Naturally, the plain-code telegram sent by Tsukahara's fleet was intercepted by Nimitz, who was sailing between Fiji and American Samoa. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Indignation is indignation, but for Nimitz and MacArthur, it did not cause too many fluctuations in their hearts, when Doolittle could bomb Tokyo, of course the Japanese could also blow it up, there is nothing to be aggrieved and complain about, it's just that the arrogant attitude of the Japanese makes people uncomfortable.

At the beginning, Doolittle went quietly, for fear of being discovered by the Japanese army, how could he be as swaggering as Tsukahara and send an advance notice in a hurry?

Proceeding from the principle of political correctness, of course, the two of them "resolutely oppose and resolutely fight back" to this, but in their hearts, they wish that Tsukahara would attack the west coast, so that their side would have the opportunity to weaken the Japanese fleet by relying on land aviation, and even if they could not catch the other side, they could transfer the main force of the combined fleet and create an opportunity for themselves to break through to Pearl Harbor.

For the sake of prudence, Nimitz sent all the fleet reconnaissance planes while letting the fleet slowly move northeast, and at the same time sent the army aviation to conduct a detailed combing of the surrounding sea areas. It took eight days to drive from Australia to Fiji, and another three days to recuperate with the supply belt, but it took him three days to travel just over 500 kilometers from Samoa to Tokelau.

On September 28, Major General Doolittle, the commander of the Army Aviation currently sitting at Pearl Harbor, sent a telegram (Doolittle returned home after the successful bombing and was promoted to Brigadier General, and was promoted to Major General at the beginning of the year, originally in charge of the air force on the West Coast, and was transferred by Arnold to Pearl Harbor to take charge of the Army Aviation War against Japan) Convinced that after repeated reconnaissance, he was convinced that the sea area where Nimitz was about to advance did not exist (at least not in the reconnaissance field of vision) The main force of the Japanese fleet, he ordered the fleet to accelerate sharply, raising it to 18 knots at once, regardless of the anti-submarine route, Directly in the direction of Hawaii, more than 3,600 kilometers away.

The overall route first went north and then turned northeast, with a total distance of nearly 4,000 kilometers, requiring the troops to reach their destination within 6 days!

Late on the night of September 29, the TF48 fleet passed through the center line of the Christmas Island and Midway air blockade circles, and then galloped all the way. This is the most stressful moment for the whole fleet, although the enemy does not usually send planes to reconnoiter at night, but what if?

Perhaps Nimitz had gone through too many hardships ahead of him, and everything went well when he passed through the blockade, and by the time the sky cleared, the fleet was 1,200 kilometers away from Christmas Island - theoretically out of the Christmas Island air defense circle. However, it was unfortunate that the Japanese reconnaissance planes on Christmas Island did not discover the US fleet, but an Ar-372 stationed on Washington Island (Terlayina Island) and flying routinely discovered this large fleet, which was so startled that the observers hurriedly sent a telegram, and the fleet immediately noticed this uninvited guest and quickly sent four F4U to attack.

The F4U was no longer the F6F, which had been unable to catch up with the Japanese reconnaissance plane, and it took less than a few minutes to shoot down this audacious Japanese reconnaissance plane, but Chief of Staff Smith still had a blue face -- the fleet had intercepted the radio waves, and the Japanese had sent out the most important information.

MacArthur was also a little nervous, afraid that he would wait for the bomber in a few hours.

Nimitz looked at the chart carefully and comforted him: "It's not a big problem, it's far from the enemy-controlled islands, except for the fact that the itinerary is not kept secret, nothing else is a big problem." ”

"They won't send planes to attack?"

"No, it won't. The Japanese have not many land-based aircraft, and even fewer can reach the fleet, as long as they do not touch the main force of the combined fleet, our army has the ability to win the battle. ”

"Sir, a water scout of our army on Washington Island lost contact, and a telegram was sent before, reporting the news that the US fleet was heading northeast, there were 2 aircraft carriers, 6 light air carriers, no battleships, and other circumstances were unknown, and then the signal was interrupted, and the base speculated that it had been shot down, and I wanted to continue the reconnaissance, in view of the fact that our army's aviation strength on Midway or Christmas Island is not particularly strong, and the distance is far away, we did not send an attack group, only defended it, and let a few submarines go to the front to investigate the situation."

Tsukahara nodded and said: "This should be what the German side reported, the remaining forces of the US military after the naval battle in the South Atlantic, it is estimated that they first went to South Africa, then from the Indian Ocean to Australia, and then to Pearl Harbor - otherwise, the Americans would not be able to send regular aircraft carriers to Pearl Harbor." ”

"But there are a lot of troops." Kusaka Ryunosuke was a little nervous about this, "According to this information, the U.S. military now has at least 2 regular aircraft carriers, more than 10 escort aircraft carriers, and 2 battleships, and the Tsunoda fleet is afraid, are we ......?"

Tsukahara looked at the chart carefully, shook his head, and said, "If the enemy is bent on going to Pearl Harbor, we won't be able to intercept even if we turn back now." ”

"The Tsunoda fleet will be in danger, they are not as strong as the American army, not to mention that the latter has ground aviation support."

"The Second Air War is indeed a bit troublesome, but isn't this an opportunity?"

"Opportunity?" Kusaka Ryunosuke paused for a moment, "Do you want to gather and annihilate?" ”

"No, it's a very good opportunity for us to raid Pearl Harbor." Tsukahara pointed to the charts and explained, "If I give the U.S. military the illusion that I'm not near Pearl Harbor, do you think they're going to send this fleet out to trouble Tsunoda?" ”

"Quite possibly! The U.S. military is now starting to be stronger than Tsunoda! ”

Neither Tsukahara nor Kusaka Ryunosuke knew that there was still one regular aircraft carrier in the Nimitz fleet that was damaged, and it was still considered as two of them.

"When this fleet attacks the Tsunoda fleet, let Tsunoda not rush up to meet the battle, but take them around the atom, the farther away the better."

"Bring it to us?"

"No, take it away from Pearl Harbor, and take advantage of this period of emptiness to lead my troops to attack Pearl Harbor!"

"What about Tsunoda?"

"Be careful, you can't make a big deal, can't you escape if you can't beat it? Our army can be faster than the Americans! ”

Kusaka Ryunosuke immediately remembered that his escort aircraft carrier had 21 knots at its slowest pace, and the Casablanca class of the United States could only run 18.5 knots at the fastest, and this 2.5 knots advantage was still valuable before contact.

On the evening of September 30, the atmosphere in Washington was tense, as the dangerous moment of the imminent Japanese attack on the west coast was getting closer and closer, but it was not without good news at all, and the day received good news on two fronts at once. ，

The first good news is that the Naval, after a lot of hard work, the Nimitz fleet has entered the 1,200-kilometer air defense circle of Hawaii, and will be able to reach Pearl Harbor safely in two days, and the engineers, workers, materials and spare parts for the full repair of the Wasp are all ready;

The second piece of good news is that the Army Aviation is expected to withdraw a number of skilled pilots from the Chinese side after the representations of the new Chief of Staff of the Chinese Theater Weidemeyer and secret negotiations with the Stalin regime. These pilots included pilots who were in India to support the Southeast Asian theater of operations and then retreated to China, as well as pilots who provided China with Hump route transportation.

The logic of the whole thing is very complicated, but Weidemeyer is more tactful than Stilwell in that he understands people, knows how to deal with the British, Chinese and Russians, and uses many other means to successfully complete the task, which is highly praised by Washington.

The specific process is that the United States sends a number of C-54 heavy transport planes to pass through the Aleutian, Kamchatka Peninsula, and the hinterland of East Russia, and then to Chongqing, China, to pick up the crew and return to China -- this is almost the route Stilwell and others take back to China.

Since the Soviet Union could only rely on the Soviet side for fuel, shipping routes, safety, and navigation in Russia and China, Weidemeyer first communicated well with the Chongqing authorities, and then made the United States pay a considerable price -- more than $30 million worth of penicillin (a little lighter than the same value of gold), 85% to Stalin, the remaining 10% to Chongqing, and 5% to the middlemen who dredged up.

For the sake of this batch of goods, the Soviets readily agreed, not only patting their chests to ensure the safety of the escort, but also agreeing to fill up the plane in Russia and carry aviation fuel to China (for the return of the plane). Of course, it was useless for Stalin to ask for so much penicillin, and after he left a tenth, he instructed all the diplomatic channels to trade grain and other products of light industry.

After the defeat of the war on the Eastern Front, the Bolshevik regime, regardless of its own ability, forcibly pulled 30 million people, and the task of resettlement these people became a mountain of pressure. Stalin did still have some gold in his hand, but it was something at the bottom of the box, and he didn't want to take it out, so he needed other supplies to exchange. Swap oil for Japan, steel for Japan, and even B2 diesel engines for Japan, and this penicillin, which is called a "special drug" by Japan, is very popular in both Japan and China, and the trading effect is much better than that of stupid, black, and coarse industrial products.

Of course, even if the transaction in the Chinese market still ends up in Japan's pocket, because if you buy goods in China, you need to pay a 30% transit fee, and you don't need to buy directly from Japan, although the price offered by Japan is expensive, but after adding a 30% transit fee, Japanese goods are still cheaper.

For the Americans, with $30 million of penicillin that can be produced reproducibly on the one hand (the cost simply doesn't cost so much money) and more than 400 incredibly valuable skilled crews on the other, there is no need to judge which is more important.

In addition, South America has entered a truce, and the consumption of army aviation in the past two days is also decreasing, and it is expected that by the time this group of pilots returns in early October, the number of skilled crew members of army aviation will return to more than 3,000. The nimble Wedemeyer even hit the idea of British pilots in Pakistan (Japan had just released a batch) and wanted to recruit them to fight in the United States with high salaries, but Mountbatten disagreed, and in the end only a few were taken away.

So even if the Japanese threat was approaching, Truman's mood was still slightly better.