Part 4 The Journey Chapter 180 Spring Awakening (6)

The Strait of Johor, which is more than 1,000 meters wide, is separated from the island and the main island of Singapore, connecting Singapore and Johor Bahru to the north and south of the strait.

On 191545, it was decided that 41524 would launch a landing operation on Singapore Island, and all units of the First South China Sea Group immediately seized the time to carry out preparations for the attack according to this deadline.

By the time the attack was launched, the ground forces assembled on the northern shore of the Straits of Johor consisted of six Chinese divisions (missing seven battalions) of about eight troops, while two Luo divisions and seven Chinese battalions were placed in Malaysia to defend the lines of communication and maintain law and order.

Neither Yuan Shikai nor the base camp had any intention of allowing the Siamese army to participate in the Singapore Raiders.

In fact, according to the secret agreement reached between China and Siam before Siam entered the war, after the victory of the war, Siam will not only be able to recover most of the four states of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Terengganu in northern Malaya, which were previously ceded by the British, but will also receive most of Pahang in the central and southern parts of the state and one each of Perak, Selangor, Temeran, and Johor as rewards, and the rest of the economically developed areas where the majority of Chinese are also more developed (mainly concentrated in the coastal areas of the peninsula, including: Kedah on the west coast of the peninsula, all of Penang, and one of Perak, Most of Selangor, including Kuala Lumpur, most of Temeran, all of Malacca, most of Johor on the southern tip of the peninsula, and one part of Pahang on the east coast (see new atlas for details) were occupied by the Chinese army alone, and the Siamese army was not allowed to enter. Located outside the peninsula, Singapore, which has an absolute majority of Chinese and high strategic value, naturally does not allow this little partner to get involved.

On the part of the aviation forces. After working with the mobile fleet to cripple the enemy's air force stationed in Singapore, the 5th Air Group, which was attached to the First South China Sea Group, with the full assistance of the ground forces, quickly repaired and expanded the forward base in the southern part of the peninsula, successfully completed the planning and deployment before the specified time limit, and immediately seized the air supremacy in the theater with an overwhelming advantage.

The Singapore strategy drawn up by Yuan Shikai's headquarters can be called a veritable "sound from the east to the west": that is, the main landing site will be selected to the west of the Long Causeway, with the 3rd Marine and 110th Infantry who are skilled in landing combat skills as the vanguard, and the 501st and 302nd Divisions of the 2nd Army of the Asian Liberation Army, which are relatively full of combat strength, as the follow-up, and carry out the main attack. The 72nd Army (143rd Infantry Division), which had suffered heavy losses in the previous battle, was deployed east of the causeway as a feint to contain the enemy.

Prior to 415, the 72nd made several feints. They built false artillery positions under the noses of the enemy, swaggered and frequently moved troops along the coast, and sent small units to carry out reconnaissance across the sea at night and deliberately let the other side discover it, making it appear that they were preparing to cross the strait from the east of the causeway. The 5th Air Group was also ordered to concentrate on bombing Changi, Seletar and Sembawang coastal areas east of the Long Causeway, and gave little "care" to the coast west of the Long Causeway. The British command, who did not know what was going on, ordered two Indian divisions to be deployed in the east of the embankment, and only the incomplete Australian division to the west of the embankment.

At that time, the British Commonwealth Army defending Singapore included 3 Indian Divisions, 1 AUD~reinforced British Brigade, and some temporarily mobilized volunteers, with a total strength of more than 80,000 troops, of which the 2nd Indian Division, which had participated in the Peninsula Operation, and the only Australian Division, were seriously understaffed and demoralized. Not enough to rely on.

Although the island's shore defense artillery groups are powerful, they are only located on the east and south shores. For the purpose of holding the Singapore Strait, there are only a few that can be pointed at the peninsula at a large angle, and the Takechi Jima Mountain fortress group behind it is still far from the Johor Strait, and the fort batteries are mainly small and medium-caliber rapid-fire guns, and there are few heavy artillery. The defenses near the strait were all temporarily constructed after the war, and before the Chinese troops landed, they were only a row of barbed wire, one or two trenches dug along the coast, and a number of communication trenches.

In the face of the elite division of the Chinese army on the other side of the strait, which had high morale and air supremacy, the British command did not hold the beachhead, and after repeated consideration, Rosenberg decided to use the most elite British brigade to hold the land defense fortress group at Mt. Muchijima. As a new force of the Indian division that recently crossed the sea, it defended the plains on the east and west sides of the Takechi Jima Mountain, and the strait side could defend it and could not retreat, in an attempt to rely on the "invincible barrier" on the front line of the Takechi Jima Mountain to delay the Chinese army's offensive. Consume its vitality and "fight a glorious fortress defense battle in the style of Vladivostok".

413, as part of a feint operation. The 72nd Advance Detachment was formed with one infantry battalion as the backbone, commanded by Brigadier General Wu Peifu, who had been in the limelight during the Korean Peninsula Operation, and attacked and captured Pulau Ubin in the northeast of the main island of Singapore at night, and set up mountain artillery and mortars on the island to bombard the Changi Naval Base and the army airfield not far away.

At midnight in 415, 500 artillery pieces of the Chinese army opened fire together, first striking the area east of the embankment to divert the enemy's attention, and only after the 15,000 officers and men of the 3rd Marine War and 110 Infantry set off one after another in folding mobile landing craft, they turned to concentrate on shelling the scheduled landing ground in the area west of the embankment. As soon as the artillery fire turned to depth, the first wave of landing craft happened to rush to the beach, and the Marines who fought in the vanguard rushed to the beachhead under the cover of darkness and broke through the position in one fell swoop with a bold and resolute white-knuckle assault (of course, the close support of grenadiers and light machine guns was indispensable), and then chose to hold on and cover the subsequent army units ashore.

By noon on the 15th, the forest in the area of Tixi.). The army troops immediately rushed to the island "without getting their soles wet" by the navy's mechanized landing craft or small civilian boats requisitioned.

On the night of the 15th, the 72nd Army, which had completed the feint mission, attacked across the sea from the east side of the causeway [=, routed the Indian defenders in front of it, and captured the .= military base on the 16th, the Changi naval base and the army airfield on the 17th.

On the 417th, Commander Yuan Shikai led his forward headquarters across the Johor Strait and personally commanded the battle on the front line on the island, at this time, the Chinese army had reached more than 40,000 troops on the island, with 80 artillery and chariot units, and each unit successively defeated the enemy's counterattack and advanced to the foot of Bukit Timah Mountain.