level of the Ming Army generals was okay, they were extremely lacking in command experience and were even worse than the U.S. Army. However, they had participated in the European War and had more or less trained a group of professional officers.

In contrast, the Ming army had not been tempered by war for decades, and almost all of its generals were academicians, and many of them had only participated in small-scale battles such as border conflicts when they were young.

Leaving aside the large military groups, even if it was just a regimental-level unit, only a very small number of people in the Ming army had command experience before the outbreak of the war, and among them were several Germans - exiled Junker aristocratic officers.

Therefore, it made sense for Zhu Lingjing to use her connections to promote Zhou. After all, he had actually commanded a regimental unit and fought very well.

"The situation is not that bad, but we have to be prepared for a protracted war." After saying that, Yao Liangchuan sighed.

Zhou Changfeng stood with his hands behind his back, pacing slowly, and said, "The 38th Division has suffered heavy equipment losses. The next focus of sea transportation will be artillery, shells, tanks, and then food, medicine, grenades, bullets, etc. Do you understand? Don't get the order wrong."

The major staff officer at the side immediately repeated: "It is clear, commander. In order of importance, artillery, shells, tanks, food..."

"Aren't you going to add more people?" Yao Liangchuan asked doubtfully.

Zhou Changfeng smiled calmly and said calmly: "People will run away, but supplies will not, so there is no rush."

One of the biggest troubles in transporting supplies is the low efficiency of unloading. Historically, the Japanese army often faced such a dilemma during the Battle of Guadalcanal - the supplies that were finally transported were bombed to ashes by US military planes when they were unloaded on the beachhead.

While Zhou Changfeng was adjusting the deployment in an orderly manner, the navy was in chaos.

At the Naval Admiralty's headquarters in Pearl Harbor, Song Zhongkai was quite dissatisfied with Zou Pu's performance, but he had no good reason to criticize him, because there were major errors and omissions in the pre-war intelligence, and no one knew where the unknown battleship (Indiana) came from.

"...Machines are always more reliable than people. Trust the instrument first."

This matter has come to an end for the time being. The situation is rather urgent now and there is no time to summarize the experience and lessons in detail.

The naval generals, unwilling to return empty-handed, unanimously agreed that they should try to make a counterattack, attack the US fleet at night, bombard the US beachhead positions, and destroy the landing ships and various supplies.

The Ministry of War also sent instructions: the naval forces must overcome all difficulties and make every effort to cooperate with ground combat.

After comprehensive consideration, the naval generals changed their minds again.

Because many destroyers have suffered varying degrees of damage, the objective conditions for a large-scale night attack are not yet available. At the same time, the US military must be highly alert for night attacks, and forcing an attack would be like walking into the enemy's guns.

So everyone decided to take the enemy by surprise, change their target, approach the big island at night, and bombard the two airports in the southwest.

After half a night of devastation in the naval battle, there are only a few warships in good condition that can fight again.

After discussion and selection, the Navy decided to use Chenghua and Zhengde as the core, supplemented by a heavy cruiser Yanshan and seven destroyers. The scale was not large and it was convenient to command and control at night.

As the sun set that day, the temporarily formed fleet slowly sailed out of Pearl Harbor.

In order to attract the attention of the US military and make a feint to the east and attack in the west, the Navy also sent a small team of torpedo boats to the waters north of Maui to make a show of force.

In the second half of the night, six Xun-shaped torpedo boats sped lightly across the dark sea, heading straight for Maui...

At 1:15, after arriving off the coast of Kahului, they began to fire strafing and flares, and suddenly there was a loud sound of gunfire!

At 1:22, the commander of the night attack fleet, Lieutenant Colonel Hong Ying'an of the Chenghua ship, led the fleet to approach the Oshima Island and began to launch seaplanes.

At 1:30, driven by gunpowder gas catapults, several Type single-engine seaplanes roared out from the track and flew into the night sky.

At 1:44, the fleet confirmed that its position was correct and that it had not found the wrong target. However, due to concerns about encountering mines, Hong Ying'an refused to let the fleet get too close to the land.

The fleet then began preparations for bombardment, and three seaplanes quietly flew over the airport and dropped aerial flares.

Seeing that a large area of ​​land was illuminated, Hong Ying'an ordered to open fire. With his order, the 320mm main guns of Chenghua and Zhengde roared in unison, and the four twin-mounted 4mm main guns of Yanshan were not to be outdone.

The orange-red muzzle flame was particularly conspicuous in the night, spewing out one deadly heavy shell after another.

The first to be bombarded was Girod Army Airfield, and the American ground crew near the airport panicked and fled in all directions.

The half-salvo from the Yanshan was extremely accurate, and several expensive P-38 heavy fighters were blown to pieces. The nearby CCKW tanker was also affected, and more than gallons of aviation gasoline burned fiercely.

A 320mm high-kill bomb landed next to an A-20 attack aircraft. The mechanic who was doing maintenance work fell to the ground, looking at the half-buried dud less than five steps away from him in horror, then muttered "Jesus" and crawled away.

At first, the U.S. military didn't even know what was going on and thought it was an air raid by the Ming army's night fighters. It was only after a long time that they realized it was an artillery attack from the sea.

Because the terrain of the Big Island is very restrictive and there is not much flat land suitable for building an airport, the location of the US military airport is actually tactically unreasonable. The Kona Naval Air Station is a few kilometers north of the Girod Army Airfield.

This airport met with misfortune a little later, but was also bombarded with hundreds of shells, fired by the Ming army destroyers.

One F6F Hellcat after another was turned into wreckage worth $7.2 because the oil depot was hit by a 128mm high-explosive bomb, causing a physical rain of fire from the sky, and the Kona Naval Air Station was almost turned into a sea of ​​fire.

The 3rd Torpedo Boat Squadron at the nearby dock decided to launch an emergency attack, but only three torpedo boats could be launched due to the short time. These torpedo boats bravely rushed out of the port, intending to force back the Ming army's night attack fleet.

However, the intentions of the US torpedo boats were soon exposed. Hong Ying'an ordered the Qingjian destroyer to counterattack. The Qingjian immediately turned its guns to attack the invading enemy, quickly suppressing and driving away the torpedo boats.

The bombardment lasted from 1:50 to 2:45 before Hong Ying'an ordered a retreat. The two airports were bombed beyond recognition and were still surrounded by flames until dawn. Tens of thousands of gallons of aviation gasoline were burned, 55 aircraft were either destroyed or damaged, and as many as 12 pilots alone were killed or burned to death.

(End of this chapter)