On November 25, 1941, a formation of 6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers and 9 destroyers of the Japanese Combined Fleet set sail from Danguan Bay in the Kuril Islands to the east.

On the same day, also on November 25, the warships of the Maritime Resistance Army joined up at sea south of Sumatra and then turned east.

The Naval Resistance Army had only one main base, Tanggang, and could not go out in secret, but they adopted a method of blurring their vision. The warships and supply ships departed from Tang Harbor in several separate flights over the course of a month, ostensibly in what appeared to be several unrelated escort operations.

The routes designed by the General Staff of the Naval Resistance Army were the same as those of the Japanese army, all for reasons of secrecy. This is already the best plan that the General Staff of the Naval Resistance Army can think of. In fact, this plan has great shortcomings, that is, the Naval Resistance Force has used almost all warships, and it is not difficult for Japanese spies to get this news. No matter how strict the control of the Naval Resistance Army in Tang Port is, it is inevitable that there will be Japanese spies in Tang Port. However, Li Guang was sure that it would be difficult for Japanese spies to obtain information on the destination of the Naval Resistance Army in any case. Because after the fleet was assembled, the officers of the Naval Resistance Army knew the goal of this operation.

Naval warships and supply ships sailed rapidly eastward along the coast south of Sumatra before creeping into the Timor Sea, passing halfway between Papua New Guinea and Australia, bypassing Nauru and heading straight for the Gilbert Islands east of Nauru (the main island being Tarawa).

The long-distance expedition, which covered a total distance of more than 5,000 nautical miles, lasted 11 days, and reached its destination on 6 December. The whole voyage was much longer than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but it was not as long as the Japanese army, and the route was remote and did not require much concealment. The main team of the second naval resistance army is all high-speed warships, and it has maintained a high speed of 24 knots during the voyage.

In the process, the Naval Resistance Army maintained radio silence throughout the army, and all radio stations in the fleet could only answer and were not allowed to send announcements. Ship-to-ship communication can only be done through flags or light signals. For the Naval Resistance Force, this is not only an expedition to fight, but also a run-in training for the entire fleet.

Compared with the route of the Japanese army, although the route of the Maritime Resistance Army has nearly doubled, there are relatively few merchant ships on this route. Although there were winds and waves along the way, but did not encounter a single freighter, the secrecy work was an unexpected success.

Compared with the Japanese plan of attacking Pearl Harbor, the battle plan of the Naval Resistance Force was much simpler, after all, the number of ships was only about one-tenth of that of the Japanese Navy. But this route design is already the best result that the General Staff of the Naval Resistance Army can make. The staff of the Naval Resistance Army has such a little benefit, it can be said that it is comprehensive in all aspects, and there are very few sloppy parts. However, the lack of coarse parts does not mean that there is less danger. The reason is that it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice, and the fleet of the Maritime Resistance Force has too much immaturity, which seriously restricts its ocean-going combat capability.

The first assembly point of the Naval Resistance Army was the Gilbert Islands. There are hundreds of islands in the Gilbert Islands, but the total population does not exceed 5,000, most of whom are indigenous to Kiribati. Since there is really nothing to produce except for some coconuts and seashells, there are no countries colonizing the area. However, this is considered Japan's sphere of influence, after all, the Marshall Islands, Japan's colony in the Pacific, is only a few hundred kilometers away. Although Japan has not claimed any ownership or colonial rights over the area, no country has claimed it.

Normally, this remote archipelago is a quiet place where only the occasional Japanese spy or fisherman arrives. For this battle, the Naval Resistance Force has made full preparations, and its reconnaissance activities in this sea area have not stopped for a year.

Three days before the arrival of the main fleet, four submarines of the Maritime Resistance Army, fighters of an amphibious company had already occupied the Abemama Atoll and controlled all the natives of the island. Supplies arrived and anchored in the lagoon.

Instead of occupying the main island of the Tarawa archipelago, the Maritime Resistance Force chose the relatively remote Abemama Atoll, mainly for the sake of secrecy. It is more than 200 kilometers away from the main island, and the Japanese planes will occasionally patrol around Tarawa Island, but the Japanese devils do not care about this remote Abemama Atoll at all.

More importantly, it was already the main island of the Marshall Islands, Kwajalein Atoll, where Japanese reconnaissance planes were on the edge of range. After many reconnaissances, the Navy's resistance forces were able to confirm that the Japanese pilots would generally not go beyond the range to reconnoiter the area.

From the air, the atoll is in the shape of a "heart", surrounded on three sides by coral reefs. The lagoon in the center is tens of meters deep and calm, making it ideal for ships to anchor.

For this battle, Li Guang made full preparations, and the two Fox submarines, which were capable of fighting in the open ocean, did not participate in the operation at all in the second half of the year, and all their energy was spent on reconnaissance. In fact, for this "beating the stick" operation, the preparations made by the Naval Resistance Force are not only these.

On the surface, the Maritime Resistance Force dispatched seven warships one after another. But in fact, the number of warships dispatched by the Naval Resistance Force is much more than that.

An aircraft carrier USS Liberty Dragon.

A battleship Atlantic,

Two pickup anti-aircraft anti-submarine destroyers,

A torpedo boat (captured French. ）。

A seaplane carrier USS PJP.

Ten combat submarines, two supply submarines,

Two tankers, two supply ships.

A total of twenty ships. Almost all of the naval combat strength of the Naval Resistance Force was used.

Seven battleships, in one day and one night, completed the task of refueling and replenishing, ready for battle.

The officers of the Naval Resistance Army did not know why Li Guang called the operation a "beating stick," but the official combat documents said "Operation Gift-giving." Li Guang didn't explain much.

Li Guang knew very well that the little devil was preparing to attack Pearl Harbor, but this could not be explained, and he could not say that he was unpredictable. The devils sneak up on the American ghost animals (the Japanese disdainfully call white people ghost animals), but the devils don't know that the Navy is preparing for a sneak attack on the Marshall Islands. The so-called praying mantis fluttering cicadas, and the yellow finch is behind, which is the current situation.

This is Li Guang's fifty-six and one-man slap to Yamamoto. It is also a "gift-giving" operation for the Americans.

Li Guang chose to attack the Marshall Islands, but he used what he knew later.

The Japanese Combined Fleet attacked Pearl Harbor, and Li Guang naturally knew about such a major event.

There were many other battles that took place at the same time as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but they were all overshadowed by the results and effects of Pearl Harbor. Li Guang knew one thing, that is, the battle of the Japanese army to capture Wake Island.

He once watched an old movie about the Battle of Wake Island. The battle was fought by the Japanese Fourth Fleet in the Marshall Islands on December 8, the same day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Li Guang doesn't know much about the Pacific War, and he can probably know some about the Pacific War because Americans like to make movies. For the Pacific War, Americans are very concerned about making movies, and the Americans have made the Pearl Harbor incident several times alone, and Li Guang has seen at least two versions of the Pearl Harbor movie.

Although Li Guang knew about the Pearl Harbor incident, he really didn't dare to speculate on the main battlefield when he thought about it. A fight of that magnitude is not something that a lightweight like the Navy can participate in. The confrontation between heavyweight players is a disaster for lightweight players, it is simply a death to death, and Li Guang naturally hides far away. The direction he chose for speculation was Wake Island, which was only a secondary battlefield for the Japanese army to launch the Pacific War, which was suitable for speculation by the Naval Resistance Army.

Wake Island is an overseas base of the United States. Located in the Central Pacific Ocean, it is 500 nautical miles from Guam to the west, 2,000 nautical miles from Hawaii to the east, and 1,025 nautical miles from Midway. It is composed of 3 small coral reef islands: Wake Island in the middle, Peel Island on the right, Wilkes Island on the left, the total area of the 3 islands is only 10 square kilometers, and a small inland sea is formed between the 3 islands, with a water depth of tens of meters, which can enter and exit thousands of tons of ships. Due to the protection of the atolls on three sides, it blocks the strong winds and waves from the Pacific Ocean, making the "Inland Sea" an ideal anchorage place for calm and calm seas, and naturally becomes a sea fortress that is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Despite its small size, the U.S. Navy has long begun work on building it into a naval and air base. After a short period of effort, the island's defense began to take shape: on the island's heights, seaplanes were on standby; In the center of the island, airfields with runways of 2,000 and 1,600 meters, as well as naval barracks, were built; In the lagoon embraced by Crescent Island, the Americans smashed the underwater coral reef and chiseled it into a submarine base.

The Americans hoped that Wake Island would become an unsinkable aircraft carrier that would hold the choke point to the western Pacific.

There were 447 Marines on Wake Island at the moment, commanded by Major James Devereaux, plus 75 signal corps and naval personnel.

In addition, 1,400 migrant workers are engaged in the construction of military projects.

The commander-in-chief of the island was Colonel Winfield Scott Cunningham.

In terms of artillery fire, the Marines defending the island had three artillery groups, each with two 5-inch guns, 12 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, and many machine guns.

Wake Island's air defenses were not weak, including a squadron of 12 Marine fighters, commanded by Major Paul Putnam. An F-4 "Wildcat" fighter manned by a Marine Corps pilot. It was delivered on 4 December, four days before Pearl Harbor, from the USS Enterprise led by Vice Admiral Halsey.

It is worth mentioning that on the way back, the "Enterprise" was delayed due to the bad weather, and as a result, it was unable to rush back to Pearl Harbor in time and was able to escape the Japanese bombing. At the helm of the aircraft carrier was American General Halsey, nicknamed "The Bull," who was also frustrated that he could not return for the weekend.

Tiny Wake Island is a huge unsinkable aircraft carrier, one of the most reliable and impregnable fortresses of the American military in the Pacific, and is regarded by the Japanese as a thorn in their side. Naturally, the Japanese Combined Fleet will not let go of this nail.

In the combined fleet's battle plan, the 4th Fleet led by Vice Admiral Narumi Inoue and the Special Marine Corps, the southern unit of the Japanese Navy, formed a landing force to complete the occupation of Wake Island.

(The above introduction to Wake Island, I admit that it is copied from the Internet, not counting the word count.) ）

On nautical charts, Wake Island and the Marshall Islands, as well as the island of Nauru, are listed from north to south in the Pacific Ocean like jewels.

Wake Island is about 1,500 kilometers from the Marshall Islands, while Nauru Island is about 1,000 kilometers from the Marshall Islands.

If you look at this sea area on a larger scale. You will find that in the sea area of more than 2,000 kilometers east of the Philippines and north of Papua New Guinea, several archipelagos form a missing "nine" character.

The short vertical above this "nine" is the Mariana Islands, a Japanese colony, and one of them is very special -- Guam, but it belongs to the United States.

The left half of the Ichiyoko is the Palau Islands, which were also Japanese colonies. To the east from Palau are the Caroline Islands, also a Japanese colony.

At the vertical and horizontal intersection of the character "nine" is its main island, Truk, which is the most important overseas base of the Japanese Navy. Known as Gibraltar in the Pacific Ocean, or Pearl Harbor in Japan. It can be regarded as the core fortress of the Japanese Navy in the Pacific Ocean.

The right shoulder of the word "nine" is the Marshall Islands, and the lower part of the hook is the Gilbert Islands where the Naval Resistance Army is lurking.

And if the right shoulder of this "nine" extends to the upper right (northeast), the first island is Wake Island, and then Midway Island and Pearl Harbor, the core base of the United States in the Pacific Ocean.

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