"It's all nonsense! Hit Midway directly from Palmyra Atoll, take a straight line of 1,300 nautical miles, and sail at a high speed of 25 knots for 52 hours, without thinking about air cover...... Where is this fighting the Pacific War, obviously fighting the Russo-Japanese War and the Sino-Japanese War! ”

This was the evaluation of Marshal Nagano Shusui, then commander-in-chief of the Japanese Navy's Command Department, on the "rush + night attack" battle plan reported by the 8th Fleet Command. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

This battle plan was made by Shen Shigetoku for 30 minutes, it was very simple and ancient, and there was no air cover at all (neither Kami Shigetoku nor the Mikawa Army knew anything about air warfare). It was to concentrate the main forces of the 8th Fleet, go straight to Midway from Palmyra Atoll, calculate the time to enter the battlefield, use the cover of night and the American fleet with unknown numbers, unknown conditions, and unknown information to fight a night battle, leave before dawn, and retreat in the direction of Oahu.

In the eyes of the staff officers of the "ship faction" and the "aviation faction" in the Military Command Department, such a plan was an out-and-out suicide plan. Because the Japanese military department estimated that the US Navy had assembled at least 50 aircraft carriers in the waters near Midway!

50 of them! There may be 2,000 planes on it!

Moreover, in addition to aircraft carriers, the US Pacific Fleet has at least 2 Iowa-class battleships and 1 battleship USS Washington...... These are all battleships with 406mm caliber guns, and the dozen or so cruisers and destroyers of the 8th Fleet are not sent to death when they meet others?

Still night raids? Didn't know that the Americans had radars? The 27 406mm cannons on the 3 battleships could smash Mikawa Gunichi's flagship heavy cruiser Chokai to pieces from a distance of 30 kilometers, and the Type 90 torpedoes on it (the three Kaohsiung-class heavy cruisers have not yet been reequipped with 93 spear torpedoes) will not even have a chance to fire!

In the end, there can only be one consequence for this irresponsible combat plan to be implemented, and that is the jade shattered!

However, the current head of the Japanese Navy is not the Minister of Military Orders Nagano Shusei, but the Minister of the Navy Isoroku Yamamoto.

"Now that you've decided to join the ship, what's there to be reluctant to?" Yamamoto Isoroku overrode public opinion at the operational meeting of the Military Command Department, "Moreover, in the 'Jet-1' plan, the 8th Fleet was supposed to attack the American fleet with night battles and mine warfare, so how could such a surprise attack not take risks?"

If Mikawa's plan is rejected now, then the 8th Fleet will not do anything in the 'Jet-1 operation', and it is better to transfer the 8th Fleet back to the mainland as soon as possible. ”

Yamamoto 56 finally made a decision: the combat operations of the 8th Fleet are all left to the discretion of the Mikawa Army.

Mikawa Gunichi, who had received permission to fight, immediately gathered the 16 ships he had brought to Palmyra Atoll and swooped down at high speed toward the waters of Midway Island with the mentality of taking a gamble.

The 16 ships were: Heavy Cruiser Chokai, Heavy Cruiser Aoba, Heavy Cruiser Kinugasa, Heavy Cruiser Kako, Heavy Cruiser Furutaka, Light Cruiser Tenryu, Light Cruiser Yubari, Light Cruiser Kawauchi, Light Cruiser Isuzu, Shimakaze, Destroyer Nadakaze, Destroyer Yamagumo, Destroyer Kasumi, Destroyer Shiraro, Destroyer Mayum, and Destroyer Ekaze.

The Nadakaze-class destroyer was not the Nadakaze among the mine-class destroyers built during the Taisho period, but the second ship of the Shimakaze-class destroyer that started construction in Showa 16 (the Mine-Kaze-class Nadakaze was sunk by an American submarine in the South Seas in 1943). The Shimakaze class is the perfect fleet destroyer in the eyes of the Japanese Navy, and it has been built in large numbers since the second half of 1942 (32 ships are planned) to make up for the lack of destroyers in the Japanese Navy.

And the standard displacement of destroyers of this class reaches 2567 tons, and the maximum speed is an astonishing 40.9 knots! It also has a terrifying "heavy mine" configuration, equipped with 3 5-pack 610mm torpedo tubes (used to fire 93 spear torpedoes), which can fire 15 powerful Type 93 torpedoes at a time, which is the core of the ideal "mine team"!

In addition to the 2 "Shimakaze" class, Mikawa Junichi's fleet also had 13 ships equipped with terrifying Type 93 torpedoes, and only the flagship heavy cruiser Torikai did not have 93 torpedoes. However, the scene of 15 ships firing more than 100 Type 93 torpedoes at the same time still made Mikawa Junichi and Shen Shigede feel extremely excited, and they did not expect that at this time, there was an American admiral who was considering whether to annihilate their fleet immediately!

"Commander, send in a group of attack aircraft," Rear Admiral Browning, chief of staff of the 5th Fleet and chief of staff of Task Force 50, said to his immediate superior, Spruance, "and according to reports from reconnaissance planes and submarines, this is a small fleet without aircraft cover." ”

Of course, it was the main force of the Japanese Eighth Fleet of Mikawa Gunichi who were discovered, and the reconnaissance plane sent by the 50th Task Force of the United States discovered them at 8:35 a.m. Hawaii time on February 8. At this time, Task Force 50 had slipped from the waters northeast of Midway Island to the sea southwest of Midway Island, and it was only more than 200 nautical miles away from the Mikawa Fleet, which was heading north!

And unlike the all-fighter configuration of the U.S. aircraft carriers during the previous Battle of Christmas Island, this time the 16 fleet carriers (including light fleet carriers) owned by Task Force 50 and Task Force 30 are equipped with dive bombers and torpedo bombers.

All of the Essex class had 24 SBD-5 dive bombers and 18 TBF/TBM-1C torpedo bombers, as well as 24 F4U and 24 F6F, as well as nine reserve aircraft.

The USS Enterprise has 24 SBD-5s, 16 TBF/TBM-1C, 18 F4U and 18 F6Fs, as well as eight reserve aircraft.

On all Independence-class aircraft carriers, there are 9 SBD-5, 9 TBF/TBM-1C, 12 F6F, and 4 reserve aircraft.

That is, Task Force 50 with 10 aircraft carriers (4 Essex-class, 6 Independence-class) has quite strong anti-ship capabilities!

Moreover, the air defense capabilities of the fleets of Task Force 50 and Task Force 30 (of which Halsey was commander) were not weak in any way, as all the fighter pilots in these two fleets were veterans of the Panama Campaign, the Battle of Christmas Island, and a series of subsequent naval and air battles, and all shot down at least one Japanese fighter.

In addition, all the dive bomber and torpedo pilots on these 16 aircraft carriers were also selected from among the veteran pilots who had participated in many actual battles.

The reason why the 50th Task Force and the 30th Task Force were deployed with elite troops and strong generals was, of course, because they had the intention of fighting to the death with the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet.

The 740 carrier-based (commonly used) on these 16 aircraft carriers are definitely the essence of the US naval aviation, and they have only one goal, which is the Japanese aircraft carrier!

So Spruance did not hesitate to veto Browning's proposal: "We continue to hide until the Japanese aircraft carriers appear!" ”

"But what about this Japanese fleet?" Browning asked, "They're probably going to Midway." ”

"Vice Admiral Turner has enough strength against a small Japanese fleet." Spruance said with great certainty.

Richmond. Kelly. Vice Admiral Turner was the commander of the amphibious combat fleet of the 5th Fleet, which Spruance had personally selected (in fact, he was in charge of the landing), and the American ships remaining near Midway were all part of the 51st Task Force because they were on landing, so they were all under the command of Vice Admiral Turner.

However, the ships left near Midway were not the main force of the 51st Task Force, otherwise there were 9 battleships there, and Mikawa Gunichi and Kamishige were really sent to death.

Since Task Force 51's mission after the capture of Midway Island was to lure the enemy and consume Japanese fighters (just like the Battle of Christmas Island), Vice Admiral Fletcher divided a patrol group to cover the landing fleet, and then led the main force of the fleet to approach the Hawaiian Islands to make his presence felt.

According to the wishful thinking of the Americans, the 51st Task Force will sink 180 ships, and as long as the Japanese shore-based planes in the Hawaiian Islands are exhausted, then the air supremacy of the Hawaiian Islands will be in hand.

The 50th and 30th Task Forces ambushed and attacked the aircraft carriers of the Japanese Combined Fleet, and as long as they could succeed, the Hawaiian Islands would also have sea supremacy.

The main task of Task Force 31 is to take Christmas Island, which on the one hand serves as a base for the U.S. Navy near the Hawaiian Islands; On the one hand, it serves as a transit point for the B-29 to Australia (this role can also be assumed by Midway); On the other hand, it served as a base for the bombing of the Hawaiian Islands by B-17 and B-24 - B-17 and B-24 were intended to be used to drop napalm and mustard gas bombs!

Finally, the B-29 and the hundreds of submarines deployed in the South Ocean and the Western Pacific Ocean (this time and space did not have no sea supremacy, so the submarine force became very large), will also play a role in the Second Battle of the Hawaiian Islands!

The deployment of the B-29 began in the fourth quarter of 1943 and napalm, bombs, fuel and B-29 spare parts were shipped to Australia. At the same time, the U.S. forces in Australia (commanded by MacArthur) began building large airfields for 1000 B-1000 in the ports of Darwin and Hedland in northwest Australia from October 43.

Once part of the B-29 is in place, the devastating bombing of Southeast Asian oil fields and the frenzied breakup of submarine forces will unfold at the same time. Japan will either send its limited air force to Southeast Asia to defend its oil fields and shipping lanes, or it will have to watch its oil sources be lost.

Without oil, Japan will certainly not be able to hold the Hawaiian Islands.