On the evening of May 10, Li Junhao received an order from Washington: to take over the 5th Fleet and the 10th Army, and to be responsible for the follow-up command of the Ryukyu Islands Campaign.

He raised his eyebrows, the Joint Staff Association was dissatisfied with the course of the Ryukyu Campaign!

Well, it should be dissatisfied, the battle went on for less than two months, after the sea and land forces successfully landed on the beach and established a safe landing ground, the main island of the Ryukyus only occupied more than half of the points, and the casualties of the US Army involved in the battle have exceeded 30,000, of which nearly 9,000 were killed, and this loss made Washington unbearable!

On the 12th, Li Junhao ordered his deputy chief of staff, Whitehead, to command the naval and land forces to reinforce the Ryukyu Campaign, and in view of the particularity of the battlefield, he also sent the Gurkha Division, which was good at tackling fortified positions in close combat, to leave the 121st Group Army, three airborne divisions, and five special operations brigades of the navy and land to continue to clean up the Bay Island......

After the main brigades of the Gurkha Division and the three armies of the Navy and Army came on the field, the situation was immediately different, and fighting close combat and clearing tunnels and caves were all combat skills that these units had practiced and mastered, and in addition to the superiority of equipment, especially the participation of helicopter groups in the battle, low-altitude support at any time, and rocket launchers with white phosphorus warheads, the battle situation soon showed a one-sided scene!

The commanders of the army units that had been ordered to retreat in the previous unfavorable battles raised their sights to look at the battle on the front line, but what they saw was both ashamed and envious......

After several years of training, the soldiers of the Gurkha division are completely super elite units in this era, and their combat effectiveness and combat cooperation have reached a very high level, they take the platoon as a unit, followed by a company of sea and land soldiers, and fight extremely heartily in the attack, automatic grenade launchers, MK-IIA heavy anti-armor grenades, M1 flamethrowers and M20 75mm recoilless guns are used together, and no fortress works!

This mode of battle is very different from that of the US Army units, but the lethality is extremely great, and the Gurkha division and the naval and land units are not in a hurry at all, they fight steadily and steadily, emptying the enemy step by step, and never rushing, and there is no one alive wherever they pass!

The army commanders felt the huge disparity, and their hearts were ashamed of their previous pride, and they agreed that the sea and land were the strongest troops......

——

After five days of fighting, the Gurkha division and the soldiers of the three naval and army took turns to clean up the Ryukyu Island, and 100,000 Japanese troops and tens of thousands of puppet troops who helped the Japanese army were wiped out!

After that, it took another five days for the U.S. military to clean up all the remaining islands, completely clearing the entire archipelago.

On May 23, the Battle of Ryukyu Island was completely ended, and more than 86,000 people from two divisions and one mixed brigade under the command of Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, commander of the 32nd Army of the Japanese Army, as well as 160,000 people including naval base troops and a special regiment formed by the puppet army on the island, were annihilated, and nearly 3,000 planes and more than 120 ships were lost.

In this battle, the US army suffered more than 38,000 casualties, lost 763 aircraft, sank 36 ships, and wounded 368 ships, of which 35,000 were the battle losses of the 10th Army in the early stage, and the planes and ships were all losses of the 5th Fleet in the early stage! This result surprised and shocked everyone.

After the U.S. military occupied Ryukyu Island, it opened the gateway to Japan and laid the foundation for the invasion of the Japanese mainland.

Only Li Junhao knows that this process is more than a month earlier than the original history, and the casualties of the US army have been reduced by sixty percent, which can be regarded as his own contributions! ——

On 29 May, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a formal order, clearly stipulating that the Allied Far East Theater Command was responsible for all military affairs in Asia, the western and southern Pacific, and that the US Pacific Fleet and the Pacific Theater were under the unified command of Admiral Panson. This is equivalent to the unification of the command of the US and allied forces in the entire Eastern Hemisphere!

On the 30th, after discussion, the joint meeting of the White House advisers and the Joint Chiefs of Staff held that at present, all countries in the world have the rank of marshal, but the US military does not, and this has many inconveniences in the actual command of the allied forces and reciprocal exchanges, so the US military should set up a higher rank than a four-star general to adapt to the current situation.

——

On the 31st, the Joint Defense Committees of both houses of the US Congress approved the bill on the highest military rank of the US military proposed by the White House:

1. General of the Armies of the United States is the highest military rank in the U.S. Army, and only George Washington, the founding president, is the only military rank; Also known as the seven-star general.

2. General of the Armies, awarded only to John Pershing.

Admiral of the Navy, awarded only to George Dewey.

Both are also the only military ranks; Also known as a six-star general.

3. Establish the rank of five-star general, which is the highest military rank in active duty in the U.S. military, and confer on senior U.S. generals who have made great military achievements and assumed the responsibility of commanding the general direction and region for the United States; This rank is valid for life.

——

On June 1, Roosevelt, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, signed an order for promotion to the highest rank:

William Leahy, chief of staff of the White House and convener of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was promoted to five-star admiral.

On the 2nd, George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army and Commander-in-Chief of the European Theater, was promoted to a five-star general of the Army.

On the 3rd, he was promoted to Commander of the Marine Corps and Commander-in-Chief of the Far Eastern Theater of Operations. Lee Panson is a five-star admiral on land and sea.

The reason why the three five-star generals were promoted in three days is because, according to the practice of the US military, those of the same rank are promoted first to have high seniority and have priority command.

——

Marshall and Li Junhao are both members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and this news was known in advance, but it is not surprising, the former had previously proposed to Roosevelt not to establish the rank of marshal in order not to surpass his teacher Pershing, and now the result is the best of both worlds.

Li Junhao was delighted in his heart, he was promoted to five stars so early, and he was the third place, which was a real windfall!

However, according to the current sequence of US military command, Marshall and himself are respectively responsible for the operational command of US forces in the western and eastern hemispheres, and it is very necessary to raise the rank first.

Otherwise, his side is fine, but Marshall's side is facing a bunch of marshals in the Allied army, the British army, the French army, and the Soviet army...... Even the Dutch and Belgian armies have marshals, and he, the commander-in-chief, is a four-star general, and it is a little embarrassing to lead them.

——

Because of the end of the Bay Island Campaign and the Ryukyu Campaign, the US forces in the Far East have actually directly threatened the Japanese mainland, and Li Junhao ordered all the allied forces in the Far East Theater to reorganize their troops and prepare to attack the Japanese mainland, but he actually knew in his heart that he could not fight!

However, he had a faint idea in his heart: to attack the Japanese Kwantung Army before the Soviet army, so as to avoid the destruction of Northeast China by the Soviet Union! Although he had not yet made up his mind, he ordered the 121st Army to prepare.

(End of chapter)