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The failure of the landing force forced Zhu Binhou to send all the next five army divisions to the island as soon as possible, but it was not easy to send so many army forces and tens of thousands of tons of equipment supplies ashore, because Port Blair was very narrow, there were no modern facilities at all, and even the harbor trestle was wooden, so the landing progress was extremely slow. After dark, the fleet ran into even more trouble, as the rapidly strengthening westerly winds turned the Andaman Sea upside down, and the five or six metre high waves made the landing even more difficult, even causing two small transport ships to collide as they approached the port, injuring several soldiers. The accident also made the landing operation even worse, and in the end the sappers had to take the initiative to sink one ship and build a temporary plank road on its deck so that the follow-up troops could continue to go ashore.

In the wee hours of the morning, as a steady stream of army and heavy equipment came ashore, the resistance around Port Blair began to wane. However, the situation did not get better, but because of a special circumstance, both the landing fleet and the fleet were put in danger.

Inside the electronic reconnaissance ship "Natuna," which has been in charge of the electronic alert task in the entire port area, the chief electronic non-commissioned officer has a solemn expression. As an electronic reconnaissance ship converted from the former Austro-Hungarian Combined Forces class battleship, the Natuna and its sister ship Ryukyu are the most important eyes and ears of the Navy. Not only is it equipped with the latest radar, but it also has a large number of radio listening equipment and a read-power electronic intelligence cabin, which can effectively intercept radio signals within 100 kilometers. If it weren't for the fact that the Kimura fleet entered the radio silence, it would not have been hidden. But now, the warship has encountered a very unexpected situation. "Look." The non-commissioned officer reluctantly pointed to the radar screen covered with peculiar stripes, and explained the situation to Zhu Binhou and the others, who had come to the scene: "Clutter, all of them are geomagnetic clutter signals. The closer you get to the shoreline, the stronger the clutter. I asked the other ships, except for the main force of maneuvering in the far seas, all the radars patrolling and searching in the coastal waters have encountered this problem, so they can only rely on visual search for them now. ”

"What's the clutter all about? Why haven't you heard of it before? Li Zongren, who vomited and turned pale, had already gone to the shore, but when he heard that there was an accident with the radar, he hurried back in a hurry without caring about the discomfort.

"It's always been there, I've seen the Ryukyus and Mariana before, but it's the first time I've encountered it with such intensity. I guess it has something to do with nearby volcanic activity. You see, this is a report yesterday that the submarine heard an abnormal noise on the bottom of the sea, this is in the afternoon, and I suspect that there is slight seismic activity on the bottom of the sea nearby. In the face of the ever-changing electronic technology, most of the officers were very unfamiliar, and Li Zongren was very puzzled that volcanic activity could affect radar detection. They did not know that the problem of radar filtering geomagnetic clutter interference could not be initially solved until the advent of electronic computers.

"This is my preliminary estimate. Because volcanic activity is caused by the compression of the earth's crust, in the process, quite strong electromagnetic waves are released. This situation was also discovered by domestic seismic surveys. The Andaman Islands happen to be the most volcanic and seismically active region. "Master Chief is serious. Later, his report was also taken seriously by the Navy and the scientific and technological departments, and a long-term research institute was established in Andaman alone.

Li Zongren was stunned, he didn't expect that a single radar would involve so many disciplines.

Zhu Binhou is even more nerve-wracking, at the moment the sea is windy and waves, and if there is no radar, the fleet's search capability will be seriously weakened. "I suggest adding deck observation posts to keep the ships at a proper distance, so that the interference of clutter on the islands can be reduced." The electronic non-commissioned officer made his own proposal.

At two o'clock in the morning, when the escort ships began to adjust, the heavy patrol of the "Lanzhou" that was searching for the flotilla near Barron Island suddenly reported that several sea targets were spotted on the north side of the island that were heading for Malaya at high speed, and a large number of submarine noises were heard on sonar. Submarines have always been the biggest threat to surface ships, so Zhu Binhou immediately dispatched four destroyers to support. But he never imagined that Kimura didn't know how to use submarines at all, let alone the coordination tactics of surface ships and submarines, so he simply sent all 4 submarines, 2 ad hoc cruisers, and 2 torpedo boats out as bait. By this time, Kimura's main force had bypassed the southernmost tip of South Andaman Island and quickly turned back to the north near Port Blair.

At 3:40 a.m., the radar of the Tumenjiang-class light cruiser "Liaohe" south of Port Blair picked up a signal, but because the signal flashed and disappeared, the radar crew mistakenly thought it was clutter, so they did not notify the destroyer "Yunwushan" in front. It wasn't until the point of light reappeared that the radar soldier realized that it wasn't clutter. But it's too late! The cruiser Isuzu and 11 destroyers were already 10 kilometers south of the harbor.

At this time, the wind speed on the sea is still more than 100 kilometers per hour, and even if there are lights in the direction of the harbor, the military lookout cannot tell the number and type. Usually in this case, the fleet will continue to sprint at high speed until the target is clearly visible before launching a torpedo attack. But Kimura once again broke the mold and made an unexpected decision, he ordered 12 warships to take the harbor as the coordinates, and then set the torpedo depth by 6 meters, shorten the launch interval, and shoot them all at once in a super-dense manner.

The maximum range of the 93 oxygen torpedo, although it could reach a terrifying 40 km, was meaningless in the years without guidance. At the moment, when the sea is 10 kilometers away from the harbor and the sea wave height is close to 5 meters, Kimura is obviously not fighting a war, but gambling. Even after he was captured, he frankly admitted that he had never been able to break through the blockade of a dozen cruisers and destroyers, so he simply finished the fight and left.

"Enemy ships!"

By the time the light patrol of the "Liaohe", which was protecting the harbor to the south, sounded the alarm, Kimura had fired all 74 torpedoes, of which 52 were 93 oxygen torpedoes. The nearest destroyer, the "Yunwu Mountain," was the fastest, and after more than ten seconds, three twin 120 naval guns sprinkled a string of shells at the "Isuzu." Immediately afterwards, four twin 155 naval guns on the "Liaohe" also joined in.

The sudden rumbling of artillery from the south caused a sudden chaos in the harbor, and one after another the landing ships and merchant ships evaded in the opposite direction according to the predetermined plan, and the eight destroyers and frigates protecting the convoy also quickly turned to meet the ships, and the French heavy cruisers "Foch" and "Diplex" that were responsible for supporting the other shore at night, the "Yalu River" and "Songhuajiang" of the Tumen River-class light cruisers, and the French light cruiser "Marseillaise" also turned south one after another, trying to insert themselves between the landing formation and the enemy ships to protect the safety of the fleet.

For a time, the harbor area was full of ships evading steering.

The reaction speed of the Third Fleet was really fast, and the average time from the firing of the "Cloud Mountain" to the tactical maneuvers of the ships was less than two minutes, and the overwhelming shells were sprinkled on the Kimura fleet. But the shrill of the torpedo hissing under the water made the sonar soldiers of the destroyer "Yunwushan" stand upside down: "Torpedoes! Lots of torpedoes! ”

74 torpedoes, swept from the side and bottom of the destroyer in a super-dense formation. Fortunately, in order to reduce the impact of the waves, Kimura set the torpedo depth at 6 meters, so the "Cloud Mountain" actually dodged unscathed. But the "Liaohe" behind it was not so lucky, after a loud bang, the Tumenjiang-class light cruiser with a draft of 6.5 meters, was hit by a 93 oxygen torpedo in the stern, and the violent explosion made the battleship turn around the sea in an instant.

Without waiting for the "Liaohe" to report its injuries, the 10,000-ton Fulai and Tianfu ships, which were coming out of the harbor, and the "Marseillaise" light cruisers, "Yalu River" light cruisers, and "Deprax" light cruisers, who were turning at high speed to protect the landing fleet, also suffered torpedoes explosions one after another, while the destroyers and landing ships with shallow drafts were all unharmed. Such a terrible torpedo attack allowed Zhu Binhou and the Third Fleet to learn for the first time the super lightning strike ability of the Navy, and Kimura was also called the "Kimura Miracle" by later naval scholars because of this battle. However, Lieutenant General Kimura, who created a miracle, was also hit by the destruction of the surname. The remaining 13 destroyers of the Third Fleet sprinkled all their shells on his fleet, and the four Qinling-class destroyers that arrived from the east also returned a wave of 40 thermodynamic torpedoes.

By 4:30 a.m., Kimura had lost 5 destroyers, and the cruiser Isuzu and the remaining 6 destroyers were all damaged. At this critical moment when the whole army was about to be annihilated, he made a jaw-dropping decision again, first let the flagship play the "follow me" light signal, and then lead the flagship to rush to the island.

When he later spoke of this decision in a court-martial, he believed that he had completed his mission at that time, had achieved more than expected, and had fulfilled his responsibilities as a soldier. He said that if he chose to break through to Malaya, 600 kilometers away, he would definitely end up in the annihilation of the whole army, so in order to avoid the remaining thousands of sailors dying in the sea, he simply ran ashore and tried to escape into the rainforest to continue the fight. However, due to the poor choice of location, he was finally trapped on the southernmost peninsula of the Andaman Islands, and was captured two days later. But his decision saved the lives of many sailors and their families, and 821 sailors survived to the post-war period. But at that time, Zhu Binhou hated to kill him, and in the end, Deng Haoqian reminded the presence of the ** ship, so he did not do the ** prisoner of war.

However, Kimura did not die, but it relieved the intelligence department. Because the Ministry of Intelligence has been secretly searching for gold treasures that the Japanese army has seized in India and Burma. You must know that after the army captured Burma and Kolkata, even the gold leaf pasted on the temple pagoda was scraped clean, and hundreds of ancient temples in India and Burma were violently looted by them. But because Guam's occupied shipping lanes were cut off, intelligence services have long suspected that this unimaginable amount of treasure is still somewhere in Southeast Asia. And Kimura happens to be the only naval officer in charge of escorting, and if you catch him, you can find him out by going through the vine.

At 6 o'clock in the morning, the "Lanzhou" heavy patrol squadron also sent back the news that it had sunk four surface ships and all four submarines, which also meant that there were no more warships in the Indian Ocean. Zhu Binhou was also relieved at this time, because among the six ships that were hit, only the cargo ship "Fulai" accidentally hit the reef and capsized when it ran aground, and the injuries of the other four cruisers and merchant ships were not serious. And at that time, the army on the two freighters had already been unloaded, so only 51 people were killed and 127 were injured.

The Battle of the Andaman was also the last battle in which the Allied navy damaged the main cruiser of the Allied forces, and until the defeat, the Combined Fleet, which had made the entire world look at each other, failed to achieve any more results.

The results of the naval battle of the four cruisers were quickly transmitted to China, but Yang Qiu did not pay much attention to it. The Indian Ocean was not the main battlefield, and the capture of the Andaman was only to cut off the southeastern army from India and prepare for an attack on Singapore and the Malay Peninsula. What's more, the most important thing for him now is to integrate the recovery of the territory and the entrusted islands as soon as possible in accordance with the agreement reached at the Cape Town Conference, and also to adjust the following military tasks and domestic problems delayed by the war, and with the war in Southeast Asia in full swing, the Asian League also needs an opportunity to officially push onto the historical stage.

"These are the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshalls, the Tawala Atoll in Gilbert, the Truk, the Holy Jerus Islands, the South Bird Island, the Wake Island, the Volcanic Islands (Iwo Jima), the Bismarck Islands (Rabaul), the Cocos Islands, Christmas Island, and the Andaman Island." In the presidential palace, Bingwen lay on the table, and his fingers drew a circle along the edge of the southwest Pacific Ocean: "This is the island chain we currently control, most of the islands are no worse than Diego Garcia Island, and the population is very small, it is completely possible to learn from Diego Garcia to move the people above and establish a closed base on the grounds of military needs." ”

The great ambition of the navy made Gu Weijun smile first: "I said Bingwen, your navy is too greedy, right?" I remember Truk and Bismarck, they haven't been beaten yet, right? ”

"It's going to be fast, the armies of Saipan and Truk have been hungry for more than a year, and their combat effectiveness has weakened a lot, and they can attack when Singapore takes it, as for Rabaul." Bingwen rubbed his hands and looked at Yang Qiu. "Rabaul won't fight for the time being, just block it first." The Andaman rainforest war is already very painful, and going to Rabaul, the "large Andaman" with 100,000 elite soldiers and hundreds of thousands of expatriates, is no different from looking for death. If the first nuclear bomb wasn't still in production, he would have wanted to throw it at Andaman.

"What Bingwen just said I think is okay." Yue Peng nodded in agreement with the Navy's idea: "Ryukyu, Guam, Truk, Marshall, and Gilbert are right on the route between our country and South America, if we can build these bases well, we can not only ensure our country's interests in the Southwest Pacific, but also don't have to look at Hawaii's face when we go to South America in the future." "In the past, when you took the South American shipping lane, you had to refuel or transit in Hawaii, and if you can build airports and seaports on these islands, you can bypass the United States. Although everyone did not think of going to South America to compete with the United States, the rich resources of South America are still worth exploring.

"There is no big problem on the Pacific side, and since it is under our trusteeship, we can use the excuse of restoring the local people's livelihood to close these places, but these three places in the southwest are too complicated." As the prime minister, Gu Weijun is Yang Qiu's big butler, and these domestic affairs will eventually fall on his shoulders. Therefore, he also knew that Yang Qiu did not want to continue to make three states in India, and originally only wanted to abolish the "Sino-British Conference Tibet-India Treaty", which is known as the "last unequal treaty" in China, and restore the sovereignty of the central government in East Kashmir. You know, East Kashmir is the only strategic point to hold the Wakhan Corridor, and controlling it will keep Afghanistan and the Muslim League out of the country.

But if the treaty is abolished, the three states must be accepted, and you can't throw them away, right? So you have to eat this bowl of raw rice if you don't eat it...... (To be continued.) )