"Brothers, work hard, see if the officer corps wins, or the staff corps wins, everyone moves, continue to work hard!"

In the hangar of the aircraft carrier, hundreds of officers and soldiers participated in the replenishment operation. In order to increase the enthusiasm of the officers and men, Hao Dongjue organized some staff officers who were on leave in rotation to compete with the officer corps on the battleship for the speed of transporting ammunition. Two steel cables connected to the ammunition supply ship outside, and the ammunition loaded in wooden crates was transported through the steel cables, while officers and staff officers were struggling to put the ammunition boxes on the trailer, and then transported them to the ammunition elevator and stored them in the ammunition depot.

Hao Dongjue was shirtless, shouting and cheering between the two teams, and an officer with eyes was recording the number of bombs that had been delivered by both sides. This kind of competition is uncommon, and in ordinary supply work, officers and fleet staff officers will not participate in this kind of heavy physical work, in Hao Dongjue's words, this is also to let those staff officers who have not usually done heavy work exercise their bodies.

Hearing Hao Dongjue's slogans shouted from time to time, Tan Renhao shook his head and laughed. He sometimes felt that Hao Dongjue, the chief of staff, was very incompetent, for example, the navigation work that should be in charge of the chief of staff was all done by him. Most of the time, Hao Dongjue played an active role in the fleet. Needless to say, aviation operations are naturally irreplaceable, and Hao Dongjue's position is almost irreplaceable. Now, Hao Dongjue's role is irreplaceable. His vitality, his enthusiasm, and the relationships he has established with officers and men are extremely important when it is necessary to use encouragement to raise the morale and fighting spirit of officers and men. Tan Renhao could never think of using this kind of competition to increase the enthusiasm of officers and soldiers, but Hao Dongjue could think of it, and he did it very well. At least, now the ordinary soldiers in the fleet do not think that they are the only ones who are working hard, everyone is working hard, and the officers and staff of the fleet are selling no less than they are.

"Commander", a staff officer walked over, still holding a telegram in his hand. "A new order from the Pacific Theater Command."

Tan Renhao took the message and quickly scanned it.

"Are you going to call the Chief of Staff?"

Tan Renhao glanced at his sweaty partner, and said to the communications staff officer: "No, let them finish the game first, and let the chief of staff come to the command cabin later." ”

The communications officer immediately flashed to the side, and Tan Renhao left the hangar and walked towards the passage to the command cabin.

There is indeed a problem on the Pacific Theater side, and it is a relatively serious problem.

After the sweep of the Marshall Islands. The operation to attack the Gilbert Islands soon began. Only after the capture of the Gilbert Islands could the flanks of the Southwest Pacific theater of operations be consolidated. In this context, at the present stage, the task of the Pacific Theater is to support and cover the offensive operations of the Southwest Pacific Theater. The key to attacking the Gilbert Islands is to capture Tarawa Island.

Tarawa Island is the only island in the entire Gilbert Islands where a large military airfield can be built, and the U.S. military has only built an airfield on this island that can accommodate nearly 300 tactical bombers.

The attack on the Marshall Islands relied on a sneak attack, using two task forces to destroy the infrastructure of the U.S. Air Force, seize air supremacy, and then seize sea supremacy, laying the groundwork for the landing of Marines on Kwajalein Atoll and Majuro Atoll. A sneak attack can only be successful once, and it is impossible to attack Tarawa Island by means of a sneak attack. After the loss of the Marshall Islands. The US military has already made clear the intentions of the Don Army. The defenses of Tarawa Island were quickly strengthened. By the time the Tang Army attacked, the U.S. military had deployed 12,000 defenders on Tarawa Island, and 280 warplanes were deployed here. Among them are at least 170 tactical bombers, in addition to dozens of long-range patrol aircraft.

Tarawa Island is about 350 nautical miles from Majuro Atoll, which is almost within the extreme combat strike radius of the HNA tactical bombers. If the naval aviation tactical bombers deployed in the Majuro Atoll were used against the US airfield on Tarawa Island, not only would it be inefficient, but the loss rate would certainly be high. In addition, at that time, the runways of the Majuro Atoll and Kwajalein Atoll were not enough to support heavy bombers, and Pohnpei Island was about 800 nautical miles from Tarawa Island, and Wake Island was 900 nautical miles from Tarawa Island, so if heavy bombers took off from these two islands. It can only carry two tons of ammunition, and the two islands can accommodate a maximum of more than 100 heavy bombers, which cannot be covered by fighters, and it is very difficult to bomb Tarawa Island.

To attack the island of Tarawa, it is absolutely inseparable from the fleet. Originally, it was planned that two task forces would bomb Tarawa Island together, so that at least one fleet would be guaranteed to succeed. Moreover, the time of the attack was planned for 16 September, but as a result, the 1st Task Force returned to the Southwest Pacific Theater on 14 September and was unable to participate in the combat operation of attacking Tarawa Island.

Then. Liao Hanxiang was also hesitant to use a task force to bomb Tarawa Island. The Second Task Force has only more than 200 fighters, which is less than the number of fighters deployed by the US military on the island. Although the attacking side had the initiative, the US military deployed dozens of reconnaissance planes on the island, and all of them were mobilized, and the second task force hardly had any chance to covertly approach Tarawa Island, and could only attack by force. In other words, it is necessary to use inferior forces to seize air supremacy. In addition, Task Force 2 must not have any losses, otherwise it will not be able to maintain air supremacy and cover the landing of the marines.

On the 17th, Liao Hanxiang made a decision, even if there was only the Second Task Force, even if it had to be attacked, he would take Tarawa Island, and then sweep the Gilbert Islands to complete this offensive operation. Only in this way can the flanks of the Southwest Pacific Theater be covered, and perhaps the second task force will have some losses, but the price is worth it, and it will be of great help to the future war situation.

The battle plan was drawn up in advance, and after Liao Hanxiang made a decision, the order was immediately issued, and the Second Task Force maneuvered in place on the night of 18 August and bombed Tarawa Island in the early morning of 19 July, trying to seize air supremacy over Tarawa Island and destroy the US Air Force on the ground.

The plan was risky, but there was also a chance of success, and the only mistake was a delay of a few days. If the attack had been launched on 16 June as planned, there would have been only about 200 US warplanes on Tarawa Island at that time, and more importantly, there would have been only a few US night reconnaissance planes deployed on the island. By the 19th, the U.S. military had urgently reinforced a number of fighters to Tarawa Island. These include more than 20 long-range Catalina patrol aircraft equipped with surface search radars, all of which can carry out night reconnaissance missions.

The most widely used long-range patrol aircraft of the "Katerina" type are in the Atlantic, not in the Pacific Ocean. In the Atlantic theater, such long-range patrol aircraft, which had a combat radius of 700 nautical miles, were a powerful weapon against German submarines. After the entry of the United States into the war, hundreds of "Catalina" were put into anti-submarine warfare operations in the Atlantic. The arrival of these patrol aircraft forced German submarines to stay under the surface as much as possible during the day, and could only surface at night to ventilate, recharge batteries, etc. This greatly limited the combat use of German submarines.

The U.S. military soon discovered the new tactics of German submarines, so at the beginning of 24, they began to install a sea search radar for the "Katarina", so that they could detect German submarines floating on the sea at night (the airborne radar performance of the early model was not very good, and the detection range of warships on the sea surface was very limited, while the later improved radar could find can-sized targets, such as the periscope of the submarine), and then attacked these submarines with bombs and machine guns, even if they could not sink them. It can also make it lose the ability to dive. Precisely because it is equipped with an airborne radar. These long-range patrol aircraft can also be used as night reconnaissance aircraft.

It was the arrival of these night reconnaissance planes that gave Task Force 2 little chance to quietly approach Tarawa Island and launch a surprise attack. Then. The Tang Empire's ground intelligence department already knew that the United States possessed night reconnaissance planes, but did not know that it was the first time that the US military used these night reconnaissance planes on a large scale on Tarawa Island. On the night of the 19th, when the 2nd Task Force was approaching Tarawa Island, three "Caterina" discovered the fleet!

After Lei Shaoqing realized that the fleet had been exposed, he made the decision to attack, and it was impossible to retreat, because there was no retreat order, he had to attack. Like the bombing of Kwajalein Atoll, this time, Lei Shaoqing was still preparing to carry out a round of night bombardment first. Then another bombing was carried out after dawn. But the question is, the U.S. military has already suffered a loss, will it suffer a second loss?

Before dawn, the bombers of Task Force 2 reached the sky over the Tarawa airfield, but the American bombers on the airfield were no longer there. At the time when the bombers of the Second Task Force dropped bombs on the US airfield on the island, at least 150 US tactical bombers in three groups were heading for the Second Task Force. Although Lei Shaoqing arranged air defense fighters in time, and they were all concentrated in the south of the fleet, they were when the US bombers arrived. Only one squadron of ground air defense fighters was in the skies over the fleet, and another squadron of fighters went to participate in the bombing of Tarawa Island and did not return to the fleet!

Because the U.S. military did not fully grasp the whereabouts of the second task force (those three "Catalinas"

The patrol planes spotted the Second Task Force four hours before dawn and were then scared away), so the 150 tactical bombers of the US military were divided into three groups to search for the whereabouts of the Second Task Force in a relatively open area.

The group that arrived first was violently intercepted by air defense fighters, and almost no of them were able to break through the fleet's air defense network, most of the bombers were shot down before they approached the fleet, and even the bombers that broke through did not harm the aircraft carriers at the core of the fleet.

Fifteen minutes after the bombers were defeated, the second group of US bombers came from the southwest side of the fleet, and at that time, the air defense fighters of the fleet were concentrated in the inner layer of the fleet, although the air defense fighters did their best to resist, and the air defense warships also went all out to cover the aircraft carrier, as a result, more than 20 bombers still dropped bombs and torpedoes. The aircraft carrier "Lake Bell" bore the brunt of the attack, and after dodging more than a dozen bombs and torpedoes, it was hit on the flight deck by two aerial bombs, one of which exploded in Hangar No. 1, causing great damage and the aircraft carrier lost its combat effectiveness. The "Hulun Lake" aircraft carrier dodged all the bombs and torpedoes and survived the catastrophe without any danger.

The bombing of the US army was not over, and at 7:05 a.m., the third group of US bombers killed Gulai. At this time, the speed of the "Bear Lake" aircraft carrier had been reduced to 21 knots, and the "Hulun Lake" had already maneuvered to the northwest direction of the fleet, about 15 nautical miles away from the "Bear Lake." The US bombers first discovered the "Lake Bell" aircraft carrier, and then concentrated on attacking the already injured aircraft carrier, but did not find another aircraft carrier not far away.

This may be regarded as Lei Shaoqing's luck, well, the "Bear Lake" helped the flagship block this deadly attack. By 7:25 a.m., when the American bombers were retreating, "Lake Bell"

The ship received five more bombs, three torpedoes, the aircraft carrier was seriously flooded, tilted fifteen degrees to the right, and a fire broke out. The damage management personnel did everything possible to salvage the almost finished aircraft carrier. Miraculously, the fire on the aircraft carrier was extinguished at 7:50 a.m., without endangering the ammunition and fuel depots, and at 8 o'clock the aircraft carrier also recovered part of its power system, crawling at a speed of 8 knots and returning to the northwest.

It cannot but be said that the success of the design of the "Lake" class aircraft carrier, the thousands of tons of armor used on the aircraft carrier did play its due role, and the power system of the aircraft carrier was also arranged more reasonably, avoiding the disaster of destroying all the power systems with one bomb. In addition, the small compartment design adopted by the aircraft carrier effectively controls the water intake speed, and several additional high-power generators allow the aircraft carrier to avoid the tragic end of sinking. The ammunition storage and fuel depots set up below the waterline have automatic sea-opening valves, which can be quickly filled with water in an emergency, avoiding the disaster of ammunition and fuel explosion, and the ability to resist aviation armor-piercing shells has been greatly improved. If the previous aircraft carrier had been replaced, I am afraid it would have sunk into the sea long ago.

"Lake Bell" escaped, but the attack of Task Force 2 also failed. The bombing did not destroy the airfield on Tarawa Island, and now the Second Task Force has only one aircraft carrier left, and there is no way to continue to complete the combat mission, which is why the First Task Force was urgently transferred back to the Pacific Theater.