"Our Japanese allies seem to be having some trouble with their raids on the Hawaiian Islands. They lost a significant number of battleships and pilots, but did not gain a critical springboard to Pearl Harbor. Until now, they are still entrenched on Midway Island, which is only 5 square kilometers in size, and even the island is more than 1,900 kilometers away from Kauai, the northwestern tip of the Hawaiian Islands. ”

In front of a large map stretched out, Secretary of State for the Navy, Raeder, in his trademark deep voice, briefly recounted the battle on the other side of the world to the participants in the room. Under his in-depth analysis, even a layman who knows a little about naval strategy can have a relatively accurate understanding of the current situation. As a senior intellectual, who had written in various naval magazines in his early years and held an honorary doctorate from Keele University, Raeder's linguistic organization skills were unquestionable; In just a few words, the situation in the Pacific Ocean is clearly outlined.

It turned out that at the same time that the German forces were attacking Cuba with all their might, Japan, located on the other side of the world, also launched an all-out attack on Hawaii, the last foothold of the United States in the Pacific. As an important ally of Germany on the anti-American front, oil-starved Japan was supported by Germany and the Netherlands, and with no fuel to spare,5 the main force of the Combined Fleet would no longer be the tragic situation in history of lying on its stomach after a single attack on Pearl Harbor. In order to demonstrate the superiority of the navy over the army red deer, their sorties were extremely active; When the engineering troops initially built the previously captured Midway Island into a relay base, General Yamamoto, driven by the power to dominate the Pacific Ocean, once again drew the shining cold edge in his scabbard!

For the Japanese Navy. Now is indeed the perfect time for them to wipe out the U.S. presence in the Pacific. With the deep penetration of Germany's naval and air forces into the Caribbean region. The US Atlantic Fleet, which is too busy to take care of itself, has no will or ability to send warships to the Pacific theater. The only reinforcements currently available to the U.S. fleet currently stationed in Hawaii are ships below the cruiser class built at West Coast shipyards such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as some land-based fighters transported from the West Coast by merchant ships. Considering the gap between the two sides in the initial lineup, the Japanese fleet has completely grasped the initiative in the war in the Pacific waters.

On 21 February, the combined fleet arrived near the waters west of the Hawaiian Islands. A large number of Type 97 attack planes carrying high-explosive bombs immediately took off from five regular air carriers and launched fierce air strikes on targets on the shore. Zero fighters with a range of up to 2,200 kilometers were scattered and released to cooperate with submarines and mine warfare teams to search for the US fleet. Although the Japanese Navy's air carrier combat power is far from being comparable with that of Germany and the US Atlantic Fleet, it still has an absolute advantage over the three short aircraft carriers of the US Pacific Fleet. Admiral Yamamoto has every reason to think that he will be able to overpower his opponent this time and open the door to Pearl Harbor.

However, the Japanese army's inevitable attack became difficult due to the fierce resistance of the US land-based air forces.

As early as the end of the Battle of Midway in November last year, the US military began to comprehensively strengthen its land-based air forces on the Hawaiian Islands: after all, a cursory glance at the map shows that in the vast and vast North Pacific, the only target that the Japanese army can choose to attack is this key group of islands that the United States has stolen for 40 years. And although due to the increasingly severe war situation in the Caribbean, the U.S. military has put most of its forces into this main battlefield at its doorstep, but with the strong military production of the United States that has gradually completed the transformation of the war. A large number of single- and twin-engine fighters were still transported from the West Coast of the United States to the airfield in Hawaii under the relay of transport ships. Today. More than 800 warplanes were already available at various airfields in the Hawaiian Islands, which was undoubtedly far more than the five aircraft carriers of the Japanese fleet combined.

Due to the disadvantage of the fighters in folding the wings, the utilization rate of the hangar area of the Japanese aircraft carrier is much lower than that of its German and American counterparts: its five regular air carriers can only carry less than 400 carrier-based aircraft at most, even if the deck is included. And in terms of performance, the Japanese carrier-based aircraft were also at a disadvantage. The Zero fighter, which they relied on as the main force of aviation, was actually a helpless product with backward engine technology, and its output of only 950 horsepower was unbearable compared to the number of more than 1,600 horsepower in the German-American counterpart. And in order to gain the strength to fight the opponent under the impetus of this weak heart, the Zero fighter was forced to reduce its weight as much as possible. This fighter with an empty weight of less than 1.7 tons not only discarded the bulletproof steel plates around the cockpit, but also did not even have the most basic self-sealing fuel tank; once the fuel tank was hit by an enemy bullet, the pilot had to quickly find a base and land nearby, otherwise the plane would be destroyed and killed due to the fuel run. Although the voyage of the Zero can be called against the sky, it is obviously impossible to prevent the sharp leakage of fuel!

Even with such extreme weight reduction methods, the Zero's top speed of 533km/h is still much slower than that of the US fighter jets, and the climb rate is far from being reached. That's what happened to the engine tragedy. The only thing the Japanese could praise was their pilot, Su Zì. In order to prepare for a war against the United States one day, the Japanese pilots on active duty are all veterans of long-term training, and because the US military has to give priority to ensuring the battle at the doorstep of the southeast, the skilled pilots sent to the Pacific are indeed rare animals. However, due to the disparity in quantity and quality, the Japanese army was still at a great disadvantage in terms of aviation combat power.

As for Japan's land-based air forces, there are simply no conditions for them to appear in this early offensive operation against the Hawaiian Islands. Even Midway, the closest to the northwest tip of Hawaii, has a distance of nearly 2,000 kilometers, and no tactical aircraft has such a long combat radius. And because of its dismal engine technology, Japan's heavy long-range bomber does not even have a single design drawing. In the offensive, the Japanese army could only rely on the air defense of carrier-based aircraft and surface ships to unilaterally fight with a large number of land-based fighters of the US military!

After a day of fierce fighting, the Combined Fleet suffered heavy losses under the air raids of the opposing side: 3 cruisers and 4 destroyers were sunk, and the battleships Hanoi and Settsu were also severely damaged. In addition to the fact that the performance of the 25-mm anti-aircraft guns on the Japanese battleships was really not complimentary, the lack of radar in the Combined Fleet was another core factor in the huge losses. The air defense early warning of Japanese warships relied entirely on the visual inspection of lookouts, and the visual range and the search range of the anti-aircraft radar were not at all the same. When the air defense sirens sound, the fleet was left with only about a third of the reaction time using radar. And if there is fog and cloudy weather, it will only be able to react if the other party has already been close to the face. During the battle on the evening of the 21st, a group of FBD bombers, under the cover of low-hanging clouds, rushed to less than 20 kilometers away from the Japanese fleet before being discovered. The two aircraft carriers Akagi and Kaga were hit by bullets and caught fire one after another, and the Akagi was hit by the hangar, and the two elevators were scrapped in the flames and had to return to their home port for repair. This undoubtedly made the situation even worse for the Japanese fleet, which was already weak in aviation.

In order to change this situation, Yamamoto decided to send a high-speed fleet to carry out night shelling of the US airfields on the island. In addition to as many as 12 battleships, he also had more than 30 light and heavy cruisers, and more than 100 cannon fodder destroyers, more than twice the lineup of the opponent; Night warfare was an important project for the Japanese Navy to devote great efforts to training since the Russo-Japanese War, and all mine combat units were proficient in this way. Combined with the unrivaled 610 mm oxygen torpedoes, the Japanese fleet was more than capable of this night operation.

However, the Japanese artillery fleet was also unexpectedly defeated. The day after the bombardment of the airport on Hawaii Island, the U.S. military sent a fleet of high-speed heavy artillery with two North Carolina-class battleships and two Lexington-class battlecruisers as the core to intercept the attack. Although the lookouts of the Japanese mine warfare team are all sharp-eyed, and can even see the outline of the ship on the sea 12km away in the dark night without moonlight (this is really not made up by the author, the locust lookout soldiers in the Battle of Kuah Island are like this), but the human eye is not as powerful as the radar after all, and it is not the same in terms of accurate ranging.

In the night battle that broke out in the early morning of the 23rd, the two high-speed battleships of the Japanese army, Hiei and Kirishima, were shot in many places under the guidance of the US radar fire control, and after the overhaul, they still did not have the ability to resist 406 mm heavy guns, and they were overturned and sunk in the skyrocketing fire. The U.S. military also greatly underestimated the opponent's night battle, and the Kirishima resistance before its death also beat the Lexington 10 kilometers away into flames, and made it the best target for the Japanese mine team. Two heavy ship-launched torpedoes with a charge of up to 490 kg hit the underwater part of its starboard side, and the terrifying force of the explosion instantly tore the surrounding large steel plates into pieces, and the water ingress was completely out of control. Eventually, the high-speed cruiser writhed its 37,000-ton steel body and sank into the sea, accompanying the two Japanese warships all the way.

In the second round of air and sea exchanges during the day, the Japanese aircraft carrier also suffered its first defeat since the start of the war, and two aircraft carriers, the Kaga and the Soryu, were sunk, and their result was only to use torpedoes to defeat the opponent's Yorktown. Due to the fact that the Hawaiian islands were full of mines, the Japanese army did not dare to forcibly send the landing force ashore at night, and Yamamoto could only silently swallow the bitter fruit of this failure, and changed from a strong attack to a complete blockade of the Hawaiian islands. (To be continued......)

ps: Thanks to the book friend Angel Ai Dye Him, Dragon City Xiaoyi, Hill2, Limy1931, Heaven Dead Monthly Pass Support, and zccharles, Golden Crab, Yuan yh1234567, zhoyuu1976 for the tip~~~