Vice Admiral Fletcher, who was in charge of supporting the operation on Kuah Island, did not want to allow his precious aircraft carrier to stay too long within the radius of the enemy's shore-based aircraft, and openly refused to stay in the waters of Kuah Island for five days, and was only willing to stay for two days. Pen ~ fun ~ Cabinet www.biquge.info his attitude made Gormley even more worried about this battle, and Gormley had no right to command Fletcher, Gormley simply handed over the command to Fletcher, and he stayed in Noumea. When Admiral Forrestal, assistant chief of naval operations who had come to Noumea to inspect the preparations for battle, learned of this, he said to Gormley: "If the American people knew that our troops were going to war like this, they would have rebelled!" "The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps actually started this most important battle for the Pacific islands in such a separate situation, and when you think about it, you feel that the little devil lost too unjustly.

Kuah is the second largest island in the Solomon Islands, discovered in the 16th century by Spanish explorers in search of the golden land of the legendary King Solomon. Tropical plants grow abundantly because of the abundant rain, and the air is always filled with a disgusting stench that has been emitted by the decay of plants that have been living and extinguishing for thousands of years, and tropical insects are fat and strong, which makes malaria rampant. Lacking the dense tropical jungles and swamps of Kuah Island, Tulagi was considered a habitable island by the British colonists, who built houses, built a small town, and even a cricket stadium unique to the British colonists.

The targets of the first amphibious operation of the United States in the Pacific Ocean were the two islands. By July 31, the U.S. fleet was departing from Fiji. On the evening of 6 August, the US landing formation had reached the sea area about 60 nautical miles away from Kuah Island, and with the cover of bad weather, it was never discovered by the Japanese army. At the same time as the landing formation sailed, the U.S. air force stationed on Efate and Espírito Santo dispatched B-17 bombers (similar to the B5 Horizon bombers provided by China to Germany) to suppress the Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands, while the U.S. planes taking off from the island of New Guinea closely monitored the Japanese forces in the Bismarck Islands and the northeastern part of the island.

At 1 a.m. on 7 August, the landing formation reached the sea area ten nautical miles from Kuah Island and was divided into two, the 1st and 5th Marine Regiments under the command of Van der Graft attacked Kuah Island through the southern waterway of Savo Island, and the unit codenamed Y-ray was four battalions commanded by Brigadier General Ruptas under the command of Deputy Division Commander to attack Tulagi Island through the northern waterway of Savo Island. Two other battalions served as reserves.

At about 6 o'clock, the warships covering the formation began shelling the Japanese positions on Kuah Island, and then the carrier-based planes that took off from the aircraft carrier flew over Kuah Island and carried out fierce bombing and strafing. With the support of naval artillery and aviation fire, the first wave of landing troops began to land at 9:40 a.m., and Colonel Hunt, commander of the 5th Marine Regiment, was the first to rush to the beachhead. Subsequently, the beachhead control group went ashore and organized follow-up troops to go ashore in an orderly manner. Because the Japanese intelligence agencies did not foresee the landing of the US troops at all, the Japanese troops on the island were unprepared, and although the Japanese troops on the island were engineering troops, they were actually Korean laborers who built the airfield, and they did not bring any weapons, and a small number of garrison troops fled into the jungle when they saw the US soldiers pressing the border, and did not dare to resist, so the US troops successfully landed without firing a shot, and by sunset, more than 11,000 people had landed on Kuah Island. But there was no accurate map, after going ashore, they groped their way through the jungle, and did not arrive at the airport until the next morning, the Japanese army hurriedly threw down the breakfast they had just made and fled into the jungle, and the American army easily took the airport, the runway was 80% completed, the tower and power plant had been built, and a large amount of food, construction equipment, and building materials were seized, but the most popular trophies were hundreds of cases of Japanese beer and a good refrigeration processing plant. Although the landing on Kuah Island was very successful, it was achieved with little Japanese defense, and if the Japanese were slightly prepared, the American army would have suffered a serious defeat. During the landing, a number of problems were exposed, the coastal control group was too short of manpower, and had to use combat units to unload supplies; Some people are too busy on the beach, while others have nothing to do, sunbathing on the beach or hunting birds in the jungle. Despite these shortcomings, the US military finally landed on Kuah Island smoothly.

Tulagi is completely different from Kuah, and the American troops who landed have withstood the real test of war. Tulagi is a natural haven with two small islands on the east side of the island: Gavutu Island and Tanambogo Island, which are like two sentinels guarding Tulagi. The British colonists had built an airstrip seaplane airfield on these two small islands before the war, but after the Japanese occupied the area, they expanded it and planned to build it into a seaplane airfield that could monitor the entire Solomon Islands. The U.S. troops overestimated the strength of the Japanese troops on Tulagi Island, concentrated artillery fire for heavy bombardment, and the Japanese troops hurriedly hid in bunkers. On the two small islands, the U.S. military underestimated the Japanese army, because the island was too small, the Japanese army organized a defense on the beach front, and the U.S. artillery preparation failed to destroy the Japanese army's fortifications built on the strong mountain cliffs, and the landing craft was launched too early, starting to attack from more than 10,000 meters away, so that the Japanese army had enough time to enter the forward fortifications, when the U.S. troops just rushed ashore and had a firm foothold, they suddenly opened fire, the U.S. commander was seriously injured, the soldiers suffered heavy casualties, and they were pressed on the beach by dense firepower. It was simply impossible to implement naval artillery fire support. It was not until a few hours later, when follow-up units brought 81-mm mortars ashore and summoned aircraft to provide aviation fire support, that the gradual advance in depth began. However, the Japanese army still stubbornly resisted with the fortifications in the cave, and the American army had to organize a demolition team to rush to the top of the mountain from the dead end of the Japanese fire, and then condescendingly threw explosives and grenades into the cave, which finally eliminated them. Due to the fierce fighting on these three islands, in order to resolve the battle as soon as possible, Vandergrift put all the reserves into battle, and at dusk the remnants of the Japanese army retreated to the valley, and that night, the American army organized four attacks in succession, annihilating most of them. It was not until the evening of the 8th that the remnants of the enemy were cleared and the three islands were occupied. In the two days of fierce fighting, all but 23 Japanese soldiers were captured, and none of them surrendered, which taught the American army the spirit of bushido for the first time. American troops lost about a hundred people.

The Japanese army on Tulagi Island sent an urgent telegram to Rabaul after being attacked by the American army, which let the Japanese know the actions of the American army, and Hyakutake believed that this would not be a formal counteroffensive by the American army, but at most an attack of a reconnaissance and harassing nature, and it was not difficult to repel it. However, if the airfield on Kuah Island was used by the US military, it would be extremely unfavorable to the situation in the South Pacific, and it was decided to quickly organize forces to retake Kuah Island. However, he was unwilling to use the offensive force in Port Moresby, so Mikawa had to draw 519 men from the Marine Corps stationed in Rabaul and divide them into the transport ship "Mingyang" and the supply ship "Soya", and escorted by a cruiser, a minesweeper, and a submarine hunter to Kuah Island. On the 8th, according to the report of the reconnaissance plane, Mikawa knew that the US military had a strong force in the waters off Kuah Island, so he ordered it to return to the sea; on the way back, the "Mingyang" was sunk by the US submarine S-38, and the 373 marines on board were buried at the bottom of the sea.

On the day of the US landing, Mikawa dispatched 51 planes of the Japanese 25th Air Force in Rabaul to attack Kuah Island, but they were effectively intercepted by 62 US carrier-based fighters, and 19 of them were shot down, without achieving any results.

The next day, 8 August, the 25th Air Force dispatched another 41 planes to Kuah Island, and at the cost of losing 16 planes, it managed to break through the interception of US planes, sinking the transport ship "Elliott" and damaging the destroyer "Jarvis." However, during the air raids, the Japanese planes only focused on attacking the US ships, but did not attack the weakly defended but extremely important -- the mountains of materials piled up on the beach, which was the biggest mistake of the Japanese army. However, it is not surprising that the Japanese air force, which did not even lift a finger at the oil depots and repair plants at Pearl Harbor, committed two crimes again.

Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi, commander of the Japanese 8th Fleet, sensed the seriousness of the situation and immediately decided to launch a counterattack, and although his warships were scattered by various tasks at this time, he quickly concentrated his nearby warships, and a total of 5 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 1 destroyer left Rabaul on the evening of 7 August and sailed south.

The Military Command Department in Tokyo did not agree with the Eighth Fleet's decision to dispatch, and the reasons for the Military Command Department were very sufficient: First of all, the Eighth Fleet had been formed for less than three weeks, and it had never conducted training to cooperate. In addition, the Eighth Fleet does not have aircraft carriers, and it has been proven that Rabaul's land-based air force cannot effectively support such a long distance, and the Eighth Fleet will be very dangerous if it encounters an attack by US aircraft carriers. Finally, it is not clear whether the Americans will start an attack or just interfere with the construction of Japanese airfields, and it will not be too late to think of countermeasures after they have figured out the intentions of the United States. However, Deputy Toyoda, who was patrolling in Rabaul, gave the Mikawa Army a combat permit, and everything was left to the discretion of the Mikawa Army. The heavy cruisers of the Japanese Eighth Fleet are all old ships that were launched more than 20 years ago, and the light cruisers are ships of the World War I period, and there is only one possibility imaginable to challenge the US aircraft carrier formation without air cover. But Mikawa Junyi is a party, and he can't and has nowhere to retreat. The British Royal Navy's credo of "fighting when you see the enemy" is also the creed of the Japanese Navy, and Mikawa can only move forward, even if Vice Admiral Toyoda pretends to be deaf and dumb.

The newly appointed staff officer of the Eighth Fleet, Kamishige Tokudaku, was stationed in Germany in his early years and was a pro-German faction in the navy. Because Germany separated its air force into an air force, while Japan did not have a corresponding branch of the military, Japan's pro-German faction, both the army and the navy, were all aviation blind. And Shen Chongde is not only aviation blind, but also fundamentally looks down on those who open their mouths and are airplanes.

The tactics adopted by Shen Chongde were as follows: Arrange the most basic column of the Japanese Navy, with the flagship rushing first, and the rest of the ships just following the flagship. It didn't matter if there was no air cover, they fought the "night battle," which the Japanese Navy was best at, fought only once, withdrew from the battlefield by chance, and retreated outside the control of the US Navy and Army Aviation before dawn to enter the airspace control area of the Labauer base.

The little devil's paranoia flared up again, and this time it was particularly strange, he actually led a group of old cruiser destroyers to take on the American task force, I really don't know if it was to die? Is it death? Or are you dying?