On the evening of October 22, the area around Port Blair, the former British Andaman Blair, was already filled with an air of madness and despair. In the humid and sultry rainforest, there are soldiers with cloth strips on their heads, some hiding in the corners in a daze, some desperately stuffing compressed biscuits and snake jerky into cloth bags, some facing the east to worship their hometowns, and some polishing their sabers and preparing to be loyal to their seppuku. Even dozens of Japanese expatriates engaged in the mahogany business wore grenades around their necks, and their dead father and mother looked like mourners. In the comfort camp deep in the dense forest, there were terrible cries, and thousands of soldiers lined up, using the bodies of dozens of comfort women to vent their pre-war fears, and then killed them all, and grandly called it their chastity.

Tada turned a blind eye to this. News of the departure of the Chinese landing fleet from Calcutta had reached here, and he believed that the soldiers trapped on the isolated island needed to vent to their heart's content in order to accumulate strength for the tough battle for the island that followed. The connivance of the officers contributed to the tyranny, and not only the comfort women were killed, but also the women of the surrounding villages, even the dark-skinned and short-skinned indigenous women. In a matter of days, all 27 inhabited villages in the Andaman Islands were wiped out, the population plummeted from 70,000 before the Japanese occupation to less than 30,000, and the dense mass of corpses floated along the coast, attracting countless sharks. The solemn atmosphere of the war makes human nature extremely distorted, especially the crazy and paranoid army of the Japanese army, which is even more unreasonable.

A sailor with his pants in his hands ran out of the comfort station toward the bay, and as soon as he walked onto the narrow wooden trestle, he was stopped by the bearded Masafuku Kimura. "Yaga! Smack! "Two crisp slaps on the wrist represent strong dissatisfaction. It's not that Kimura is so clean, he does this for the good of the sailors, because the more than 500,000 army soldiers who participated in the "Jade Breaking Order" in Seoul and Ryukyu were almost completely killed by the Chinese and North Korean troops, but there was no place to implement the Jade Breaking Order, and the defeated soldiers were nothing more than being imprisoned in concentration camps to suffer some crimes, at least they could survive. Failure is inevitable. It shouldn't continue to waste life, that's what he thinks.

The sailor lowered his head and did not dare to look Kimura's eyes, so he hurriedly jumped into the transport boat and headed for the middle of the fjord. On the sea, Qiuyun, Boyun, Chaoyun and other destroyers and submarines are ready to go. This was the last mobile force of the Japanese Navy in the Indian Ocean, with a total of 11 destroyers, 1 gunboat, 2 torpedo boats, 2 special cruisers, 4 submarines, and the cruiser Isuzu, which had just arrived from Malaya to support.

At Kimura's advice, the sailors of the Japanese Indian fleet were much quieter than the army, and most of them waited silently for the moment of departure with pictures and letters from their families or wives.

Kimura touched his beard. looked at the back of the sailor in embarrassment, and sighed secretly. More than two years ago, on Barron Island, east of the Andaman Island, Admiral Yamamoto led the main force of the fleet to sink the British Royal Navy's "Prestige" and "Counterattack" battle cruisers, which not only made Europe and the United States aware of Japan's strength, but also made Britain dare not continue to send fleets to the Far East. Japan also thought about salvaging two battle cruisers equipped with 381 mm guns for its own use, but first, there was a lack of deep-water heavy salvage equipment, and second, there was no dock and equipment in Southeast Asia to repair the two giant ships. I can only look at the boat and sigh. More than two years have passed, and no one would have imagined before setting out on the expedition that the imperial navy that swept across the southwest Pacific and the eastern Indian Ocean would have sunset so quickly, and the few remaining capital ships would be trapped on the mainland. The detachments of the Philippines and Rabaul were in the harbor, and most of the more than 100 submarines before the war were sunk.

"Life flies." A black smoke H6K4 Type 97 airship interrupted Kimura's thoughts. After the seaplane wobbled and landed on the sea, the sailors stood up and watched. The dense bullet holes in the wings and fuselage silenced them. This time the opponent is too strong, and there are 3 fleet-type aircraft carriers alone. There were also 4 battleships, 10 cruisers and at least 30 destroyers and submarines. On the other hand, on his own side, except for this patchwork fleet. There are only 5 Hayabusa fighters, 4 96 ship battles, 2 B10 bombers, and 11 P36 fighters. The latter was also the emergency use of the United States aircraft seized from the Philippines after the loss of Guam. The huge disparity in the number of troops made the entire Indian army shudder.

"Found the Chinese fleet?" Upon learning of the return of the reconnaissance plane, the commander of the dispatch corps, Tada, came out of the dense forest with his officers. "300 kilometers to the northwest and is approaching here at 15 knots. There were many landing ships and merchant ships, as well as an aircraft carrier fleet and a dozen warships to escort them. "The pilot, covered in blood, reported on the discovery of the landing fleet of the Chinese Navy.

"Is there only one aircraft carrier?" Kimura raised his alert. Intelligence said that China's Indian Ocean Fleet has three aircraft carriers, namely "Xikang", "Tibet" and the recently added "Jiangxi". The first two ships are both Sichuan-class, and the latter is the Liaoning-class that was incorporated into the Indian Ocean Fleet after protecting Yang Qiu's participation in the Cape Town Conference.

"Yes, there is only one. Kawanishi Daisa, who searched around separately from me, was already loyal to the Empire. After the pilot repeatedly confirmed that there was only one aircraft carrier, Kimura did not dare to linger any longer, because the two aircraft carriers that disappeared were probably already nearby.

He was right, just when the Japanese Indian fleet left behind drilled out of the fjord, after four days and four nights of covert sailing, the two Sichuan-class aircraft carriers had arrived 150 nautical miles southeast of Port Blair. Compared with the other two fleets of the Navy, the Third Fleet lacked more actual combat experience except for Taranto, so even if the strength of the Kimura fleet was very poor, Zhu Binhou did not dare to be careless, and deliberately separated the fleet to prepare to take the enemy by surprise.

However, the Japanese water reconnaissance plane, which was reported by the landing fleet in the afternoon, broke his wishful thinking. "Commander, the tower said that the wind speed has decreased and it can take off." The nautical staff reports on the sea conditions.

Originally, when he encountered a Japanese reconnaissance plane in the afternoon, Zhu Binhou wanted to take off early, but the bad sea conditions have been delayed until now. "How is the first wave of assault aircraft prepared?" Zhu Binhou looked at his watch, and when sunset was only an hour away, he asked Chief of Staff Deng Haoqian about the readiness of the plane.

"Fuel and ammunition have been filled, the pilots have been put in the cabin and are on standby, and dinner has been postponed until after eight o'clock." Deng Haoqian immediately replied: "However, if you take off now, you won't be able to return before sunset, and Kimura should be hiding." ”

Zhu Binhou frowned, naval operations are different from the army, sometimes a submarine can cause the failure of the entire attack. As the last mobile force left by the Japanese Navy on the Indian Ocean side of the Strait of Malacca. Without completely destroying the Kimura fleet, he would not be able to go to the Malayan Peninsula to attack Singapore with peace of mind. Time does not allow him to have many options, the landing fleet will arrive tomorrow, and he must bomb the harbor first to open up a safe landing ground.

It is difficult to carry out large-scale raids on stationary islands at night using carrier-based aircraft. And the Andaman is not Taranto with perfect navigation and the British to lead the way, even if the radar is already widely used, it is necessary to be extremely careful. But he still decided to attack, not giving the Japanese any chance to adjust again: "The first attack wave will set off immediately!" Reconnaissance aircraft were sent to continue the search for the Japanese fleet. Command escort ships. From now on, sink everything you can see! No need to ask! A telegram was sent to the "Jiangxi" formation, moving westward, beware of Japanese night attacks, and the forward heavy patrol formation was at full speed, and in four hours it must rush to the sea off Port Blair and shell the harbor with bomb fire as the target. ”

Urgent and quick orders, quickly descended to the deck. A few minutes later, the first attack aircraft group, which had been prepared for a long time, left the decks of the "Tibet" and "Xikang" one after another. Under the escort of 16 Lightnings, 52 Yaksha dive bombers and 36 Osprey torpedo bombers were loaded with bombs. Forming three zigzag formations, they pounced on Port Blair.

"Lift the silence and connect the radio of the attack aircraft group to the bridge of the navigation ship." After waiting anxiously for 40 minutes, Zhu Binhou ordered to receive the signal. Soon. A powerful voice sounded from the horn of the navigation bridge: "The sentry calls the phoenix, the airspace has been cleared, and the bomb can be dropped at any time." "The phoenix received, the phoenix received. Target the lower left harbor, follow me boom boom. ”

Violent explosions began to sound inside Port Blair, in order to ensure adequate anti-ship capabilities. The dive bombers were carrying two 250-kilogram high-explosive bombs. Raining bombs, quickly destroying all visible targets in the visual range. Since the Japanese army had been given early warning, it was not until the bombing began that the Japanese planes that were hiding over Central Kalimantan Island flew back, hoping to attack the bombers in a sneak attack. But a dozen or so low-performance Falcon and 96 ship battles could not stop the "Lightning" fighters roaring down, not to mention those American-made P36 old men.

With bursts of rapid machine gun fire heard on the radio, the 12.7-millimeter aviation machine gun of the "Lightning" fighter launched a stormy attack on the Japanese planes. Even two American-made B10 bombers that tried to search for the aircraft carrier were quickly shot down by the destroyer's anti-aircraft guns cruising nearby after going to sea.

After the dive bombers left, the "Osprey" torpedo planes, which followed behind, slowly climbed to 2000 meters. Torpedo aircraft focus on low-altitude capabilities, so their flight performance is poor, and they can only be used for horizontal bombing when they do not need to attack ships. However, their large bomb load allows them to carry one 500-kilogram cluster bomb and two 100-kilogram bomblets under the wings. Thirty-six Ospreys, in groups of eight, rained down bombs from the harbor. The screaming sound of the bombs breaking through the air made the Japanese troops on the ground terrified, and the large cluster bombs that scattered into countless small bombs in the middle of the way expanded the explosion coverage dozens of times.

The Andaman has a unique geographical location and no air bases around it, so it is not possible to use the tactics of large-yield coverage bombing attacks like the Ryukyus. However, the heavy cluster bombs effectively made up for the weakness of the insufficient bombing range. With a single overshadowing explosion, the entire Port Blair was covered in subbombs, and the dense foliage was full of dense fireballs.

The Japanese army's extremely poor air defense capability could not stop such a fierce bombardment at all. However, Zhu Binhou also knew that it was impossible to easily break up the Japanese army with a few dozen bombers, so the French heavy cruiser "Algeria," the heavy cruiser "Foch," the heavy cruiser "Duplex," the heavy cruiser "Tourville," the light cruiser "Marseillaise," and the electronic reconnaissance ship "Natuna," which was converted from the battleship Prinz Eugen, rushed to the sea off Port Blair at 9 o'clock that night.

41 203-mm and 210-mm guns fired heavily at the coordinates of the unextinguished fire in the harbor. Even the light cruiser "Marseillaise" and the electronic reconnaissance ship "Natuna" bombarded the rainforest with their respective nine 152-mm main guns and 20 120-mm high-level dual-purpose naval guns. But what made Zhu Binhou strange was that the Japanese fleet did not appear from beginning to end. To this end, he also sent 2 light cruisers, 10 destroyers, and 6 submarines to search along the coast for a whole night, but there was still no trace of the Japanese and Indian fleets, and even the noisy Japanese submarines were not found.

Where the hell is the Kimura fleet? …… (To be continued......)