The decisiveness of the US night attack was much beyond the imagination of the Ming generals, who would have expected that the US forces would let another battleship rush to the beach after losing two battleships?

The seventeen-year-old West Virginia had run aground during training due to an error in chart recognition, but no one expected the giant ship to carry out its final mission in a similar manner.

The West Virginia ran aground on the beachhead east of Wai'alua Bay, and after a violent jolt, the steel giant finally came to a standstill.

On the orders of the captain, Colonel Morwen Kenyan, she continued to attack the Ming battleships on the sea with rear C and D turrets, while the forward A and B turrets poured high-explosive shells on the Ming beachhead around Kenaka Bay.

At the same time, the captain also ordered a telegram to be sent to the U.S. forces on Oahu, requesting that a force be sent to cover it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this posture is not small, unprecedented, if you are really driven into the sea, it will be useless."

The light bulb glows yellow, dragging the shadow of the person for a long time. Zhou Changfeng and other officers discussed the current battle situation at the headquarters of the 17th Division and pondered how to adjust the deployment.

He stretched out his index finger and nodded in the middle of the map, and said: "We still have to consider the known (enemy) hole cards, those dozen train guns have not been exposed so far, the scale of this counterattack is very large, these hole cards will definitely not be hidden anymore." ”

The chief of staff of the 17th Division looked helpless with a headache, and said worriedly: "Such a decisive battle is a big gamble, and when it is dawn, there will be an air attack." ”

"The strength of the enemy's counterattack should be about eight thousand, two regiments of infantry, two tank battalions...... Oh, and that paratrooper regiment. A major intelligence staff officer enumerated.

"Boom! Rumble! ”

At this moment, several loud noises were heard from the distance to the north, and it was the West Virginia that was storming the beach, and it was heavy shelling.

Zhou Changfeng stared at the map silently, and after a long time he opened his mouth to give instructions, "The positions of the 3rd Marine Brigade and 5th Regiment can be abandoned, leaving a small number of observation posts, and the rest of the troops will cross the Kaukonava River at night and rely on the river to re-arm; The engineer battalion of the 17th Division and the Koreans went to the foothills northwest of the Huai Nai Ridge and stepped up the construction of fortifications. ”

The combat effectiveness of the 21st Regiment of the DPRK Army is worrisome, and I am afraid that it can only be qualified for the task of maintaining law and order in the rear, and their greatest role at present is to help dig field fortifications.

For the large-scale counterattack launched by the US military, Zhou Changfeng was disdainful in his heart, this was just a dying struggle that showed its full decline.

Today, the fifth convoy of convoys will arrive in Kauai; The 1st Marine Brigade and the 38th Division were scheduled to arrive by sea in five and 12 days respectively, respectively.

Now that the Haleiwa area has a large number of troops and good morale, it is a big deal to withdraw to the mountains of the Huai Nai Ridge and rely on the complex hilly terrain to resist and delay time.

Anyway, the Kauai Ming Army Aviation is abundant, and it can immediately make a high-intensity attack after the supplies are in place, and see which side can't hold on first!

"Some guys are bad and like to enjoy the process of killing a person's last hope, and today we will be the bad guys." Zhou Changfeng looked around and threw the red pencil on the table, "Is everything clear?" Start! ”

"Yes!" More than a dozen people in the shelter responded loudly.

Zhou's ease of performance greatly affected everyone, and the officers who had greatly increased their confidence took the order and went to perform their duties.

The night battle between the Ming and American warships continued, and neither side was willing to give up and vowed to fight until dawn.

As the minutes passed, the sailors were completely overdrawn from their physical strength, and the men who poured bronze and iron could not help but fight for several hours in a row, showing their fatigue.

The rate of fire of many guns dropped significantly, and all the battleships, without exception, were so badly wounded and tattered that some even ran out of shells.

Gradually, the sea level in the east was white, and the sky was about to dawn.

An hour earlier, several planes had taken off from Kauai Wi Yuen Airport, but because of the darkness, poor visibility, and the extremely chaotic battlefield, the pilots did not dare to make a rash move, and had to return after circling for a while.

As the night faded, a tragic and bleak scene came into view.

A 10-kilometre radius off and off the coast of Haleiwa was covered with thick black oil, littered with debris and the corpses of officers and soldiers on both sides.

The wreckage of one battleship after another was still burning with flickering flames, wisps of black smoke reaching into the sky. Many warships on both sides lost power and drifted on the sea moving slowly with the waves.

The U.S. destroyers USS Moffett and USS Benson, whose engines were damaged and stalled, still insisted on firing, and the 127mm high-level dual-purpose guns of both ships had already run out of shells, and only a few Chicago piano anti-aircraft guns were still firing intermittently.

The Arizona, which was killed by the Dragon's striking at the front ammunition depot and causing the explosion, had not yet sunk, and her front half was below the surface of the sea, and the second half was still above the surface.

Unlike the unsuspecting attacks in the past, the Arizona was in combat tonight at least closed the watertight door, and the remaining reserve buoyancy allowed her to survive the damage to her keel.

In fact, the Arizona has no salvage value, but the crew is unwilling to give up.

In another corner of the battlefield, the captain, deputy captain, and gunnery officer of the Ming destroyer Pingshun were killed, and the smoke and mine officer was in shock from blood loss, and now the lightly wounded navigation officer was under the acting command.

Previously, the Pingshun and Hughes had been engaged one-on-one for four hours, and the latter was eventually abandoned due to a fire that got out of control, and the Pingshun won the duel at a terrible price - now her hull compartments were flooded in many places, and the superstructure was not intact, leaving only a lone turret still functional.

What's more, because several oil tanks have been broken down, the Pingshun, which has not much fuel, has now turned off its boiler and cannot move.

At 5:27, the lookout spotted an enemy ship approaching three kilometers from starboard power, and opened fire on it with its remaining turret No. 3.

The enemy ship was none other than the San Francisco, the flagship of the TF-37.1 task force, and all three of its triple 203mm main turrets were damaged, one of its two chimneys had been blown off, and the tunnel on the left spindle was filled with seawater, leaving it at a speed of only 13 knots.

The San Francisco, which was attacked, was unable to fight back, and she had three single-mount 127mm high-level dual-purpose guns on the port side, but now they are all unusable.

The Farragut, the first to exit the battle, was hastily withdrawn from the battle after being wounded, but did not return and returned a few hours later.

Seeing the flagship Tiger fall into Pingyang, the Farragut opened heavy fire on the Binh Thuan, completely dumbing the latter's only remaining turret six minutes later.

At 5:38, the light cruiser of the Haihe, whose bow had been torpedoed and broken, hobbled back to the battlefield in an attempt to help the battleship that could still be saved.

However, whether it was the Kunlun Mountain or the Yongping, the condition of both was so bad that it was impossible to decide which one to help for a while.

In the end, the Haihe chose the battleship, and the headless light cruiser slowly docked next to the Yongping, setting up a water cannon to spray water at her to extinguish the fire on the deck and superstructure.

Nearly a quarter of an hour later, a swarm of small black dots appeared in the twilight sky, which were the attack waves released by the Saratoga and Enterprise.

Almost at the same time, a group of dozens of planes also swooped in from the southwest, which was the group organized by the Ming Army Air Force on Kauai.

Both sides chose to lift off the fleet at dawn, so there was not much difference in the timing of the arrival.

Waves of unsettled waves have arisen again and again, bloody naval chaos has not subsided, and the air battle of hundreds of planes has come again.

The warships of the two armies basically ran out of ammunition in the fierce fighting that lasted for the second half of the night, and almost everyone was wounded and the ships were damaged.

The battle has evolved into a brutal competition of willpower.

At 6:06, the USS San Francisco was hit by a bombshell on the mid-deck of the ship, sending smoke towering into the sky and losing residual power.

At 6:20, the Helena took over as flagship, and the paralyzed San Francisco, near it, picked up Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance.

At 6:21, the Yongping resumed the operation of its engines after emergency repairs, and its speed recovered, but it was attacked by many American torpedo planes. The Haihe resolutely gave up her life to stop the mines, and was subsequently sunk by two torpedoes.

At 6:30, the Yongping was again attacked by a group of torpedo planes, two of which successfully broke through and dropped torpedoes, and the stranded West Virginia also began to fire at her.

The Haihei's brave actions failed to save the Yongping, and the captain of the Yongping wanted to lead the ship to Kauai Island, but was forced to abandon the ship due to multiple watertight failures along the way.

The air battle did not last long, and the planes of the two sides fought in four or six rounds, and the Daming Air Force, which was slightly superior in quantity and quality, repelled the fleet of two US aircraft carriers.

By this time, the naval and air battle between the Ming and American armies north of Oahu had finally come to an end.

The US military directly lost 2 battleships, 5 destroyers, 1 light cruiser, 1 heavy cruiser, 31 aircraft of various types, a total of 2,377 ship units killed, 34 crew members killed, and the number of wounded is incalculable.

The Ming army lost 1 battleship, 6 destroyers, 1 light cruiser, 2 landing ships, 1 amphibious command ship, 7 freighters, 1 minelayer, and 2 minesweepers, and a total of 1,505 officers and men of the navy were killed, and the air force lost 23 crew members.

The light aircraft carrier Beiluoshimen and the other two seaplane carriers were saved from the flames of war because they had slipped away in time at the beginning.

Miraculously, the Kunlun Mountain did not sink, but the fire caused by the electrical fire burned almost all of her internal equipment, and the ammunition depots of the main and secondary guns were filled with seawater to avoid explosion.

In other words, the once majestic heavy cruiser was now an empty shell, black and charred inside.

The West Virginia can't be counted as a loss for the time being, but her life has been counting down since the moment she hit the beach.

From a tactical point of view, this night attack was unsuccessful, and the Ming army, which had suffered losses on Kuah Island last time, anticipated the possible situation in advance.

However, it still makes sense for the US military to pay such a huge price - to use the battleship to rush the beach and run aground as a fixed fortress battery to suppress the landing force? This is something that the Ming army did not expect, and it has gone beyond normal thinking.

The naval battle in the early hours of July 27 is rare in the history of world warfare, but the effect of the heavy price was immediate.

A large number of military supplies piled up on the beachheads of the Ming troops on the island were wiped out by heavy shelling, and the beach was littered with flour bags, canned food, biscuits, cigarettes, magazines, and magazines.

Zhou Changfeng asked the 17th Division to send hundreds of Korean troops and Japanese troops to rush supplies under artillery fire, the former brought back 136 boxes of ammunition and 230 boxes of food, and the latter brought back 190 boxes of ammunition and 225 boxes of food, with a total of more than 100 casualties.

The naval and air battle was like a clarion call for a counteroffensive, which was basically the same as Zhou's expectations, and the US ground forces began to counterattack in a big way at noon on the same day, and the Ming army in the Haleiwa area suddenly felt the pressure doubled.

The early morning sortie exhausted the last remaining ammunition of the Kauai's Ming Air Corps, and the Ming planes could only dive and strafe the stranded West Virginia to try to suppress her.

On the afternoon of that day, the long-awaited convoy of transport ships of the Hawaiian Expeditionary Force arrived belatedly, and as soon as the freighter docked, the soldiers of the Navy Service Detachment rushed up and began to unload the cargo.

Boxes of aerial bombs were hoisted by cranes onto the docks, where they were loaded onto trucks and headed straight for the airport. In the words of the ground crew, these bombs are still very fresh.

At 15:30, the long and loud rumbling cannon suddenly sounded, and one by one the explosion points appeared on the Ming army's position.

This caused a high degree of vigilance on the perimeter wind, and a seaplane then took off from the seaplane carrier Taihu on order.

Half an hour later, a telegram was sent back indicating that the US military had used the train guns that had been hidden all along, and there was no doubt about the situation.

Because the railroad and railroad yard in central Oahu were ravaged and mutilated by the Ming Air Force, and there was a lack of sufficient locomotives, the U.S. military could only put in nine of the sixteen at a time.

In the terrifying roar, one after another 203mm high-explosive bombs weighing 91kg fell on the defense line of the 17th Infantry Division of the Ming Army, and the smoke and dust that exploded were dozens of meters high, which can be described as shaking the ground.

On the beach east of Wai'alua Bay, the stranded West Virginia was also firing intermittently, forcing the Ming field artillery group to not dare to open fire.

Zhou Changfeng could only order the 17th Division's Mountain Artillery Regiment to be dispersed and deployed, with each howitzer fighting its own, to support the defense of the front-line troops as much as possible.

At 17:05, the U.S. Army threw in the 32nd Regiment, the 184th Regiment, the 501st Airborne Regiment, the 703rd Tank Battalion, the 707th Tank Battalion and other troops in one go, launching a strong attack with unprecedented artillery support.

The positions on the front line were visibly overwhelmed by the artillery fire in the sky, and the perimeter wind who was in the rear command felt the ground tremble under his feet.

The four field telephones had not been interrupted for an hour, either ringing or answering.

The grizzled commander of the 49th Regiment rushed over, "No, General Soldier, the fucking three blocking lines have been arranged, the reserve team can't rush over, and the oblique cutting position has been cut off!" ”

"Keep trying." The circumference replied without raising his head.

"The situation of the position on the right flank of the 50th Regiment is unknown, and the enemy has not been observed to continue to advance, and wired and wireless communications have been cut off." The chief of staff of the XVII Division calmly reported.

At the same time, officers of the 501st Airborne Regiment were excited at a forward observation post southwest of the Haleiwa Army airfield.

"Well done!"

"Lieutenant Colonel! Our men have rushed up, and the Chinese defense line is crumbling. ”

The Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Yveley, clenched his fists and said in a deep voice: "No matter what, they will go to hell before us." ”

(End of chapter)