Iron Cross

"The commander believes that after we break the Australia-New Zealand route, it will be difficult for the fleet not to be discovered by the enemy. First, we need to use this magnificent formation to put pressure on the enemy. Second, such a large fleet is indeed nowhere to hide when attacking near the coast."

Genda Minoru nodded, this inference is very obvious.

"The enemy situation this time is very special. First, the fleet is carrying aircraft carrier replenishment ships and aircraft transport ships. There are enough aircraft and they are not afraid of losses at all; second, the main force of the enemy fleet is in Tarawa. Except for some submarines, there are no opponents who can challenge us in the entire Australia-New Zealand waters." Kusaka Ryunosuke explained, "This determines that the only ones who can attack us are enemy army attack aircraft. As long as our downed pilots are alive, the fleet can recover its strength tomorrow, but the US aircraft, especially the pilots, will be one less after each fight. On the contrary, if we attack by force, our pilots will be one less after each fight, but the enemy can be replenished quickly."

"I understand, so The commander hopes to attract the enemy and consume them. "Minoru Genda let out a long breath, "Now it depends on how the enemy responds."

The Australians don't know whether they understand this strategy, but whether they understand it or not, after the B-24 reported the discovery of the enemy fleet, the Army Air Force 7th Air Force immediately prepared for an air strike. This air force is the main air force deployed by the US military in the South Pacific. It is essentially responsible for supporting ground attacks, not for sea attacks. Therefore, most of the bombers are heavy aircraft such as B-24\\B-25\\B-17, there are very few SBD dive bombers, and there is no TBF torpedo attack aircraft.

This structure is not conducive to anti-ship, but they can only bite the bullet and send bombers to carry out air strikes.

At 16:45, a large number of 4-engine bombers arrived over the fleet's target. The intelligence was undoubtedly very accurate. The leader, Colonel Williams, suddenly discovered that the enemy fleet had set up a standard wheel-shaped air defense formation, divided into a total of 6 fleets with a wide range, which can be roughly summarized as 2 transport units, 2 battleship units and 2 aircraft carrier units, waiting for his arrival. He hesitated for a moment, and still followed the agreement before departure to deal with the aircraft carrier cluster first.

B-17\\B-24\\B-25 was not afraid of Bf-219 interception because of its flight altitude advantage, but Williams still let some fighters go down to entangle with the Japanese army, because if the bomber group wanted to achieve effective hits later, it had to lower its flight altitude, and he didn't want to be surrounded by enemy fighters at that time.

Since the most advanced P-51 and P-47 fighters were mostly supplied to the European battlefield, and the more advantageous F4U did not belong to the Army Air Force, the main fighters of the 7th Air Force were still P-40\\P-38. Williams knew that the P-40 was inferior to the Zero Fighter, but the P-38 usually had the upper hand in the confrontation with the Zero Fighter, so he boldly sent 32 P-38s down, and let another 16 P-40s cover more than 80 bombers to continue moving forward.

More than 60 Bf-219s on standby below immediately rushed up and attacked the P-38.

At the moment when the fighters were separated, the three types of anti-aircraft bombs launched by the battleships, led by the Musashi, exploded with a roar. An unlucky B-17 was just covered by the shrapnel and was broken into several pieces and fell into the sea on the spot.

Under the fierce test of artillery fire, Williams looked for several minutes and finally chose the Shokaku. First, this aircraft carrier looked the largest, and second, it seemed to have the flagship logo. Just as he was calling on all aircraft groups to descend to about 3,000 meters, the fighter commander suddenly exclaimed on the radio: "Sir, our P-38s are all gone..."

"What?" He was shocked. It was only 5 minutes, and there were 32 P-38s there.

Turning his head and taking a closer look, he was so scared that all the hairs on his back stood up. In the distance, only Japanese planes were flying freely, so where was the shadow of P-38?

The P-38 fighter pilots were careless. They only relied on the appearance and thought that they were still fighting Zero fighters, so they boldly used the tricks to deal with Zero fighters. Unexpectedly, the Zero fighter modification was not restricted by the Zero fighter problem. They were startled and confused. In addition, the Japanese army had many planes and the quality of the pilots was completely crushed. Akamatsu Sadaaki led the team to fight a blitzkrieg in 5 minutes, and used the result of 5:32 to teach the P-38 a lesson.

"We are in trouble..." Williams muttered to himself, and turned on the intercom, "Attention, all fleets, the enemy fighters are very powerful, but we have no choice but to use the method of descending altitude to drop bombs, may God be with us!" But even if the altitude dropped to 2,800 meters, the hit accuracy of such a large number of slow and heavy horizontal bombers was pitifully low. A total of more than 80 bombers successfully dropped bombs, dropping more than 500 500-pound and 1,000-pound bombs, but the final hit rate was less than 2.4%. A total of 12 bombs hit the high-speed fleet. If the 3 bombs hit by SBD are excluded, the poor horizontal bomber hit rate is less than 1.8%.

Nagato and Musashi were hit by two 1,000-pound bombs each, but were unscathed; Haruna and Kirishima were hit by a 500-pound and 1,000-pound bomb each, and the superstructure caught fire. Coupled with the old wounds from the Panama Campaign, they looked ugly, but not fatal; Nachi and Ashigara were hit by a 500-pound bomb each, losing a main gun; the real losses came from light ships, the Tianlong light cruiser and another destroyer were hit by a 1,000-pound bomb each and sank on the spot. In addition to the loss of warships, the machine gun firepower of heavy bombers also cooperated to shoot down 7 fighters.

For such a result, the US military paid a heavy price. In addition to the 32 P-38s lost earlier, it also lost 14 of the 16 SBDs, 11 of the 16 P-40s, and nearly 30 heavy bombers. Williams came with a huge formation of 150 planes, but when he returned, there were only a little over 50 planes. Looking at the scattered fleet, he had a feeling of grief and burst into tears.

The Japanese fighter planes lost a total of 15 planes, but except for two pilots who fell into the sea and died on the spot, the rest were successfully rescued by parachuting. As for the 15 planes, they would soon be replenished from the supply carrier. The air defense war planned by Tsukahara was a remarkable success.

It was late, and the sword of Damocles hanging over Melbourne was shining with cold light and was about to fall...

"Melbourne enters the highest state of emergency..."

"Melbourne city evacuation order:..."

Hearing the torrential broadcast received on the radio, everyone in the command tower of the Musashi laughed from top to bottom. It was great to put such a great pressure on the enemy. The commander used a grand formation to oppress the Australians and Americans and it would soon be transmitted to Canberra and Washington.

"Sir, will this force the enemy to withdraw from Tarawa?"

"I'm afraid it will be difficult. If it were you, would you bring the fleet back?"

"I..." Kusaka Renji was speechless. He wanted to subconsciously say that he would come back, but when he thought of the terrible prospect of a head-on confrontation, he felt that he was really overestimating his own abilities.

"I don't know how the battle of Tarawa went. The radio station hasn't received any information in the past two days." Kondo Nobutake said regretfully, "It is estimated that all of them have been killed."

"I have a hunch that Shibasaki should still be active with a small force." Hori Teikichi thought for a while, "Replenish fuel, transport troops to detour to the deep sea, and the bombardment formation is ready to attack Melbourne. Kondo-kun, please follow up."

When the Combined Fleet was showing off its power off the coast of Australia, Nimitz was inspecting Betio with a large number of senior officers. Although Holland repeatedly warned that the remnants of the Japanese army on the island had not been cleared, and the wreckage, explosives and corpses had not been cleaned up, Nimitz didn't care and insisted on going to the island to take a look.

The senior officers of the fleet and the Marine Corps studied the semi-underground bunkers of the Japanese army, listened to the report of Davey on the use of equipment and tactics, and heard the comparison of the losses of the enemy and us, especially the news that not a single Japanese soldier was captured. Nimitz exclaimed: "I have never seen such a hideous battlefield in my life."

Holland nodded solemnly: "This is an amazing Japanese commander. I am determined to use Betio as a classroom. I suggest that all amphibious officers of the Pacific Fleet come to visit and learn in person. I am still thinking about whether we can find a deserted island near Hawaii and build all the fortifications imitating Betio, so that our naval guns and marines can practice and adapt on the spot..."

Before he finished speaking, there was a burst of fierce gunfire in the distance, followed by several fierce explosions and screams.

"There are still enemies? Why can't we kill all these rats?" Halsey said angrily, "It's been 18 days since the war started..."

Davin blushed and said embarrassedly: "We are trying our best to clear them out, but it may take some time. The Japanese army has dug a lot of continuous fortifications underground, and heavy equipment cannot enter. We can only use the most traditional infantry to fight, and fight in the dark. The Marines are not familiar with this kind of fighting method, so..."

Nimitz sighed and nodded slightly: "Don't worry, we still have time."

"Sir, Canberra and Washington have urgent telegrams!"

After reading the telegram, Nimitz's face turned pale instantly.

"Early this morning, the Japanese fleet raided Melbourne, and the naval guns bombarded the city into a sea of ​​fire. Washington asked us to rescue it. In addition, the 7th Air Force of the Army Air Force dispatched more than 150 aircraft to attack yesterday, with a loss rate of 65% and little effect. Currently, the whole of Australia is in panic. They speculate that the next target of the Japanese army is Canberra." Nimitz read out the last sentence with a serious face. "At this time when Australia is in deep crisis, where is our fleet?"