Chapter 1049 Hawaii (12,600 Votes Plus Additional Content)

Of course Peterson was going to be pulled out for a fight. On the one hand, Washington told him to use land aviation to weaken the Japanese fleet as much as possible; on the other hand, he was teased by Tsukahara all night. It was difficult to explain without saying this.

At around 9 a.m., when the reconnaissance plane determined that the Japanese fleet was located 1,100 kilometers north-west of Panama, Peterson sent the largest attack group possible, more than 270 B-17\B-24\B-29 aircraft with sufficient range. , and at the same time, more than 70 P-51s with additional auxiliary fuel tanks were deployed to escort the attack group - Peterson was very clear about the dangers of no escort.

However, due to the slow speed of the B-17\24s, the entire formation was dragged down. By the time they actually came into contact with the Japanese fleet, it was already around 1 p.m. Not only had the Japanese fleet reached a distance of more than 1,200 kilometers, but the interceptor fleet had already reached a distance of more than 1,200 kilometers. Watching with eager eyes. More importantly, Tsukahara made fine adjustments to the overall fleet formation. The aircraft carrier formation was more than 100 kilometers behind the battleship formation, which was equivalent to a full 1,300 kilometers away from the Panamanian defenders.

Even with the addition of auxiliary fuel tanks, the P-51s had a maximum range of only more than 2,700 kilometers, and could only stay over the war zone for a maximum of 5 minutes. Faced with the entanglement of Japanese fighter jets, the P-51s were either shot down, or were quickly attacked due to fuel alarms. Forced to return, in less than 10 minutes, only bombers were left in the entire airspace, which meant that in the end, the operation was still without escort.

The bombers encountered an unprecedented blockage. More than 140 Do-412s or Bf-319s rushed to attack, and the big guys kept falling from the sky.

Even the bombers that successfully dropped bombs had a low hit rate. Yesterday morning, the Los Angeles Army Air Forces sank a water-jet aircraft carrier. These Army Air Forces only sank a special 1L transport aircraft carrier and a tanker. As for the battleship targets that were the focus of attack, the U.S. military's luck was so-so:

The Yamato was hit by a 1,000-pound bomb, which caused minimal damage;

The unlucky USS Shinano's command tower was hit by a 2,000-pound semi-armor-piercing bomb. Just when the US military pilots happily thought that this blockbuster bomb with a delay of 0.025 seconds could drill a big hole in the opponent, the top of the command tower was 500mm thick. The armor directly bounced the bomb away and detonated - it couldn't get in at all. Before the disappointed pilot could recover, Akamatsu Sadaki's Do-412 had already killed it, and the four 20mm cannons simply beat it into the sea.

The only thing that made Tsukahara feel regretful was that the two Akizuki-class air defense destroyers, Chuzuki and New Moon, were sunk by 2,000-pound bombs, which was considered a relatively heavy loss.

However, for this result, the US military paid a high price. Only 94 of the 278 heavy bombers successfully returned home, 36 of the 79 P-51s were shot down, and 31 Japanese fighter jets were lost. 18 of the pilots successfully parachuted to the rescue. .

Panamanian Army Airlines lost more than 220 crews in one day, and the overall battle loss rate was as high as 62%. Coupled with the loss of more than 10 aircraft in the early morning, nearly a quarter of the total number of aircraft was lost in one day.

Faced with such a result, Peterson not only failed to vent his anger, but became even more depressed.

Tsunoda's fleet's teasing of Los Angeles, Tsukahara's fleet's feint attack on Panama, and the huge losses caused by the Army's two sorties caused a huge shock in Washington. Everyone knew something was wrong here, but no one could tell what was going on.

Spruance initially judged that the Japanese fleet's feint attack on the west coast was to lure out the Pacific Fleet, and then the main force of the United Fleet hidden nearby took the opportunity to rush out and strive to completely annihilate the Pacific Fleet, so the Tsunoda fleet swaggered around Pearl Harbor. Then he came to the West Coast to stir up trouble. But judging from the feint attack of the main force of the Combined Fleet against Panama today, it does not look like the intention of a pincer attack - the two Japanese fleets are 7,000 kilometers apart from each other, which is twice as far as the distance between Halsey Fleet and Tsunoda Fleet. If this is also Spruance wouldn't believe it if he could attack from a flank!

The evidence that the Tsukahara fleet pretended to attack Panama is clear. The air group drew an ugly circle around Panama. No one believed the hypothesis that Japan could not find Panama and finally gave up the attack. If this was true, why did the Japanese fleet retreat in the early morning? Shouldn't we send out a second attack wave?

Nimitz frowned and asked: "Is it possible that the Japanese army is deliberately consuming our Army aviation crews? It can be seen from the last consumption of crews and oil tankers that Japan does not care about the consumption of oil tankers at all. They just lost an oil tanker here. , and then acquired dozens of oil tankers from Europe, Horikichi’s capital is much stronger than we imagined.”

MacArthur believed that it was very dangerous for this situation to continue: Army Airlines finally managed to bring back more than 400 aircrews from China, and then went on to get more than 70 aircrews from China. Before they had fully arrived, more than 300 aircrews had been used up. This loss of more than 300 yuan a day was not only painful for Arnold, but also felt unbearable for other big guys.

After sitting there for a long time, Clark came up with a hypothesis: "Could Japan be creating opportunities for the German attack and dragging down our troops?"

"Please tell me in detail."

"After the Japanese army occupied Midway Island and besieged Hawaii, we tried every means to dispatch a large number of aircrews to Hawaii. The Japanese army declared that they would attack the west coast, and our army dispatched many aircraft to defend the west coast. Now the Japanese army has begun to attack Panama again, and we have continued to strengthen and deploy in this direction. There are more than 1,800 aircraft; needless to say, Recife has been continuously deploying troops to strengthen, and now there are more than 2,000 aircraft. "Clark walked to the map and drew a few arrows. Without exception, they did not start from the east coast. "Hawaii strengthened. The west coast is strengthened, Panama and Recife are strengthened, but where is it weakened?”

"East Coast!" Truman blurted out. Even if he didn't understand military affairs, he could understand it just by looking at Clark's arrow.

"There are currently about 2,500-3,000 aircrews available on the east coast. Although it is difficult to defend nearly 3,000 kilometers of coastline, we can barely cope with it." Clark said in a worried tone, "The Germans on the east coast may temporarily I can’t do anything, I’m particularly worried about this place now!”

He tapped the pointer on the northeast corner of the map.

"Newfoundland!" Nimitz was so shocked that he almost jumped up. MacArthur also frowned deeply, realizing that the problem was serious - Newfoundland was not a U.S. territory, and the U.S. military only had the obligation to assist in defense, and the defense preparations above were insufficient.

Since the London government changed the country's name to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Newfoundland", it has repeatedly claimed sovereignty over Newfoundland. Naturally, the U.S. government has tit-for-tat supported the Canadian government's sovereignty over Newfoundland, but regardless of whether this land belongs to London or Ottawa At least it should not be under the control of Washington. Therefore, not only did the British (Qiu Kee government) be selected as the governor of Newfoundland, but British troops and Canadian troops were also sent to the island.

Before the break between London and Washington, a total of four British Army divisions were trained in the United States, as well as some jet pilots and carrier-based aircraft pilots. After the two sides turned against each other, London was able to detain all US troops as prisoners, but the United States could not detain the British troops. On the contrary, it had to provide them with equipment and supplies to serve as a reminder of the government's force. Of course, the US military was not confident that British troops were stationed in the United States. In the mainland, two British divisions were arranged to return to Canada, and two British divisions were sent to Newfoundland. In addition to the 1 Canadian division and 1 American division on Newfoundland, there are a total of 4 divisions with nearly 80,000 troops.

The aviation force on the island of Newfoundland also follows a three-combination policy. Although the Americans really want to have all the British jet pilots in their hands to defend the east and west coasts, after all, they have to live up to their reputation, so they have deployed more than 100 Meteors on the island of Newfoundland. Jets, and nearly 200 more are deployed in the Great Lakes region on the border between Canada and the United States - said to be the British Royal Air Force (Qiu Ji), but in fact they are under the command of the U.S. Army Aviation. After this action, the United States naturally recruited all British and Canadian carrier-based aircraft pilots, including all carrier-based aircraft pilots who had launched an alliance with the London government and fled to Canada from the British mainland, into the US fleet.

Although Turner pursued Truman to exert maximum pressure on Churchill, everyone thought that what Turner did was right and great!

Clark elaborated on his personal point of view: "In the First Battle of Newfoundland, our Atlantic Fleet had all its main forces, and Prince Edward Island had a large number of land and sea ships for deployment. This also caused the German army to pull out its teeth and lost a total of 5 million tons of ships. There are thousands of planes, and now the balance of power is even more unfavorable to us. I judge that the situation is very bad.

First of all, the German army was familiar with the situation in Newfoundland and knew that the defense facilities on the island were not particularly complex;

Secondly, Newfoundland was destroyed in the last battle, and its main defense relied entirely on land aviation. Although jets are now stationed, other army aviation forces (mainly the US military) are constantly being deployed, and the deterrent effect is weakened;

Thirdly, the German army has rocket weapons. If they cover a wave of rockets 500 kilometers away in the middle of the night, the Newfoundland Army Aviation and the Army will suffer heavy losses - but jets have much higher requirements for airport facilities and runways than propeller aircraft. It is difficult to Evacuation, in other words, is easy to be destroyed in the first round of strikes. Once the German army gains a foothold in Newfoundland, its rocket weapons can cover Prince Edward Island in the next step, and maybe even the latter cannot be saved;

Finally, the German army has rich landing experience, and the beginning of the Iceland campaign is already visible. Intelligence shows that a large number of its fleets will soon set off again, including many landing craft. Under the triple coverage of its rockets, naval guns, and aviation forces, New York Finland's anti-landing operation is likely to fail. This is not the time to save the situation by investing another 82nd Airborne Division. "

MacArthur thought: The 82nd Division is useless, Ridgway is still in South America!

Spruance thought differently: He expressed doubts about the combat effectiveness and will of the British and Canadian troops. It was not that they were not good enough, but that they had a desire to fight. Why should they fight the Germans? ——Even the Germans admit that Newfoundland is an integral part of the British Empire, and the last time the Canadian Division exposed the problem of giving up quickly.

The more everyone discussed, the more panicked they became...