The next night the American fleet arrived in Rangoon.

On Stilwell's orders, the new 1st Division arrived in port two hours ahead of schedule and was ready to board.

When the Yankees' tall warships appeared in the harbor, their towering guns blocking the ranks of fighters in the moonlight, they simply frightened the soldiers...... They had never seen a ship as large as a hill with such large-caliber guns on board.

It should be said that Chinese soldiers are rare and strange, and when they see a destroyer of more than 1,000 tons, they have this expression, and when they see an aircraft carrier of 20,000 or 30,000 tons, they don't know what to call a ghost.

This is followed by a tight loading.

But at this point, the US Navy is clearly ill-prepared...... According to the U.S. Navy, it was they who did not expect the Chinese army to have so much heavy equipment.

This should be an excuse for the Navy's own fault, because Stilwell had already reported all the equipment of the new 1st Division to the Navy in advance.

Most likely, the Navy simply ignored Stilwell's list of equipment, assuming that the transport ships and warships sent were enough to carry a Chinese division and its equipment.

But who would have thought ...... The Chinese division was even better equipped than the American divisions, and they not only had tank battalions, but also almost three times the artillery firepower of the American divisions. At this time, only five ships could be berthed at a time at the pier in Yangon, so the loading process was very slow.

Then two more unfortunate things happened that made the loading task more complicated:

One is a dock workers' strike.

The dock workers, most of whom were Burmese, thought it impossible to load the equipment in the time required by the Americans, that is, before dawn, and the Yankees would only find all sorts of excuses to get angry at them or ridicule them...... It turned out that this was actually a mistake made by the American sailors, who thought that the Burmese could not understand English, so they did their best to show their humor and ridicule the Burmese dock workers. What they didn't expect was that Burma had been a British colony for a long time, and many Burmese people, especially the dock workers who often dealt with the British at the Yangon docks, could understand English.

In the end, this matter was resolved by Wang Mazi to negotiate with the dock workers. The dock workers said it was up to the Chinese troops to help Burma repel the Japanese, otherwise they would never have returned to work.

Another thing is the sudden rainfall.

This is uncommon during the dry season in Myanmar, but Yangon is a coastal area where there is still heavy rainfall when hot and cold air meets.

As rain was not taken into account, all the equipment and supplies to be loaded at the dock did not have the necessary protection, so the ammunition was wet, the loaded cartons were soaked with rain, and the clothing and food insides were also soaked.

To make matters worse, due to the urgency of the military situation, loading could not be stopped even if it rained. As a result, the new 1st Division could only work continuously in the dark in the rain...... As a result, it was loaded to the back, only to find that there was simply not enough space on the ship to put these equipment.

The U.S. Navy may have been a little annoyed and angry about the mistake it had made, so Haikou boasted and shouted at Wang Mazi: "Get on the boat, don't care about those damn equipment, what do you need...... The American side has it! ”

But as it turned out, the truth was not as simple as the Navy claimed, because of the lack of preparation and the fact that Guadalcanal was still at the farthest end of the U.S. supply line. In particular, the U.S. military still had to compete with the Japanese army for air supremacy and sea supremacy in naval and air battles, so the navy did not provide enough equipment for the Chinese army.

In the end, the new 1st Division had to leave most of its tanks and a howitzer battalion and a mountain artillery battalion ashore.

"****** Yankee!" Wang Mazi couldn't help but scold when he got on the boat: "What kind of fame? If the war is like this, then you still have a ball?! ”

Among them, the most scolded are the artillery units and tank units, especially the tank units...... The tank battalion of the new 1st Division had four companies. Each company had 14 tanks, plus two command vehicles at the battalion headquarters, for a total of 58 tanks, but only 15 tanks were brought aboard. What was especially distressing to the tank units was that only two of the four Sherman tanks were transported.

However, the soldiers scolded and scolded, on the one hand, believing that the Yankees would replenish their equipment in future battles. On the other hand, I also knew that the military situation was urgent at this time, and from the general direction, if the fighter plane was missed because of more equipment, it would be more than worth the loss, so I didn't take it to heart.

Zhang Chi saw that was not these.

Compared with losing some equipment, Zhang Chi is more worried about the state of the US Navy...... From this trivial incident, it can be seen that the US Navy is in a hurry to respond to the battle with insufficient preparation, so in the future battle, will the US Navy be able to provide sufficient firepower support to the Chinese Expeditionary Force and ensure the logistical supply of the Chinese army?!

So far, Zhang Chi knows a little ...... In a battle, especially in the case of troops with American-style equipment, the logistical supply aspect is extremely important.

Island warfare is different from ordinary land warfare, and the difference is that:

Ordinary land warfare is usually supplied by land or air, as in the case of the two campaigns fought by the Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma.

Although island warfare is also fought on land, both sides can almost be said to rely on naval supplies, which means that the particularity of island warfare lies in the ...... The inability of the land forces to attack the enemy's supply lines has largely weakened the role of the tactics of "interspersed encirclement." It can almost be said that island operations cannot be quickly resolved, and a series of ground, sea, and air battles can only be fought along narrow coastal areas in limited waters and airspace. Both sides consume each other until in the end either side is unable to consume it.

And in this war of attrition, the role of the Navy is clearly extremely important.

Because the navy includes aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft, the victory of the navy means that it has mastered the sea and air supremacy near the island, and at the same time, it also means cutting off the enemy's supplies, which creates conditions for the victory of the army.

Otherwise, the defeat of the Navy means that the enemy has cut off the supply of our troops, and then the balance of victory will soon be tilted on the side of the enemy.

But now, Zhang Chi saw such a performance of the US Navy, which made Zhang Chi "chuckle" in his heart.

But for something like this, even if Zhang Chi is worried, it's useless...... As a commander of the Chinese Army, he can't go and criticize the US Navy!

All Zhang Chi can do now is pray that these are just temporary manifestations of the U.S. Navy, or that their performance on the battlefield will not be as bad as they were at the docks in Yangon. (To be continued.) )