Volume 1: Inner Mongolia Fengyun] Chapter 536: When the sneak attack on Zhan Dezhou is in progress-

Chapter 536: The Sneak Attack on Battle Texas is in progress

November 1941 was an unusual year, and the more difficult it was in winter, whether it was the Japanese, the Germans, or the Soviets and the Americans, everyone had their own plans for the winter. The victorious side is generally trying to keep the fruits of victory at this time, and the side that often loses battles during the year is trying in every possible way to fight a turnaround battle at the end of the year, which is vividly demonstrated on the Soviet-German battlefield.

Han Yunhua has never relaxed his attention to the Soviet-German battlefield, because some major events on the Soviet-German battlefield obviously had a huge impact on the Soviet Union, since the Soviet special combat team with less than 300 people was sent back to the Soviet Union, they were sent to Moscow as soon as possible.

Originally, Ivanov was ready to send a small force of only 378 men to Moscow, but the commander-in-chief of this special combat team, Major Shaykin, rejected Major General Ivanov, saying in extremely cold language: "If this special forces force, which has fought at least 10,000 times against the Japanese in the vast forests of China, cannot even cross Siberia, then the great Soviet Union will no longer need such cowards." ”

It was not the Japanese mongrel or their ally Germany that was the first to start a larger war around the world, but the Soviet Union. At this time, the Soviet Union had survived the most fierce moment of the war, and the Battle of Stalingrad had lasted for 120 days, from the end of June this year to the present, the commander of the German 6th Army, Paulus, commanded more than 50 infantry divisions, including 4 armies of the 6th Army, 2 armored corps, nearly 500 tanks, 3,000 artillery pieces and mortars, and 1,200 combat aircraft, and launched a fierce attack on the Soviet Union's first capture of Moscow.

In the face of the attack of the powerful Germany, the Soviet Union did not flinch, and the Soviet High Command was determined to organize and hold on to Stalingrad, and the Stalingrad Front, of which Khrushchev was a member of the Military Council, was responsible for the defense of the Stalingrad direction, and mobilized all the air forces of the country to support Stalingrad. At the end of September and the beginning of October, the Soviets transferred 6 infantry divisions and 1 tank brigade to the city of Stalingrad. At the same time, the Germans transferred 200,000 additional troops, including 90 artillery battalions and 40 siege-trained engineer battalions, as well as a large number of snipers, including Colonel Konings, the king of snipers in Germany.

Due to the stubborn resistance of the Soviet Union, the German plan to occupy Moscow was aborted, and the 120 days of fighting had already caused heavy casualties and demoralization of the German and Soviet troops. But in any case, Moscow was saved. Moscow was saved, but the Soviet Union's top brass was not willing to let the German invaders evacuate from Moscow calmly, you must know that in order to keep the capital Moscow, the entire Soviet Union paid an extremely heavy price, whether it was soldiers or civilians, a sentence of blood flowing, a sentence of corpses, and a tragic death are not enough to describe the tragedy of the defense of Moscow.

As a result, the Supreme Command of the Soviet Army began to prepare for a major counteroffensive at the end of September, and Zhukov, who was in charge of the overall strategy of the Stalingrad region, began to secretly masse troops to Stalingrad on a large scale. By mid-November, the Soviet army on the north and south sides outside the Stalingrad area consisted of three fronts, 10 combined armies of various arms, one tank army, four air force armies, and several independent armies, tank corps, and brigades, with a total of 1,106,000 men in 143 divisions, 15,500 artillery pieces and mortars, 1,463 tanks and assault artillery, and 1,350 aircraft. The German Army Group B in front of it had a total of 80 divisions and 3 brigades, about 1 million people, 10,290 artillery pieces, 675 tanks, and 1,216 aircraft.

Zhukov's strategy was to keep the Germans pinned down inside the city, and then to encircle the Germans in the city of Stalingrad by striking at the weakened outer flanks of the Germans. On November 13, Stalin approved Zhukov and Vasilevsky's plan for a counteroffensive, and personally replaced it with Operation Uranus, echoing Operation Mars against the German Army Group Center. The dates for the counteroffensive were set for November 19 for the South-Western Front and the Don Front, and November 20 for the Stalingrad Front.

On November 19, whether it was China or the Soviet Union, Japan and the United States, they were all nervous, and the Soviet Union was of course nervous about whether this counterattack would work, because it was a matter of life and death for the Soviet Union; Germany, on the other hand, is worried about whether it can be withdrawn from Moscow, and now the temperature is becoming more and more unbearable, a large number of them are not killed in battle, and a large number of weapons and equipment are beginning to be used inefficiently. As for Japan, it has already started a new round of naval and land attacks, and the United States is worried about what little Japan will do if it is not fooled this time.

The main reason for Okamura Ninji's order to shrink the whole army this time was that the Japanese Navy was about to fight a strategic decisive battle in the Pacific waters, and at the same time, the Japanese Southern Front was going to engage in a major battle for the entire South Asian region, including western Burma, and had no choice but to start drawing troops from the Kwantung Army and the Chinese Dispatch Army to fight.

Speaking of this land battle, you may not have heard of it, but the battle at sea was resounding, it was the world's first battle between aircraft carriers, that is, the Battle of Midway.

On 28 September, Yamamoto convened a meeting of senior admirals on his flagship "Yamato" giant battleship and decided on a specific operational plan for attacking Midway: First, send a fleet to attack the Aleutian Islands, land on Attu Island and Kiska Island in the islands, use this as bait to draw the attention of the American fleet to the north, and then use the main fleet to seize Midway Island.

The date of the operation was tentatively set for early November, and on November 5, the Japanese Navy Command Department issued the "Base Camp Admiralty Order No. 18", officially approving the Midway operation plan, and named it "Operation Mi".

Unbeknownst to the Japanese, the US Naval Intelligence Agency, in close cooperation with the British and Dutch counterparts, began to successfully decipher part of the code of the JN-25, the main communication system of the Japanese Navy. By early September, the coalition forces had made a major breakthrough in cracking the JN-25, and as a result, they had gained the ability to spy on the Japanese naval program. The JN-25 informed the Coalition that the AF Position would be the next target of the Japanese Navy, but the Coalition Forces were unable to crack the AF Position. Some high-ranking U.S. generals believe that the 'AF direction' is Midway, while others believe that it is the Aleutian Islands.

However, no matter how advanced the coalition decoding technology is, it still can't decipher the correct location of the 'AF direction'. While the top brass of the U.S. military was struggling, a young officer came up with a clever plan to confirm whether the 'AF direction' was Midway. He asked the commander of the Midway Naval Base to radio Pearl Harbor for help, saying that there was a problem with the water supply station on Midway, causing the entire Midway Island to face a water shortage crisis. Soon after, the U.S. Naval Intelligence intercepted a JN-25 message, which really mentioned the problem of water shortage in the 'AF direction'. As a result, the 'AF Direction' was confirmed to be Midway, the next target of the Japanese Navy.

When he learned of the information that the Japanese Navy was going to make a move on Midway, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Brown. Nimitz immediately recalled the USS Enterprise, the USS Hornet, and USS Yorktown, which was undergoing major repairs at Pearl Harbor because of its involvement in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Appointment of Raymond. Major General Spruance took command of Task Force 16 in place of the ailing Lieutenant General Halsey. Nimitz prepared to ambush the northeast of Midway with three Yorktown-class aircraft carriers as the main force, plus about fifty support ships, preparing to attack the Japanese on their way to Midway. [This chapter is not finished, please click on the next page to continue reading!] ］