The sinking of the USS Enterprise and USS Hornet aircraft carriers and the surrender of the entire Pacific Fleet was an epoch-making event.

By the time all the captured American officers and soldiers were concentrated in the city of Darwin, the final results were finally counted.

Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance's 16th Task Force lost all 2 aircraft carriers and all 158 carrier-based aircraft.

Colonel Murray, the captain of the USS Enterprise, and Colonel Mark Mitchell, the captain of the USS Hornet, refused to abandon the ship at a critical moment of life and death, and finally sank into the sea along with the 915 officers and men who were killed in the bombing.

Fortunately, when the USS Enterprise was bombed by the first bomb, Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, who had been ordered by the captain of the ship, Colonel Murray, to be "thrown into the sea" and was finally spared.

The heaviest losses should have been the USS Hornet.

Because 17 of the first batch of 144 6-ton high-explosive bombs of the 48 Raging Dragon bombers smashed directly on the flight deck, reducing the USS Hornet to pieces of iron on the spot.

At the same time, the 6th Division of the Australian Army was captured in Darwin, the 7th Division surrendered on troop carriers, and 2 battalions of the 3rd Division were captured at the fortress base, with a total number of more than 39,000 people.

The US-Australia Joint Air Brigade at Darwin Airport, with a total of 1,171 air, ground and logistical personnel, was taken prisoner, and 379 warplanes of various kinds, 7 transport planes, and all airport equipment became trophies of the air force of the "Jewish Republic of Papua."

MacArthur, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific, and Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Southwest Pacific Fleet, did not know that the tide was gone until Rear Admiral Fletcher, commander of Task Force 7, sent back a telegram.

It's not that the general trend has gone, but that the general trend has gone!

As far as the two commanders-in-chief of the army and navy are concerned, the situation of the commander-in-chief of the army, MacArthur, is slightly better, and he still has more than 70,000 remnants of the Australian army and more than 600 planes in the remaining 28 flying squadrons.

However, Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the Southwest Pacific Fleet, is now the most thorough commander of the light pole!

No, there is also the Pearl Harbor Submarine Force, which has the 7.1 Brigade, the 7.2 Brigade, and the 7.3 Brigade, with 19 submarines of various types.

However, the commander of the submarine force, Rear Admiral Robert English, was still cruising in the North Pacific with submarines, monitoring Yamamoto Isoroku's combined fleet, and Nimitz, who had no idea that his boss, Nimitz, was about to hang himself.

In a word, there are still a certain number of army and air force in Australia, but the navy has been completely destroyed.

If the Japanese monkeys pounced at this time, MacArthur and Nimitz thought that either everyone would go to the sea together to feed the king, or everyone would go to Antarctica to build a snowman. Other than that, there is no third way to go.

"Mr. Admiral, you don't need to be too pessimistic, I don't think things are too bad." The Chief of Staff of the Allied Command, Major General Sutherland, knew that he was going to intervene: "Have you noticed, the South China United Front has not spoken, and has concentrated all the prisoners of war and warships in the port of Darwin. ”

MacArthur had a gloomy face, standing at the window staring at the endless sea to the east, and the pipe in his hand was about to be broken by him.

A spark flashed in the corner of Admiral Nimitz's eyes, and then he stared at Major General Sutherland and said, "Tell me what you think!" ”

"Gentlemen Admirals, think about it." Rear Admiral Sutherland stretched out his hand and pointed to the map and said, "They have captured the entire fleet, and it is supposed that they should quickly get it back to their naval base for maintenance and reorganization." Then they pounced, and we had no way to escape, but they didn't. Crucially, look at Darwin Harbour here! ”

"To the east, is the South China United Front, or now called the Jewish Republic of Papua, which controls the Moresby Peninsula, plus the Cape York Peninsula to the south, and the combination of the two is like an iron gate, choking the Torres Strait and sealing the east-west connection of the Japanese army in the South Pacific."

"The port of Darwin, which is connected with the islands of Yandena and Timor in the north, is also a double ghost slapping formation, forming a second iron gate, so that the Japanese Pacific Combined Fleet will never be able to pass Guò, and it will be impossible to support the Japanese army on Java Island."

"So I think that the South China United Front is not an ordinary guerrilla force, but a strong regular army. They have an extraordinary strategic vision, and their target is not Australia for the time being, but the island of Java to the northwest! ”

"From this, it can be seen that the first target of the South China United Front should be the Japanese monkeys, not us. Combined with the two telegraphic statements of the South China United Front and the loss of two aircraft carriers, it is now clear that they are trying to punish us for their rash actions to a limited extent, and they have not continued to expand the war. ”

MacArthur finally took off the pipe in his mouth, and the complexion on his face was slightly better, and he was a little cloudy and sunny, but he still said it and then did not mean to be yin or yang: "According to your wonderful logic, the South China United Front still has room for us, and it does not mean to kill them all?" ”

"No, no, no, no!" Major General Sutherland waved his hand, then said with a smile: "Mr. Commander-in-Chief, I mean, they don't want to fight us at all. Now put all the prisoners of war and warships in Australia, instead of getting back to their own turf, then there is a lot of room for manoeuvre. ”

Admiral Nimitz finally understood what Major General Sutherland really meant: "Chali, you mean to say that we should start negotiating now, right?" ”

Major General Sutherland smiled and nodded: "If my judgment is correct, the South China United Front should be waiting for us to make a statement." At the same time, they did not disclose the situation of the battle to the public, what does this mean? Undoubtedly, they don't want the Japanese monkeys to know that we are now at the end of our rope. ”

"It's not a general leeway, it's about protecting us from the Japanese monkeys from the side. With this in mind, I feel that we now have a common enemy with the South China United Front, and that is the Japanese monkeys! Since there is a common enemy, it means that there are common interests, so I judge that there is room for negotiation. ”

"Well, even if your judgment is correct," MacArthur's face began to turn cloudy again: "Reason, do we have the weight to negotiate?" If we can get a draw in this battle, then there will be room for negotiation. But we are no longer in any position to put forward conditions, how do you say we should negotiate? ”

"Mr. Commander-in-Chief's worries are normal, and this is where we are most passive now!" Major General Sutherland's face was also a little sad: "All the cards are in the hands of the South China United Front, and we have nothing in our hands." Now they are putting on a posture of negotiation, but we don't know what conditions need to be met for them. ”

"If they open their mouths and exceed our bottom line, there is still no way to reverse the outcome. Therefore, the most pressing question now is to find out as much as possible what the other person wants. In other words, what exactly is the purpose that the other party needs to achieve? ”

Admiral Nimitz turned his hands in a circle with his hands behind his back, and did not speak for a long time, when he suddenly raised his head: "No, we still have to put forward our own conditions!" ”

"Gentlemen, don't forget that Wainwright and more than 40,000 soldiers are still in their hands! If this time we can negotiate and get our people back, gentlemen, it is a powerful force! ”

MacArthur shook his head: "They still can't just go back to Wainwright, and there are quite a few Philippine First Army." And the British, you know? The British are more in their hands! ”

"The British 18th Division, the Australian 8th Division, the Indian 11th Infantry Division, the Indian 15th Independent Infantry Brigade, the Indian 12th Independent Infantry Brigade, the Malayan 1st Infantry Brigade, plus the Dutch mercenaries and naval and local guerrillas, the total strength should be more than 90,000 people."

Nimitz is the most outstanding representative of the US Navy in modern history, and is also the founder and pioneer of the US "aircraft carrier strategy" and "nuclear strategy". He not only has a unique strategic vision, but also a very outstanding tactical vision.

The "aircraft carrier arc battle group" that later military fans talked about was Nimitz's complete overthrow of the "battle-type T-shaped cross-head tactic" and then proposed a new "battleship battle formation", which specifically used carrier-based aircraft to strike at the flanks of the enemy fleet.

Today, this set of warship combinations has become the standard norm for navies around the world. Of course, without an aircraft carrier, it is all empty talk.

The main core is to form an anti-arc defense circle around the aircraft carrier. Battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, all to protect the aircraft carrier as a mobile airfield.

Bai Shujie knows the stakes well, so he never thought of having a "heroic" head-on confrontation with the fleet of Japanese devils.

The most important reason why the little devil encountered the fleet under the command of Nimitz failed was that the little devil did not thoroughly understand: what the aircraft carrier was for!

During the entire World War II, the little devils had the most aircraft carriers and were sunk the most. By the time the little devils fully understood, their war potential had been exhausted, and they had no choice but to surrender.

It was precisely because Nimitz had a very strong strategic vision that he quickly grasped the essence of the problem through a reminder from Major General Guò Sutherland:

"Gentlemen, there is a huge problem and the biggest obstacle to our negotiations, and that is that the Philippine government-in-exile, that is, President Manuel Luis Quezon, is still in our country!"

"So until we find a way to deal with the Philippine government-in-exile, this negotiation is bound to be caught off guard. After all, the entire Philippine archipelago is in the hands of others, and it is impossible to let others give it up. ”

"Also, the Brahman Islands and the Sulawesi Islands (Indonesia), which are part of the British and Dutch territories, are now in the hands of others. Therefore, if you want to negotiate, I am afraid that you will need to plan carefully. ”

"I don't see it that way." MacArthur shook his head: "Now this place is mainly three forces, us, the Japanese monkeys and the South China United Front opposite. What kind of front is this, to put it bluntly, it is Bai Shujie. As for the British, the French, the Dutch, the Filipinos, none of them counted, and they were not qualified to speak. ”

Therefore, as long as it is possible to alleviate the plight of the United States, for the benefit of the United States as a whole, there is no need to consider too many other factors for the time being. Now that a big war is imminent, if we can't solve the problem of our fleet, once the Japanese monkeys react and find that we no longer have a fleet, we will all have to jump into the sea. ”

After all, what happens next, let's see how it will be broken down next time.