Chapter 649: The Incompetent U.S. Navy

At 6:30 a.m., an American supply ship sailed near Pearl Harbor. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

This is a supply ship, a service ship that replenishes ships at sea. Also known as a supply ship. There are integrated supply ships, oil tankers, water ships, ammunition ships, military supply ships, submarine supply ships, aviation supply ships, etc. It has a displacement of thousands to tens of thousands of tons, a cruising range of thousands of nautical miles to more than 10,000 nautical miles, and a self-sufficiency of more than 90 days and nights.

They transported supplies from mainland China to Pearl Harbor to feed the tens of thousands of officers and soldiers on the island.

As always, the captain was in the wheelhouse observing the movement of the sea level, and the first and second officers were also busy, constantly correcting the course direction.

But at this moment, a sailor hurried up and reported the situation.

"Captain, an unidentified submarine has been spotted due east, about two nautical miles away from our ship."

“what―fuck？” The captain cursed, he thought that this transportation would be smooth, but he did not expect to suddenly encounter such trouble.

There is a distance of about 3,700 meters between two nautical miles, not far and not close, and if the submarine is an enemy, a random torpedo will be enough to sink this huge supply ship.

"First mate, you go to determine the identity of this submarine, be sure to find out, may God bless him as our own people. Second mate, you go and contact the destroyer closest to our side, and ask them to come and escort us immediately. If they don't want to spend Christmas without a turkey~" The captain is a fifty-year-old beauty, and although the situation is urgent, he still can't change his humorous style.

"Yes, sir." The first and second officers immediately took action after receiving the boss's instructions.

It just so happened that the American destroyer USS Ward was nearby, and after receiving the signal from the supply ship, it immediately accelerated to arrive.

As the captain said, they can't live without a turkey.

"Alright, guys, speed up and see who the hell is." The captain of the destroyer USS Ward gave the order.

"Sir, it's a miniature submarine, and the shape should be Japanese." An officer ran to report.

"The Japanese? What are they doing here? Don't you know that this is our American territory? You go to report to the Navy's 14th Ward Command and wait for their instructions. At the same time, the battle alarm can be sounded, so that the boys are all in combat positions, ready to fight at any time. The captain ordered.

Lieutenant Commander Outerbridge, the captain of the destroyer USS Ward, stood on the bridge with an honest World War I steel helmet on his head.

"Sir, the 14th Defense District Command can't be contacted, and the signal is interrupted." Soon, the officer came back with information.

"Oh, that's terrible. Then it's up to me to give the order for the lads to destroy this intruder. Lieutenant Colonel Outerbridge shrugged his shoulders and gave the order to fight.

At 6:45, the destroyer's No. 1 gun began firing, and the Pacific War began.

The four-inch cannon made a loud roar, but the shell passed over the submarine conning tower.

The destroyer was sailing at a speed of 25 knots, and soon the first gun went into a dead end. At this time, gun No. 3 in the middle of the destroyer began to fire, and the shell hit the Japanese submarine conning tower.

Lieutenant Colonel Outerbridge ordered the drop of depth charges, and four depth charges were dropped in sequence, and a black splash immediately appeared on the water, proving that the submarine had been hit.

At this point, the Japanese submarine was declared destroyed before it could put up any resistance.

"Sir, the submarine has been hit." The officer reported.

"Well done, lads, send a telegram to the command that an unconfirmed submarine has been found and sunk in alert waters." Lieutenant Colonel Outerbridge laughed.

Obviously, he was happy with the process and the outcome of the battle.

This would have been enough to alert the U.S. Navy, which had plenty of time to prepare for a Japanese surprise attack, but the delay in confirmation and impatience with the alarm delayed the transmission of the message through various communication channels.

7:02: A radar station located north of Oahu spotted unidentified aircraft 132 nautical miles north of the island.

7:10: The radar station reports to the Air Defense Command the news of the discovery of an unidentified aircraft.

7:15: The report of the attack submarine arrives at the US command. At the same time, 167 Japanese aircraft of the second wave took off.

It wasn't until 7:20 that the critical moment in history arrived.

It was precisely because of the misjudgment of the US Air Defense Command that this group of unidentified planes was a B-17 bomber flying from the mainland, and then ordered the radar station to be shut down.

Mitsuo Fuchida, with the rank of Nakasa, was the flight captain of the aircraft carrier Akagi, who was the direct executor and field commander of the operation.

At 7:35 a.m., when Fuchida's plane first arrived at Pearl Harbor, the harbor was still filled with the calm of a Sunday morning.

Over the vast harbor, the clouds were sparse, and several civil aircraft were lazily circling in the air.

The fleet group appeared serene and serene in the oblique sunlight.

Military aircraft at the airfield, wing-to-wing neatly arranged to prevent sabotage.

Fuchida fired a signal flare, ordering the group to begin to deploy in a surprise attack formation, and at the same time sending out a signal of "tiger, tiger, tiger" to notify the mothership of the success of the surprise attack.

Five thousand miles away, aboard the battleship Nagato, a cheerful clerk handed the telegram to Yamamoto Isoroku, who continued to play chess with the chief of staff with indifference.

According to the surprise attack plan, the attack will be carried out in the order of torpedo planes, horizontal bombers and dive bombers, and the ships will be attacked first. Due to the obscuration of the clouds, some of the planes did not see the signal, so Fuchida fired another signal flare.

The dive bombers saw that they had fired two flares, which they considered to be an order to attack, which was a tactic of assault when the enemy was on guard. Enter by air supremacy, dive bombers, horizontal bombers, and torpedo planes.

At 7:55, dive bombers first attacked three airfields on Oahu, and two minutes later torpedo planes began to attack. This small mistake did not affect the effectiveness of the attack. The first torpedo planes tore apart the flags lining the last Nevada in the fleet with their cannons, and then dropped torpedoes.

It was not until 7:58 that the US Navy reacted and issued a warning to all ships: "Pearl Harbor is under air attack, this is not an exercise!" War is coming!"

8:00: B-17 bombers from the continental United States and reconnaissance planes from the USS Enterprise arrive at Pearl Harbor at the same time, but they are unprepared and therefore unable to intervene.

8:02: The battleship Nevada begins firing at aircraft attacking from starboard.