After the Burma Campaign, since the Japanese air defense force in the Malay Peninsula was still relatively strong, General Liszt and Admiral Lendulik invariably turned their attention to Sumatra, where the Japanese defense was weak, and wanted to use this as a springboard to obtain an advance base for the Malay Peninsula.

After careful study, the Axis Expeditionary Force decided to take advantage of its superiority at sea and ordered the implementation of the "Battle of the Lighthouse" operational plan on June 18 and landed in Sumatra on a large scale.

The 3rd Austro-Hungarian Marine Division, which had just arrived in Ceylon from Europe, was sent to the battlefield without having time to rush ashore to recuperate.

The Axis powers' powerful naval and air forces had already shown great power in the air battles in the South Seas, which made the hot-headed Japanese army, bent on seizing territory in the Pacific region, begin to sober up. The Japanese navy, which had always been arrogant, did not dare to confront the Axis expeditionary fleet head-on, but hid in the South China Sea and the Java Sea, the inner ring of the Nanyang Islands, and relied on the support of shore-based aviation units to maintain control of the South China Sea.

The focus of the Battle of the Lighthouse was to gain a foothold on Sumatra and then to build several military airfields around Bandazia as support points for the expeditionary force's advance.

Due to the German and Austrian naval and air superiority, and the fact that the Japanese did not pay attention to the strategic location of Sumatra at first, they concentrated their main naval and air forces on the blockade of the Strait of Malacca and Sunda, and only deployed a mixed brigade in Sumatra in Palembang and Nampung. <

Sumatra is the second largest island in the Dutch East Indies, with an area of about 440,000 square kilometers and a total population of about 8 million. The economy and culture here have always been relatively backward, and many tribes on the island are still in the primitive social stage, but with the discovery of Sumatra oil fields and a large number of Chinese people opening rubber plantations here, it has gradually become the largest oil producing area in the Far East and the heaviest rubber producing area in the world.

The western part of Sumatra is mountainous and horizontal. The majestic Barisan Mountains stretch for more than 1,600 kilometers in a northwest-southeast direction, with more than 90 volcanoes, including the highest peak, Mount Grinji, which is as high as 3,800 meters above sea level. The eastern part of the Barisan Mountains is a large swampy rainforest area with rivers crisscrossing the country, but it is extremely difficult to get to.

This is not suitable for large-scale operations. But for the Axis Expeditionary Force, building airfields and forward bases here was less susceptible to counterattacks from land.

On the evening of 19 June, the 3rd Austro-Hungarian Marine Division, escorted by the German task force, departed from Colombo on 26 transports. Admiral Marshall served as the commander-in-chief of the operation. This huge transport fleet sailed at a speed of 12 knots in the direction of the Strait of Malacca, while the Austro-Hungarian task force and the Chinese task force blocked the entrance to the Strait of Malacca.

Due to the bad weather, the Japanese troops in the Malay Peninsula did not find the whereabouts of the expeditionary force transport fleet. In the early morning of June 23, the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Division began to land in Bandassia. Here, no Japanese or British movement was found, and Bandazia had only a Dutch colonial police force of about 150 people, and the 3rd Army Division did not encounter any resistance at all, and occupied Bandazia lightly.

At 8:50, the landing commander signaled to the flagship: "The landing was successful, no resistance was encountered!" ”

It only took one day. The 3rd Austro-Hungarian Marine Division landed successfully, and then a large number of supplies began to land in the port. With the heavy equipment such as heavy artillery, tanks and armored vehicles of the 3rd Army Division, they came ashore one after another. It is no longer possible for the Japanese to retake this place lightly. Subsequently, large quantities of sappers and machinery began to be shipped to Banda Zia, and the Axis powers hired a large number of laborers in the port area, and the construction of three large airports began at the same time.

The landing of Axis forces in Sumatra did feel an immediate threat to the Japanese base camp. It is clear that the Axis Powers' current maritime strategy is focused on the South Seas and the Japanese army. The Japanese base camp immediately convened an operational meeting. After a detailed analysis of the actions of the Axis armies, it became clear that the strategic intention of the adversary was to use Sumatra as a springboard to prepare for a large-scale counteroffensive in the South Seas.

The British were completely out of hope, and their naval and air forces in Southeast Asia were extremely weak. It was too busy to take care of itself, and it was simply unable to cooperate with the Japanese counteroffensive. The Americans, on the other hand, are unwilling to expend their naval forces in the Southeast Asian theater, and the US Navy's current operational focus is to ensure the security of the Atlantic coast, and five of the seven aircraft carriers they currently have are deployed in the Atlantic Fleet, while the Pacific Fleet is now under-strengthened.

The strategy of the US Navy was to go on the defensive until the new aircraft carriers were not commissioned, and even the Philippines and Guam had already been abandoned.

The Axis fleet began to gradually approach the Japanese home.

Upon learning of the landing of the Axis navy on the island of Sumatra, Emperor Hirohito was shocked. Nagano Shusei, the head of the Naval Command, had no choice but to report to the emperor the base camp's analysis of the situation, and assured the emperor that the Japanese army had the ability to counterattack Sumatra, so that the emperor could be pacified.

Returning to the Admiralty, the angry Nagano immediately called the commander of the Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, and demanded that the Combined Fleet must take the recapture of Sumatra as the primary combat goal, and that the navy and army cooperate to fight a decisive battle with the Axis powers here. At the same time, Terauchi Shouyichi, commander of the Japanese Southern Army, was also actively deploying troops and ordering the Japanese 16th Army led by Jun Nakamura to launch a counteroffensive against Sumatra.

"The terrain in this area is not conducive to attacking, do the Japanese want to have a decisive battle with each of us here?" The movements of the Japanese army have been detected by the Axis powers, and in the headquarters of the Expeditionary Force in Rangoon, the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, William? General Liszt wondered why the Japanese had chosen to counterattack in Sumatra.

"It should be that they are under pressure from the top and have to do so." Li Jiayu explained that the Chinese Expeditionary Force had also joined the Axis Expeditionary Force, and General Liszt did not seem to understand the Oriental way of thinking. The Japanese army was obviously under tremendous pressure from Tokyo in this combat operation.

"However, due to the recent rainy season, there is hardly any good weather in the whole of the Dutch East Indies and the Malay Peninsula, and due to the weather, our superior air fleet will not be able to dispatch carrier-based aircraft for most of the time, and it is possible that the Japanese will send surface fleets to support their counterattack." Yankel said on the sidelines that the expeditionary fleet was also nominally under the command of the General Headquarters of the Far Eastern Army, but in actual operations, most of the time, the admiral served as the commander of the island operation.

At present, it rains almost every day in the entire Nanyang region, and the superiority of the expeditionary force's aviation force is indeed impossible to bring into play.

Due to the weather, the aircraft carriers of the expeditionary fleet had to come to rest in Colombo and Yangon, and the navy's combat methods seemed to have returned to the times of the First World War. (To be continued......) R1292