"Colonel!" When Zhang Chi was alone with Halsey, Halsey said to Zhang Chi, "I think I should say sorry to you!" ”

"For what?" Zhang Chi was a little puzzled. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

"For General MacArthur's vitriol!" Halsey shrugged.

"I didn't take it to heart!" Zhang Chi replied with a smile.

"That's what I thought too!" Halsey nodded and said, "Actually, you should be happy about it...... Because General MacArthur rarely behaved like this. I guess that's because you're still above him, and it's making him uncomfortable! ”

"You mean ......"

"Yes!" Halsey replied in the affirmative: "Obviously, he was jealous, and I think not only me, but many people can see it." ”

After a pause, Zhang Chi sighed and said, "Maybe I should be happy about this, but I can't be happy, on the contrary, I still have some envy of General MacArthur!" ”

"Envy?" Hearing this, Halsey was a little puzzled.

"Yes!" Zhang Chi replied: "People like me...... I had long been ******** on the upcoming battle, thinking about how to make my subordinates sacrifice a few fewer people, thinking about how to end the battle faster, or to fight Japan earlier to force them to surrender...... Because in our country, there are still millions of ordinary people living a difficult life under the bayonets of the Japanese, and we have no extra time, even a little extra time, to think about things other than the war. And General MacArthur still has time to be jealous......"

Hearing this, Halsey couldn't help but nod heavily, patted Zhang Chi's shoulder and said, "Dude, you are a real soldier. If General MacArthur had heard you, I think he would have been ashamed of himself! ”

Soon after, Zhang Chi and Wang Mazi returned to Rabaul to organize troops to prepare for battle.

The upcoming battle is codenamed "Fusiliers 2", which is an enhanced or upgraded version of Operation "Fusiliers...... It is so called because it was indeed based on Operation Flintlock and drew on the experience of the Battle of Tarawa.

The time for the campaign was set for fifteen days later.

The reason why it took fifteen days was because the 3rd Marine Division of the US Marine Corps was in California and the 7th Infantry Division was in Hawaii, and they all needed time to assemble and rush to the Marshall Islands.

Among them, the 3rd Marine Division of the United States Marine Corps was pressed for time due to the long distance...... The time was of the essence because Halsey feared that any delay could pose an uncertain danger to the U.S. Navy, namely the reinforcement of a large number of Japanese fighters.

In fact, the Japanese army did not have nearly 600 Japanese fighters as judged by the US military, and it was difficult for Japan to organize a large-scale air battle with so many sorties of fighters at this time.

However, the American generals did not know this, so for Halsey, the sooner the war was started, the better it would be for the subsequent war.

As a result, the US 3rd Marine Division sailed from California for more than 10 days and nights, covering a range of 4,300 miles, and then directly plunged into the attack on Kwajalein Atoll...... It was also the longest shore-to-shore amphibious operation in history, a record that was not broken until 1982 when the Anglo-Argentine War carried out an expedition of more than 8,000 miles.

As a matter of fact, while the landing forces were making intense build-up and preparations, Operation "Flintlock Pistol 2" had already begun.

On the second day after the plan was finalized, the three groups of the US fast aircraft carrier group set off for the three distant islands.

The three carrier groups each have an Essex-class capital carrier and an Independence-class light carrier, and they are not targeting the center of the Marshall Islands. Instead, they targeted the three targets originally set out in Operation Fusilico, namely Eniwetok Atoll, Kosrae and Wake Island.

Needless to say, what the purpose of this is to be done.

First of all, this is to make the Japanese army mistakenly believe that the US military will take these three islands as the main targets in future campaigns, so it will misjudge the strategic intentions of the US military.

The fact is that the Japanese army was indeed confused by this action of the US military, thinking that the US military would attack the three islands and then form a large encirclement of the Marshall Islands, so that when the other six US aircraft carriers and eight escort aircraft carriers suddenly appeared on the central island of the Marshall Islands, the Japanese army suddenly woke up...... This is a trick of the US military.

Second, the purpose of this was to bomb the three outer islands and intercept the Japanese planes that might use the airfields of the three islands as relay stations to reinforce them.

That's the point, and that's Halsey's main intention.

In fact, the US military is still taking a certain risk in doing so, because the three islands are too far apart, which makes it risky for the aircraft carrier groups to bomb the three islands separately...... Each aircraft carrier group has only one main aircraft carrier plus one light aircraft carrier, which has proved that the dual aircraft carrier formation still has a certain risk in previous actual battles, especially in the Battle of Kuah Island.

The risk is that once an aircraft carrier is sunk or injured and cannot receive fighters, then the fighters will have great difficulties in dispatching the aircraft, and this scheduling difficulty will even directly lead to the loss of combat effectiveness of another aircraft carrier.

Especially the combination of a capital aircraft carrier with a light aircraft carrier...... If the light aircraft carrier is sunk or damaged, it is okay, it can only carry more than 40 fighters, and even if it is sunk or damaged, the carrier-based aircraft can be transferred to the Essex-class aircraft carrier, which can accommodate more than 100 fighters, which will only cause some pressure on the Essex-class aircraft carrier. But if the Essex-class aircraft carrier is sunk or damaged, it will undoubtedly cause disaster.

Therefore, at this time, the U.S. military more often chooses three aircraft carrier formations, such as in the Battle of Tarawa, a total of 11 aircraft carriers were organized into four aircraft carrier groups, with an average of about three aircraft carriers per aircraft carrier formation, and the number of carrier-based aircraft on each aircraft carrier did not reach the full load, and even equipped it with an escort aircraft carrier.

This is done so that once an aircraft carrier is sunk or damaged, the carrier-based aircraft on the aircraft carrier can be easily transferred out without any risk or confusion.

In the worst-case scenario, a three-carrier formation can also keep one carrier-based aircraft in the air at all times, and the other two carriers take turns receiving carrier-based aircraft.

Therefore, in the Battle of Tarawa, although one of the US light aircraft carriers was damaged and forced to withdraw from the battlefield, and another escort aircraft carrier "Liscomb Bay" was sunk, there were no difficulties in the scheduling of fighters, and even the overall combat effectiveness of the US Navy was not greatly affected, because the carrier-based aircraft of these aircraft carriers were transferred to other aircraft carriers to continue fighting. (To be continued.) )