This military meeting only announced the adjustment of troops and personnel in the Indo-Burma theater, and as for the other work before it was time to discuss, it would take time for the withdrawal of the main force of the Chinese expeditionary force and the arrival of new recruits in northern Shaanxi, but one thing was about to begin!

General Ridgway single-handedly reorganized the 82nd Infantry Division into an airborne division, and this time it was transferred to the Allied Indo-Burma theater, and his first plan was to plan an airborne operation of the entire division's combat units! For this reason, since he followed Li Junhao to Burma, he has been surveying the terrain and formulating airborne plans, and he has no time to take care of his own work as deputy commander of the theater, so he basically threw it all to Wheeler, the chief of staff!

Wheeler has a great opinion on this, the original chief of staff Luo Zhuoying is leaving, and he doesn't care about things at all, Sun Liren, who was also the deputy chief of staff, is just a name, and the management of more than 200,000 troops in the theater is already very heavy, and now Li Qiwei has also thrown the job of deputy commander to him!

Major General Wheeler, who was really overwhelmed, approached Li Junhao twice in a row and asked him to come forward to let Li Qiwei return to his own work.

Li Junhao felt very helpless about the dispute between the two, and talked to Li Qiwei for a while, and found that he was completely enchanted, and if he could not complete the airborne operation of the whole division, I am afraid that he would not be interested in anything; And the work on Wheeler's side has indeed increased too much, but fortunately, before New Year's Day, Yang Shixiong is finally in place!

For Yang Shixiong, his previous work in the Huhai Concession included a lot of administrative work that he was not good at before, and it took a long time to get used to it.

During the time when Li Junhao left Huhai, in order to maintain the stability of the army and the implementation of the concession strategy, he had to stay and hold out for a year and a half, and most of his other comrades-in-arms left one after another.

During this time, he helped the new Joint Commander, Major General Vaughn, to grasp the situation, and only then did he come to Burma at the call of Lee Junhao, to the position he does best - the chief of staff of the Great War Zone!

General Wheeler, who soon discovered Yang Shixiong's talent, was very happy, and basically handed over the theater staff to him completely, and began to perform the work of deputy commander of the theater for Li Qiwei.

——

On January 15, Li Qiwei came to Li Junhao and handed over a plan for the 82nd Airborne Division to land in Burma in airborne mode, asking him to help review it, and then submitted it to the War Department, which is expected to implement this plan in Burma in early February.

This plan is very detailed and complicated, Li Junhao read it for a day and half a night to read and understand, and then he found Li Qiwei and put forward his own opinions.

"Matthew, your plan is indeed detailed enough, I have finally finished reading it." Li Junhao said, "But I found a few questions, and I hope to get your answers." ”

"Of course." Li Qiwei immediately said that during this time, although he was busy with his own plans, he had learned a lot about Commander Pansen's abilities and miracles from the headquarters and staff, so he attached great importance to the other party's opinions at this time.

Li Junhao decided to be polite at the beginning, starting with praise, and said: "First of all, I admire you very much, Matthew, it took you ten months to transform a pure infantry unit into the first formed airborne division of the US army, first of all, you did a great job!" ”

Hearing this, Li Qiwei really showed a proud smile, waved his hand and said: "I am also groping forward, during which I also learned a lot of lessons from the German airborne Crete campaign, which can be regarded as making the 82nd Division basically take shape, but it has not been tested in actual combat, and I still have no bottom in my heart, so I have this plan, taking advantage of the current calm period of the war situation in Burma, to carry out an airborne operation of the whole division of combat units here, and test the results of the previous training......"

"Admittedly, your idea is very good." Li Junhao nodded and said, "But you must also anticipate the difficulties in advance!" He decided to say something dry, some of which were beyond his time, and he could also act as an "expert".

"Of course, I have anticipated all possible difficult situations in my plan......" Li Qiwei said very confidently, although he now respects Commander Pan Sen in front of him, but in his professional field, he will not admit that there are people in the current US military who are stronger than himself!

"Matthew, you just said that you studied the Battle of Crete, so can you tell me that the German airborne operation was successful?" Li Junhao asked the first question. He had analyzed the battle for President Roosevelt and others at the White House in 1941, and now he wanted to hear what Ridgway had to say.

Li Qiwei really seriously studied this issue, and immediately said: "First of all, we must admit that although the German airborne operation paid a huge price, the result of the war was the occupation of Crete, the control of the eastern Mediterranean, the stability of southeastern Europe, and especially the security of the Ploiesti oil field in Romania, the lifeline on which Germany relied to maintain the war, and this achieved the original purpose of the campaign.

"As the first large-scale airborne combat operation in the history of modern warfare, the Battle of Crete will surely go down in history and be remembered by future generations.

Of course, the Germans made many mistakes, some of them even fatal, in this operation, which caused extremely heavy casualties, and even after that, the Germans did not use this method again!

"In view of the mistakes made by the German army in Crete, I emphasized in this plan that the troops should avoid these problems during the operation, such as: the transport aircraft unit must accurately reach the airdrop position, the paratroopers after the airdrop landing must immediately assemble quickly according to the predetermined pattern, concentrate on seizing the nearest field airfield first, and let the follow-up airborne troops and heavy equipment land as soon as possible......"

Listening to the other party's eloquent conversation, Li Junhao still admired this Li Qiwei very much, but he had to pour some cold water on it, "Matthew, what you said is very correct, but there is a question I don't know if you have taken into account, one is the safety of the transport aircraft before entering the battlefield, which involves the issue of air supremacy?" ”

Battlefield air supremacy? Li Qiwei was stunned for a moment before he said: "Isn't it up to us US military to control the air over Myanmar now?" ”

Li Junhao said: "It is true that we have air supremacy here in Burma, but if your 82nd Division comes, there are only two routes, one is to transit through North Africa, and the other is to start from the mainland and cross the Pacific Ocean through Honolulu. ”

Hearing this, Li Qiwei was dumbfounded, and he didn't know how to answer for a while.

(End of chapter)