On the night of the 16th, the aircraft carrier Indian Ocean sailed eastward, away from Wake Island, to the assembly site.

On the night of the 17th, the aircraft carrier INS Indian Ocean and the newly launched light aircraft carrier USS Liberty Dragon converged. Li Guang and his brothers in the Naval Resistance Army finally saw the light aircraft carrier that the United States had rewarded for the Battle of Midway. This light aircraft carrier is the smallest of the three classes of regular aircraft carriers built by the United States in World War II, and the famous Independence-class aircraft carrier. This is the guy that the United States converted from the Cleveland-class light cruisers under construction.

However, the so-called light cruisers of the US military are very extravagant. The displacement of the Japanese heavy cruisers was only a little over 10,000 tons. The displacement of this light cruiser of the US military reached more than 11,000 tons. Converted into an aircraft carrier with a full load displacement of 15,200 tons. In other words, it can carry 3,700 tons of weapons, fuel, supply personnel, etc. This figure is no worse than the Indian Ocean aircraft carrier with a full load displacement of more than 30,000 tons.

It is impossible to be unconvinced, and the industrial technology and design level of the United States are definitely not comparable to that of Haitang.

Its power reaches 100,000 horsepower, which is only 20 percent less than the Indian Ocean aircraft carrier of the Naval Resistance Army, and its speed can easily reach 31.5 knots. Unlike the Indian Ocean, it is said that it can reach 30 knots, but in fact it is only the speed of a high-speed sprint, and it is impossible for the power system to work at that full power for a long time.

Although this aircraft carrier is small, with a displacement of two or three thousand tons smaller than that of its predecessor, the Liberty Dragon, the number of aircraft carried is not at all, and the hangar can store thirty-six aircraft, and with the arrangement on the deck, it can reach forty-five.

As for seaworthiness, lightning resistance and other indicators, the original Liberty Dragon aircraft carrier simply could not catch up.

Although the United States has laid an ambush on this aircraft carrier, it is not equipped with the most advanced radar of the US military. However, it is still equipped with a sea-to-sea radar and an air-to-air radar with backward models.

That's all. The battlefield survivability of this aircraft carrier is even stronger than that of the aircraft carrier INS India.

THE ONLY SLIGHTLY WORSE WAS ANTI-AIRCRAFT FIRE, WITH ONLY TWO 127MM ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS AND SIXTEEN FORTY-MM ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS, TEN TWENTY-MM ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS. The inability of artillery fire to form a multi-layered barrage of anti-aircraft interception is a minor flaw.

Living facilities, the US military is a consistent luxury. Compared to the humble Indian Ocean aircraft carrier, this light aircraft carrier Liberty Dragon is simply the distance between a grass house and a palace. On the aircraft carrier Indian Ocean, Li Guang thought he had the luxury of installing a huge freezer to store food. On this Liberty Dragon, the freezer is nothing at all, there are thirty or forty ice cream machines, as well as entertainment facilities such as audio and movies.

Captain Huang Zhonghua was proud. He was very satisfied, he cherished this aircraft carrier very much, the deck was shiny, and the corners and corners were cleaned.

However, although the Maritime Resistance Force has allocated enough manpower for this aircraft carrier, only more than 500 people are somewhat familiar with this aircraft carrier. I want to play the leading role in this battle, but I don't want to.

Taking into account the combat duty to Wake Island, there was no fire support from battleships. Then the Maritime Resistance Force must make full use of the strike force of the two aircraft carriers. So. In just one or two days, the Navy's resistance forces made adjustments to the carrier-based aircraft of the two aircraft carriers.

All twenty-four radar-equipped TBD torpedo planes were deployed to the Liberty Dragon, in addition to twenty Wildcat fighters were also deployed to the carrier, and the only Zero fighter was the Liberty Dragon, which was fully loaded with forty-five fighters.

The Indian Ocean aircraft carrier was equipped with 44 dive bombers and 24 Wildcat fighters. Thirty-six TBD torpedo machines. A total of one hundred and two.

The two aircraft carriers were so equipped with warplanes that it was clear that there were not enough Wildcat fighters. In fact, for the Naval Resistance Force, the use of dreadnought dive bombers is more convenient, and dive bombers are also insufficient. But. At the beginning of the year, the Navy only got 50 Wildcat fighters and 50 dive bombers from the United States, and a few of them were dropped during a year's training, and now all their belongings are here. A large proportion of TBD torpedo machines equipped with backward TBD torpedo machines are also a matter of no choice.

However, in any case, the configuration of the Naval Resistance Force at this time reached the equipment level of the US army in the early days of the Pacific War. And in fact, due to many improvements, the combat effectiveness is definitely above it.

Although the Americans set up an ambush on the aircraft carrier Liberty Dragon, the poor naval resistance forces, including Li Guang, were very satisfied.

This is a real regular warship.

You must know that there are not many ships in the Maritime Resistance Force that can really be called regular warships, and they can be counted in a single slap.

It can be seen from the configuration of the aircraft carrier fighters that although the Liberty Dragon aircraft carrier did not serve as the main force of the attack, the tasks of reconnaissance and protection of the fleet all fell to him, and Huang Zhonghua's task was not easy at all. It is actually very risky for an aircraft carrier that has not yet been run-in to undertake such a task.

As a result, Li Guang resented France and the United States. If he had the battleship Atlantic in hand, why would he be so risky.

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On the 18th, all the fleets of the Maritime Resistance Army converged at the predetermined assembly point. In one day and one night, the aircraft carrier Indian Ocean completed refueling.

On the 19th, the Naval Resistance Army fleet turned around and continued to rush to Wake Island.

In the past few days, under the leadership of He Shuoheng, the submarine squadron of the Maritime Resistance Army has been deploying defenses in the ocean 300 kilometers south of Wake Island.

Don't look at the submarine team, there are only four submarines, but after throwing out a few radio sonar buoys, plus the submarines' own reconnaissance, they can listen to the sea surface 400 kilometers wide.

The ships or fleets of the Japanese reinforcements on Wake Island may sail around the bend for the sake of concealment, but it is unlikely that they will go around hundreds of kilometers.

The four submarines lined up on the ocean surface were equivalent to the reconnaissance capabilities of 20 submarines, and it was almost impossible for them to miss the Japanese fleet.

However, in these four days, the submarine team only found one Japanese supply ship passing through. Due to the high speed of the ship, it was too far away from the submarine itself when it was discovered, and there was no time to intercept it.

A ship.

A lot can be analyzed from this information alone. Suffice it to say that the Japanese army did not realize that the Naval Resistance Army intended to capture Wake Island. Although I don't know how big the ships sent by the Japanese army were, the docks on Wake Island couldn't dock too big ships at all, and they didn't have a displacement of three or five thousand tons. It's nice to be able to carry 2,000 people.

In fact, the Japanese reinforcements were far less than 2,000 troops. There was only one brigade that was not properly formed, and it was also a Marine Corps, less than eight hundred people.

Why is this happening? Let's start with the report of Major General Toshiichi Sato. Toshiichi Sato dared to brag too much, and falsely reported the enemy's situation, which was a bit excessive.

The Japanese naval staff officers found a lot of suspicious points at a casual glance. Two sorts of air strikes totaling more than 150 B17s?

Do you blow out when the B17 is blown? If the U.S. military were to reinforce 150 fighters or light bombers, the Japanese naval staff would still believe it. But a big guy like the B17 has not appeared so much at once on the Kuah Island battlefield and in New Guinea.

MacArthur had only just withstood the Japanese attack, and it was too early to say that he had won. If the US military has so many large bombers, it will definitely not waste its combat power on Wake Island at this stage.

Two thousand tons of bombs? B17 runs 2,000 kilometers one way, can one carry more than ten tons of bombs? Elementary school students will settle accounts. To say that the army's dirt buns are dirt buns, dare to tell such a shoddy lie.

What's more, both Yamamoto Isoroku and Kuroshima Kameto were already convinced that it was an air raid launched by the US aircraft carrier, and they did not think that the idea of the Naval Resistance Army was to occupy Wake Island.

Therefore. The Japanese army's response was rather sloppy. Didn't Toshiichi Sato ask for coal? Then send 2,000 tons of coal. As for the casualty figures reported by Toshiichi Sato, the Navy still believes it, and no one dares to fake this thing. But it is really impossible to replenish more than 2,000 troops at once. So a Marine Corps brigade was transferred for reinforcements.

The Japanese Army's junk Marine Corps and the U.S. Army's most elite Marine Corps are completely two different concepts. In fact, the Japanese Navy also knows what its own Marine Corps is. To put it bluntly, it is a security guard, guarding a military port. Standing guard or something, barely making do.

But the ship was lucky. Although it was discovered by the radio sonar buoy of the Maritime Resistance Army, it was not sunk by the submarine of the Maritime Resistance Army, which was very surprising. This accident made the Japanese army even more convinced that the U.S. military was only a harassing air raid on Wake Island. As for why so many devils died, it was automatically made up by the navy - Toshiichi Sato's responsibility.

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Li Guang led the fleet to Wake Island again. And the Casablanca conference in Africa, far away, has already reached a conclusion. Eighteenth. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill have agreed on several major events in the United States and Britain, but they have not yet been announced to the public.

For the Casablanca meeting, Li Guang only had a little memory in his head, and it was impossible to remember the exact date. So. Now Li Guang did not know that the United States and Britain had reached an agreement.

At this meeting, the United States and Britain mainly reached six resolutions.

The first is to show determination to fight until the Axis powers surrender unconditionally.

Second, the United States and Britain joined hands to deal with German submarines with all their might. German submarines were so crazy in '42 that they sank 12 million tons of Allied merchant ships. More than four million tons higher than in history. Historically, U.S. shipbuilding capacity has leveled out the number of lost merchant ships from September to November, but it was still not balanced until January 43.

This kind of loss is really too heavy, the United States has money and materials, but it can't use a shipload of millions or tens of millions of dollars to learn "Jingwei reclamation".

In fact, the restrictions on the procurement of materials by Haitang are also related to this. When the US production capacity is not fully utilized, it is indeed difficult to meet the needs of various battlefields. And Haitang is far less important than Britain in the eyes of the United States. Therefore, it is understandable that it is difficult to purchase advanced weapons.

The third thing was that the two sides agreed to vigorously support the Soviet Union. The United States and Britain were unwilling to fight Hitler with their own troops, and although they did not have a good impression of the Soviet Union, it was always a good thing to help them consume German troops. Both Churchill and Roosevelt were worried that once the Soviet Union could not bear it, it would definitely not be a good thing for the United States and Britain, and in that case, it would be the turn of the United States, Britain and Germany to die, and that would be a tragedy. Therefore, it was easy for the two countries to reach an agreement on the matter of vigorously supporting the Soviet Union.

The fourth thing, to clear the Axis military presence in Africa, by attacking Sicily, landing in Italy. That is, what Churchill preached, starting from the soft belly of the enemy. To put it bluntly, Churchill was unwilling to take the British and German armies to the death, and preferred to pick up the soft persimmon - Italy.

The fifth thing was to decide on the landing of the Allies in Europe in '44.

Sixth, the U.S. military asked the British to counterattack Burma. After a year of fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, Roosevelt finally realized the importance of China containing the 1100,000 Japanese troops, and the urgency and necessity of aiding China were raised to a very important point.

Churchill agreed with Roosevelt. Specific arrangements have also been made. But just as last year's landing at Diep was an attempt to silence the Soviets, the British army conducted a showmanship in the Sittwe area off the west coast of Burma in January, and the result was naturally a failure. It is still to gag the mouth of the United States, and at the same time to fool Chairman Chiang.

And this defeat later made Li Guang grit his teeth fiercely, Nima, if you can't win, you can't let the devil notice, the landing site that the Naval Resistance Army has planned for a long time is also the Sittwe area, and now the British army is so stirred up, the Japanese army there is very small, and now the Japanese army has increased its troops to Situi with a multi-division.

Britain and the United States have set these six major events, and they have hidden a core element -- the US strategy of putting Europe first and then Asia. All planning is inseparable from one thing - troops and supplies.

Historically, President Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on a share ratio of 70 percent in the Atlantic theater and 30 percent in the Pacific theater. Moreover, the cunning Churchill even stipulated the scope of the US military's offensive in the Pacific theater, that is, the area south of the Japanese Truk base, and the US military was not allowed to expand the range. It is a miracle that President Roosevelt listened to him.

But now, the U.S. military is fighting fiercely with the Japanese in New Guinea and Kuah, and the scale of the war is much larger than in history. Thirty percent of the supplies and troops were obviously insufficient, so it became 40 percent of the Pacific and 60 percent of the Atlantic.

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Li Guang did not know anything about the distribution ratio of materials and troops set by the leaders of the United States and Britain, whether it was at present or in history. His goal in capturing Wake Island was simple: to completely reverse the U.S. strategy of putting Europe first and then Asia. And it is so that the United States has to turn it around.

As long as the Naval Resistance Force occupies Wake Island and hands it over to the United States, the United States must defend it with all its might, and it is impossible to lose it to Japan again. Not to mention Nimitz, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, even President Roosevelt did not dare. Unless he really doesn't do this president.

The importance of Wake Island is obvious, and the two sides will not be able to fight without fighting, and the US and Japanese forces will inevitably engage in a protracted war of attrition around this small island. It is estimated that the scale is more violent than the six naval battles in the Battle of Kuah, and this is exactly what Li Guang expected. Then, the United States will also have to invest more troops and materials in the Pacific theater.

A war of attrition? Li Guang smiled.

This kind of thing can only be played by the United States, which has deep pockets, and Japan, which still has its strength. Haitang really can't afford to play. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you to the devil philanthropist, thank you to the silver sea shadow for the tip.