On April 6, Li Junhao arrived at the Krabi Naval Base on Luzon Island in the Philippines, where Admiral Jonathan Wainwright, commander of the U.S. Army in the Far East, and Vice Admiral Thomas Carson Kincaid, commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet, were waiting for his arrival.

I haven't seen him for a few years, Wainwright hasn't changed much, he is still calm and capable, but he was a little excited when he saw Li Junhao, in his heart, this General Pan Sen is his own nobleman, it can be said that his current general benefits from holding Luzon, and this is thanks to General Pan Sen's advance planning and preparation!

Subsequently, Li Junhao summoned them and the generals of the sea and land to hold a simple combat meeting, put forward their own battle plans, and asked the three sides to come up with a preliminary detailed battle plan within 24 hours;

Subsequently, he sent two telegrams, the first of which was to order the Indo-Burma Theater to inform the 121st Army to prepare for an attack, and 24 hours later board the transport ship to pick them up, transfer Luzon, and prepare for battle;

The second was to contact the Airborne Combat Command in Australia, find its commander, Lieutenant General Ridgway, and ask him if he would like to send his airborne troops to the war.

When Li Qiwei heard that Li Junhao had personally planned and commanded the Bay Island operation, he immediately expressed his willingness, but he needed to ask the army staff first......

Because Marshall was in Europe, Admiral Arnold, acting chief of staff of the Army, immediately agreed to Ridgway's application, knowing that this was a step that General Panson had given to the Army, and that it had to be continued; Moreover, the three newly formed airborne divisions, the 11th, 13th, and 17th airborne divisions, which are currently being reorganized in Australia, have no combat experience, and they are better than cooperating with the British army because they are taking advantage of the Bay Island Campaign to train their troops and have naval and land units to take care of them.

Li Qiwei immediately replied to Li Junhao that the troops of the three airborne divisions would leave for Luzon within 12 hours.

Originally, Li Junhao felt that the three amphibious corps plus the Gurkha division of 250,000 people would attack Wandao a little less, but now with the addition of 40,000 airborne troops of three divisions and 50,000 people of the 121st Group Army, this is about the same.

——

On the 7th, the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which was carrying out the Ryukyu Campaign, dispatched a fast aircraft carrier formation to meet the Japanese Navy's 2nd Fleet, which was coming to reinforce Ryukyu Island, in the waters southwest of Kyushu.

However, during the battle, more than 100 planes of the Japanese army and navy carried out a "kamikaze" suicide attack on the US warships, sinking 12 ships and damaging 24 in just one day. ——

On the 8th, Li Junhao reviewed and revised the consolidated battle plan for the Bay Island, and on the one hand reported it to the Joint Staff Committee, and on the other hand ordered all participating units to make preparations......

At noon on the 9th, the 121st Army all arrived in Luzon, and in the evening, Li Qiwei and three airborne divisions also arrived.

In the next two days, the preparations will be perfected and the pre-combat preparations will be made after the units receive the mission...... All aspects of work are tense and orderly, which makes Li Junhao very satisfied! He ordered a departure on the 12th and an attack in the early morning of the 13th.

——

On the 11th, the Allied forces on the Western Front in the European theater arrived on the banks of the Elbe River and prepared to attack in the direction of Saxony in the southeast.

On the same day, the U.S. Army, which landed on Ryukyu Island, was attacking from the central part of the island to the north......

——

At 4 a.m. on 13 April, the landing force escorted by the 7th Fleet approached Wandao from the north, west, and east -- thanks to the previous Ryukyu Campaign launched by the US military, more than 90 percent of the Japanese Navy's fleet under the jurisdiction of the Kaohsiung Zhenshou Prefecture and the air units of the Navy and the Army were all withdrawn, and there was no shore-based warning radar, so the arrival of the US fleet was not detected at all.

At 4:30 a.m., the 11th Airborne Division was in Taoyuan, the 13th Airborne Division was in Changhua, and the 17th Airborne Division was near Tainan...... Their mission was to support the nearest three landing sites.

At five o'clock, Li Junhao personally commanded the First Army to land in Keelung at the northern tip of the "Libesi" amphibious command ship; Vice Admiral Smith took the "Luoshanji" amphibious command ship and commanded the Second Army to land in Taichung; and Vice Admiral Vandergrif took the "Appalachia" amphibious command ship and commanded the Fourth Army to land in Kaohsiung.

In the sea off the three landing sites, the six aircraft carriers, six escort carriers, and six battleships of the Seventh Fleet were divided into three sub-fleets to provide air cover and artillery support for the landing forces......

In order to ensure the suddenness of the landing operation, the air raid was not carried out in advance this time, because before the previous Ryukyu Campaign, the US military had already carried out continuous bombing of various airfields on the island, and now the airfields on the entire island are basically unusable, and at present the Japanese army cannot even assemble a large group of fighters that can take off to meet the enemy.

Japanese planes that might have come to support the defenders from the Japanese mainland will not be able to pass the U.S. 5th Fleet, which is currently fighting on Ryukyu Island. This timing was indeed excellent, and before the start of the Ryukyu War, the Japanese army had drawn a large number of sea, land, and air forces from Wandao, leaving Wandao in the weakest state.

At the very beginning of the Battle of Bay Island, the U.S. military completely mastered air and sea supremacy, and only needed to deal with the ground forces of the Japanese army; After many transfers from various theaters, although the 10th Front Army of the Japanese Army and the Kaohsiung Town Guard of the Navy currently guarding Wandao still claim to still have 200,000 troops, in fact, except for the 9th Division, which is a permanent division, the other units are all second-line or even third-line troops, and their personnel, equipment, and combat effectiveness are all very poor.

In this case, the landing operation suddenly issued by the US Marine Corps directly stunned the defending Japanese troops!

Of course, this is not because the First Army is the strongest, but because the Keelung defenders are only the 75th Independent Brigade of less than 6,000 people, but they are just cowering in the dock area, and they don't even guard the beachheads on both sides of the pier!

The 11th and 13th Brigades, which landed directly on the beachheads on both sides, each left a battalion to help the 12th Brigade encircle and annihilate the 75th Brigade of the Japanese Army, and the main forces of the two brigades directly attacked the Keelung city behind the wharf......

The 2nd and 4th armies attacking Taichung and Kaohsiung respectively faced the Japanese 71st Division and the garrison of the Navy's Kaohsiung Town Guard, which were not much more difficult......

The three airborne divisions that landed in Taoyuan, Changhua, and Tainan ahead of schedule, except for some puppet troops and militias that were quickly eliminated, did not even encounter the regular troops of the Japanese army!

Before the Japanese army could even figure out the situation, several of the most important port cities on Bay Island were lost!

(End of chapter)