For this counterattack, the U.S. military in Hawaii basically exhausted all means.

The total number of fighters in the army, navy, and marine air corps is still only a few dozen, and theoretically they do not have the strength to compete with the Ming army for air supremacy.

However, in order to cope with the counterattack, the US air force still poured out of its nest and attacked in turn at any cost.

Brigadier General Charles White, the current commander of the Oahu Ground Forces, signed the combat order -

The 7th Infantry Division, the 703rd Tank Battalion, and the 707th Tank Battalion were responsible for the offensive along the main axis; The remainder of the 9th Infantry Division was responsible for cooperating on the right flank and preventing any possible counterattack by the Ming army; The 501st Airborne Regiment was responsible for attacking the left flank, advancing along the foothills of the Wyanai Ridge to apply pressure.

For the Ming officers and soldiers in the Haleiwa area, an unprecedented crisis roared.

On the morning of 28 July, a large number of US planes swept over from east to west.

Fourteen B-18 Broadsword bombers and eight SB2U Defender dive bombers took off from Maui to bomb two airfields on the Mokapo Peninsula, and seven Ming planes were shot down.

The 13 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers that took off from the island of Hawaii dropped dozens of tons of steel and explosives on the second-line positions of the Ming army in the Haleiwa area, forcing the reserve to assemble with a delay of nearly two hours, and they were shot down by two Type 38 heavy fighters who came to intercept them.

The naval air force that took off from Lanai Island was mainly aimed at the Ming surface ships on the sea, and the intermittent air combat lasted for a full day, with shore-based and carrier-based aircraft from both sides engaged in the battle.

During the day, the Longshuo made several attacks on the stranded West Virginia, hitting the large, stationary target 17 times in total, dumbing her C and D turrets.

Because of the angle of incidence, the Longshuo could not bombard the weak parts of its hull side, so the armor-piercing shells were all landed on its stern and superstructure. Although her threat was largely eliminated, it was impossible to repeat last night's hit on the ammunition depot.

The West Virginia was unrecognizable under the ravages of 400mm giant armor-piercing shells and 250kg aerial bombs, the superstructure was in tatters, the deck was barely intact, there was debris, wood chips, blood stains everywhere, and only a few anti-aircraft guns were still firing as of the afternoon.

The Longshuo itself was also attacked by a group of American planes, and she was hit by four 500-pound bombs and three 250-pound bombs.

Her fleet continued to take off and land from dawn to the afternoon, greatly covering her own fleet, shooting down a total of 31 enemy planes throughout the day and losing 14 carrier-based planes herself.

During this time, she was hit by a 500-pound armor-piercing bomb that pierced through the armor of the hangar deck and exploded in the No. 1 boiler room, damaging two boilers and causing a decrease in speed, but the small hole in the flight deck was repaired and did not affect takeoff and landing.

At 16:27 p.m. on July 28, the Beiluo Division Gate was attacked by 1 SBD Dreadnought and 3 SB2U defenders, one of whom was shot down and fell straight down and hit the anti-aircraft gun platform in the rear section of the port side, killing 29 people and wounding 63 people, causing the fire to be extinguished until an hour and a half later.

The division of labor among the Ming army's aviation units on Kauai Island was clear, and the air force combat units concentrated their planes to help the ground troops, because the field artillery groups could only fire sporadically for a long time, so the air force's planes became an important support force that the officers and men on the front line could rely on.

More than a hundred tanks may not sound like much, but even in Europe, it is enough to carry out a decent offensive with the infantry.

The frontal width of the main axis of the US offensive was actually only two kilometers, and only three infantry battalions could be deployed at full capacity.

The 7th Division, which was responsible for the main attack, did completely devote a whole regiment, and at the same time, the 703rd and 707th tank battalions were divided into two echelons, front and rear, and cooperated with the infantry to launch a round attack on the Ming position.

The 31st, 34th, 48th, 49th, 57th, and 84th field artillery battalions provided artillery support throughout the battle, with a total of 21 155mm howitzers and 40 105mm howitzers in battle.

The relentless continuous firing made most of the guns red-hot in their barrels, and there was no need for lighters to light cigarettes, and piles of empty brass shells piled up next to the artillery positions.

From the sky downwards, the fields of central Oahu are flickering with points of light, which are the muzzle flames of the desperate fire of the US field artillery group.

The threat of those train guns is even greater, and the 203mm high-explosive shells weighing 91kg can blow up a crater more than seven meters in diameter and more than two meters deep in one shot, and even the strongest civil fortifications can only disintegrate and shatter.

In the afternoon of the same day, in the face of the ferocious offensive of the American troops, the positions of the 49th Regiment and the 50th Regiment of the 17th Division fell one after another, and the reserves were blocked by blocking artillery fire and could not be reinforced in time.

Zhou Changfeng decided to temporarily abandon the stubborn defense, and as the order was issued, the Ming troops in the Haleiwa area retreated on all fronts.

The U.S. forces on Oahu amassed the vast majority of anti-aircraft weapons to cover the artillery positions, and although the M2 anti-aircraft machine guns were not powerful enough, they were superior in number, and the dense bullets also caused a lot of trouble to the Ming planes.

Feeling the pressure of air defense, the US military provided B-17 bombers a few days ago to urgently airlift a batch of M1 37mm anti-aircraft guns from the mainland to the island of Hawaii, a total of 26 guns.

After several days of assembly and testing, the U.S. military used destroyers as fast transport ships to transport 12 M1 anti-aircraft guns to Oahu.

The performance of this anti-aircraft gun was average, far inferior to the products of the Bofors company, and the production volume was not much, and it was given priority to the use of the army group going to Spain. If it weren't for George Marshall's personal supervision, I'm afraid that these two dozen anti-aircraft guns would not have been able to play.

The US military's anti-aircraft guns are now in an embarrassing period of lack of success -- the performance of its own 28mm and 40mm antiaircraft guns is worrying, follow-up orders have been canceled, and the imitation and trial production of products for Erlikon and Bofors have just been completed, and it will take at least dozens of days to finalize and mass production.

The M1 37mm anti-aircraft gun has appeared in the Philippines and Australia in the past, but it is extremely rare, so it is not remarkable at all, and it was completely forgotten by the Ming pilots.

Having calculated or not, and now suddenly encountering much more powerful anti-aircraft fire than the anti-aircraft machine guns, the Ming army planes paid a greater price in order to attack those train guns.

But now is no longer the time to care whether the damage and casualty figures look good or not, and in any case, by sunset on this day, most of the train guns have been blown up.

In the makeshift headquarters in the northern foothills of the Wyanai Ridge, two gas lamps glowed bright yellow.

Looking at the officers with melancholy faces in front of him, Zhou Changfeng said calmly: "Don't worry too much, the Americans are rushing so fiercely and urgently, and they come and go quickly, and they will soon be bored." ”

Someone smiled and said: "What you said reminded me of an idiom, the silver-like wax gun head, fierce is fierce, but it is a kind of goods, not very useful." ”

"Such a desperate counterattack is overdrawing their morale and troops." Zhong Dexin said in a deep voice: "Hold on, if they don't do it, they won't fight and collapse themselves." ”

"The air force in Kauai is almost restocked, and it needs planes and bombs." Zhou Changfeng raised his hand and looked at his watch, "Order, hold the second line of defense for forty-eight hours, and then decide the follow-up deployment according to the situation." ”

Out of various considerations, he ordered more than 900 members of the Search Group of the Second Brigade of the Japanese Defense Army, which was a servant army, to launch a night attack on the enemy in front of him tonight, so as to disrupt the deployment of the US troops as much as possible and gain more time for the retreating Ming troops to deploy their defenses.

Amid the cheers of the American soldiers, night gradually fell, and the deep blackness gradually swallowed up Oahu, and all kinds of birds and insects filled the field.

According to the feedback of the officers and soldiers on the front line, the route of attack of the night attack was selected as the junction of the two US forces - between the positions of the 7th Infantry Division and the 501st Airborne Regiment.

The next day came after midnight, and the U.S. military, which thought they had made significant progress, did not know that a stormy night attack was approaching.

At 1:17 a.m. on July 29, a series of sudden gunfire tore apart the relatively peaceful night, and the battle began with an unexpected encounter.

Suddenly, the classic cries of "surprise kill" and "onboard" resounded through the crater-ridden fields of the Haleiwa area.

A large number of Japanese troops with strips of white cloth wrapped around their foreheads and rifles with bayonets on them attacked the joint of the US positions in a loose formation, and in just a few tens of seconds, hundreds of people poured into the forward positions of the US troops.

The first to discover the night attack of the "Ming Army" was Company E of the 501st Airborne Regiment, which immediately used mortars to fire flares and at the same time called for artillery support.

Flares from 81mm mortars descended in mid-air, emitting a gloomy white glow that illuminated the surrounding land for several kilometers.

As far as the eye can see, countless dense crowds of people are rolling towards the surging wave, and the shrill whistle and hysterical shouts are terrifying.

"Enemy infantry is approaching!"

"There are too many of them!"

The terrified U.S. soldiers opened fire with all the weapons at hand, and many were stabbed to death in sleeping bags with bayonets in a trance.

At the next position, several figures rushed into a spare command post of the 7th Regiment of the 32nd Division.

"Sinai !!"

During the "da-da-da" fire of the submachine guns, six or seven US soldiers and staff officers who had not yet reacted were shot and killed on the spot.

It was very difficult to command at night, the battle situation was chaotic, most people quickly lost their command, and the soldiers could not find the officers, and the officers could not find the soldiers.

The officers and men of the search brigade who broke into the enemy's position simply infiltrated in all directions, shooting at the sight of people and throwing grenades at the tent, which only made the situation even more chaotic.

Some even touched a few hundred meters from the headquarters of the 7th Division, where the division commander, Brigadier General Charles White, drew his pistol and put on a steel helmet.

In a few moments, the US tanks roared and fired wildly, which solved these threats that penetrated into the heartland.

The Ming court did not pay much attention to the construction of the servant army, and the Japanese garrison army was essentially a light infantry unit, lacking artillery and not having a decent ability to attack fortifications.

In order to facilitate unified logistics management, the weapons and equipment they use are mainly old Type 21 bolt-action rifles and Type 20 heavy machine guns issued by the Ministry of War.

In view of the relatively high cost of standard light machine guns, the officials of the Ministry of War felt that this was not cost-effective, and some people came up with a crooked idea - replacing light machine guns with portable machine guns seemed to be similar?

The purchase price of a Type 33 light machine gun is 720 yen, and a Type 39 submachine gun is only 94 yen, and a submachine gun with stamping process is a good cheap alternative no matter how you look at it.

As a result, the Japanese garrison was equipped with three light machine guns only at the squadron (company) level, while each detachment (squad) was equipped with two submachine guns.

Obviously, the old men of the military department do not care about the negative impact of the lack of light machine guns, and they are not their own people who die anyway, so they do not have to take responsibility.

Objectively speaking, such a configuration seems to be better used in close combat?

Fierce fighting continued throughout the second half of the night, during which the Ming front-line troops continued to attack the depth of the American positions with mortars and rocket artillery, in the hope of inflicting greater losses.

At 5:35 a.m. on July 29, it was a twilight day.

As dawn came, the gunfire finally stopped, and the Americans counted about 400 Japanese corpses in front of and during their positions, with hundreds of casualties of their own.

"No surprise, today is the day of the victory, there is nothing to say, I hope you will do your duty. Disbanded, each in place. Zhou Changfeng took a deep breath and said.

The military order, the soldiers use their lives.

As the sun rose, the regrouped U.S. forces resumed their offensive.

In just four hours, the 49th Regiment at the forefront could not hold on, and the US troops attacked in turn at no cost, and the position changed hands twice in just over 200 minutes.

The bodies of the soldiers of the two armies were stacked on top of each other, and within minutes they were blown away and shattered by relentless artillery fire......

In the headquarters of the 17th Infantry Division, the staff officers were numb to the calls from the front for help, and at all the moment there were units asking for artillery support and reserve reinforcements.

Field replenishment battalions? They were all dismantled and replenished to the front-line troops yesterday evening.

"Let the gendarmerie go up and clear the enemy in the second diagonal cut position first." Zhong Dexin looked extremely haggard, and he seemed to be more sensitive to such bloody fights when he grew up in a merchant family.

The staff officer on the side was stunned and said, "But Junzuo, the gendarmerie has already gone to reinforce the 51st Regiment early in the morning." ”

"What about the guards of the air defense battalion, the motor transport regiment, the repair shop, the post office? Take it out and make it up, there are still dozens of people, let's go together. ”

"Yes, yes, order."

Compared to the Army, the pressure on the Marine Corps' side has suddenly doubled.

At noon, the 5th Regiment of the 3rd Marine Brigade was suddenly attacked by the remnants of the 9th Infantry Division, and hundreds of American infantry, supported by more than 20 tanks and half-track armored vehicles, forced their way across the Kaukonava River.

This unlucky infantry division does not have many troops, so it is called the "remnant", and it has been responsible for pinning down on the flanks before, and now it is actually participating in the battle?

Cheng Maochang, the commander of the Fifth Regiment, immediately realized that the enemy was ruthless, and this was most likely the last desperate fight.

Zhou Changfeng called, "The Air Force is about to drive away the US planes, and the fleet will probably be able to provide support in the afternoon, can you hold on?" ”

Cheng Maochang replied firmly: "Please let go of 10,000 hearts!" Swear to be loyal to the country, and the position and the position coexist. ”

He then adds: "Let them know that Hawaii's 'wei' makes sense, and that the name is well translated and lives up to its name." ”

(End of chapter)