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The rain poured down like a waterfall.

"Woooooooooo

Like the sound of a cracked accordion, countless rockets flew out from the upper deck of the destroyer Yukikaze, dragging a blazing orange glow towards the island several kilometers away. A chilling tail wave of air swept across the entire foredeck in an instant, blowing the red plaster flag on the bow of the ship into a fluttering flutter.

After tens of seconds of flight, a high-explosive rocket with a diameter of 210 mm crashed down on the beach, and the hidden 80 kilograms of high explosives exploded violently under the action of the warhead fuse, raising a formidable red cloud of fire.

The Yukikaze was followed by four destroyers, including the destroyers Shiyu and Nobu, who also bombarded Kauai Island from a distance of five kilometers with four temporary 210-millimeter rockets mounted on board.

This 210-millimeter rocket, which is equipped with a total of 12 units in three rows and four columns, was mounted on a special gyroscope and was also imported from Germany with technology that was just imported from Germany this year. Compared with traditional artillery suppression, rocket artillery has the advantage of being able to pour a sufficient density of bullets to a fixed target in a single time to achieve the suddenness of the shelling. Compared with traditional cannons, the characteristics of the "projectile" of the rocket itself are also conducive to destroying some targets hidden in dead corners that are difficult for ordinary cannons to hit directly.

KauaiKoai is a small island in the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, with an area of 1,433 square kilonies, which is large enough to build a field airfield here. If the Japanese Navy wants to seize Pearl Harbor, it is a strategic objective that must be taken at the first opportunity.

In order to achieve the suddenness of the attack, the Japanese Combined Fleet was first led by the destroyer fleet, and at half past two in the morning of the 25th, it quietly forced Khao Oi to take advantage of the heavy rain that was falling in the area. When the radar was jammed by the heavy rain, six destroyers went to the coast of Kauai and fired more than 200 rounds of 210-millimeter rockets at the US military base on the shore in one go. Burn the U.S. military barracks and airstrips on the island.

After using all the rockets in a dozen seconds, the six destroyers quickly retreated to avoid the retaliation of the island's shore defense guns that might arrive.

Tonight, except for the main island of Oahu. Several small islands of strategic value around the Hawaiian Islands were all subjected to artillery bombardment and rocket attacks by the Japanese Navy's night mobile units, and the airfields and barracks on the islands were heavily shelled.

After the rocket was fired, a formation of four fast mobile cruisers, led by the Aoba, quickly appeared, and under the guidance of the cruiser Izumo behind them, they used their eight-inch guns to bombard targets on the island 18,000 kilometers away.

The Supreme Commander of the U.S. Army in Hawaii was Vice Admiral Short, who was dismissed from his post at the same time in history because of the successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Admiral Kimmelly, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, who became the scapegoat for the heavy losses of the Pacific Fleet.

But this historical plane. He was in a much better situation, becoming a "banner" for the U.S. military to defend Pearl Harbor against Japanese aggression, and escaping the fate of being a scapegoat like Campery.

Although Oahu is run like a hedgehog by the U.S. military, the surrounding islands, due to their size and terrain, are not very well defended and are very easy to capture.

For Lieutenant General Short, the greatest embarrassment he faced. It is the loss of sea dominance. The largest "pretending" operation in the history of President Wilkie was the transfer of all of Pearl Harbor's capital ships and most of the auxiliary warships. All that was left for him was a small tonnage. The voyage is near, and the ship is old and obsolete cargo.

Once the Japanese launched a Hawaiian raid and attacked the surrounding islands, their main force on Oahu would not be able to send troops to support the islands.

If too many troops are stationed on these small islands, it will only be the effect of "dividing the troops" according to the wishes of the Japanese side. Then they were on the "favorite battlefield", concentrating their forces to take it island by island and eat it.

Regardless of these small islands, then after the Japanese take these small islands, they can build a stable land-based airfield on the island. Turning into an "unsinkable aircraft carrier", the situation is even worse.

The most important thing in island defense operations is sea supremacy. Nimitz, the head of the Naval Operations Department, did not hesitate to transfer all the main forces of the Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific Ocean, and it was precisely with this in mind that he took this into account. It is a pity that due to the distance, the Japanese fleet came to Hawaii "under the city" earlier than the Atlantic Fleet, and Nimitz, who did not have much capital for the time being, did not take any chances.

In the absence of sea supremacy, Lieutenant General Short was faced with the embarrassment of neither advancing nor retreating when formulating a combat plan.

The radical idea of his staff officers was to abandon these doomed islands and concentrate their forces on defending the main island, Oahu. However, how could Lieutenant General Short be willing to give up all the small islands that were guarding Pearl Harbor like satellites around him?

In the end, he chose to break up, deployed a certain number of troops on several major islands, and then planned to rely on the islands and use land-based aviation to resist the invasion of the Japanese army.

Since the sea was blocked by the Japanese fleet, Schott's greatest support from mainland China was the military to transport a regiment of 800 troops from San Francisco by air with modified B17 bombers. From San Francisco to Hawaii, the distance is more than 3,800 kilometers in a straight line. Even the B17, which runs a one-way trip, is very reluctant to complete such a long range, and it needs to be modified accordingly in the fuselage, adding fuel tanks to increase the range, which can be described as the least cost-effective way to supplement.

In the past month, a total of six B17s were shot down by Japanese aircraft while transporting troops in the air, and many others were damaged.

Despite the increasingly severe situation, Lieutenant General Short still placed a reinforced battalion on Kauai, but this strength was only a reinforced battalion for the opponent in the face of the Japanese naval and land forces that were pressed by the large army.

The sound of artillery on the shore was like thunder, and the smoke and smoke of flames hundreds of meters high constantly rose from the beach land, raising a large amount of sand, gravel, shrapnel and other debris into the sky like a storm. The distance from the Japanese mainland to Hawaii was too far for the Japanese, who had weak backgrounds, to dump thousands of tons of shells on a single target like the Americans. The cruisers responsible for covering the formation of artillery did not fire very often, and instead of firing a massive salvo, they aimed, fired, corrected the trajectory, and fired again. However, the "accurate" fire of the four cruisers also knocked out several hidden artillery positions placed by the US troops on the shore one by one in an hour's artillery bombardment. The Japanese side only let go of massive salvos to destroy these nasty obstacles when dealing with the barbed wire fence on the beachhead and the anti-landing deer barricade.

After the threatening shore defense artillery positions were destroyed, the previously retreating destroyer fleet returned to its original position, approached the coast, and then used the ship's guns to aim at close range and destroy some blind spots on the shore, and concealed machine-gun pillboxes and other targets that were not easy to hit. Under the blow of 127 mm naval guns, these temporary forts made of cement masonry were extremely fragile, as long as they were directly hit, their forts were bombarded by shells, all bricks and stones flew, whistling flames and billowing smoke gushed out from the broken holes, and the American soldiers inside were shattered.

In the past year, although the smell of gunpowder in the Pacific Ocean has become stronger and stronger, whether it is the US Pacific Fleet or the Hawaiian garrison, they are too arrogant and believe that even if Britain and Japan join forces, they will not have the courage to attack Hawaii. Therefore, until the fall of the Pacific Fleet, the Americans did not think about strengthening the defense of the small islands around Oahu. These fortresses, which are being destroyed, were built improvised after the outbreak of war. Due to the urgency of time and the lack of materials (since the main materials were used to strengthen the defenses of Oahu), it was only strong enough to withstand ordinary light infantry guns, and in the face of larger naval guns, it was as fragile as a child's house built by a farmer.

The U.S. military has laid some mines on the periphery of Kauai Island for anti-landing operations, but because there are too many islands to be mined, and the number of mines is limited, the only places they can mine are some beaches suitable for landing. Kauai is also a large island of thousands of square kilometers, and there are so many areas that need to be defended that the strength of a reinforced battalion seems like a joke.

"Gegege"

On the sea a few kilometers away from Kauai Island, on a large landing ship, with a piercing sound of metal rubbing, the hatch of the landing ship was slowly lifted to the outside. Under the lap of the rolling waves, one after another landing craft full of soldiers slid into the sea with the guò's open mouth.

After the artillery fire was prepared, more than a dozen small landing craft imported from Germany were lowered from the landing ships and were speeding to the coast, on which the officers and men of the Marine Corps, carrying G32 rifles on their backs, were waiting for the moment of rushing to the shore with excitement on their faces.

In order to cope with the characteristics of the many islands and frequent landing battles in the Pacific theater, Japan built a total of four large-scale landing ships during the three-year war preparation period, all of which participated in the Philippine War and played an extremely important role. After Japan declared war on the United States in June, the Germans, in accordance with the agreement, quickly supported a large number of Japanese landing craft with excellent performance.

These landing craft were specially designed by the German Navy prior to the war in Europe for the technical preparation of a possible future landing in the British Isles. During the war, he took part in the landing in Norway. After the war, the new Chinese side introduced the design of the manned landing craft from the Germans, and began to produce its own with the German side providing key spare parts (mainly power systems).

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