Chapter 948: The Land of Fate

I don’t know if it was because the threat of germ bombs every day made Americans impatient, but the US offensive against the Hawaiian Islands began earlier than expected.

On January 30, 1944, the US 3rd Fleet, which had just passed through the Panama Canal, was reinforced by some of the ships of the US 5th Fleet and the 9th Fleet waiting there, and joined the landing fleet from San Diego to form a new 3rd Fleet.

According to the order of Admiral Halsey, commander of the 3rd Fleet and commander of the Central Pacific Command, the 3rd Fleet was immediately divided into the 30th and 31st Task Forces. Among them, the 30th Task Force was a fast fleet with aircraft carriers as its core, with Admiral Halsey personally serving as the commander. The main force of the fleet included the flagship "Enterprise" aircraft carrier and five "Independence" class light fleet aircraft carriers, including "Langley", "San Juan", "Guantanamo", "Panama Canal", and "Oahu". Under the escort of one Baltimore class heavy cruiser, four Cleveland class light cruisers, four Oakland class light cruisers, and 25 Fletcher class destroyers, it sailed at a speed of up to 21 knots and headed straight for Christmas Island, 4,700 nautical miles away.

The main force of the 3rd Fleet and the huge landing fleet formed the 31st Task Force, commanded by Lieutenant General Kinkaid (the commander of the landing force was Lieutenant General George Patton who participated in the Battle of England). It left the Port of Panama on January 31, 1944 and sailed slowly towards Christmas Island at a speed of 12 knots.

At the same time, the 5th Fleet merged with some of the main ships of the 7th Fleet and also formed two task forces - the 50th Task Force and the 51st Task Force.

Like the 3rd Fleet, the 50th Task Force is also an aviation fleet with fast aircraft carriers as the main force, led by Admiral Spruance. The fleet has four Essex-class large fleet aircraft carriers, including the Essex, the Intrepid, the Hornet, and the Yorktown (not the one that sank in the Western Pacific, but a newly commissioned Essex-class), as well as six Independence-class aircraft carriers, including the Independence, the Princeton, the Bretton, the Coppens, the Monterey, and the Pearl Harbor. They are also escorted by dozens of Baltimore-class, Cleveland-class, Oakland-class, and Fletcher-class aircraft carriers, and are heading to the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands at lightning speed.

The main force of the 5th Fleet merged with another large-scale fast landing fleet to form the 51st Task Force, commanded by Vice Admiral Fletcher, and also sailed at a relatively fast speed to the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands.

However, unlike the last time when the German intelligence network reported the dispatch of the US fleet at the first time, this time the German intelligence network in San Diego was paralyzed by the Japanese bacterial attack - now the entire Southern California is on the highest alert, and non-military personnel are evacuated as much as possible. The spies of the German Central Security Bureau are all "non-military personnel". They are either infected with bacteria dropped by the Japanese or evacuated to the central United States...

In addition, in order to guard against Japanese bomb balloons and a possible new round of aircraft bombing (dropping bacterial bombs), the Pacific Fleet sent a large number of destroyers, escort destroyers and large long-range patrol aircraft to patrol near the west coast of the United States, but no Japanese bomber group was found, but 5 Japanese submarines were sunk in succession.

Two of them were sunk in the last few days of January, resulting in no Japanese submarine being in a position to monitor San Diego Harbor when the 50th and 51st U.S. Task Forces attacked.

This means that the Japanese knew nothing about the 50th and 51st Task Forces!

…

"The Americans' target is obviously Christmas Island!"

At the operational meeting of the Japanese headquarters, the leaders of the navy and the army reached a rare consensus.

Sugiyama Gen, Chief of the Army General Staff, said: "The Americans obviously want to repeat the old tricks of the first Christmas Island Battle, using powerful fleet anti-aircraft firepower and aircraft carriers equipped with all fighters to consume the lives of our pilots!"

"It must be like this!" Yamamoto Isoroku nodded, "But this time, what awaits the Americans will be our powerful mine warfare team and submarine fleet. The American devils will experience the power of the 93 Long Lance torpedo."

The so-called "mine warfare team" mines do not refer to the round mines placed in the water, but torpedoes.

Like aviation weapons, torpedoes are also weapons that are highly valued by the Japanese Navy. There are a large number of "mine warfare experts" among the senior generals of the Japanese Navy. The current commander of the Combined Fleet, Chuichi Nagumo, was originally a "mine expert" and once served as the principal of the Mine School.

Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi, commander of the Japanese Navy's 8th Fleet stationed in the Hawaiian Islands, is also a mine expert. He once commanded the formation to defeat the British (Australian) and American fleets with torpedoes in the Nanyang and South Pacific operations.

Isoroku Yamamoto transferred Mikawa Gunichi and his fleet to the Hawaiian Islands in order to use his mine warfare capabilities to severely damage the US fleet on Christmas Island.

In addition, Vice Admiral Takagi Takeo, commander of the Japanese 6th Fleet, also went to Pearl Harbor in person to command submarine operations these days-Japan's 6th Fleet is actually the submarine headquarters of the Japanese Navy, not a real fleet, so the fleet commander works on shore.

However, unlike the two generations of leaders of the German Navy's submarine force, Dönitz and Friedeburg, who were both submarine experts from U-boats, the commander of the Japanese 6th Fleet is not necessarily a submarine expert.

For example, Takagi Takeo's two predecessors, Komatsu Teruhisa and Shimizu Mitsumi, had never worked on submarines. Under the command of these two submarine commanders who had never worked on submarines, although the Japanese submarine force had good equipment and a large number of submarines, it was not surprising that it could not achieve the same brilliant results as the German submarines.

Takagi Takeo was a little better than the previous two. He was a submariner and served as an instructor at a diving school and a submarine captain. However, he was transferred to the surface fleet in November 1929 and never returned to the submarine force until he became the commander of the 6th Fleet on June 21, 1943... The reason for this is probably related to the promotion rules of the Japanese Navy and the status of the Japanese submarine force.

In Germany, the submarine force is a relatively independent branch of the military, affiliated with the navy, but not the high seas fleet. In Japan, the independence of the submarine force is not high, and the officers of the submarine force do not have their own independent promotion system. Therefore, after reaching a certain level, they have to participate in the rotation and promotion of naval officers. Sometimes they are squadron staff officers, sometimes they work in the military headquarters to gain experience, and sometimes they become captains...

Takeo Takagi even served as the commander of the naval base (Magong Guard Office and Kaohsiung Guard Office) for a long time before he became the commander of the 6th Fleet. Submarines... It was more than ten years ago, and what Takeo Takagi mastered was actually outdated.

Therefore, Japan's submarine force does not have its own combat ideas. It has always been part of the surface fleet, responsible for reconnaissance and sneak attacks on the enemy's surface fleet.

In the "Operation Jie No. 1" plan, the submarines of the 8th Fleet and the 6th Fleet, which are mainly "heavy torpedo" cruisers (including heavy cruisers and light cruisers) and destroyers, will be used in the "Christmas Island Mine Warfare".

According to the plan, the "heavy torpedo ship" of the 8th Fleet and the submarine of the 6th Fleet will ambush near the waters near Palmyra Atoll and Christmas Island respectively before the US fleet approaches Christmas Island, and the submarine will wait for an opportunity to launch a sneak attack. The "heavy torpedo ship" will launch a night attack after the landing operation begins, striving to inflict the greatest damage to the invading enemy...

However, the day after Mikawa Gunichi personally led 16 heavy cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers to leave Pearl Harbor, a disturbing news reached the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet, the "Yamato".

On the night of February 5, Hawaii time, two "Type 1 Land Attack" aircraft equipped with airborne radars responsible for searching the North Pacific Ocean lost contact after reporting that they were attacked by unknown enemy aircraft!

In addition, before losing contact, the second "Type 1 Land Attack" also reported that the airborne radar had found more than 10 surface ships, about 1,000 nautical miles northwest of the Hawaiian Islands.

"Northwest of the Hawaiian Islands..." Nagumo Chuichi immediately walked to the chart table.

The fleet chief of staff Kusaka Ryunosuke immediately marked the specific location on the nautical chart, and then he said to Nanyun: "Commander, the enemy's target is Midway Island!"

"Midway Island..." Nanyun Chuichi frowned slightly, "The Americans really know how to choose a place!"

It turned out that Nanyun Chuichi had always been worried about the territory of Midway Island, because Midway Island is a small archipelago composed of three coral reef islands (Sha Island, Dong Island and Spit Island) with a total land area of ​​only 6.2 square kilometers. Because Midway Island has enough land to build an airport for large aircraft to take off and land, its strategic position is very important. It has been a naval base of the United States since 1903.

However, Midway Island is too small and too flat, with no strategic locations to rely on. If large-caliber naval guns are bombarded for a few days, there may be no living people on it. Moreover, Midway Island has wide channels on all sides, and there are no reefs to block the landing troops. The Americans are very familiar with it, so it is almost impossible for the Japanese army to rely on the garrison on the island to hold on for a long time.

However, these small coral reef islands are less than 1,500 kilometers away from Oahu, and even closer to Kauai and Niihau, only more than 1,200 kilometers.

This means that once the Americans control Midway Island, the combat radius of the troublesome P-51B/C will cover Kauai and Niihau. If there are any improvements to increase the range, Oahu can be covered by P51B/C...