"Strange, this is to sing an empty city plan?"

"Based on the current coordinates, it is presumed that it may have set off around the tenth day."

On the bridge of the Yongle, Song Zhongkai and several generals were analyzing the strange information they had learned.

Aerial reconnaissance did not detect the presence of an aircraft carrier at Pearl Harbor, and the Enterprise actually appeared in New Caledonia, which means that the only potential threat to the attack on Hawaii was the missing Saratoga.

But this is obviously unreasonable, how can a normal person still disperse a few defensive forces when the enemy's army is overwhelming?

Therefore, the admirals all thought of going together—it was a bit of an empty plan.

"Could it be that the British sent reinforcements?" Yi Jie said suddenly.

"Deputy Chief Soldier, the Brilliant only served in February, and it hasn't been trained well, I'm afraid it will be difficult to even take off and land, and it is unlikely to be dispatched." A lieutenant colonel staff officer behind him muttered, "The rest of the ships...... The Athletic searched for submarines in the Atlantic, the Glory and the Fury guarded the Germans off the coast of the Franc plane, and the only thing that could be used on the mainland was the Brave. ”

The Athletic God, the Glory, and the Fury have all been out to sea for a period of time, and it is impossible to rotate continuously, and they will definitely return to Hong Kong to rest and maintain next.

It is obviously unlikely that a single ship of the Brave will be sent to reinforce the Americans, and it is better not to go.

Therefore, it is generally believed that the greatest possibility is to wait until May, after the Radiance has been properly trained and has formed a complete combat strength, and then two or three aircraft carriers will be dispatched to the Pacific Ocean together.

But this does not explain the strange behavior of the Americans - without foreign aid, they dare to divide their troops at the moment when the enemy is present?

"Maybe they feel that they can't defeat Oahu if we let us fight, so they just stay out of the edge for the time being." An explanation that sounded plausible was proposed.

"Impossible." Song Zhongkai flatly denied, "It is true that you can do this militarily, but not politically, and you can't explain it to the people." Since the beginning of the war, the poor performance of the US Navy has aroused public anger, and if we avoid fighting at such a juncture, what is the difference between fleeing from the battle? ”

The conference room fell silent, a few drops of water from the teacup splashing out as the ship sailed.

"Can't you even give a letter from the Governor's Mansion?" Yi Jie complained dissatisfied.

Zhou Changfeng, who was pacing in the corner of the conference room, was worried that the Enterprise would pose a threat to Kuah Island if it went to the southwest Pacific, so he said casually: "The situation is special now, and important information may not come out until a few days later. ”

"It's fine, just be careful." Song Zhongkai waved his hand, "But when the time comes, if you make a joke that scares yourself, you will be ridiculed." ”

Learning from the lessons of the British and Dutch, Americans are highly wary of Chinese diaspora everywhere, and all expatriates from Hawaii and Panama were forcibly deported to the mainland of the United States at the beginning of the year, where they were detained in several small towns in the northern states of South Dakota and Minnesota, where they were not allowed to leave without restrictions or they would be arrested or executed.

As a result, the intelligence networks of major cities in Hawaii, Panama, and the West Coast were almost completely wiped out, and most of the surviving agents and informants were forced to go into hiding, and the crippled intelligence network was also silenced.

On 28 April, Agent Stasi discovered that the Korn Tejas had not returned to Plymouth Devon Harbour from its sailing training on the scheduled date, and subsequently reported it to Berlin.

On May 2, in the Galapagos Islands, southwest of Panama, the British fleet seized the time to complete the most basic rest, and then set off for Hawaii again.

On 3 May, a local informant from the Metropolitan Governor's Intelligence Service sent a civilian telegram to Bogotá because he could not get in touch with the agents.

On May 4, the main Ming fleet completed its rendezvous at Midway, where it received supplies from a long-awaited fleet of oil tankers.

On May 5, the German Press sent a message to the Ming Legation in Berlin through diplomatic means that "the whereabouts of the Radiance are unknown".

On May 7, several formations of the Ming fleet left Midway Island one after another and began to advance in the direction of Hawaii.

The sea is vast, and the long voyage seems to have no end.

After a long time on the sea, it will be very pleasant to see a few small islands and reefs.

It is a pity that the vast majority of ordinary officers and men do not have the opportunity to go ashore, and a considerable number of them will die in the process of wading ashore when they can no longer set foot on land.

In the early morning of May 9, the 180th Special Fleet approached the Hawaiian Islands, less than 1,000 kilometers from the nearest island of Kauai.

Since four days ago, the U.S. military has been sending planes to conduct long-range searches day and night, and it is the same now.

In order to facilitate the command, the Army Air Corps and the Marine Corps Air Corps in Hawaii are all under the unified command of Colonel Clarence of the Naval Air Corps, and the weather forecast he received last night showed that the sea area of 900 ~ 1100km west of Hawaii is likely to be cloudy and foggy, and the visibility is low.

Both the PBY Catalina seaplane and the B-17 bomber were capable of long-range search missions within 1,200km, but the weather was not pretty, which meant that the chances of early detection of the Ming fleet were low.

At present, the US military can only roughly guess the position of the Ming fleet through aerial reconnaissance of Midway, and the error is as large as one day and one night, several hundred kilometers.

Colonel Clarence decided to temporarily adjust the reconnaissance plan and release more aircraft to compensate for the negative effects of the weather conditions.

At 5:15 a.m., one plane after another took off from airports or piers on Kauai and Oahu to launch a sector search due west and southwest.

At noon, a B-17 bomber on a search mission sent back a telegram that it was "attacked by enemy aircraft", and it was 11:07 a.m.

The bomber was besieged by two Ming carrier-based aircraft, but the 7.36mm and 12.8mm aviation machine guns were nothing to the thick-skinned B-17.

Eight minutes later, two more carrier-based planes arrived to help, and the four planes took turns and almost ran out of bullets before the B-17 was wounded and forced back.

The base called back to ask what type of enemy aircraft the bombers encountered, and the reply was "four light fighters, painted blue".

The U.S. military judged that the Ming fleet was nearby, and Colonel Clarence immediately ordered all nearby planes to search for a 300-kilometer radius around the coordinates of the air encounter.

However, because the clouds are too dense, the plane flies a little higher and burrows into the clouds, and flying low will greatly reduce the visual range.

The daytime search did not reveal the Ming fleet, but instead increased the search window in several other directions, and consumed as much as 58,000 gallons of aviation gasoline.

At 16:33 p.m., 710km west of Kauai Island, a PBY Catalina seaplane encountered the tailgating pursuit of two Ming carrier-based aircraft, and after half an hour of chase, the plane was shot down.

As the sun sets, the sun gradually sinks into the sea to the west.

The air encounters during the day had already roughly determined the orientation of the Ming fleet - the combat radius of carrier-based aircraft was limited, and it was impossible for Ming aircraft carriers to be far away.

Therefore, Chester-Nimitz ordered the submarine cordon to move eastward, keeping a close eye on enemy tracks.

That night, the Ming fleet continued to sail towards Hawaii at a cruising speed of 14 knots, while more than a dozen US submarines also turned around and headed east, rising to the surface of the sea and rushing at a speed of 18 knots.

At midnight, the main force of the Ming fleet passed through the submarine cordon arranged by the US military in the waters west of Hawaii.

In fact, the submarine Bonito (SS-184) and the Ming fleet were very close to each other.

Between 23:50 and 0:15, she was only about nine kilometers away from the light cruiser Liaohe, but neither side noticed the other, and passed by like pedestrians rushing in the night.

On the morning of May 10, the rising sun dispersed the mist on the sea.

At 6:55, the submarine Pufferfish (SS-198) spotted several ships to the northeast and quickly determined that they were the intruding enemy.

It was the first formation under the personal command of Song Zhongkai that was discovered, and the telegram containing its coordinates was immediately sent, and it was also detected by the Ming army's radio listening team.

At 7:38, a Type 37 light seaplane that took off from the seaplane carrier Donghu spotted a US submarine secretly trailing 10 kilometers to the right of the fleet, and then dived and dropped bombs on it.

The Puffer Fish immediately dived to evade, and the Yixing destroyer broke away from the fleet to hunt for the prey.

In a nine-hour game of cat and mouse, the Yixing carried out four attacks and successfully sank the submarine with depth charges in the evening.

"If it is discovered, the air raid will definitely come." Song Zhongkai raised his hand and glanced at his watch, and said, "Send a message to the second formation, calculate the time and see if you can ambush once." ”

"Order."

During the past three days, the Yongle's radio listening group intercepted a large number of US military telecommunications, and the frequency of US military communications was very surprising, reaching more than 220 messages, which was somewhat abnormal.

Thanks to the efforts of the upper and lower levels, the Ming army could decipher a small part of it.

However, there was very little useful information in the more than 200 telegrams, and they were basically exchanges about the overall planning of air raids, and the only valuable one was that one of the cables mentioned the call sign of the Saratoga.

Song Zhongkai had reason to suspect that the Americans were plotting an unknown conspiracy.

Because the US "gray" diplomatic code was in a state of complete decipherment, the Ming side learned about the change of the commander of the Pacific Fleet in a relatively timely manner.

No one expected that the new commander would be a guy who was suddenly promoted from rear admiral to admiral, and there were more than a dozen people in front of him who were even older, so that the Ming Navy generally felt that this was a trick, and the real commander was someone else.

"Report, General Soldier, the first formation was discovered by the enemy submarine at 7:20 and is expected to be bombed by the enemy."

After receiving the telegram from the Yongle, Ouyang Zhanghua, who was in the Ziwei Zuoyuan, also gave an order.

"Order, half of the expulsion fleet will be lifted into the air, and the rest will be prepared."

With his order, both armored aircraft carriers lit up their light signals.

Soon, the Type 37 ship, which had already been warmed up, roared out of the flight deck, and then jumped into the clear blue sky.

Although it was unclear where the Saratoga was, most of the officers believed that she could not have escaped and that she was likely to be cunning in the waters off Hawaii, ready for a surprise attack.

With fewer enemies and more enemies, some conspiracies and tricks are doomed to have no chance of winning at all.

Theoretically, the Saratoga could appear anywhere, and finding her would be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.

In general, in the absence of exact intelligence, commanders should consider the worst-case scenario and derive more radical options based on it, and then pick the appropriate one.

Ouyang Zhanghua believes that the advantage lies in us, and there is no need to take bold and bold actions, and that the core goal of this expedition is to ensure the safety of the aircraft carrier formation and ensure the smooth seizure of the island by the landing force.

Because of this, the C-20 air attack fleet is located in the farthest southwest, thus ensuring that the two relatively fragile wooden-deck aircraft carriers are as protected from the threat of US air strikes as possible; The 22nd Air Raid Fleet was located to the north.

In this way, the two Ziweiyuan-class armored aircraft carriers are likely to be able to deal with potential threats without worrying about their survivability.

Even if both were unfortunate enough to be damaged, the unharmed Taiwei Zuoyuan and Amagichi Zuoyuan would be able to immediately carry out a devastating secondary attack.

In the upcoming battle, the most important force is undoubtedly the air force, although the Ming army from afar as the attacking side has the advantage of mobility, but the total number of aircraft is inferior to the American army.

The fleet of the Taiwei Zuoyuan consisted of 24 fighters, 24 dive bombers, 24 torpedo planes, 8 reconnaissance planes, and several backup planes of various types.

The Amaichi Sagaki fleet consisted of 12 fighters, 18 dive bombers, 18 torpedo planes, 6 reconnaissance planes, and 6 reserve carrier-based planes.

After the Battle of Tarawa, the fleet of the light aircraft carrier Beiluo Shimen underwent a large-scale reorganization, and now it is dominated by fighters, with 30 fighters, 12 dive bombers, 6 reconnaissance planes, and 6 backup planes of various types.

The two Ziweiyuan classes are basically the same, and they are all in a state of full capacity, except for the Ziwei Youyuan that lost a fighter due to an accident.

Both have 12 fighters, 18 dive bombers, 18 torpedo planes, 6 reconnaissance planes, and 6 reserve carrier-based aircraft.

The Ming fleet that made the expedition to Hawaii had a total of 322 aircraft carriers of various types, and even more if we consider the seaplanes of seaplane carriers, battleships, and cruisers.

In comparison, the number of U.S. planes massed in the Hawaiian Islands is much higher.

However, the quality is uneven, ranging from new fighters with good performance to old fighters that are backward and clumsy.

The Marine Corps Air Corps has 47 F2A Buffalo fighters, 29 PBY Catalina seaplanes, 45 SB2U Defender dive bombers.

The Army Air Corps has 34 P-40 fighters, 15 P-36 fighters, 31 B-17 heavy bombers, 25 B-18 medium bombers.

The Naval Air Corps has 46 F4F Wildcat fighters, 28 SBD dreadnought dive bombers, 58 TBD Ravager torpedo aircraft, 19 SB2U, 14 PBY.

The Puffer Fish submarine discovered the first formation of the Ming fleet at the cost of the death of all the officers and men of the ship, and although Colonel Clarence did not know the situation there, he was unwilling to delay even a second.

Since the invading enemy was still more than 400 kilometers away, the first to attack was naturally the army's bombers.

At 8:45 a.m., at Hikam Airport on Oahu, green-painted B-17 bombers roared from takeoff.

These behemoths formed a formation of 13 planes in the air, and then pounced on the western sky.

At 10:27, the radar soldiers of the Ziwei Zuoyuan called the officer on duty loudly.

The eyes of several people were fixed on the abrupt waveform on the screen, and at this moment, the quiet pin drop in the cabin could be heard.

"It's still coming, it's the enemy plane, pull the alarm!"

(End of chapter)

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