Chapter 1070 1944: Speed ​​and Lightning (20, 2100 Votes Plus Additional Content)

Reporting the results of the battle is of course a very serious matter, but today's situation is different and must be considered and weighed comprehensively - both of them understand the truth.

Now the Army and Hainan Airlines rely on three sources of support: first, the tragedy of Pearl Harbor aroused their great anger; second, the results reported by their comrades are very encouraging; third, they heard that the main fleet of the Navy is rushing as fast as possible. Come to encircle and suppress, the west coast will send reinforcements, they have a lot of expectations in their hearts.

But Ingram and Doolittle were sober. This was just a false fire. As soon as their minds cleared up at night, the situation would be unstoppable tomorrow. But that is tomorrow's matter, and we must maintain it today. The shot in the arm of victory must not only be achieved, but also achieved with "skills". The two of them just thought about giving up the idea of ​​counterattack, and dismissed it in less than 5 seconds - Are you kidding me? Pearl Harbor was bombed, burned, and killed more than 10,000 people. As a commander, you actually gave it the final say? Do you want to go to court-martial in the future? You have to fight if you can win, and you have to fight if you can't win. This is a matter of attitude!

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Ingram polished the second round of counterattack reports based on the reconnaissance photos, reported them and officially announced them internally, and at the same time lowered his judgment on the enemy's situation:

Sunk 5 aircraft carriers of various types (including 1 fleet aircraft carrier) and damaged 1. Currently, the Japanese army has 18 aircraft carriers left, including 4-6 fleet aircraft carriers (there are only 15 warships that actually look like aircraft carriers left);

One light cruiser and one heavy cruiser were sunk, and the Japanese army still had 10 cruisers of various types (actually 8);

Sunk 8 Japanese destroyers of various types, damaged 2-3, and currently has 34-38 remaining (actually 28 remaining);

5-6 Japanese frigates and torpedo boats were sunk, and there are currently more than 40 remaining (actually only 2 were sunk, leaving 32 remaining).

This was the result announced to all participating forces in Hawaii. An additional sentence was added to the report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: It is believed that the Japanese fleet did not detect the battleship.

The tone was very vague. In the first round of enemy information report, the Japanese army had 1-2 battleships, and then it was said that it had sunk 1 battleship. It seemed that it was a close fit. In fact, Ingram knew from looking at the photos of the sea that the Japanese army had no battleships. , also believed that it was impossible to sink a battleship - Hainan Airlines only had 4 aircraft with torpedoes in total. It would be too difficult to sink a battleship with 8 torpedoes, and it was even less likely that the pilots kept saying that they could sink a battleship with bombs. After all, battleships It is not a ship that can be easily sunk by bombs. But saying it directly was too demoralizing and he couldn't say it. Doolittle understood it as soon as he read the prepared message.

The battle report was sent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Nimitz, Spruance, Lehi, and MacArthur all understood it. Even Truman understood the true meaning from the "relieved" and helpless expressions of the generals. Only those who did not understand Military Dewey yelled childishly: "Good fight! Good fight! Keep fighting! Let the Japanese never come back! Let General Halsey wipe them out!"

Arnold and Clark swallowed their words several times. Clark didn't want to provoke public anger - today his proposal for peace with Japan was met with unequivocal resistance from everyone, and Arnold didn't think about the future at all. The adjutant quietly told him at noon that the ward had been reserved, and it was diagonally opposite the door of General Marshall's ward. . Now that he has free time, he is thinking about how to find a suitable time to move in. He must move in before Dewey officially comes to power! As for the Commander-in-Chief of the Independent Air Force, let whoever is capable do it, because he can't do it anyway.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the US Air Force mustered up the courage to launch a third counterattack. This time, it was finally organized into a group after multi-party coordination, instead of a small and chaotic cluster after being dispersed. A total of more than 300 aircraft were divided into two echelons. The Japanese fleet is more than 850 kilometers north of Hawaii, and the naval attack aircraft cannot reach it. They can only send 19 F4Us to escort the Army Air Force. In fact, even if they can reach the HNA, they are completely unable to attack it - only the HNA attack aircraft are left. 63, but the pilots on the escort aircraft carrier that was sunk in the port were said to have rescued two-thirds, which gave Ingram a sigh of relief.

Hainan Airlines was helpless, and Army Airlines also suffered heavy losses. In the third counterattack, Doolittle took out all the last batch of Army Airlines' B-29s, B-17s, B-25s, B-24s, etc., and even because of the skilled pilots If it wasn't enough, the pilots who had survived a sortie in the morning were also used. Planes with a shorter range are still retained. It is impossible for Doolittle and Ingram to really destroy all the planes - what if the Japanese army attacks again tomorrow?

Matsuda Chiaki also knew that this was almost the last ditch effort of the US military. According to Horikichi's instructions, he sent all the remaining fighter jets to fight, and actually gathered more than 170 aircraft. Many Japanese pilots also went into battle twice, and there were even pilots from After being fished out of the bitterly cold sea, he only rested for more than an hour before rushing out to fight. In terms of tenacity and endurance, the hard-trained and carefully selected grassroots officers of the A-flying class or the Japanese pilots who have been training hard and struggling in the B-flying preparatory course since the age of 16 are much better than the US military pilots - they have always been soldiers. Training, and many pilots of the US Army Aviation were just pesticide sprayers!

Japanese pilots also had a significant psychological advantage: if they were shot down, they would have to parachute, but there was a 60% chance that they could be rescued by their own people!

As a large number of fighter planes left, after several hours of efforts, the blasting and diversion near Pearl Harbor was finally successful: the burning heavy oil slowly flowed into the Pacific Ocean along the channel created by the explosion of the Krent Engineer Company, and then burned fiercely on the sea surface. The area of ​​the fire continued to expand as more heavy oil was injected into the seawater, but with this vent, the spread of the fire in the city was controlled. According to incomplete statistics, a total of nearly 320,000 tons of various fuels were written off in Pearl Harbor. In addition to the fuel used for today's attack, there were about 60,000 tons of various fuels on the islands outside Oahu. Now fuel has become the most important controlled product in Hawaii. No one can use it without the consent of Ingram and Doolittle.

The third attack by the US military lasted for a full 70 minutes. The losses of both sides increased again. The Japanese army lost nearly 150,000 tons of ships:

The light aircraft carrier Chiyoda sank, with the loss of 19 attack aircraft;

The escort aircraft carrier Asama Maru sank, and Tatsuta Maru was severely damaged, and then sunk by its own destroyers;

The second escort aircraft carrier was lost with the loss of fuel, and an aircraft transport ship was lost with 23 aircraft;

The heavy cruiser Chikuma was severely damaged and announced to abandon the ship, and the Tone was damaged;

The light cruisers Jintsu and Kiso sank;

The destroyers Yugumo, Makumo, and Fugumo sank successively (all belonged to the Yugumo class), and the anti-aircraft destroyers Akizuki and Wakatsuki sank or were severely damaged and abandoned.

To achieve this result, the US Army Air Force pilots really fought hard. More than 300 aircraft were launched, but only 81 returned. After deducting the 14 aircraft that were clearly unusable after landing, there were only a little over 300 combat aircraft left in Hawaii. Even if other auxiliary aircraft such as water reconnaissance, transport aircraft, and reconnaissance aircraft were added, there were only 400, which was only a fraction of the number before the battle began.

As the sun set, the sunset reflected the red sky. The Japanese destroyers were desperately trying to salvage the drowned. So many warships sank or abandoned, and there were thousands of sailors who jumped into the water to escape. It was all up to the light cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo boats to save people. The sea water at the end of October was so cold that it made people shiver. If you soaked for more than an hour, you would be doomed; plus there were heavy oil balls leaking from the sunken and damaged warships on the sea surface, some of which were even burning, making the rescue work difficult. In addition to our own officers and soldiers, there were also many US military crews soaking in the sea water. Although the Japanese were extremely annoyed, they still rescued them as much as possible.

Now no captain would choose to sink with the ship. Hori Teikichi made it clear that there would be a large number of warships constantly replenished on the mainland, and everyone had to survive as much as possible, otherwise who would drive the warships?

"The commander has ordered that the Chikuma be punished!"

Vice Admiral Shima Kiyohide looked at the Chikuma heavy cruiser floating and struggling on the water, and sighed: "Let the Nobuki destroyer do it."

"Why me again?" The captain of the Nobuki muttered, and executed the order helplessly.

At 18:09, on the sea surface nearly 900 kilometers outside Pearl Harbor, this 2,000-ton Kagero-class destroyer squeezed out of the fleet and fired four powerful 93 oxygen torpedoes at the Chikuma.

"Boom" several towering water columns flew up, and the Chikuma with a displacement of 11,000 tons was blown into several sections and sank neatly.

The Japanese aircraft losses were not small. In addition to the aircraft sunk on the warships, 86 fighters were lost in the air defense operations (the combat loss rate was nearly half, and 54 pilots were rescued). After both sides withdrew their troops, the Japanese army still had 266 aircraft that were still usable and intact. Katsuragi, Kasagi, and Chitose recovered 171 aircraft at full capacity, the escort aircraft carrier Goshawk recovered 28 fighters, and the remaining 4 escort aircraft carriers recovered 38 fighters. There were also 2 aircraft transport ships, one empty and one with 29 in stock.

Throughout the Hawaiian Campaign, the US military went from more than 1,400 aircraft to just over 400, and lost more than 700 crews (some aircraft were destroyed on the ground or in the port, many personnel survived, and some were shot down in the air defense battle, and some pilots escaped). Not only did it directly break the backbone of the Hawaiian Army Aviation, but it also reduced the skilled crews of the US Army Aviation to a dangerous level of only about 2,300.

The Japanese aircraft losses were also not small. Before the war, Hori Teikichi had a total of more than 580 aircraft (including spares, spare aircraft on aircraft transport ships, etc.), and the aircraft loss rate exceeded 55%, but the pilot loss rate was not so high. A total of 157 groups were lost, and the overall loss rate was nearly 30% - mainly because the high loss rate of the first attack wave increased the overall loss. The subsequent air defense operations benefited from "fishing for dragonflies", and the loss rate was still within an acceptable range.

Using more than 200,000 tons of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of sailors to exchange for the results of attacking Pearl Harbor and consuming American aircraft and crews was still a bit expensive in Matsuda Chiaki's opinion. The staff was also a little depressed. Hori Teikichi encouraged everyone: "Gentlemen, cheer up! The war is not over yet!"