I don't know if it was because the Americans became impatient under the threat of bacteriological bombs every day, and the American offensive operations against the Hawaiian Islands began earlier than expected. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

On January 30, 1944, the U.S. 3rd Fleet, which had just passed through the Panama Canal, was reinforced by some of the ships of the U.S. 5th and 9th Fleets waiting there, and joined up with the landing fleet from San Diego to form the new 3rd Fleet.

By order of Admiral Halsey, Commander of the 3rd Fleet and Commander of the Central Pacific Command, the 3rd Fleet was immediately divided into Task Force 30 and Task Force 31. Among them, the 30th Task Force is a fast fleet with aircraft carriers as the core, with Admiral Halsey personally serving as the commander, and the main force of the fleet includes the flagship aircraft carrier "Enterprise" and five "Independence" class light fleet aircraft carriers such as "Langley", "San Juan", "Guantanamo", "Panama Canal", and "Oahu", and is escorted by one Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, four Cleveland-class light cruisers, four Oakland-class light cruisers, and 25 Fletcher-class destroyers. At a speed of up to 21 knots, we headed straight for Christmas Island, 4,700 nautical miles away.

The main force of the 3rd Fleet and the large landing fleet formed the 31st Task Force, commanded by Vice Admiral Kincaid (the commander of the landing force was George Brown, who had participated in the English campaign. Lieutenant General Patton) left the port of Panama on January 31, 1944, and sailed slowly toward Christmas Island at a speed of 12 knots.

At the same time, the 5th Fleet merged some of the main ships of the 7th Fleet and was also organized into two task forces, the 50th Task Force and the 51st Task Force.

Like the 3rd Fleet, Task Force 50 is an air fleet with fast carriers as the main force, led by Admiral Spruance himself. The fleet has four large Essex-class aircraft carriers, including the USS Essex, the USS Valiant, the USS Hornet, and the USS Yorktown (not the one sunk in the western Pacific, but a newly commissioned Essex-class), as well as six Independence-class aircraft carriers, including the USS Independence, the USS Princeton, the USS Bray Forest, the USS Cobans, the USS Monterey, and the USS Pearl Harbor.

The main force of the 5th Fleet was combined with another large group of fast landing ships to form Task Force 51, with Vice Admiral Fletcher as commander, and it also sailed at a relatively fast speed to the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands.

However, unlike the last time when the German intelligence network reported the dispatch of the American fleet at the first time, this time the German intelligence network in San Diego was paralyzed by the Japanese bacteriological attack -- now the whole of Southern California is on top alert, and the civilian personnel have been evacuated as much as possible, and the agents of the German Central Security Bureau are all "non-military personnel", and they are either infected with the germs dropped by the Japanese, or they are evacuated to the central United States......

In addition, in order to guard against Japanese bomb balloons and a possible new round of aircraft bombing (dropping bacteriological bombs), the Pacific Fleet sent a large number of destroyers, escort destroyers, and large long-range patrol planes to patrol the vicinity of the west coast of the United States, but did not detect the Japanese bomber group, but sank five Japanese submarines in a row.

Two of them were sunk in the last days of January, leaving not a single Japanese submarine in a position to monitor the Port of San Diego during U.S. Task Force 50 and Task Force 51 sorties.

This means that the Japanese do not know anything about the situation of Task Force 50 and Task Force 51!

……

"The Americans' goal is clearly Christmas Island!"

At the operational meeting at the Japanese base camp, the leaders of the navy and army reached a rare agreement.

Gen Sugiyama, chief of the Army General Staff Headquarters, said: "The Americans obviously want to repeat the old trick of the First Battle of Christmas Island first, using powerful fleet anti-aircraft fire and aircraft carriers with all-fighter configuration to consume the lives of our pilots!" ”

"It has to be like this!" Yamamoto Fifty-six nodded, "But what awaits the Americans this time will be our powerful mine team and diving fleet, and the American ghost beasts will learn the power of the 93 spear torpedo." ”

The so-called "mine team" mines do not refer to the kind of mines that are rolled in the water, but to torpedoes.

Like aviation weapons, torpedoes are also highly valued weapons by the Japanese Navy. Among the high-ranking generals of the Japanese Navy are a large number of "mine warfare experts," and the current commander of the Combined Fleet, Nagumo Tadaichi, was originally a "mine expert" who once served as the principal of the mine school.

Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi, commander of the Japanese Navy's 8th Fleet stationed in the Hawaiian Islands, was also a mine expert, who once commanded a formation to defeat the British (Australian) and American fleets with torpedoes during the South Sea Operations and the South Pacific Operations.

Yamamoto transferred Mikawa and his fleet to the Hawaiian Islands in order to use his mine warfare capabilities to inflict heavy damage on the U.S. fleet on Christmas Island.

In addition, Vice Admiral Takeo Takagi, commander of Japan's Sixth Fleet, has also personally gone to Pearl Harbor these days to direct the operation of the submarine -- Japan's Sixth Fleet is actually the submarine command of the Japanese Navy, not a fleet in the true sense of the word, so the fleet commander works from the shore.

However, unlike Dönitz and Fredburg, who were the two generations of heads of the German Navy's submarine forces, both U-boat submarine experts, the commander of the Japanese 6th Fleet was not necessarily a submarine expert.

For example, Takeo Takagi's two predecessors, Teruhisa Komatsu and Mitsumi Shimizu, had never worked on submarines -- under the command of these two submarine commanders who had never worked on submarines, it is not surprising that Japan's submarine forces, although well equipped and numerous, could not achieve the same brilliant results as the German submarines.

And Takagi Takeo is a little better than the previous two, he is a serious submarine unit, and he also served as a diving school instructor and submarine captain. However, he was transferred to the surface fleet from November 1929 and never returned to the submarine force until June 21, 1943, when he became commander of the 6th Fleet...... The reason for this is probably related to the promotion rules of the Japanese Navy and the status of the Japanese submarine force.

In Germany, the submarine force is a relatively independent branch of the army, which is subordinate to the navy, but not to the high seas fleet. In Japan, however, the independence of the submarine force is not high, and the officers of the submarine force do not have their own independent promotion system, so after reaching a certain level, they have to participate in the rotation and promotion of naval officers......

Takagi Takeo even served as commander of the naval bases (Magong Garrison and Kaohsiung Garrison) for a long time before becoming commander of the 6th Fleet. Submarines or something...... It was all more than ten years ago, and what Takagi Takeo mastered was actually outdated.

Therefore, Japan's submarine forces did not have their own operational ideas, and they were always part of the surface fleet, responsible for reconnaissance and sneak attacks on the enemy's surface fleet.

In the "Operation Jet-1" plan, the submarines of the 8th and 6th fleets, which are mainly "heavy mine-loaded" cruisers (including heavy cruisers and light cruisers) and destroyers, will be used for "mine warfare on Christmas Island".

According to the plan, the "heavy mineships" of the 8th Fleet and the submarines of the 6th Fleet will go to the waters near Palmyra Atoll and Christmas Island respectively to ambush before the US fleet approaches Christmas Island, and the submarines will wait for an opportunity to sneak attack. The "heavy mineships," on the other hand, will carry out night attacks after the start of the landing operation, striving to inflict maximum damage on the invading enemy......

However, the day after Mikawa Gunichi led 16 heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers converted into heavy mines left Pearl Harbor, a disturbing piece of news reached the Yamato, the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet.

On the night of February 5, Hawaii time, two "one-type land attackers" equipped with airborne radars to search the waters of the North Pacific Ocean lost contact after reporting an attack by an unknown enemy aircraft!

Moreover, the second of them, the Type 1 Land Attack, reported that the airborne radar had spotted more than 10 surface ships about 1,000 nautical miles northwest of the Hawaiian Islands before it lost contact.

"Northwest ...... of the Hawaiian Islands" Nagumo Tadaichi immediately walked to the chart platform.

And the chief of staff of the fleet, Ryunosuke Kusaka, immediately marked the specific location on the chart, and then he said to Nagumo: "Commander, the enemy's target is Midway!" ”

"Midway......" Nagumo Zhongyi frowned slightly, "Americans are really good at picking places!" ”

It turned out that Nagumo Tadaichi had always worried about the site of Midway, because Midway Island is a small archipelago consisting of three coral reef islands (Sand Island, East Island, and Spit Island) with a combined land area of only 6.2 square kilometers. Because Midway had enough land to build an airfield for large aircraft to take off and land, it was strategically important and was a U.S. naval base since 1903.

However, the area of Midway is too small and too flat, and there is no danger to rely on, and if the large-caliber ships are bombarded for a few days, there may be no living people on it. Moreover, Midway Island has a wide channel on all sides, there are no reefs that can stop the landing force, and the Americans are very familiar with it, so it is almost impossible for the Japanese to rely on the garrison on the island to hold out for a long time.

However, these small coral reef islands are less than 1,500 kilometers from Oahu, and even closer to Kauai and Niihau, just over 1,200 kilometers.

This means that once the Americans take control of Midway, the frustrating P-51B/C will be able to cover both Kauai and Niihau, and if there are any improvements to increase the range, Oahu will be covered by the P51B/C......