Stilwell's time can be said to be rare to relax.

Of course, this leisure is not leisure in the actual sense, in fact, Stilwell is very busy, meetings, negotiations, supplies, American aid...... One moment it was the British side, the other was the Chinese side's demands, and then there were the difficulties of Burma, which made Stilwell almost not stop for a moment.

But he still felt relaxed, and it could even be said to be a pleasure.

The reason for this, Stilwell believes, is that he has successfully taken Burma, and although the Japanese have not been annihilated, they can only be trapped in a corner and do not play a big role.

As for saying that it is a treat...... It was Stilwell who fully felt the power in his hands, or arguably his own importance.

United Kingdom, China, Myanmar...... The fate of these countries seemed to depend on his own thoughts, which made Stilwell, an old man in his sixties, feel still full of energy and energy.

Therefore, he regarded the current busyness as the fruit of victory in repelling the Japanese army on the battlefield in Burma.

For example, now, the purpose of looking at the map is no longer to think about what direction to attack the Japanese army from as before, but to find the next place where the Chinese army can go to open up wasteland and farm.

"General!" Just then, a correspondent walked up to Stilwell, handed over a telegram, and reported: "This is a telegram from Washington, and the president asks the general's troops to be ready to fight in the Pacific islands!" ”

"What?" Stilwell couldn't help but be stunned when he heard this.

He was a little unconvinced at first, but when he put on his glasses and read the contents of the telegram, he had to accept this fact...... Originally, he thought that he had at least a few months to prepare, but he did not expect that this battle was just around the corner, and the new 1st Division had only been training for two weeks, and many of them would even get seasick.

What Stilwell didn't know was that this situation was not only something he didn't expect, but even Washington, that is, the U.S. military, didn't expect.

The reason is that the US military did not expect that Guadalcanal, which was occupied by the Japanese army, would be so important.

Since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and officially started the war against the American army, the Japanese army has carried out its plan to go south almost accurately...... Sweeping over most of East Asia, the East Indies and the Meracean Islands. It also captured the Philippine Islands, Wake Island, Guam, and Singapore, and then unstoppably captured the port city of Rabaul on the island of New Britain.

Not only did Rabaul have the best port in the region, but it also had the favorable terrain to build a large airfield, which meant that the Japanese navy and air force could use Rabaul as a base to control nearby New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, thereby cutting off the maritime lifeline between the United States and Austria.

In fact, when the Japanese occupied Rabaul, the American side realized the strategic intentions of the Japanese army and decided to counterattack the Japanese army.

But on the one hand, they thought that the situation would not deteriorate so quickly, and although the Japanese army occupied Rabaul, it would take time to develop and prepare, so the US military still had time to prepare.

On the other hand. It is that the US Navy and the Army have always been at odds.

On the Army side, MacArthur was the representative, and his opinion was to "go straight to the Yellow Dragon...... That is, the Japanese army in this area is based on Rabaul, if Rabaul can be taken, then the Japanese army can be driven out of this area, so the threat of the Japanese army to Oralia does not exist.

The navy believes that MacArthur's plan is too risky, because MacArthur's plan exposes the Navy's aircraft carrier to the Japanese bombers taking off from Rabaul Airport, which is very dangerous for the aircraft carrier, not to mention that the waters around Rabaul are very narrow, and the space for the aircraft carrier to operate is very limited. On the contrary, it is easy to make it a target for Japanese aircraft...... This would make it possible for the US military to land without the cover of air power, which was unimaginable for the US military.

Therefore, the navy advocated attacking the outlying islands first, and establishing a US naval and air base on the periphery to prepare for the attack on Rabaul.

Objectively speaking. Both strategies are practical.

MacArthur's strategy was a risky tactic that, though dangerous, had the potential to be decisive in a quick battle.

The Navy's approach is to fight steadily and steadily, and although it is less dangerous, it must be a long-lasting war of attrition.

But more in line with the American way of fighting is clearly the Navy's operational thinking, and MacArthur's idea is ...... It should be said that it belongs to an alternative.

So the Americans, after a long period of discussion and consultation. In the end, it was decided to start from the periphery by adopting the operational thinking of the navy.

Originally, the navy thought that they had plenty of time to prepare, but because of a fortuitous incident, the American side realized that they had to launch a counterattack against the Japanese army in advance.

That was a dozen days after the end of the meeting. The Navy had just begun to prepare for a counterattack, and a U.S. pilot flew a B17 bomber from New Guinea to conduct routine patrols and reconnoiter the possible activities of the Japanese troops.

As a result, while passing through a small island called Tulagi, they were attacked by three Japanese seaplanes...... The American pilot fled the battlefield in a hurry, and when he returned to the base, he felt a little uncomfortable, why did the Japanese prevent him from flying into that sea area? And three seaplanes were used at the same time?!

Does this mean that the Japanese army has any information in that airspace that they don't want him to know or that the Allies have detected!

So, the pilot immediately turned around and flew into the airspace again.

The Japanese didn't expect this pilot to be so bold at all, and he turned back before he could take a breath to drive him away, and the seaplane had just landed and had no time to take off, and even if it took off, it would be too slow to stop it, so they could only watch the bomber fly over this airspace.

The major named Keane made this dangerous maneuver totally worth it, because the photographs he took showed that the Japanese were building an airfield on Guadalcanal.

This information could not help but surprise the US military.

The reason is that they all know that the combat radius of the Japanese Zero fighter is close to 1,500 kilometers, which is more than twice that of the US P40 fighter. If the Japanese army succeeds in establishing an airfield on Guadalcanal, then it will be possible to deploy a combat belt of land-based take-off fighters with a radius of more than 1,000 kilometers near Guadalcanal, and with the help of Japanese warships and aircraft carriers, the US air fleet can be kept out of the Solomon Islands, and then there will be no need to think of establishing any bases on the periphery to attack Rabaul. (To be continued.) )