That's what Hyakutake Haruyoshi said, and that's what he did.

In terms of reinforcements to Kuah Island, he cobbled together the 35th Infantry Brigade and the 4th Special Marine Regiment of the 4th Marine Corps, the former with a total strength of 4,000 troops, and the latter with a total strength of 1,000 troops, with a total strength of 5,000 men divided into three and transported to Kuah Island by the "Tokyo Express".

The reason why the troops were to be put together in this way was that most of the troops deployed by the Japanese army in Rabaul were navy and naval aviation, and the army had only one division in total plus a pitiful number of special marines, so at this time, in a hurry, they could only piece together a little force like this and throw themselves to Kuah Island.

Of course, Hyakutake Haruyoshi also knew that this amount of troops was simply not enough to deal with the 10,000-strong Sino-American coalition army on Kuah Island...... In fact, there were more than 15,000 Chinese and American allied troops in four regiments on Kuah Island, but the Japanese army could not get accurate information and mistakenly thought that the Sino-American allied forces were only 10,000.

Therefore, while sending troops to Kuah Island, Hyakutake Harukichi also urgently transferred the Burmese Second Division to Rabaul to prepare for the surrender of Kuah Island.

On the other hand, Hyakutake Haroyoshi mobilized several aircraft carriers to sail to the sea south of Rabaul.

Of course, this does not mean that Hyakutake Haruyoshi is ready for a naval battle with the American army, in fact, Hyakutake Haruyoshi knows very well in his heart that in a naval battle...... The reason for this is very simple: the defending side has a large number of shore-based fighters and shore-based anti-aircraft fire support, and even if there is no such thing, the fighter planes taking off from the aircraft carrier can make an emergency landing on the shore if they are damaged, and they can fly to the shore to replenish if they are short of fuel or ammunition, and so on. The attacking side, however, is far away from its own coastline, and when these conditions occur, it is basically a dead end. Just like that, it will cause a great psychological burden on the pilot.

Therefore, Hyakutake Haruyoshi has always been very reluctant to use aircraft carriers for the airfield on Kuah Island, which is even for him and even for the Japanese military. It's all a stupid thing to lose a watermelon for the sake of sesame seeds.

What's more, Hyakutake Haruyoshi and the Japanese military have always been very confident in the combat effectiveness of the Japanese Army...... This is probably influenced by the incredible achievements of the Japanese Army in various battlefields. Although the Japanese Navy has always looked down on the Japanese army, it has to admit that the Japanese Army has achieved great successes in China, Burma, Singapore and other countries, and even defeated the American army in the Philippines and captured a large number of American soldiers.

So, the Japanese military and even Hyakutake Haruyoshi believed. The occupation of Kuah Island should be solved by the army, which can reduce the risk to the navy as much as possible.

It's just that what the Japanese didn't know was that this idea of theirs just gave the US Navy a time to breathe...... At this time, the US Navy had not yet recovered from the defeat in the "Iron Bottom Bay" and was still resting hundreds of nautical miles away, including reflecting on the problems of the command system, the coordination between aircraft carriers and warships, the coordination between the Navy and the Marine Corps and the Chinese Army, and the repair of damaged warships.

If Hyakutake Harukichi had pursued the battle immediately after the Battle of Iron Bottom Bay, the U.S. Navy would have been in a hurry in the midst of confusion, and the result would probably have been a great victory for the Japanese.

Therefore, it was under this kind of caution and confidence in the army that the Japanese military lost its fighters little by little.

What the Japanese military did not expect was that such a move and idea of theirs would not only bring bad luck to the Japanese Navy. At the same time, it also inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese Army...... The combat effectiveness of the Japanese Army is indeed good, especially the Japanese Second Division, which was invested in the later period, which was also the opponent of the new First Division in the attack on Rangoon, and this unit can be said to be an elite unit that has been in battle for a long time.

However, the problem was that the Japanese army used the "Tokyo Express" mode of transportation to transport troops and supplies, and although this method was safe, it took three days to transport the 35th Infantry Brigade and 1,000 Special Marines, a total of 5,000 men, in three batches. So it's good to be able to transport more than 15,000 people of the Second Division to the island, and how much equipment and supplies can you expect them to bring to the island?

This directly made the Japanese troops on Kuah Island quite large. A total of nearly 40,000 people were invested, but the equipment and supplies were pitiful, especially the heavy equipment...... Historically, the 105mm artillery guns that the Japanese army was able to effectively bomb the US airfield were actually transported to the island two months after the start of the Kuah Island. Of the 40,000 Japanese troops who participated in the war, 25,000 were eventually killed or wounded, and nearly 10,000 of them died of starvation or disease due to lack of supplies.

At its worst. The Japanese troops on Kuah Island appeared for two weeks without any supplies, and the Japanese had to pick the fields, weeds and bark on the island to satisfy their hunger.

In contrast, the U.S. military simply changed three meals a day to two meals and called it "hard...... I didn't know that this kind of day was simply heaven compared to the Japanese army.

Therefore, the historical Battle of Kuah Island was not actually about the strength of the 1st Marine Division of the US Army, which had not yet completed basic training, nor was it the abnormal performance of the Japanese Army. Rather, the Japanese military believed excessively in the so-called "bushido spirit" and believed that the tenacious Japanese army would be able to break through the Lunga defensive line built by US machine guns and artillery shells with only light weapons when the supply was seriously insufficient...... This is also one of the reasons why there was such a huge disparity in casualties between the United States and Japan on the battlefield of Kuah Island, after a battle, the Japanese suffered thousands of casualties, while the American army suffered only a few dozen casualties.

Groups of Japanese soldiers with bayonets howling and charging at the US defense line with a small number of mortars and basically no air force cover, while the US troops only needed to hide in the trenches and pull the trigger, and when they could not stop the Japanese charge, they would use walkie-talkies to call for artillery reinforcements and blow up the charging Japanese troops into the sky.

Hyakutake Haruyoshi was still cautious in using aircraft carriers at this time.

He allowed the carrier to enter the waters south of Rabaul in order to provide air reinforcements to Kuah Island...... His idea was that while the Japanese troops were thrown into Kuah Island, they would use the bombing of fighter planes to blockade Kuah Island, so that the Sino-American coalition forces on Kuah Island would not get enough supplies and ammunition, and then the balance of victory would be tilted in favor of the Japanese army. At the same time, as long as the Japanese aircraft carrier does not sail too far out of the air control range of the Rabaul shore-based fighters, or stays in the air control range for too long, then there will not be too much danger.

The idea may be right, but he doesn't know it...... Australia and even the Solomon Islands have "coastal monitors" deployed by the United States, and the United States and Australia will get the news and make preparations in advance before the Japanese fighters have even arrived on Kuah Island. (To be continued.) )