The Second Task Force left Iwo Jima early on the morning of the 18th and headed for the predetermined sea area north of the Ogasawara Islands. Lei Shaoqing didn't wait for Tan Renhao to see him off, he didn't think that Tan Renhao would come to see him off. Since Tan Renhao was transferred to the Western Pacific Theater as chief of staff, Lei Shaoqing has always wanted to get rid of Tan Renhao's influence. It is undeniable that the two of them are best friends, but friends are just friends after all. Now, Lei Shaoqing is the commander of the fleet, so he naturally hopes to become a real commander, a commander who is not influenced by others.

The combat operations of Task Force II are still drawn up by the Naval Staff. Nominally, the Second Task Force was already under the jurisdiction of the Western Pacific Theater, but in fact, Tan Renhao was concentrating on strategic bombing against Japan, while Wu Xianyu withdrew from the naval competition early, so that the Western Pacific Theater was actually unable to command the Second Task Force to fight, and this task naturally fell to Gan Yongxing.

After passing through the home islands, the fleet immediately turned northward, reaching the sea of Otsutsu, 80 nautical miles north of the Tsushima Islands. Immediately, the fleet switched to an anti-aircraft formation. Two hours later, the first fighters were sent to escort the heavy bombers that had taken off from Iwojima.

The 3rd Task Force also arrived in the area where the 2nd Task Force was active in the evening of the same day. This is a newly formed fleet, and the commander of the fleet is Commodore Yan Shiqi. This is a 35-year-old commodore who was previously the captain of the battleship "Sovereign" of the Third Fleet, a sister ship of the "Dignity" and has been the flagship of the Third Fleet since its commission. According to the previous promotion system of the Imperial Navy, Yan Shiqi was able to serve as the captain of the "Monarchy", which actually paved the way for future promotion. In a maximum of three years, he can be promoted to brigadier general and serve as chief of staff of the fleet, or he can go to the rear base for two years of training and return to become the chief of staff of the rear general. But the war changed everything, and the Third Fleet was almost completely destroyed. When the "Sovereign" sank, Yan Shiqi tied himself to the bridge and prepared to share the fate with the battleship (a tradition of the Imperial Navy, which can also be said to be a bad habit) Later, his adjutant forcibly dragged him out, otherwise there would be no current Commodore Fleet Commander.

The Third Task Force is also almost entirely new. In addition to two "Dignity" class battleships that were repaired, the other four battleships, eight heavy cruisers. All eight destroyers were newly built, and all of them were brand new warships that were commissioned one after another during these three months. In particular, the four battleships ("Guangzhou", "Nanning", "Kunming", "Chengdu" can be said to be the most cutting-edge battleships in the world at that time. After the end of the Japanese "Yamato" (the "Musashi" was not yet completed, and the "Shinano" was in perch), and before the new battleships of the United States and Britain were officially commissioned, the "Guangzhou" class battleships were undoubtedly the most advanced and powerful battleships in the world, and their 400 mm caliber main gun shells could easily tear the body of any battleship. The heavy armor could block most of the shells fired by the ships.

This is a very powerful fleet. When Lei Shaoqing stood outside the bridge of the commander of the "Yellow River" aircraft carrier and saw several battleships passing one after another, he was also extremely shocked. At the beginning, he was different from Tan Renhao. He is a "loyal" conservative who believes that it is still the big "turtles" such as battleships that dominate the seas, and for this reason, he also argues with Tan Renhao several times, and each time he is red-faced. When they were studying, the two also made several deductions, but Lei Shaoqing was defeated every time. Later, the brutal battle, the lesson of blood and tears made Lei Shaoqing stand on Tan Renhao's side, and quickly absorbed the knowledge and experience of aircraft carrier operations, and became Tan Renhao's main assistant, from an ordinary staff officer to an excellent chief of staff to a fleet commander. Lei Shaoqing has firmly believed that the aircraft carrier is the real maritime hegemon. But now, when those huge, mighty, like ancient warriors with armor all over their bodies, passed by, Lei Shaoqing still couldn't help but sigh.

"Don't worry, these warships will be ours sooner or later!"

Chang Jianxin came over, and after Hao Dongjue was sent to Tan Renhao's subordinates, he became Lei Shaoqing's chief of staff. Second-in-command of the fleet.

"Yes, sooner or later, these battleships will be ours!"

Lei Shaoqing laughed, then turned around, "Did Yan Shiqi send a telegram?" ”

Chang Jianxin shook his head. "Anyway, we didn't receive the telegram, so probably the plan hasn't changed!"

Lei Shaoqing sneered and said no more. In terms of qualifications, Yan Shiqi is far above Lei Shaoqing, and when Yan Shiqi was the captain of the colonel battleship, Lei Shaoqing was still crawling in the Naval Academy. Of course, in terms of ability and military exploits, this has to be reversed. Lei Shaoqing didn't know much about this "senior brother" who was more than ten levels above him, and he didn't bother to understand it, and the only thing he knew was that after most of the officers of the Third Fleet were demoted, Yan Shiqi was one of the few people who was promoted and placed in important positions. This has a lot to do with the fact that he is a disciple of Nie Renfeng. Similarly, Lei Shaoqing, Tan Renhao, and Chang Jianxin are all disciples of Nie Renfeng. Obviously, Nie Renfeng will definitely consider those familiar students first, rather than officers from other academies, in arranging personnel issues in the navy.

"Forget it, we're going our separate ways anyway!"

Chang Jianxin also sighed, the emergence of a large number of young officers made the competition within the Imperial Navy extremely fierce, "We do our own thing, the Third Task Force also has their tasks, as long as Yan Shiqi doesn't mess around, don't think about leading the fleet into Tokyo Bay and shelling the Japanese Imperial Palace as he did back then." ”

Lei Shaoqing immediately laughed. "He's probably not brave enough yet. If the headmaster can promote him, he can trample him down. How many people are left of the former Third Fleet now? Yan Shiqi is one of the few officers who has been promoted, and there must be a reason why the principal did this. ”

"Let's hope so."

Chang Jianxin took out his cigarette and glanced at the fleet, "It's time for them to sing the lead tonight, I hope that when it dawns tomorrow, we won't have too much trouble!" ”

Lei Shaoqing didn't say anything, but looked towards the night sky in the north, and he didn't know what would happen after dawn.

According to the division of labor of the Naval Staff, the Third Fleet was mainly responsible for shelling at night, and during the day it sent only heavy cruiser formations to provide real-time fire support to the Marines at a distance of five nautical miles from the coast. The main bombing mission during the day was carried out by HNA shore-based bombers, as well as three squadrons of dive bombers carried on board three aircraft carriers. Lei Shaoqing originally wanted to take three squadrons of torpedo bombers (when performing ground bombing, torpedo bombers can be used as horizontal bombers), but this point was quickly rejected, because the large-scale bombing was undertaken by the medium bombers of the Hainan Airlines, as well as the heavy bombers under Luo Yunchong, while the bombers on the aircraft carrier were only responsible for accurate bombing, and the effect of using dive bombers was much better. In addition to this, Task Force 2 also had an important mission, which was to provide adequate air defense cover for both fleets during the day.

Just an hour after dawn, the first three squadrons of fighters took off. The fighters took off from three aircraft carriers, respectively. Their mission was to cover Task Force 3 to the north. Each fighter was hung with an oversized auxiliary fuel tank, as well as two small bomblets of 50 kg. In this way, the fighters could patrol the skies over the Third Fleet for at least three hours, and if they did not encounter Japanese bombers, they could also "patronize" the Japanese positions on Hachijo Island.

Then, the bomber group left the flight deck of the aircraft carrier one after another. The three squadrons were to take turns attacking and were responsible for bombing the Japanese fortifications discovered by reconnaissance planes during the day. Of course, it took three and a half hours for the bombers to lie down and go back and forth, so they only flew one bombing mission a day before the Marines landed.

Fifteen minutes before dawn. The fighters of the three squadrons responsible for the air defense mission of the second task force took to the skies. And at the same time as these fighters rose into the air. The "Pearl River" and "Huaihe" aircraft carriers, which did not send bomber groups, each had a fighter squadron parked on the aircraft carrier, and the unknown group of aircraft was discovered by the fighters patrolling the perimeter or by the radar on the heavy cruiser on the long-range vigilance mission. These fighters will immediately take to the air to strengthen the air defense operations of the fleet.

These are all arranged by Lei Shaoqing himself, in the past, when he was in the First Task Force, this was Hao Dongjue's job, but now Hao Dongjue has already organized strategic bombing on Tan Renhao's side, so Lei Shaoqing can only be responsible for it. Chang Jianxin, the chief of staff, had a more important task, he had to arrange the arrangement of the fleet and prepare for the defense of the Japanese attack. The most important of these is to send long-range alert ships to operate 20 nautical miles north of the fleet and use radar to search the sky. In this way, it will be possible to buy at least more than 20 minutes of air defense preparation time for the fleet.

The morning was calm, the first wave of bombers returned to the fleet at about half past ten, and the second wave of bombers was to depart at about half past eleven. Task Force 3 was also shelling Japanese positions on the island with all its might, and it was the seaplanes that were responsible for providing artillery guidance for the battleships.

Lei Shaoqing also felt that something was wrong, he had lunch at eleven o'clock, and then came to the "Yellow River" bridge headquarters.

"Still no news from the Japanese army?"

Chang Jianxin shook his head, and then wiped his face. "The Japanese were probably scared, and I heard that the shore-based fighters of the HNA had killed a lot of Japanese fighters. I'm afraid there aren't many planes left in Little Japan! ”

Lei Shaoqing shook his head with a smile. "Forget it, you go and rest first, I'll be on duty in the afternoon."

"It's okay, come and call me if you have something."

Chang Jianxin was in charge of the command work in the morning, and he should rest in the afternoon.

Lei Shaoqing watched Chang Jianxin go out, and then sat in his place. The staff officer also worked in two shifts, but before he arrived, the staff officer had already changed shifts, and the newly appointed staff officer was busy dealing with some backlog of affairs. After a few minutes, Lei Shaoqing looked up at the navigation clock, it was already eleven and fifteen, he walked to the porthole on the left side and looked towards the flight deck below.

The bombs had been hung up, the fuel-loaded bombers were being transported by elevators to the flight deck, and the pilots had already left the aviation war room and were walking towards their landlines. Aviation crews were busy doing the final checks, and then the first two bombers were pushed to the catapult positions. The engines roared, the huge propellers turned, and two Kingfishers were ejected from the flight deck.

Lei Shaoqing let out a sigh of relief, he had already received an order, after the end of this combat mission, all aircraft carrier flight units would be equipped with new fighters. This was probably the last time that the "Kingfisher" would take part in combat operations. It will take at least two months for the pilots to get used to the new aircraft, so they must wait until the fighting in the western Pacific has been completely resolved before they can go back to the new bomber.

"Sir—"

Lei Shaoqing was startled, and immediately turned his head, and a communications staff officer looked back at him.

"I just received a telegram that a group of Japanese bombers are approaching the Third Task Force, and General Yan Shiqi wants us to provide support!"

"Immediately let the 'Pearl River' and 'Huaihe' send fighter planes."

Lei Shaoqing did not hesitate, the fleet staff had already formulated a battle plan for various situations, "In addition, let the next batch of fighters prepare for take-off in advance, maybe, *** bombers are coming towards us!" ”

The staff officer immediately went to convey the order. Within two minutes, fighter planes from two aircraft carriers about five nautical miles to the left and right of the "Yellow River" were lifted into the air one after another. At the same time, those fighters that had been parked in the hangar were also sent to the flight deck, and if the situation changed, these fighters would also take off immediately.

The atmosphere in the bridge command suddenly became tense, and most of the officers and men of the second task force were actually the team members of the first task force. These officers and men knew what it would be like to have a fleet when it was bombed. Several brutal naval battles are enough to prove how big the threat of bombers is to warships, and now that the Third Task Force is operating on Japan's doorstep, Japanese shore-based aircraft can easily fly over the Third Fleet, can the Third Fleet survive this attack?

Lei Shaoqing also became nervous, and the first thing he thought of was not those Japanese bombers with torpedoes and bombs, but the Japanese suicide planes he encountered in the last battle. Those suicide planes are flying bombs, a weapon of madness, and what would happen if the Third Fleet was attacked by suicide planes? Sea Soul Volume 5 The Burning Sun Section 25 The Crazy "Divine Wind."

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