Chapter 544: The First Battle of Hawaii - Ending

When people are unlucky, drinking cold water will clog their teeth. And when a ship is in bad luck, it is like this with the battleship Mutsu. Obviously, he only received two 16-inch shells, and the hits were not particularly critical, but he became hemiplegic due to bad luck. Power is lost and the fire spreads. If the Nagato had not fought well and almost sunk the Colorado single-handedly, the Mutsu battleship would have probably been sunk by the Colorado.

However, the Mutsu is not much better now. It has just barely recovered some power, so it can pump water to extinguish the fire. The fire is finally under control, but it cannot be extinguished for a while, and the speed has not recovered. It can only drag at a turtle speed of 5 knots. Slowly sailing on the sea with thick smoke. This is really an easy target to discover! Fortunately, it started to rain at dawn today, so American planes should not be able to take off.

Of course, the Nagato had no time to accompany the Luo slowly crawling on the sea. Takasu Shiro left the three destroyers Yukikaze, Nowaki, and Shigure to escort Luo's slow sailing, and he led the main force of the fleet to fight with Yamamoto Isoro. Six rendezvous - This was actually Yamamoto Isoroku's order, because the commander's cabin, chief of staff cabin and staff cabin on the Yamato were all burned and could no longer serve as the flagship of the combined fleet. Moreover, the Yamato itself suffered considerable trauma and needed to return to Japan for overhaul as soon as possible. So Yamamoto Isoroku decided to move the headquarters back to the Nagato.

When Yamamoto Isoroku made the two decisions to move the headquarters and return the Yamato as soon as possible. But he didn't expect that his opponent would not give up even after losing to this point, and was actually prepared to gamble on his last capital - the USS Wasp and USS Raider aircraft carriers!

"Commander, do you really not need the Wasp and the Raider to cover us?"

On the battleship Washington, Rear Admiral Frederick, Chief of Staff of the Pacific Fleet, glanced at the cloud-covered sky with some concern. Nimitz's command had now been transferred to the USS Washington, the last battleship in the Pacific Fleet. The Washington, escorted by more than a dozen light cruisers and destroyers, hid under a large rain cloud about 80 nautical miles southeast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Although there was cloud cover, there was not a direct-covering aircraft circling in the sky. The two aircraft carriers that originally left San Diego with Task Force 7 are now 130 nautical miles northeast of the Big Island of Hawaii, preparing to launch an air attack.

"No need." Nimitz replied simply.

He said with a smile: "The Japanese aviation force now has to pursue Halsey, support the Oahu operation, and protect the injured 80,000-ton battleship and the two similarly injured Nagato-class ships (Nagato). It also suffered five 16-inch shells, but only one hit). And because of the weather, the Wasp and the Raider must have launched the air attack first. When the Japanese were bombed, they would definitely send out planes to search if the weather was good. To the northeast, ignoring the thunderstorms from time to time, we are safe. Where is Spruance? "

Spruance was very lucky last night, as the Japanese battleship Hiei's radar was damaged and prevented him from effectively tracking his three cruisers and one destroyer. Moreover, he successfully lured the Hiei away from Kaneohe Bay, allowing several other destroyers to rescue some people, including more than 200 valuable carrier-based aircraft pilots.

"We are still 50 nautical miles away, and we will meet up in 2 hours."

"Where is the Japanese battleship? Are you still following it?" Nimitz asked.

"I'm not following anymore, I'm already gone." Rear Admiral Frederick sighed softly and said with a wry smile, "It's still unlucky. It would be great if the King Kong-class battleship was lured over. It will definitely not be the opponent of the Washington."

It is really unlucky that the Pacific Fleet lost two more valuable battleships in this battle! Moreover, the battle on Oahu was an ugly defeat. Only a small part of the people who were preparing to retreat withdrew. The result of the battle was only to destroy a Nagato-class and medium-sized Japanese battleship of 80,000 tons.

"Someone will be sunk, there will be one," Nimitz said with a smile. "Fletcher will not let me down. And the 80,000-ton Japanese battleship looks like it will take several months to repair. Before that, the Japanese should be unable to launch a counterattack against Australia, and they will also have to worry about defending Hawaii, which is not easy for the Japanese.”

…

"Commander, the Marine Corps has taken Diamond Mountain, and the first Taiwanese mixed brigade that has landed on land has now begun to attack Honolulu."

Yamamoto Isoroku, who was frowning and inspecting the burned commander's hall, chief of staff cabin, staff cabin and other places on the Yamato, got some good news that made him happy.

"Ugaki-kun, it seems that the Battle of Hawaii will be a complete victory in a few days." Yamamoto Isoroku said, "By then we will be able to use Hawaii to contain a large number of U.S. naval forces."

Matoi Ugaki seemed to disagree with Yamamoto Isoroku's point of view. He shook his head and said: "Commander, we will also deploy a large number of troops in Hawaii, and our strength will also be restrained."

"We will also be restrained?" Yamamoto smiled, "Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Ugaki said, "The Hawaiian Islands are the key point guarding the central Pacific and the gateway to the Western Pacific. As long as we firmly guard it, the United States will be unable to threaten our empire's hegemony in the Western Pacific. It's just that Hawaii is far away from our empire. The mainland is far away, with a distance of more than 3,000 nautical miles. Therefore, the transportation of supplies is difficult. If we want to maintain hundreds of thousands of troops and thousands of regular aircraft in Hawaii, the amount of supplies our empire needs to replenish Hawaii every year will probably be extremely huge. It requires occupying millions of tons of merchant ships for continuous transportation.”

Ugaki has always opposed the occupation of Hawaii, because in his view, although occupying Hawaii will require a huge price, the cost of occupying it is really negligible compared with the long-term defense of Hawaii.

"Do you need that many?" Yamamoto Isoroku smiled and shook his head and said, "Hawaii will be destroyed if there is no war. The war must be a decisive battle. It is a battle for the national destiny of our empire and the United States. Therefore, neither the United States nor our country dare to take it lightly. The Battle of Hawaii has begun. Now that Hawaii has fallen into our hands, the United States will not easily counterattack until it is fully prepared. There may not be a second Battle of Hawaii in three to five years, so we will not waste time in Hawaii. Instead of using military and financial resources, it is better to use bluff and create an empty city strategy. As long as the Americans mistakenly believe that Hawaii is heavily stationed and do not dare to invade easily, we will achieve our goal. "

Set up an empty city plan in the Hawaiian Islands! ? Ugaki stared at Yamamoto Isoroku, whose head was wrapped in gauze and whose expression was a little unpredictable. I thought to myself: No wonder I can become a commander, I just have ideas! Hawaii, which was conquered with so much hard work and at such a high price, could be used as an empty city. Those stupid Americans must not have thought of it. If the empty city plan can be made more realistic, for example, it can be claimed that there are thousands of planes, tens of thousands of missiles, and an imperial army of 830,000. So how can the United States dare to attack Hawaii if it doesn't have dozens of warships and hundreds of aircraft carriers? And to save so many ships, even the United States would have to spend ten or eight years, right?

Moreover, while the United States is preparing to counterattack the Hawaiian Islands, it must also guard against Japan using the Hawaiian Islands as a base to attack the west coast of the United States and Canada, and also guard against the Japanese break-up fleet setting off from the Hawaiian Islands to attack the United States-Australia route. Therefore, the considerable strength of the U.S. Navy will be contained by the Hawaiian Islands. This way Japan can do whatever it wants in the Western Pacific.

When Matoi Ugaki was secretly admiring Yamamoto Isoroku, a staff officer from the Combined Fleet Headquarters suddenly rushed into the Yamato officers' mess that had been occupied by Yamamoto and Ugaki as a temporary headquarters. As soon as he entered the door, he even forgot to perform military salutes and shouted: "Commander, the Mutsu was bombed! The Mutsu was sunk by American planes!"

Yamamoto Isoroku and Ugaki Matoi jumped up suddenly, both of them looking inexplicably surprised.

Ugaki said: "How is that possible? It's raining outside!"

The waters where the Yamato is located are currently windy and raining, and planes cannot come at all, but it is not raining in the entire waters near Hawaii.

The staff officer said: "The Yukikaze's telegram said that within an hour of the heavy rain over there, dozens of American planes arrived and dropped dozens of torpedoes and bombs. The Mutsu was hit by 4 torpedoes. and 5 bombs, one of which hit Mutsu's No. 3 turret and caused a big explosion."

It turned out that the fire ignited on the Mutsu became a very eye-catching target on the sea. As a result, it attracted an American submarine wandering near the Hawaiian Islands and followed it all the way. Because there were three destroyers, Yukikaze, Shigure and Nowaki, guarding Mutsu, the timid American submarine did not find the opportunity to launch a torpedo - in fact, the sonar on the Japanese destroyer was very poor and the submarine was not detected at all. So when the heavy rain stopped, the submarine summoned dozens of American aircraft by telegraph, and a bomb torpedo sank the Mutsu.

"Baga!" Ugaki Matoi cursed, "There are American aircraft carriers nearby, and they haven't escaped yet."

Yamamoto Isoroku ordered angrily: "Order Nagumo to send a Comet aircraft to search as soon as the sky clears. Under no circumstances can the American aircraft carrier escape!"

Yamamoto Isoroku also looked a little ugly. Yamato was destroyed, Mutsu sank, and two army aircraft carriers were lost. More than a hundred carrier-based aircraft were lost one after another. The aircraft were nothing, but the pilots on them were all precious. ah. Although the battle in the Hawaiian Islands was won, the price seemed to be high.