The Rise of the Third Reich

"This is all nonsense! Rushing directly from Palmyra Atoll to Midway Island, taking a straight line of 1,300 nautical miles, sailing at a high speed of 25 knots for 52 hours, without considering air cover... This is not fighting the Pacific War. , we are obviously fighting the Russo-Japanese War and the Sino-Japanese War!”

This was the then-Japanese Navy Commander-in-Chief Marshal Nagano Shushen’s evaluation of the “running attack + night attack” combat plan reported by the 8th Fleet Headquarters.

This combat plan took Kami Shigetoku 30 minutes to make. It was very simple and ancient, and did not consider air cover at all (Kami Shigetoku and Mikawa Junyi did not understand aviation warfare). It means to concentrate the main force of the 8th Fleet, attack Midway Island from Palmyra Atoll, calculate the time to enter the battlefield, use the cover of night to fight a night battle with the unknown number, unknown situation, and unknown U.S. fleet before dawn. Go, retreat toward Oahu.

In the eyes of the "ship faction" staff and the "aviation faction" staff in the military command department, this plan is an out-and-out suicide plan. Because the Japanese military estimates that the U.S. Navy has assembled at least 50 aircraft carriers in the waters near Midway Island!

50 ships! There might be 2,000 planes on it!

Moreover, in addition to aircraft carriers, the U.S. Pacific Fleet also has at least two Iowa-class battleships and one USS Washington... These are all battleships with 406mm caliber cannons. The dozen cruisers of the 8th Fleet, What if a destroyer encounters someone other than to die?

Even a night attack? Don’t you know the Americans have radar? The 27 406mm cannons on the three battleships can smash Mikawa Junichi's flagship Chokai heavy cruiser into pieces at a distance of 30 kilometers. The Type 90 torpedoes on it (the three Kaohsiung-class heavy cruisers have not yet been equipped with Type 93 spears) Torpedoes) won’t even have a chance to launch!

This irresponsible combat plan can only have one consequence if implemented in the end, and that is to break the jade!

But now the head of the Japanese Navy is not Military Commander Nagano Shushen, but Navy Minister Isoroku Yamamoto.

"Since we have decided to join the ship together, what else is there to be reluctant to do?" Isoroku Yamamoto argued against all opinions at the combat meeting of the Military Command Department. "And in the 'Jie No. 1' plan, the 8th Fleet was originally going to fight at night. and mine warfare to attack the American fleet. How could such a surprise attack not take risks?

If Mikawa's plan is rejected now, then the 8th Fleet will not be able to do anything in the 'Operation Jie-1'. It is better to transfer the 8th Fleet back to the homeland as soon as possible. "

Yamamoto Isoroku finally made the decision: the combat operations of the 8th Fleet will be decided by Mikawa Junichi freely.

After receiving the permission for combat, Mikawa Junichi immediately gathered the 16 ships he had brought to Palmyra Atoll and swooped towards the waters of Midway Island at high speed with a gamble mentality.

These 16 ships are: Chokai heavy cruiser, Aoba heavy cruiser, Kinugasa heavy cruiser, Kako heavy cruiser, Furutaka heavy cruiser, Tenryu light cruiser, Yubari light cruiser, Kawauchi light cruiser , light cruiser Isuzu, destroyer Shimakaze, destroyer Tanakaze, destroyer Yamagumo, destroyer Kasumi, destroyer Shiroro, destroyer Maysame and destroyer Ekaze.

Among them, the Nadakaze destroyer is not the Nadakaze among the Minekaze-class destroyers built in the Taisho period, but the second ship of the Shimakaze-class destroyer started in Showa 16 (the Minekaze-class Nadakaze was taken over by the United States in 1943 The submarine was sunk in the waters of the Southern Ocean). The Shimakaze class is the perfect fleet destroyer in the eyes of the Japanese Navy. It has been built in large quantities since the second half of 1942 (32 planned) to make up for the shortage of destroyers in the Japanese Navy.

The standard displacement of this class of destroyers reaches 2,567 tons, and the maximum speed is as high as an astonishing 40.9 knots! It also has a terrifying "heavy mine" configuration, equipped with three 5-unit 610mm torpedo launch tubes (used to launch Type 93 spear torpedoes), which can launch 15 powerful Type 93 torpedoes at a time. It is the ideal "torpedo team" "Core!

In addition to the two "Shimakaze" class ships, there are 13 ships in Mikawa Junichi's fleet equipped with terrifying Type 93 torpedoes. Only the flagship Chokai heavy cruiser does not have Type 93 torpedoes. However, the scene of 15 ships launching more than a hundred Type 93 torpedoes at the same time still made Mikawa Junichi and Kami Shigetoku extremely excited. They did not expect that at this time, an American admiral was considering whether to annihilate them immediately. This is their fleet!

"Commander, send out the attack aircraft group," Rear Admiral Browning, chief of staff of the 5th Fleet and chief of staff of Task Force 50, said to his immediate superior Spruance. "According to reports from reconnaissance aircraft and submarines, this is an unmanned attack aircraft group." Small fleet covered by aircraft."

What was discovered was of course the main force of Japan's 8th Fleet under Mikawa Junichi. The reconnaissance plane dispatched by the U.S. 50th Task Force discovered them at 8:35 a.m. on February 8, Hawaii time. At this time, the 50th Task Force had already slipped from the waters northeast of Midway Island to the waters southwest of Midway Island. It was only more than 200 nautical miles away from the Mikawa Fleet that was heading north!

And it is different from the all-fighter configuration of the US aircraft carriers in the previous Battle of Christmas Island. This time, the 16 fleet aircraft carriers (including light fleet aircraft carriers) owned by the 50th Task Force and the 30th Task Force were all equipped with dive bombers. and torpedo bombers.

All Essex classes have 24 SBD-5 dive bombers and 18 TBF/TBM-1C torpedo bombers, as well as 24 F4U and 24 F6F, and 9 backup aircraft.

There are 24 SBD-5, 11C, 18 F4U and 18 F6F on the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, as well as 8 backup aircraft.

On all Independence-class aircraft carriers, there are 9 SBD-5, 1C, 12 F6F, and 4 backup aircraft.

In other words, the 50th Task Force, which has 10 aircraft carriers (4 Essex-class, 6 Independence-class), has quite powerful anti-ship capabilities!

Moreover, the fleet air defense capabilities of the 50th Task Force and the 30th Task Force (Halsey serves as commander) are not weak at all, because all the fighter pilots on these two fleets have participated in the Battle of Panama and the Battle of Christmas Island and veterans of the subsequent series of air and sea battles, all of whom had shot down at least one Japanese fighter.

In addition, all dive bomber and torpedo aircraft pilots on these 16 aircraft carriers are also selected from veteran pilots who have participated in many actual combats.

The reason why the 50th Task Force and the 30th Task Force were equipped with elite soldiers and generals was of course because they wanted to fight to the death with the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet.

The 740 carrier-based (commonly used) aircraft on these 16 aircraft carriers are definitely the essence of the US naval aviation, and their only target is the Japanese aircraft carrier!

So Spruance rejected Browning's suggestion without hesitation: "We will continue to hide until the Japanese aircraft carrier appears!"

"But what about this Japanese fleet?" Browning asked, "They are probably going to Midway."

"Vice Admiral Turner has enough strength to deal with a small Japanese fleet." Spruance said with certainty.

Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner is the amphibious warfare commander of the 5th Fleet personally selected by Spruance (actually responsible for the landing). Although the US ships currently staying near Midway Island are not organized They all belong to Task Force 51, but because they are performing land missions, they are all under the command of Lieutenant General Turner.

However, the ships remaining near Midway were not the main force of the 51st Task Force. Otherwise, with 9 battleships there, Mikawa Junichi and Kami Shigetoku would really be dying.

Since the mission of Task Force 51 after occupying Midway Island was to lure the enemy and consume Japanese fighter planes (just like the Battle of Christmas Island), Lieutenant General Fletcher detached a patrol group to cover the landing fleet, and then took the The main force of the fleet approaches the Hawaiian Islands in a mighty manner to gain a sense of presence.

According to the Americans' wishful thinking, the 51st Task Force could sink as few as 180 ships. As long as all the Japanese shore-based aircraft in the Hawaiian Islands were wiped out, the air superiority of the Hawaiian Islands would be obtained.

The 50th Task Force and the 30th Task Force ambushed the aircraft carriers of the Japanese Combined Fleet. As long as they can succeed, they will also gain control of the sea in the Hawaiian Islands.

The main mission of Task Force 31 is to capture Christmas Island. On the one hand, it serves as a base for the US Navy near the Hawaiian Islands; on the other hand, it serves as a transfer station for B-29s to Australia (this role can also be assumed by Midway Island); On the other hand, it serves as the base for B-17 and B-24 bombing of the Hawaiian Islands - B-17 and B-24 are prepared to drop coagulant and mustard gas bombs!

Finally, the B-29 and the hundreds of submarines deployed in the South Ocean and the Western Pacific (there is no sea control in this time and space, so the submarine force becomes very large), will also play a role in the Second Battle of the Hawaiian Islands!

Work to deploy the B-29 began in the fourth quarter of 1943, and solidified weapons, bombs, fuel, and B-29 spare parts had been shipped to Australia. At the same time, the US military in Australia (commanded by MacArthur) began building large airports in Darwin and Port Hedland in northwest Australia in October 1943 that could be used by 1,000 B-29s.

Once some B-29s are in place, the devastating bombing of Southeast Asian oil fields and the frenzied destruction of submarine forces will begin at the same time. Japan can either send limited aviation forces to Southeast Asia to protect oil fields and waterways, or it can only watch the loss of its oil sources.

If Japan has no oil, the Hawaiian Islands will certainly not be able to hold on.