"The commander believes that after we break the Australia-New Zealand route, it will be difficult for the presence of the fleet not to be discovered by the enemy, first, we need to use this kind of imposing array to put pressure on the enemy, and second, it is true that such a large fleet has nothing to hide in the event of a near-shore attack. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info”

Minoru Genda nodded, this inference was very obvious.

"The enemy situation this time is very special, the first is that we are still with the fleet with aircraft carrier replenishment ships and aircraft transport ships, there are enough aircraft, and we are not afraid of losses at all; Second, the main forces of the enemy's fleet are in Tarawa, and there is no opponent in the entire Australian and New Zealand waters who can challenge us, except for some submarines. "This determines that we can only attack enemy army attack planes, and as long as our downed pilots are alive, the fleet will be able to regain its strength tomorrow, but the US planes, especially the pilots, will fight one less plane, and on the other hand, if we attack by force, our pilots will fight one less plane, but the enemy will be able to replenish them quickly." ”

"Understood, so the chief wants to attract the enemy over and consume it." Minoru Genda let out a long sigh, "Now it's up to the enemy to respond." ”

The Australians don't know whether they understand this strategy or not, but whether they understand it or not, after the B-24 report found the enemy fleet, the 7th Air Force of the Army Aviation immediately began to prepare for air strikes, the air force is the main air force deployed by the US military in the South Pacific, and is essentially responsible for supporting ground attacks, not for sea attacks, so most of the bombers are heavy aircraft such as B-24 \ B-25 \ B-17, there are few SBD dive bombers, and there is no TBF torpedo attack aircraft.

This structure is not conducive to anti-ship, but now it can only be forced to send bombers to carry out air strikes.

At 16:45, a large number of four bombers flew over the fleet target, and the intelligence was undoubtedly very accurate, and Colonel Williams, who led the team, found that the enemy fleet had set up a standard wheeled air defense array, and it was divided into a total of 6 fleets with a wide range, which could be roughly summarized as 2 transport units, 2 battleship units and 2 aircraft carrier units, waiting for their arrival. He hesitated, but according to the agreement before departure, he went to deal with the aircraft carrier cluster first.

The B-17\B-24\B-25 was not afraid of the Bf-219's interception because of the advantage of flight altitude, but Williams still let some of the fighters go down to entangle with the Japanese, because if the bomber group wanted to achieve an effective hit, it would have to reduce the flight altitude, and he didn't want to fall into the siege of enemy fighters at that time.

Since most of the cutting-edge P-51 and P-47 fighters are supplied to the European battlefield, and the more advantageous F4U does not belong to the army aviation, the main fighter force of the 7th Air Force is still P-40\P-38, and it is clear that P-40 is inferior to Zero War Williams, but P-38 can usually have some upper hand in the confrontation with Zero War, so he confidently and boldly sent 32 P-38s down, and let another 16 P-40s cover more than 80 bombers to continue to move forward.

More than 60 BF-219s on standby below immediately swarmed up and started fighting against the P-38s.

Just a moment after the fighters were separated, led by the Musashi, the anti-aircraft three-type bombs fired by the battleships exploded with a roar, and one of the unlucky B-17s happened to be shrouded in shrapnel and fell into the sea in several pieces on the spot.

Under the test of fierce artillery fire, Williams watched for several minutes, and finally chose the Xianghe, the aircraft carrier looked the largest, and secondly, it seemed to be hanging the flagship logo, just when he beckoned the groups of planes to drop the altitude to about 3,000 meters, the radio suddenly heard the exclamation of the fighter commander: "Sir, our P-38 is all finished......

"What?" He was astonished, it had only been 5 minutes, and there were 32 P-38s there.

Turning his head to take a closer look, he was so frightened that all the cold hairs on his back stood up, and only Japanese planes were flying wantonly in the distance, where was the shadow of the P-38?

The P-38 fighter pilots were careless, they only relied on their appearance, thinking that they were fighting against Zero Battle, so they were relieved and bold to use the tricks to deal with Zero Battle, but they did not expect that Zero War Reform was not limited by the Zero War problem, and they were shocked at first glance and messed up, plus there were many Japanese planes, and the quality of the pilots was completely crushed, Akamatsu Sadaaki used 5 minutes to fight a blitzkrieg, and educated P-38 to be a man with 5:32 results.

"We're in trouble...... Williams muttered to himself, turning on the intercom, "Attention all groups, the enemy fighters are very powerful, but we have no choice but to use the method of dropping altitude to drop bombs, may God be with us!" ”

But even if the altitude is reduced to 2800 meters, the hit progress of such a large number of slow and heavy heavy horizontal bombers is pitifully low, a total of more than 80 bombers successfully dropped bombs, dropped more than 500 bombs of 500 pounds and 1000 pounds, but the final hit rate was less than 2.4%, a total of 12 bombs were dropped on the high-speed moving fleet, if you exclude 3 bombs hit by the SBD, the poor horizontal bombers hit the rate of less than 1.8%.

The Nagato and Musashi each ate two 1,000-pound bombs and were unscathed; The Haruna and Kirishima were each bombed with 500 pounds and 1,000 pounds, the superstructure was on fire, and the old wounds from the Panama campaign were ugly, but they were not yet fatal; The Nachi, which ate a 500-pound bomb and lost one of its main guns; The real losses came from the light ships, the Tenryu light cruiser and another destroyer each ate a 1000-pound bomb and sank on the spot. In addition to the loss of warships, the machine-gun fire of the heavy bombers combined with the defeat of 7 fighters.

In addition to the 32 P-38s that have been lost in front, they have also lost 14 of the 16 SBDs, 11 of the 16 P-40s, and nearly 30 heavy bombers. When he came, Williams was full of ambition to lead a huge formation of 150 planes, and when he returned, there were only planes in his early 50s.

The Japanese lost a total of 15 fighters, but except for two pilots who fell into the sea and died on the spot, all the rest were successfully rescued by parachuting, and as for the 15 planes, they could soon be replenished from the supply carriers, and Tsukahara's proposed aviation defense battle was a remarkable success.

It was getting late now, and the sword of Damocles hanging over Melbourne's head was already shining with cold light and was about to fall......

"Melbourne enters the highest state of emergency ......"

"Melbourne City Evacuation Order: ......"

Hearing the broadcast of the fleet's radio like a torrential rain, the commander of the Musashi laughed from top to bottom, and the feeling of being in a state of panic was so great that the pressure on the Australians and Americans with the commander's dignified array would soon be transmitted to Canberra and Washington.

"Sir, will this force the enemy to withdraw from Tarawa?"

"I'm afraid it's difficult, if it were you, would you bring the fleet back?"

"I ......" Cao Lu said anything, he wanted to subconsciously say that he would come back, but when he thought of the terrible prospect of a hard encounter, he felt that he was really a little overwhelmed.

"I don't know how Tarawa is doing, it's been 2 days, and the radio hasn't received any information." Nobutake Kondo said regretfully, "It is estimated that all the jade has been shattered." ”

"I have a hunch that Shibasaki should still be active with a small army." Horiyoshi thought for a moment, "Refill the fuel, transport the troops to the deep sea, prepare to detour, shell the formation to prepare for the assault on Melbourne, Kondo-kun, please follow up." ”

"Hello!"

While the Combined Fleet was swaggering off the coast of Australia, Nimitz was on a tour of Betio with a large number of senior officers. Although Holland repeatedly warned that the remnants of the Japanese army on the island had not been cleared, and the wreckage, explosives, and corpses had not been cleared, Nimitz did not care and insisted on going to the island to have a look.

After concentrating on studying the Japanese army's semi-underground pillboxes, listening to Dai Wen's report on the use of equipment and tactics, and hearing the comparison of the losses of the enemy and us, especially the news that not even a single Japanese soldier had been caught, Nimitz exclaimed: "I have never seen such a hideous battlefield in my life. ”

Holland nodded solemnly: "This is a great Japanese commander, I am determined to use Betio as a class, and I suggest that all amphibious officers of the Pacific Fleet come to visit and learn in person." I'm still wondering if I can find a desert island near Hawaii and build it all like Betio's fortifications, so that our naval guns and marines can practice and adapt to the ......."

Before he could finish his words, there was a "sudden" burst of gunfire in the distance, followed by several violent explosions and screams.

"And the enemy? Why can't these ground rats be killed? Halsey said angrily, "It's been 18 days since the war began......

Devon's face turned red, and he said embarrassedly: "We are trying our best to clean it up, but it may take a while, the Japanese army has dug a lot of continuous fortifications underground, and heavy equipment can't get in, so they can only fight with the most traditional infantry, and they are fighting in the dark, our people are not familiar with this method of fighting, so ......"

Nimitz sighed and nodded slightly: "Don't worry, we still have time." ”

"Sir, Canberra and Washington urgent!"

After reading the message, Nimitz's face instantly turned pale.

"What's wrong?"

"In the early hours of this morning, the Japanese fleet raided Melbourne, and the naval guns bombed the city into a sea of fire, and Washington told us to rescue it. In addition, yesterday the Army Air Force's 7th Air Force dispatched more than 150 planes to attack, with a loss rate of 65 percent, with little effect, and the whole of Australia is now in a panic, and they guess that the next target of the Japanese army is Canberra. Nimitz read the last sentence with a solemn face, "Where is our fleet at this time of great crisis in Australia?" (To be continued.) )