For the remaining ships of the Pacific Fleet, the most urgent task was to prevent the expected attack on Hawaii and the occupation of the strategic islands of Samoa, Palmyra, and Johnston in the South Pacific, which held the necessary sea route to Australia and the Philippines, where MacArthur was based. Frustrated by Washington's pessimistic estimates, Nimitz replied that he would have liked to remedy the initial heavy losses suffered by the American military by redeploying the Pacific Fleet and creating an aircraft carrier task force. However, the destruction of fuel and ammunition depots on Oahu by the planes prevented Nimitz from forming an aircraft carrier task force to stop the Japanese invasion and defend the Hawaiian Islands and rescue Wake Island.

In the weeks immediately following Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy on the oceans and the U.S. Navy Department in Washington were in disarray. The task force to rescue Wake Island had to wait for the USS Wasp and USS Tahiti to arrive from the west coast; Storms and lack of training prevented the USS Wasp and the task force from refueling at sea, forcing Wilson? Vice Admiral Brown withdrew the fleet to port. The biggest setback for Nimitz and his elaborate plan to launch a counterattack to rescue Wake Island was the arrival of Secretary of the Admiralty Knox, who was preemptively trying to prevent "Congress from conducting a nasty investigation." The instinct of a politician drives him to come and "get to the bottom of the matter" and then look for a suitable scapegoat. The sight of many burned-out and wrecked warships slumped in the filthy Pearl Harbor clearly angered him.

In the first week after Pearl Harbor, Winston? Churchill, accompanied by members of the Chiefs of Staff, went on a visit to the United States on the Royal Navy's newest battleship, the Duke of York, leaving Allen behind? General Sir Brooke "looks after the house". Their most urgent task was to persuade the Americans to agree to the "Europe First" strategy, which had been discussed many times to defeat Germany first, and not to transfer manpower and material resources to the Pacific theater. Churchill sat in the cabin of the battleship and briefed his entourage on the upcoming bilateral discussions, with three documents on the course of the future war he envisioned, namely the Atlantic Front, the Pacific Front, and the Battle of 1942. These documents were three "masterpieces" that gave a thorough strategic analysis of the objectives of Britain's participation in the war.

The British Prime Minister's cabin was located in the captain's quarters, and next door was a special travel map room, so that he could keep abreast of the progress of the global war. In North Africa, the assembled British forces launched a counteroffensive, forcing Rommel to temporarily retreat. News from North Africa brought comfort to the cause of the Allies. British Foreign Secretary Anthony? Aiden was on his way to the Far East on a warship, and he was going to try to enter China to meet with Wu Peifu, and Churchill sent him a telegram with a suggestion of encouragement: "It would be extremely advantageous for us if China declared war on Tak Ben." MacArthur, on the other hand, believed that convincing China to reduce pressure on the Far East was "a brilliant idea." Roosevelt also supported this proposition, and he repeatedly called Wu Peifu to suggest that "we jointly discuss and study various situations that might arise," and the Chinese side gave a positive response, and Wu Peifu replied that he was willing to hold relevant meetings, but the Chinese political axe did not immediately declare war on him, because the proposal to declare war was strongly resisted by the "pan-Asianists" in the two houses of the Chinese Congress, and the two sides of the debate had a fierce quarrel, so that the proposal could not be adopted for a long time. On the day he left London, Churchill sent a telegram to Hong Kong, a Chinese colony, suggesting that General Morteby negotiate with the Chinese political axe, urging the Chinese political axe to send troops to help defend Hong Kong. Moultby replied that consideration should be given to returning Hong Kong to China in order to prompt China to enter the war as soon as possible. Churchill, for his part, stubbornly insisted on his own claims and refused to discuss any question of Hong Kong's ownership.

To Churchill's surprise, the army soon moved south from Malaya. After the sinking of two capital ships of the British Navy in the Far East, shipwretches of soldiers arrived at the ports of Songkhla and Patani. The British Air Force intercepted the Japanese army in an attempt to prevent the landing of the Japanese army. On 11 December, British planes attacked the convoy and sank a transport ship and a destroyer, but the fighters quickly broke up the attack of the British planes, and about 20 Buffalo fighters were shot down. That night. A submarine of the Dutch Navy attacked four troop carriers near the port of Pattani. The torpedo it fired hit only one target, and the next day, the submarine strayed into a British minefield and was blown up by a mine.

British reinforcements rushed to Malaya, and four squadrons of Hurricane fighters were transferred from the British mainland to Singapore. The 18th Division of the British Army, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to Libya, had been preparing for the desert war, but now it had changed direction and sailed to the Far East. They crossed the Indian Ocean and could not reach it until mid-January. Churchill feared that an offensive from the north would threaten India. On December 12, he expanded the command of the British forces in the Far East, Archibald ? General Wavell's command, while reminding him: "You must pay attention to the East. Burma is now part of your zone. You must stop the advance of the Japanese army into Burma and India, and try to cut off their lines of communication in the Malay Peninsula. ”

Churchill's fears were not unfounded, as he had already received information that Germany and Sayben were considering joint action. The proposal to attack India was actually put forward by Oshima, the ambassador to Germany, when he briefed Strassel two days later on the objectives of the operation in Tokyo. This was one of the strategic patterns that the British General Staff in New Delhi feared the most. Shocking news continued to arrive from Malaya, but the front of Wavell's forces was stretched so long that he had no choice but to send a telegram to Percival, who was guarding Singapore, telling him to hold his ground and wait for reinforcements to arrive across the Indian Ocean.

"The eyes of the people of the empire are watching us, and the security of our position in the Far East is at stake," Percival said on December 10, giving a morale-boosting order from Singapore to the commanders in Malaya, instructing them to hold their positions along the Malayan-Siamese border and "fight to the last man." The British had a three-to-one advantage in numbers, but, in what he expected, in the "long and hard" battle, the British commanders were to direct their poorly trained soldiers against the battle-tested army and its light tanks. Most of the Indian army had neither tanks nor anti-tank guns, nor did they have experience in armoured warfare, as the pre-war battle planners believed that these things would not be useful in the forests of the Malay Peninsula. They ignored the main roads on the peninsula that had been built to transport rubber and tin from the Malay Peninsula to Singapore, and it was along these roads that the army was about to wage a "tank blitzkrieg" similar to that of the Germans.

On the night of December 11, the Japanese army under the command of Yamashita Fumi launched a fierce attack on the Malay Peninsula. In the pouring rain, the tanks of the Japanese army rumbled along the asphalt road, trying to break through the circular line. Yamashita estimated that the 11th Indian Division was guarding the road to the south in order to defend the nearby Alor Setar airfield. The fact was that the defenders left their wet positions and took refuge under leaky rubber trees, and hundreds of machete-wielding soldiers easily broke through the line and disappeared on the road - "a small oversight", the chief of staff, Yamada Osa, sarcastically reported: "We now have a sense of the enemy's combat effectiveness." What has just happened confirms his prediction in the Handbook of Military Discipline: "Although the officers are Europeans, the sergeants and other soldiers are almost all locals, and the sense of solidarity between officers and soldiers is equal to zero." "The army captured the blood-stained defense map of the city of Sitla, and the next day they sent troops to conquer the city. Although Percival had ordered General Heath two days earlier to "hold on," his Indian army fled along the road, leaving behind field guns, heavy machine guns, and 500 trucks and armoured vehicles. The cost of the victory was the death of only 117 soldiers, while Yamada had estimated at least 1,000 dead. Now that the road to the south was opened, they quickly occupied Alor Setar airport. This meant that the planes could be dispatched from what they called "Churchill Airfield", loaded with British fuel, and dropped British bombs on British positions.

Heath's efforts to change the disposition of his forces so that they could hold the road as the army advanced southward, undermined his efforts by constant air raids. On 15 December, the Japanese offensive forced the British garrison on Penang on the west coast of Malaya to retreat. Defeat spread like a plague among the Malayan troops. Again and again, the British [***] officers tried to get the Indian army to hold the road. But their positions were mercilessly bombarded by the enemy, and then the Japanese penetrated into the forest from the flanks and rear, infiltrating the British. Heath could not shake off his fear of retreating in stride, and he embarked on a 400-mile train journey to the Singapore Command, asking for a 100-mile retreat to Johor. Percival was initially adamantly opposed. At a strategic planning meeting with representatives of the United States, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, they decided that if naval and air reinforcements could reach Singapore, they would hold the army back for at least another month. Heath warned repeatedly that his forces were in danger of being cut off by the Japanese army advancing inland from Kota Bharu. Percival got the shrewd and capable Australian commander Gordon? With the support of Major General Bennett, Bennett wanted to attack from Mersing, where his army was stationed to block the advance of the Japanese army to the east coast. But Heath mercilessly "laughed at the idea," and Percival had no choice but to stop insisting on his opinion.

On 17 December, Heath again rushed north to supervise the retreat, and the British army withdrew from Penang in panic, causing the British to lose face. The British abandoned the Malays and the Chinese for slaughter, and as a result, they lost the trust of the local people. The retreat soon became chaotic, and the field commander had to rely on the commercial telephone system, but the phone kept getting jammed, and the telephone operator told the angry brigade commanders that the three-minute speaking time was up. The sad tone of the heavily censored news in The Straits Times, and the news of Singapore's increasingly frequent bombings, evaporated the colony's earlier excessive self-confidence. In the bars and clubs, the sales of liquor increased dramatically, and trenches were suddenly dug on the sacrosanct cricket pitch, and no one protested.

As Churchill gazed in astonishment at the map room of the battleship Duke of York, showing the location of the Chinese army in Malaya, he became increasingly concerned about the safety of Britain in "Gibraltar in the Far East." Churchill apparently did not realise that the fortress of Singapore would not be able to hold if Johor was lost, so he left a memorandum to the Chiefs of Staff on 15 December: "Please note that the last force used to defend the island of Singapore must not be fought or cut off in the Malay Peninsula." Nothing is more important than this fortress. "The sea was rough and the gloomy news came from Malaya, and the British Prime Minister's mood became extremely low." The voyage seems to be very long", he gave Anthony? Aiden complained when he sent the telegram. By this time, Aiden had arrived in Yenching, and he found that the Chinese president was very worried about the fact that China should participate in the Far East war with the Allies. "The Soviet Union is concentrating a large number of troops on the border, and China will fight the Soviet Union alone in the future," Wu Peifu directly expressed his concern to Aiden: "If a full-scale war breaks out at this time, China is likely to fall into a dangerous situation of fighting on two fronts, and China's military preparations are still very insufficient, and it is difficult to fight two strong enemies at the same time." Aiden repeatedly told Wu Peifu that "China, with its powerful allies such as the British Empire, the Dutch East Indies, and the United States of America, will be able to defeat the Soviet Union and the United States." But it doesn't seem to dispel Wu Peifu's worries.

Due to the interference of "pan-Asianists" in the Chinese Congress, the proposal to declare war on Yue Ben was delayed for a long time, but Wu Peifu still told Aiden that he would do everything possible to support the Pacific allies who were currently in a difficult situation. Although he was not able to achieve his original goal, Aiden was satisfied that he had reached a consensus on a common understanding of the operation and the Chinese political axe. Wu Peifu has promised to hand over to the Allied forces as soon as possible the 500 P1M "Skylark" fighters currently equipped by the squadron.

For a variety of reasons, this large coalition against the Axis powers still lacked military coordination. By 16 December, the British were still unable to assemble reinforcements to prevent the landing of the Japanese army in Sarawak on the north bank of Borneo, and only "a battalion that could be put together" of the Punjab infantry engaged in two weeks of guerrilla resistance and destroyed the oil well facilities. Dutch Navy submarines sank two troop carriers and damaged one destroyer, but their efforts were no more successful than those of the U.S. Asian Fleet in preventing the capture of southeastern Luzon. The only ship to hit its target, the USS Sailfish, which sank a troop carrier near Guam, and other warships of the U.S. Asian fleet, including the old aircraft carrier USS Langley, retreated south to the safer Java Sea. The flagship cruiser HMS Houston withdrew to Balikpapan on the east coast of Borneo, and Hart said in a frustrating memo to MacArthur that he had withdrawn most of his personnel and the remaining Navy seaplanes because of "the victory of the Ben Air Force over Luzon." The apparent desertion of the US Navy created a deep rift between the admirals and MacArthur, which MacArthur specifically mentioned in his report to Washington. Despite this, however, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed Hart's action, agreeing that the 65 Navy fighters currently remaining in the Philippines would not be able to prevent a large-scale invasion.

Despite MacArthur's repeated requests for reinforcements, Marshall decided that reinforcements could not pass through Ben's naval blockade, so he ordered the convoy that crossed the Pacific to transport troops and planes to Manila to change course and sail to Australia. MacArthur protested, emphasizing the "strategically important surname" of the Philippines and calling on the Couch country to concentrate all its efforts to bring reinforcements to their destinations. By 12 December, however, he had to admit that "the enemy's air force had an overwhelming advantage" and had to allow General Britton to withdraw the remaining B-17 bombers and most of the surviving fighters to the port of Darwin on the northern coast of Australia.

Marshall and Secretary of the Army Stimson have not yet fully acknowledged that they must give up the Philippine Islands. This is the head of the army to Dwight? The first question posed by Eisenhower. A week after Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower assumed the extremely important position of director of the War Planning Commission, a vital position in the U.S. military, and realized that Marshall wanted him to agree with the idea that "we cannot give up the Philippines." Although he had been MacArthur's deputy in Manila for three years and had a personal relationship with MacArthur, he had a sober estimate that it would take several months for reinforcements to arrive in the Philippines. He warned: "If the enemy attacks in a big way, then with a small amount of assistance, it may not be able to hold out for several months." ”

"Do your best to save them," Marshall ordered anyway, knowing that the Navy was under great pressure to rescue Wake Island and to defend Hawaii and the west coast of the United States, and that the chances of holding the Philippines were extremely slim. In Manila, MacArthur reproached Admiral Hart for not making more efforts, but he could not blame him for not getting the planes he desperately needed. When the crate containing the parts of the aircraft arrived in Brisbane, the crate was opened to reveal that the plane's engine lacked the essential solenoids, an negligent mistake made by the clerk of the American shipping company, which caused Stimson to be furious. Fortunately, things quickly took a turn for the better, and a Chinese fleet from Saigon soon arrived in the Philippines and handed over the first batch of 150 P1M "Skylark" fighters to the US military, of which 50 were for the British army.

(To be continued)