From this, we can also know the difference between Koga Mineichi and Yamamoto Michiichi, Koga Mineichi is more concerned with the whole battle situation, while Yamamoto Michiichi will be content with a partial victory. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

While the Japanese were actively planning a decisive battle, the American troops still knew nothing about the approaching Japanese air force, and they were still organizing a landing battle, a landing battle without the threat of Japanese fighters.

Like Michiyuki Yamamoto, Johnson was also full of confidence in this battle, because he learned some information from the American army in Maloerapu, the US 7th Infantry Division: the fortifications of Kwajalein Island were not as strong as those of Tarawa, which was verified by the Japanese prisoners, and even Johnson received many photos of Japanese bombed fortifications, which proved that the American artillery fire was effective against the Japanese fortifications, which gave Johnson and even Halsey a great encouragement.

At five o'clock in the morning the next day, it was still dark, but this did not prevent the US military from launching an operation on Kwajalein Atoll.

The course of the offensive was eerily similar to the U.S. attack on Tarawa...... For example, after standardization, aircraft carriers have been put into service in a short period of time, and it is very convenient for both production and maintenance, because each aircraft carrier is the same, and even the weapons and equipment are the same, no matter what the number is, as long as it is produced and maintained according to a unified standard.

This is even of great benefit to the training of soldiers...... As long as you get a training ship and train new recruits one after another, because the aircraft carriers are all the same, these recruits do not even need to adapt to the ship after training, and they will soon be able to form combat effectiveness.

After tasting the sweetness, the US military has even had a tendency to "standardize" its tactics, for example, now, although the landing operation in Tarawa has proved to be unsuccessful, the US military is still following the step-by-step approach...... First, the marines were allowed to change to landing vehicles and landing craft to get ready, and then they catapulted a water reconnaissance plane to guide the artillery to bomb the target, then they first got on the minesweeper, and then carried out a beach-rushing landing under the cover of bombing by naval guns and fighters.

Doing so may seem scientific, because each step is mutually reinforcing and necessary.

But the Chinese have a saying, called "soldiers are impermanent, water is impermanent." If tactics are "standardized" in such a scientific way, it will be easy for the enemy to grasp the rules and pose danger to themselves.

Therefore, some people say that the reason why the United States was able to defeat the Japanese in the Pacific theater in World War II was not because the United States was so good at fighting wars, but because the United States surpassed Japan by much more in terms of naval and air power and industrial capacity, and this doomed the Japanese navy and even Japan to ruin from the very beginning.

At this time, the offensive of the US army, especially the planned bombardment of Kwajalein Island before the start of the war, was actually telling the Japanese a few uncertain information......

One: The US military is indeed going to launch a landing battle in the early morning, and the bombing launched at four o'clock is its preparation.

2: The US military really wanted to land from the direction of the sea, because the US military was bombing fortifications on the sea side.

Three: The U.S. military may launch an attack on Kwajalein Island from the upper, middle, and lower directions, because the artillery fire in these three directions is particularly fierce, and the U.S. minesweepers will also be seen.

In other words, as soon as the US military started fighting, the time and place were actually exposed, and even a large number of troops could be estimated.

Based on this information, Michiyuki Yamada chose the battle plan that had been drawn up before, and he divided more than 120 fighters into three batches:

The first batch of 30 sorties, mainly Zero fighters, whose main tasks were reconnaissance and cover.

The reason why this batch of fighters is important is that it is impossible to determine the specific time of the landing of the US troops. If the group arrives early, it is very likely that it will be intercepted and shot down by US fighters, and if it is too late, the US landing force has already come ashore, so a reconnaissance unit is needed to respond.

The second batch of sixty sorties, of which twenty were Zero fighters, the rest were bombers, and the bombers were all explosive ...... An explosive load means carrying an aerial bomb instead of a torpedo.

In the past, the Japanese army had a relatively large combat mentality, and they always hoped to sink a few US main warships and even aircraft carriers and achieve impressive results, but this time they were surprisingly conservative, and they set their goal on the US landing force, that is, they mainly focused on sinking US landing craft and landing vehicles.

Because the goal is to sink landing ships, landing vehicles, it is impossible to carry torpedoes. Although the torpedo is powerful, it is difficult to deliver, has a small bomb load, and has few targets that can be sunk...... It is obviously not cost-effective to use a torpedo to sink a landing vehicle or landing craft with a displacement of only a few tons.

The third batch had thirty sorties, this one had twenty Zeros plus ten bombers.

Its task was to provide reinforcements to the second, that is, the main group, if necessary, and to provide cover for the main group when it retreated.

Michiyuki Yamada's goal was clear: to strike at the US tank landing ships...... This was Kogamine's death order, because he knew very well that the infantry landing was still so important to Kwajalein, and the 61st Garrison and the 1st Maritime Mobile Brigade stationed on Kwajalein Island still had hope of repelling the American troops, but if hundreds of "Sherman" tanks landed, the Japanese defense line would collapse in an instant.

In fact, not to mention hundreds of "Shermans", even if a dozen "Shermans" landed, they could pose a deadly threat to Kwajalein Island.

And if Kwajalein Island is lost, the entire Marshall Islands defense line will be wiped out.

Therefore, before the departure of the air group, Koga Mineichi also sent a photo of a tank landing ship to each pilot, and then told them: "Look for this kind of landing ship, your target this time is ...... it."

This seems to be very commonplace, just to send a photo of a tank landing ship.

But in fact, this is not unusual at all, because this is the first time that an American tank landing ship has been used in real combat, which means that no Japanese knew what a tank landing ship looked like before, and of course there would be no photos of tank landing ships.

The reason why Koga Feng has this photo in his hand is that he sent a submarine to get close to the US fleet at the risk of being sunk and secretly take pictures, and in order to make sure that the picture was a tank landing ship, the submarine also made a detour to the Maloerapu Atoll and secretly took a few soldiers who had seen the landing ship on the battlefield.

However, these efforts of the Japanese are worth it.

(To be continued.) )