Maxim didn't understand what an "anti-air reflective identification board" was when he died, so he died in a daze, and the commander of the 32nd Army, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, looked at the defense system in front of him, if he could call the vegetable cellars dug by these peasants a fortification, he thought that if he could be killed by a stray bullet now, it would be Amaterasu's grace. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

By January of the 24th year of the beginning of the Taichu Dynasty, the Japanese garrison force in the Amami Islands was the 32nd Army, with a total of four divisions and five brigades, with Oshima as the focus of defense, and the commander of the 32nd Army, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, personally commanded the 9th, 24th, and 62nd divisions and the independent 44th Brigade for defense. Ushijima Manhara planned to use the two airfields in the middle of the island as the core defense zone, first weakening the invading US forces with special attacks from the sea and air, and then concentrating his forces to annihilate the landing enemy on the waterfront beachhead. After the U.S. forces attacked the Philippines, the Japanese base camp transferred the 9th Division, which was the most combat-ready of the Oshima garrison, to Taiwan, which caused great dissatisfaction among Ushijima Mitsuru, who immediately abandoned the plan to annihilate the enemy on the beachhead on the grounds of insufficient troops, and shrank the defensive line from the central part of the country, which had relatively complete fortifications, to the mountains near Setouchi, and relied on the fortified area to carry out a lasting defense. According to the operational policy adopted by luring the US forces to deep areas without naval and air fire support, and destroying them by virtue of preset positions, the Japanese deployed 80 percent of their forces in the southern region, centered on Setouchi, and deployed only a few symbolic forces in the northern and coastal areas. Before the U.S. landing, the Japanese forces on Oshima consisted of two divisions and one brigade of the Army, plus some garrisons and marines of the Navy, totaling about 100,000 troops.

In order to ensure the defense of Kagoshima, the Japanese army base camp formulated a decisive battle plan for the air force codenamed "Operation Ten" in March 24, and concentrated a total of 2,990 combat planes of the army and navy, including 1,230 suicide planes, which were deployed in the Daiou Islands, Shikoku, Kyushu, and other areas, preparing to carry out a fierce surprise attack on the US fleet and transport ships when the US troops landed on the island, and cooperate with the 32nd Army on the island to smash the US landing. The Japanese Navy has deployed hundreds of suicide motorboats and man-operated torpedoes on Oshima and its nearby islands to carry out surface and underwater special assault operations against the US military. And the remnants of the Combined Fleet's warships will also be dispatched at the right time to make a final decisive attack.

As early as October 23, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an order to the Pacific Theater to capture Oshima, and in accordance with this instruction, Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the Pacific Theater, immediately began to organize relevant personnel to plan for this operation, and Admiral Spruance, commander of the Fifth Fleet, and Vice Admiral Turner, commander of the amphibious forces in the Pacific Theater, participated in the work of formulating the operation plan, Lieutenant General Buckner, commander of the 10th Army, Rear Admiral Brandy, Rear Admiral Reifsnyder, and Rear Admiral Hall, on 3 January, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army approved the Oshima operation plan, and on 9 February, the specific landing plan was approved. The landing date was finally set for April 1 (what a good day). The US military believes that Oshima is relatively close to the Japanese mainland, and will inevitably encounter an all-out counterattack by the Japanese air force, especially the desperate collision of suicide planes, although these suicide planes are not enough to change the final outcome of the battle, it is undeniable that the threat to the US military is huge, so the US military plans to use its air force to carry out a large-scale assault on the Japanese mainland and the Japanese air bases on overseas islands before landing, so as to weaken the strength of its air force as much as possible. At the same time, a week before the landing, the 77th Division of the Army landed on the Keirama Islands and set up an advance base so that logistical supplies and battle damage repairs could be carried out in the vicinity during the campaign. According to the plan of the US military, Spruance and Mitchell led the 58th Task Force to carry out a fierce air raid on Oshima on 1 March on the way back from the bombing of the Japanese mainland during the Battle of Iwo Jima, and conducted aerial reconnaissance and aerial photography of Oshima and Tula, providing valuable first-hand information for the campaign.

With regard to the surprise attack on the Japanese mainland air base, because it is more than 800 nautical miles away from the US bomber base on Saipan Island, only aircraft carrier-based planes and B-29 heavy bombers can reach it, because the aircraft carrier group has been fighting at sea for many days and has to take on the heavy task of sea and air cover in the upcoming landing on Oshima, it urgently needs to rest and recuperate before the start of the campaign, and the B-29 is under the command of the strategic air force unit of the US Army Air Corps, so Nimitz made a request to Admiral Arnold, commander of the Army Air Force. However, Arnold believed that this was a purely tactical mission, and was unwilling to dispatch the precious B-29, and the two sides insisted on their own words and refused to give in to each other, and Nimitz said on the one hand that the navy had fought a bloody and bitter battle on Iwo Jima and suffered heavy casualties, all in order to obtain a base for strategic bombers; On the one hand, Arnold had no choice but to make concessions and agree to use the B-29 for the bombing of aircraft factories and air bases on the Japanese mainland, as stipulated in the "Strategic Air Force Charter."

Beginning on 9 March, Major General Li Mei, commander of the 21 st Air Force, changed the original high-altitude precision bombing tactics adopted during the day to low-altitude bombing at night to bombing at night in order to improve the bombing effect of the Japanese military industry, and dismantled all the machine-planted weapons on the B-29 except for the tail gun, thus increasing the bomb load of the B-29 to seven tons, and all of them used incendiary bombs. Tokyo's 42-square-kilometer urban area was reduced to rubble, 250,000 buildings were destroyed, more than 1 million people were left homeless, 83,000 civilians were killed, and 100,000 were injured. By 19 March, about 1,600 B-29 sorties had been dispatched, dropping nearly 10,000 incendiary bombs, forcing the Japanese army to evacuate the aircraft factories in these cities, thus greatly reducing aircraft production. This is also the second time that Japan has been severely damaged by strategic bombing, and it is clear that the lessons of the past 20 years have not made the Japanese understand the true meaning of air superiority, and the F5 fighters imported from China are still unable to confront the Super Air Fortress.

On March 27 and 31, at the request of Nimitz, the 21st Air Force switched to bombing Japanese airfields in Kyushu, severely damaging the facilities of these airfields and almost paralyzing its air force in the Kyushu area. At the same time, the offensive and minelaying organized by the US military completely blocked the Shimonoseki Strait. The above-mentioned activities of the US Strategic Air Force have seriously hindered the reinforcement of the Japanese Navy and Air Force to Oshima and created extremely favorable conditions for the holding of the campaign.

In order to completely eliminate the air threat from the Japanese mainland, the 58th Task Force, the main aircraft carrier squadron of the US Fifth Fleet, set out from the Ulisi base on 14 March under the command of Commander Mitchell to attack the Japanese mainland after a short rest of 10 days.

On the night of 17 March, the task force was discovered by Japanese reconnaissance planes, and two different opinions appeared within the Japanese base camp on this: some held that this was an advance aviation fire preparation carried out by the US military for landing on Oshima, and that a counterattack should be carried out quickly; Some believe that a counterattack should be organized after the landing has begun, and that it should not be lightly attacked before the situation is clear, so as to avoid unnecessary losses. In the end, the base camp took into account the serious loss of air force and the fact that the new unit was training in a surprise attack, even if it was beneficial to train for an extra day, so as long as the signs of the US landing were not obvious, the air force should not be used as much as possible in order to preserve its strength.

On 18 March, Task Force 58 arrived about 90 nautical miles southeast of Kyushu and began to launch carrier-based aircraft to raid Kyushu's airfields in the early hours of the morning. Although Vice Admiral U Huan-hsu, commander of the Japanese Navy's Fifth Air Fleet, received an order to wait for the US landing formation to make a surprise attack, he believed that if he did not counterattack, his air force would be wiped out on the ground if the US forces bombed him, so he still gave the order to attack. The planes of both sides staggered through the air, and the US planes met only slight resistance in the skies over Kyushu, but there were basically no planes on the airfield, and the results of the battle were very small. At the same time that the US forces attacked the Japanese airfield, 193 Japanese planes also launched an attack on the US fleet, the "Fuller" aircraft carrier was hit by a bomb, and a Japanese suicide plane was hit and exploded on the side of the "Yongmeng" aircraft carrier, and the fragments fell to the hangar deck of the aircraft carrier, causing a fire, killing 2 sailors and wounding 43 people, and the "Phoenix" aircraft carrier was also damaged, the hull was blown open by two gaps, and the sailors were killed and 26 wounded. The Japanese lost 161 aircraft.

"It looks like the little devil is going to fight hard. They have not yet made a substantive statement on the issue of joining the same party, and I think we should help them burn this fire more vigorously. Deng Xianxian's point of view is very representative of the meaning of the diplomatic department: "The conditions of the Americans are quite cost-effective, should we put napalm * oil bombs."

"These conditions can be negotiated, and our core interest is not to bring down Japan, but to force Japan to change course and join the community as a subject country through US pressure." Zhou Zhongfu's views basically represent the ruling policy of Wu Chenxuan, which is almost universally recognized.

"The Prime Minister is right, we don't need an ally, but a subject that must depend on us. In this sense, at this stage, we and the United States share the same goal, which is to destroy Japan's basic industrial system and infrastructure, and to prevent the possibility of Japan's rearmament as much as possible. Only a weakened Japan will be able to consider their vassal status and be accepted by us and other vassal states. Although the military represented by Zhang Jianyuan of the General Staff has obvious psychological advantages over Japan, it does not intend to beware of the tricks of the little devils when dealing with the Yankees. Speaking of which, everyone looked at the old head who was slowly washing tea. Wu Chenxuan put down the tea wash in his hand and smiled slightly.

"This sunshine green still has to be washed before killing, everyone wait, the flag has not been fully unfurled." The gray-haired old man patiently looked at the young leaves flying up and down in the glass pot.