Iron Cross

When the Japanese cabinet convened urgently to discuss the US armistice conditions, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's discussion on the defense of Hawaii Island was entering a deep water zone. Ingram, who came from the front line, gave a comprehensive introduction:

…Through the air transport organized by Chennault, all the wounded in the Pearl Harbor attack have arrived on the West Coast for treatment, and some homeless people have also been properly arranged. The long-lasting fire finally stopped after being injected into the Pacific Ocean, but the social order in Pearl Harbor was far from being restored to the pre-attack state. The overall environment and social management were in a mess.

Martial law and curfew were implemented throughout the Hawaiian Islands. The troops were highly nervous and rushed to stockpile various materials and repair relevant defense systems, but Ingram thought it was far from enough.

At present, air transport is used to maintain traffic inside and outside Pearl Harbor. He believes that once the Japanese fleet is free, it will be a big question mark to maintain this transportation line - the Japanese army only needs to deploy an air fleet to intercept air transport between Hawaii and the West Coast. The heavy and weak transport aircraft force could not be a match for the carrier-based aircraft. Given the distance between Hawaii and the West Coast, there was no ability to send escort aircraft. Chennault tried night flights. Not to mention that the number of crews that could perform night flights was small, it was also unknown whether night flights could avoid being intercepted by the Japanese.

Doolittle, who had carried out night bombings, believed that under the current circumstances, it was certain to organize a few aircraft for night flights, but not more, but small batch transportation was not very meaningful now - because Pearl Harbor needed bulk materials, let alone a few aircraft smuggling, there was no way to organize a thousand aircraft strategic air transport, and it had to be transported by sea.

Take the nearly 1,000 strategic air transports in the past few days as an example. Although it seems to be a big deal, in fact, what Pearl Harbor obtained was extremely limited. At most, it only got more than 2,000 tons of aviation fuel, 120 new P-51\\P-47\\F4U fighters and related pilots, and less than 20 B-29 heavy bombers. It's not that the Army Air Force doesn't want to increase the number of aircraft. The more it increases, the more fuel it consumes. The fuel required for one B-29 cannot be supported by five fighters.

After all this trouble, there are only 443 aircraft that can still fight in Hawaii (not distinguishing between Army and Navy, but excluding transport aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, and water reconnaissance aircraft). There are more than 800 pilots. Although most of them are of poor quality, they seem to be quite impressive, especially the carrier-based pilots trained by the Navy Air Force who lost all their aircraft carriers and now have completely become land-based pilots. .

Ingram believes that this level of air force has difficulty even in self-defense, let alone counterattack. He requires that the air force and related fuel and accessories be increased as much as possible, and the overall air force must be expanded to at least five times the current level.

But to expand, a supply fleet must be sent. Even if there are still 8 or 9 escort aircraft carriers on the West Coast, and even if Los Angeles has prepared a supply fleet, the Pacific Fleet, which has lost all its main forces, has completely become a home-based fleet. How dare it go out to sea?

Li Hai said that the Navy has urgently modified 14 small shark submarines, each of which can transport about 400 tons of fuel or 10 fighter parts (including engines) at a time, but this is far from meeting Hawaii's requirements, and submarine transportation is too slow, and a single delivery takes more than 10 days. However, with multiple approaches, it is possible to deliver once. Ingram agreed to this "submarine express" based on the principle that no matter how small a fly is, it is meat, and only asked them to be careful, because the enemy might block the waterway.

So after much discussion, the defense of Hawaii has become an unsolvable vicious circle: to defend Hawaii, there must be sufficient aviation power; without oil and crew, planes alone are useless; but without the fleet, it is impossible to transport supplies on a large scale... All the problems are stuck on the transportation line.

So Turner had to re-explain the plans he had sold to Spruance, such as "Los Angeles Express", "San Francisco Express", "Multiple Fleets Separate Actions", and "Single Ship Smuggling", but Turner was a little lacking in confidence now - after seeing the Japanese army's fierce night bombing capabilities, these originally designed plans immediately became very risky.

After discussing for a long time, no one had a clue, and finally only reached three opinions:

First, continue to maintain the air transport before it is definitely intercepted;

Second, try to use a small number of submarine forces to transport it, and if the effect is good, then modify it in large quantities;

Third, if the previous two methods are unsuccessful, try the express method and the multiple fleet method - this is clearly a transportation method with great sacrifices.

Clark originally wanted to take the opportunity to talk about the army's defense problem, but suddenly realized that there was no need to talk about it. Now even the resources needed by the Army Aviation cannot be guaranteed, and there is no support for the army's ground forces. The words came to his lips and he swallowed them back in the end, planning to take one step at a time and wait for feedback on the armistice with Japan.

Ingram's estimate this time was very accurate. Hori Teikichi, who led the entire army back, was making a comprehensive deployment to block the entire Hawaii, and the top priority was to break the trade between Hawaii and the west coast.

After the fleets reunited, Hori Teikichi's vehicle and the flagship of the Combined Fleet changed back to the Yamato, and a military meeting was held on it. Before the meeting, Kakuji Kakuta was also staged to apologize. Kakuta felt that he had implicated the entire Second Air Fleet in the oil shortage incident, and caused Hori Teikichi a lot of trouble, and also made Yano Hideo take a huge risk. He felt very sorry and made a public review at the meeting.

He was crying and regretting his decision, and bowed repeatedly.

However, Horikichi did not take this matter to heart and kept silent. He only asked about the bombing of Seattle and Boeing. When he heard that the fleet did not go straight forward but attacked from Canada in a roundabout way, he nodded and praised the attack as "soundful and moving." "Brain", when finally talking about the problem of oil shortage, Yun Danfeng mentioned it lightly and said "it won't happen next time" and ignored it. Horikichi didn't mention it, and of course no one else would mention it either. Only Shoji Nishimura was a little surprised and quietly asked Ryuunosuke Kusaka who was sitting next to him: "That's it? Sir, he's too easy on him!"

Kusaka Ryuunosuke suppressed laughter: "Nishimura-kun, knowing shame is almost courageous. He will not be so reckless next time, which is also a good thing. Could it be that you have forgotten the commander's evaluation before setting off for the expedition - 'Kakuda is good, but impatient. A little bit? It means that he had foreseen it at that time. Perhaps in the mind of the commander, the trick he made this time was completely expected and not surprising..."

Nishimura Shoji nodded repeatedly. He also remembered that sentence and thought to himself: The commander must have seen it a long time ago! He is really much smarter than us...

What moved Kakuharu Tsunoda was that Horikichi did not just say it casually, but instead assigned him an important task: to let the Second Air War, which had been fully fueled, leave the ship alone again, and also to leave the Chitose alone. He handed it over to Tsunoda. Considering that the Amagi was injured, although it did not affect its use, there was still some problem, and the Katsuragi was exchanged with the Amagi.

In this way, the aircraft carriers owned by Tsunoda are restored to three aircraft carriers, all of which are fleet aircraft carriers. Coupled with the Musashi, Kongo and several heavy cruisers in Nishimura's hands, they can continue to happily make waves and perform the full blockade duty—— This made Tsunoda burst into tears of gratitude, and it was more effective than any other incentive.

In addition to the blockade mission of the Second Air Battle, the First Air Battle in Tsukahara's hands was equipped with well-manned personnel and equipment, and was fast and powerful. After the meeting, he was prepared to cover the Midway-bound material fleet and supplies as requested by Horikichi after the meeting. The landing force set off. Since there were no battleships in the Fifth Aviation Battle, Nagato was assigned to the Fifth Aviation Battle.

The five aviation battles with greater losses will go to Midway for complete replenishment before taking over the cover mission. In addition to Amagi and Kasagi, the five aviation battles also include the Yamaha and the just-captured Bismarck (Japan does not even plan to change its name). ) escort aircraft carrier and 4 escort aircraft carriers, which seems to be the largest fleet.

Horikichi then announced the operational requirements: "The only requirement for combating the Jet 3 is to be fast! In view of the fact that there are currently no strong countermeasures on the Hawaiian islands, I think it should be taken as soon as possible, otherwise the night will be long and the dream will be long. Minister Yamamoto has proposed other forces to the Army According to the additional requirements, it is expected that our army will launch the Hawaii offensive with the two army divisions and three aviation divisions currently stocked at Midway Island. "

Everyone unanimously agreed on this: Although the existing force is smaller than the US military in Hawaii, if we wait for the arrival of the follow-up army to start the operation, it will take too long and we will undoubtedly miss the opportunity.

Seeing that there was no objection, Ryunosuke Kusaka read out the battle plan: "Sir, the total blockade of Hawaii will begin on November 3rd, the fleet attack time will be November 8th, and the launch time of the landing campaign preparations will be November 11th. On the 11th of the month…”

In Operation Jet 3, Chiaki Matsuda’s preferred landing destination was neither the largest Hawaiian Island nor the most important Oahu, but Niihau and Kauai, the two islands closest to Midway Island. The area is not large, there are not many garrison troops, and the defense system is not strong. The army is required to capture it as quickly as possible under the cover of the fleet and use it as an advance base.

He considered this very carefully: Although carrier-based aircraft pilots are elite, it is unwise to use them to compete with US army aviation pilots. By occupying these two islands, the army can take advantage of the army's aviation advantages to launch attacks after it has a forward base - those legs Short Spitfires and mosquito bombers that cannot be carrier-based can be used by the Army Aviation to consume the US Army Aviation. After all, the Army gave three entire flying divisions! When these three are almost used up, four domestic reinforcements are expected to arrive on the battlefield.

The combat radius of less than 200 kilometers from Niihau, Kauai to Oahu is completely within the range of land and aviation strikes. If the Americans want to bomb, Chiaki Matsuda would like it-but he can take advantage of the situation to consume the few American troops. of fuel reserves. Then wait for the next wave and then jump to Lanai Island to avoid the two strong bones of Oahu and Hawaii. Without planes and fleets, it will be useless even if the Americans station 100,000 troops - you will be trapped to death. Got it!

He was just halfway speaking when suddenly the telecommunications staff handed the confidential message to Horitsukichi. After reading it, the latter immediately interrupted Chiaki Matsuda's speech: "After taking Niihau and Kauai, Jet 3 is suspended and is preparing to launch Jet 3." No. 4…”

Everyone was stunned, Matsuda Chiaki and Monk Zhang Er were confused. There were only 3 numbers assigned to the battle number "Jie". Why did the commander suddenly propose "Jie 4"?

Also, what does suspending Jie No. 3 mean?