"Boys, it's landed! Logged in! Get ready to go forward! ”

Captain Curt, the commander of Company B of the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment, who was responsible for the first landing at the 2nd Red Beachhead, immediately tore open his throat and shouted. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Info is also strange, known as the "loud voice Curt", his voice is extremely penetrating, even in the current deafening environment, the officers and soldiers of the B Company on several troop transport ships around him can hear it clearly.

The Marines who received the encouragement from the company commander were eager to try and prepare to go. As ordinary infantrymen, they generally carried M1 Garand rifles and one base ammunition, as well as three rations and two fresh water cans, which could not be said to be light, but for the physique of American GIs, this little weight was still drizzle.

The soldiers descended into the amphibious vehicles one after another through the rope nets, and the landing craft drove to the Honger beachhead in turn, and if you look out at this time, you will find that there are friendly troops not far away who are repeating similar things, and the atmosphere suddenly becomes tense, but when I think that I am not fighting alone, there are a large number of friendly troops around me, and there is a powerful task force behind me, the fighting spirit of B Company becomes very high.

At 1:17 p.m., just as the U.S. landing craft began to move rapidly toward the predetermined position, a red signal flare rose from the island, and the Japanese firepower, which had been dormant for a long time, seemed to be fully resurrected, and a roar of counterattack was issued. Curt could see it clearly, only to see the fire glittering, the shells emptying, the water splashing around the landing boat, and shrapnel flying sideways. One amphibious landing vehicle after another was overturned by the impact of artillery shells, and the soldiers fell into the water in disarray.

This is relatively lucky, there are a few unlucky armored vehicles directly hit the shell, that is at least 105mm caliber shells, the whole armored car was torn apart after a shot, the severed limbs and stumps flew up with screams, and then the surrounding area was red, and then it was scattered by the waves...... This scene only happened for a short moment, but it undoubtedly made people's scalps tingle and heart-pounding.

In the face of the heavy fire from the beachhead, the amphibious vehicles had nothing to do, and their weak machine-gun fire could not return fire, so everyone had to hide behind the warship, and the soldiers re-entered the cabin in shock.

"Retreat! Fall back! Curt shouted again, glancing hatefully at Betio - the low coral island lay on its side, and it didn't look like it was alive at all, but from there there was terrible artillery fire! He didn't know how the Japanese army survived under such heavy artillery fire, and he unconsciously adjusted the severity and difficulty of the offensive mission up a notch.

The landing craft group and the amphibious vehicles were ordered to withdraw to the safe zone, the planes of the task force group flew to Betio again to bombard, and the naval guns began a new bombardment. Cruisers, destroyers, and even massive battleships ventured to a close range of more than 2,000 meters to suppress the batteries at the east and west ends of Betio.

Not to be outdone, the Japanese fought back, they did not dare to use 8-inch guns against battleships, but they were still eager to shell cruisers or destroyers. Moreover, they are from the navy and know better where the weaknesses of these warships lie than they are in the army.

"Hell, the enemy has an 8-inch cannon?" Fifteen minutes later, Nimitz and Halsey, who were in the distance, received a telegram from the front line from the flagship aircraft carrier USS Essex, informing them that 1 destroyer had been destroyed and had now sunk, only the mast was still exposed, and that 2 cruisers had been hit and had to temporarily retreat.

"Let the battleships stay in the front line and continue to attack, the cruisers and destroyers are further behind, and the carrier-based aircraft must suppress the enemy's firepower and hit the 8-inch battery as soon as it appears!" Although the 8-inch gun is not big in the ship's guns, as long as it hits the destroyer, it is a heavy hit, and the cruiser is not very resistant to the 8-inch gun, and the only one who can ignore the fire of this caliber is the battleship.

"Sir, the enemy's light warship has retreated......" The Japanese observer on the front line called the command headquarters and excitedly reported it to Keiji Shibasaki.

"Okay, it's time to use the secret weapon!" Keiji Shibasaki looked happy and said to Keiko Matsuo and Takeo Tubei, "Let's go and send these warriors together!" ”

In the battle for the islands such as Bougainville, Munda and Lae, the Japanese army sank many American warships with the weight of the kamikaze and suddenly, and the biggest victim was the Colorado class, which was known as one of the world's seven warships in the 20s. At that time, a total of 7 kamikazes rushed at the Colorodora, and 5 accurately hit the part below the waterline, which is equivalent to 5 heavy torpedoes hit by this giant ship at the same time.

The fleet, especially the capital ships with conspicuous targets, should not be too close to the enemy's islands, and should deploy enough planes over the fleet to monitor them; once a kamikaze rocket is discovered, it should not try to attack or intercept it, but use the method of flanking to find a way to hit the operator in front; once the enemy operator is killed, the rocket will soon lose control and fall into the sea.

If the aircraft interception network has been breached, then anti-aircraft guns should be used as much as possible to carry out probabilistic interception, especially if the second half of the rocket is attacked - where the engine and fuel tanks are located, as long as it hits, it will explode and crash into the sea, and only if there is really no way to allow the first half of the attack - it is full of explosives, and if it hits, it will cause an air explosion over the sea near the warship, and if you are not careful, you will accidentally injure yourself. But one point is particularly emphasized: it is better to shoot down than not to shoot down, and it is better to let the kamikaze hit the upper part of the ship and the deck position than to let it hit the position below the waterline of the warship.

At the time of the landing, Halsey had already commanded the fleet to show its face at Tarawa in an attempt to lure the kamikaze to attack first—the U.S. military knew that the number of such powerful suicide weapons was limited. If you think about it, it's clear that not everyone has the courage to face death and has superb rocket maneuvering skills -- these special attack members deployed to the island were all painstakingly cultivated by Onishi Takijiro. However, Shibasaki has always suppressed the desire of the special attack team to fight, and he wants to wait until the last time to use this powerful weapon.

In the underground bunker, 10 special attackers with white cloth wrapped in white cloth and the words "Seven Lives to Serve the Country" written on them were ready to go, and they stepped forward, respectfully took the cups full of rice wine from the hands of several officers, bowed in the direction of Tokyo, and then drank them all.

"Gentlemen, please!" Led by Shibasaki, all the officers who came to see him off bowed their heads in salute.

"Sir, let's go first, Kudansakami!"

"Kudansakami!"

During the artillery battle, the Japanese artillery gradually fell silent, and just as Holland and Devin in the command tower were preparing to launch a second landing, someone suddenly exclaimed: "Look, what is that?" ”

Holland grabbed it, picked up the binoculars and looked at it, and a UFO suddenly flew out of the smoke and dust in the distance.

"God, that's a suicide rocket, volley! Volley! Holland seemed to have been shocked, and immediately roared out in shock.

"Bastard, didn't you say there weren't suicide rockets? Where did it come from? ”

But it was too late to say this, and 10 kamikazes had already come out of the underground bunker and swooped down on the battleship according to the pre-assigned target, and Devin could see it clearly, 3 of them were coming directly at the Iowa where he was.

The planes on air patrol also saw something strange and immediately swooped down to attack. However, this time the U.S. military was obviously careless, and they actually drove to a place only more than 2,000 meters away from the island, and only more than 6,000 meters away from the cover of the kamikaze attack -- this distance is quite a short distance for a V1 rocket. Even if these capital ships go crazy and increase their speed to the maximum, the distance they can move is simply negligible for the rocket.

What's worse is that in order to prevent the attack of 8-inch guns, light and small ships have been transferred far away, and now there are no warships that can block the bullet holes of the capital ships, so they can only rely on their own heavy defense to resist.

With a "boom", Devin saw an F6F burst a rocket, which exploded violently in the air, scattering debris everywhere, and before he could make a cheer, the second rocket had fallen from the air and slammed into the ship's amidships.

After an earth-shattering loud bang, all the people in the command tower were shaken to the ground by the powerful impact, and some unlucky staff officers even crashed directly into the steel wall and passed out, waiting for Holland and Devin to get up in embarrassment, wanting to observe what happened to the giant ship under their feet, only to hear another loud noise, and the officers who had just stood up, and the unsteady officers fell to the ground again.

The captain exclaimed, "We've been hit, oh my gosh, they've hit the USS North Carolina again!" ”

"What just happened? Didn't we get hit? Why does the captain still have time to care about the USS North Carolina? After a few minutes, Devin asked in shock.

"It seems that the Iowa hull is strong enough to block the impact, and the damage is not serious." Holland, who was looking hard through the conning tower, said to himself, "I hope North Carolina is lucky enough." ”

The Iowa was indeed lucky, a total of 3 kamikazes came at the warship, 1 was blown up by volley, and 1 successfully hit the ship's amidships, but not under the waterline, but on the heavy main armor belt on the waterline, the armor belt with an inclination of 19 degrees and 329mm withstood the test, blocked the kamikaze attack, and controlled the situation in the future; The third exploded at the bow turret position, killing more than 200 people and destroying a triple 406mm naval gun, although this loss was not small, but it was only there.

The USS North Carolina was more aggressive and more prominent, attracting seven kamikazes to pounce, with the exception of one shot down by planes and one shot down by anti-aircraft guns, and the remaining five hit the hull. 1 exploded at turret 2, directly scrapping 3 main guns; One exploded at the position of the command tower, blowing up a small half of the bridge, and many officers were killed and wounded inside; In addition, 3 directly hit the hull below the waterline, each of which blew out a large mouth with a diameter of nearly 4 meters, and the sea water was swarming in. (To be continued.) )