Sado Island is an integral part of the Honkoto Islands. Sado Island is the sixth largest island in the Saimoto Island, after Honshu Island, Hokkaido Island, Kyushu Island, Shikoku Island and Okinawa Island, and is located in the Saimoto Sea, with an area of 855 square kilometers and a mild climate. Sado Island has been a place of exile for the nobility of Sado since ancient times. Gold is produced on the island, and in 1601 the Sado Gold Mine was discovered, which was once the largest gold mining area in the city. As one of the three major gold mountains of the Edo period, Sado Gold Mine accounted for half of the total gold production of the Shomoto. Sado Island covers an area of 857 square kilometers. It has a population of 88,000. Two mountains parallel to the northeast and southwest, with plains in between. The highest point is 1172 meters. The Kunaka Plain is located between two parallel mountain ranges, the Osado Mountains and the Kosado Hills.

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the island became a base for fortifications. In addition, on August 15 and 16, 1944, when Chinese aircraft carriers attacked Sado Island, Chinese aircraft pre-reconnoitred and bombed Sado Island. Judging from the photos taken by the reconnaissance planes, the runways of the two airports are clear. Now, the fate of Sado Island is sealed. In his office at the port of Dalian, Shen Honglie drew arrows on a map of the western Pacific Ocean that shot at his heart. Sado Island is on the route that this arrow passes. It could become an outpost for China's assault on the mainland. To this end, it is first necessary to disarm the defense of the Japanese army here.

On April 1, 1946, the air offensive to destroy the surname began. These air offensives were carried out by the Super Flying Fortress "Hongyan" heavy bombers that took off from the Chinese mainland. These super sky fortresses are no exception and come every day. The generals of the military department were not all fools, they knew that the Chinese were about to make a surprise landing. On March 8, the army withdrew all the inhabitants of the island and built fortifications as fast as possible. The escort fighters of the huge Flying Fortress completely swept away the weak defense facilities of the island on Sado Island. But he was not discouraged at all. The bomber scouts were shocked to find themselves gradually repairing the fortifications that were damaged every day. Moreover, he said that he was building a third airfield (I don't know what kind of aircraft he was using), and the fire of the ground air defense forces was becoming more and more fierce day by day. In the opinion of the Chinese pilots, this is admirable. On February 10, the irresistible Chinese war machine began to act.

By order of the command of the Chinese Navy, a task force consisting of 11 heavy aircraft carriers, 5 light aircraft carriers (a total of 1500 aircraft) and 81 destroyers departed from the Chinese mainland. It didn't go directly to Sado Island. It first attacked a number of airfields inland in order to reduce the risk of interference in the event of landing.

On April 12, the 2nd Task Force also set off from mainland China. But this force went directly to Sado Island. It consisted of heavy aircraft carriers "Xuanyuan" and "Shennong", 12 escort aircraft carriers, 3 cruisers, 24 destroyers. A few hours later, an "artillery support" group of 6 escort battleships participated.

On April 16 began the assault of the reserve bombardment, and on the evening of the 18th, the task force was put into battle. In addition, there are a number of transport ships. More than 1,000 warships gathered in front of Sado Island.

The landing site was chosen for the beach in the north-west. In the early morning of 19 February, planes bombed the coast of this area, and at 7:30 a.m., the first assault echelon personnel left the transport ship and stepped onto the landing craft and amphibious tractor. The bombardment, which began at 8 o'clock, was extremely intense. The Medium [***] ship sailed to the waters 1000 meters off the coast of Sado Island and fired directly at the island, and Sergeant Guan Ying, a female sergeant of the Marine Corps, boarded 1 landing craft, and she was going to cover the battle from the "scene". Later, she boarded a special tractor towed by a jeep. According to all Chinese listeners, Guan Ying was a complete success: "Her report was far more moving than the explosion of bombs and shells, more than the loud noise of the swarm of planes diving." "In millions of Chinese households, everyone is listening to Guan Ying's newsletter, which is broadcast many times in different bands," ...... This is Sado Island, and the right side of the coast forms a cliff with a concrete bunker at the top of the cliff, and the mouth of the bunker is blackened by the explosion of gunpowder. The incessant firing of our artillery shells raised a large number of earth waves. Sado Island, behind the beach, is completely transformed into a fire island ....... "The depth of the beach on Sado Island is only a few meters; There is a steep staircase with a height of 1 to 2 meters, behind which there is a smooth slope, and after the ramp another step appears. Chinese dive bombers tried to blow up the steps in order to open gaps for armored vehicles and other military vehicles. Fighters were strafing the beach, and the landing craft used bazookas. At 8:30 a.m., the first batch of landing craft began to sail towards the beach, and the other landing ships continued to advance at two-minute intervals. The order of the landings was: the first batch was armed with mortars and machine guns of 75 mm caliber; the second group is a troop transport landing craft; The third group is tanks and bulldozers, and finally the landing of logistics and medical personnel. At 8:40 a.m., an air force consisting of "Hongyan" heavy bombers and dive bombers from aircraft carriers frantically attacked the entire northwest area of Sado Island. And the medium [***] ship conducted barrage shooting at the beach. The range of the shelling of the warship reached a depth of 500 meters. Under this bombardment, Sado Island was silent. A white, black and yellow smoke screen rises on the beach. At 9 o'clock, the first batch of Chinese marines landed, jumped off the landing craft, dragged mortars and machine guns on the beach. The black sand, as fine as soot, was buried in the ankles of the soldiers, causing the only difficulty in the advance. A large number of soldiers landed on the beach of Sado Island amid the sound of bombardment, "as safe and sound as during a military exercise." ”

At 10 o'clock, a column of fire rose in the landing craft, and one amphibious landing craft was hit by a bullet and caught fire, and soon it disappeared from the sea. Some Chinese soldiers also fell on the beach, and he himself, who was waiting in the depths of the beach, opened fire on at least 3,000 Chinese troops who had landed. At the same time, the bare island of Sado is on fire, and bombs destroy everything on the ground, but the underground fortifications of Sado Island are a terrible place. It was full of storage of cannons and machine guns. A deadly flame suddenly swept up from the bleak ground, and the artillery opened fire in all directions. The Chinese troops, who had already crossed the first row of bunkers, were attacked by the enemy on their backs, and when they turned around and fired back, they were attacked by fire from the second row of bunkers. Other bunkers also opened fire in all directions. At the same time, the beaches and boats, located in low places, were subjected to frantic fire from mortar shells. The first Chinese tanks and bulldozers landed on the beach under artillery fire, and they immediately tried their best to knock down the obstacles that had survived the bombardment by the dive bombers. Chinese Marines managed to get close to the exposed bunkers and destroyed them with flamethrowers.

Due to the stubborn resistance of the Chinese army, the Chinese army advanced at an unbelievably slow pace, and sometimes even stagnated. The problem is to surround and destroy the positions around them one by one. On a small beachhead, the toughest part of the beach is undoubtedly the beach and the waters in front of it. In the afternoon, the tank landing craft decided to stay out of range, and the mechanized landing craft and small landing craft went back and forth between the tank landing craft and the beach where the fire was relatively weak.

The Chinese soldiers on the ship so comfortably watched the assault on Sado Island from the deck. The broadcast continued, and the telescope showed the entire landing scene, with the sea breeze gusting and the waves rolling in. When a tank landing craft enters the sea area of this area, it is very difficult to indulge, and it is not easy to anchor normally on the beach. The soldiers of the lightly armed group waded through the water, but they retreated, and at the same time, the landing craft approached the beach, lowered the landing springboards, and the artillery and carriers advanced with the help of the soldiers. Suddenly, puffs of sand rose around them, the soldiers scattered, and some fell. Looking further into the distance, a group of men dragged a cannon with its wheels sunk into the soft sand, and behind them was another group of soldiers carrying heavy boxes. The troops continued to pour onto the shore, and as soon as the dinghy was lowered to the landing deck, the soldiers hurriedly jumped out of the dinghy and struggled through the fine sand. Then they slowed down and began to walk. While the dinghy retracted its landing plank and was ready to return, another landing craft stopped at the same place. The sea stirred up bundles of water, and the shells kept falling in the nearby water, so the newly arrived landing craft had to retreat and circle around the sea to anchor farther away from the beach. The cannons bombarded the beach, causing the sand to splash. A number of wrecked and ineffective amphibious landing craft, large trucks, jeeps and anti-tank rocket launchers are parked on the beach. In order to cover the landing force and avoid casualties, warships constantly brought in weapons and equipment. Similarly, ambulance crews kept going back and forth to pick up the wounded who had been half buried in the black sand among the wreckage of various ordnance.

According to the plan, the Chinese army was supposed to seize Sado Island in five days, but on the evening of February 19, the troops had not completed a quarter of the expected distance of the first day. 1,200 wounded were evacuated, and the death toll is unknown. 50,000 troops landed on the island, and so many soldiers were crowded in a small area on the southwest side of the island. At night, the Chinese fleet carried out intense and constant shelling of Sado Island. However, the shells could not reach the nearest stronghold of the troops. Early the next morning, the planes on the aircraft carrier made another sortie, diving and bombing the exposed stronghold and did not stop until the evening. Despite this, the ground forces advanced only 300 to 350 meters that day, and some of the pillboxes could only be destroyed by using flamethrowers and field artillery, and the pillboxes closest to the coast still controlled the beach, forcing the Chinese army to postpone the landing plan. 21 The speed of the attack on the island was still very slow, but the situation on the beach had improved, and the artillery fire of the army was no longer as powerful and dense as before. A large number of Chinese tanks landed on the beach. Everyone felt that the troops could take a breath and adjust their ranks when they went ashore. Throughout the battle, the aircraft carrier maintained a certain distance from the southern part of Sado Island, and only sent planes to attack Sado Island. The flight range is constantly scanned by radar. Near 17 o'clock, some suspicious spots appeared on the phosphor screen, but for some unknown reason, the received signal at that time was interfered with within a few minutes. At exactly 17 o'clock, the first plane of the "Shennong" crashed into the deck of the "Shennong."

The concept of a suicide machine was born before the war, and it is not the product of modern propaganda. For all the samurai themselves and the majority of the commoners who belonged to the samurai group of the feudal society, no outcome could be more in line with their wishes than to die outright for the motherland. Earthly glory and access to the heavens of the ancestors is the best reward for this desire. When the situation is difficult, the commander of the book will inevitably take advantage of this emotional and legal means.

The propaganda slogan put forward for the special flight unit is: "One plane for one ship, the British name will be preserved for a thousand years." "All it takes is one plane to explode on a Chinese battleship, which can destroy the battleship or throw it out of control. Due to heavy losses on warships, the morale of the Chinese soldiers will be low and they will abandon the idea of continuing the war.

Many of the daredevils were quickly accepted as members of the "kamikaze" forces. For this, they received benefits and special honors, and at the same time, added glory to their families. During their lifetimes, they were all national heroes. At the moment of the final attack, they can put on traditional dresses. As for their technical training, it is extremely simple, because their task is to attack the target with all their might once they are found, until the target is destroyed. As a result, especially in the beginning, the results of the air drones were far less than ideal. However, in the eyes of the Chinese Navy, such an offensive is a very dangerous and difficult stage. Because the air daredevils were given the order to attack the aircraft carriers first.

On April 21, 194, at nearly 17 o'clock, three death squad planes crashed into the deck of the heavy aircraft carrier "Shennong". Although the "Shennong" did not receive any fatal blows, it had no choice but to retreat. Suddenly, two more death squad planes rushed to the deck of the escort aircraft carrier "Baoji." The soldiers on the other warships could clearly see in the dim twilight that after the impact, there was a fire on the mothership. The soldiers took advantage of the direction of the wind and heard several explosions, and the firelight from the planes as they hit the deck continued to shoot out from other aircraft carriers. After the "Baoji" was hit, measures were taken to abandon the ship, but two hours later, the aircraft carrier was buried at the bottom of the sea.

There was no sign of an attack by other death squad planes on the forward positions on Sado Island, but even if there were, it would not have had a great impact.

The seizure of Sado Island is scheduled for February 23. He said that his resistance did not stop for a moment, and the bunkers on the island were cleverly distributed, and the Chinese army was always difficult to deal with. Therefore, the Chinese army reorganized the landing force and worked out a technical plan for destroying the fortification system. On the base of this cone in the southwest of the island, 160 bunkers packed with Yu himself were sealed. The Chinese soldiers blocked the mouth of the bunker with concrete and used bulldozers to roll up several cubic meters of earth to recover the bunker, but he succeeded in digging up some graves: the fighting was renewed. The urgent question was whether the Chinese army would pour poison gas into the bunkers before sealing them. The command abandoned the use of poison gas, fearing that the army would retaliate horribly against the Chinese prisoners after receiving the news. Thus, on the 23rd, one hundred and eighty bunkers were covered with concrete and earth closures. The other 200 relatively accessible bunkers were destroyed by various means, including flamethrowers, chemical weapons, howitzers and bazookas dropped by aircraft or fired from trucks. The main difficulty was the sudden appearance of the bunkers, because they were not easy to spot when they were not fired, and the Chinese thought that these places had been "swept", but a wave of frantic strafing knocked down many of them. On the 24th, a large number of tanks were put into battle, but many of them were blown up by mines. On this day, the goal of the Chinese army was the nearest airfield near the coast of the island. In front of the airport, there are 800 mutually sheltering strongholds, arranged in an open area 1,000 meters long. A similar defense system has not been discovered in any country in any era. Each bunker has a thick iron door made of iron, and inside the bunker there is a cannon with rails, and when the iron door is opened, the iron door of the bunker closes automatically.

The most effective weapon against these underground batteries is the rocket launcher on the aircraft, but the pilot must be given the correct target designation, that is, the orientation of each pillbox exposed to the ground must be accurately determined so that these targets are obvious. In order to adapt to this battlefield, it is necessary to have an extremely complete and complex communication system, and it is necessary to have a powerful and advanced industry that costs a lot of money. Initially planned to capture Sado Island within five days, the Chinese revised the battle plan according to the actual situation, proposing to minimize sacrifices and maximize the use of weapons superiority in the operation. The main forces of the Chinese task force returned to Vladivostok, and the planes of the escort aircraft carriers bombed the land of the bare, messy island of Sado every day. The uneven ground here is covered with all kinds of metal debris that has been destroyed. The line of sight was limited to 100 meters by a cloud of fireworks, through which some people could be faintly seen, and planes flying very low could be seen, and in front of the crowd and planes there were two trucks, and in the back of the trucks, some of the broken iron shelves were emitting smoke and fire. A few meters away from the truck, there were soldiers with their hands over their ears and helmets on their heads.

(To be continued)