Chapter 90 Mobile Troops Trouble

"Suspected to be an enemy ship", besides the mobile force, who else is around here, what is it if it is not an enemy ship? If the original direction and route were followed, the 7 Japanese reconnaissance planes would only have a lot of one, and nothing would be found. However, the captain of this reconnaissance plane named Yoji Amari miscalculated the direction of the flight and deviated from the planned reconnaissance route. Discovered by accident. The intelligence staff marked the position of the US ship reported by Ganli on the map. After calculation, it was exactly 200 nautical miles away from the mobile force.

In the "MI Action Plan", Yamamoto set two goals for Nagumo and the mobile force, one is to capture Midway Island, and the other is to wipe out the Pacific Fleet when it appears. There is a Japanese proverb: "One man chases two rabbits, but he can't catch either." Although Nagumo is arrogant, when faced with double tasks, he will also distinguish a priority.Compared with capturing Midway Island, the rabbit in the back is undoubtedly fatter and more oily, and at the same time it runs faster and more cunningly. Therefore, if the Pacific Fleet can be found earlier, Nagumo will definitely choose to annihilate the Pacific Fleet first. In that case, say The torpedo plane on the indeterminate aircraft carrier is flying towards the US fleet at the moment.

Discovered earlier - Nagumo had had such an opportunity, Amari's reconnaissance plane took off half an hour late due to a catapult failure! As a result of being half an hour late, the torpedo plane had already descended below the deck to change the bombs, everyone was in a hurry, and Nagumo was caught in an embarrassing situation. Nanyun and his staff members felt that they had been deceived, and the Chief of Staff Kusakaro was furious: So they were there! Whether to attack Midway Island or focus on dealing with the US fleet, after ten minutes of deliberation, Nanyun sent another order: "Prepare to attack the enemy fleet, and do not unload torpedoes for aircraft that have not been reloaded with bombs."

The torpedo planes that needed to be reloaded were all parked on the "Akagi" and "Kaga". At this time, almost half of them had been replaced. When Nagumo ordered to stop, 10 to 15 planes had already been parked on the flight decks of the two ships, ready to attack midway Island's loaded torpedo planes. Changing the order of attack again is no longer as simple as which rabbit to catch. Nan Yun has another layer of fear and worry in his heart. He is afraid that the US fleet that suddenly appears will be an aircraft carrier formation. In other words, if the opponent is just an ordinary fleet, it doesn't matter. Anyway, it is still within the attack range of its own carrier-based aircraft. It will not be too late to come back to clean up after the second wave of attack aircraft settles Midway Island.

But if there is one or several aircraft carriers in this fleet, the result will be completely different. It is very likely that instead of hitting a rabbit, they are beaten as a rabbit by others. Nagumo could not assume that there were no aircraft carriers in the U.S. fleet. After all, the risk was too great for him and the mobile troops to bear. For Nanyun, the most important thing now is to find out whether there is an aircraft carrier among the 10 US ships. This will determine whether he needs to give up his plan to attack Midway again at the last minute.After the wireless conversation with Ganli, he asked the other party to find out the type of the US ship and report at any time.

While Nagumo was indecisive, the Midway Air Force launched a new attack. The third group of visitors was the Henderson Bomber Squadron.According to the establishment, the squad leader, Major Henderson, should have 18 SBD "Dreadnought" dive bombers, but two of them could not take off due to engine failure, so there were actually only 16. It doesn't matter that there are two less planes. What bothers Henderson the most is the problem of flying standards.Ten of the pilots in the bombing squadron were all novices. They had just been transferred for a week. After arriving on the island, they suffered from the lack of fuel on the island and had only had one hour of flight training.

If you want to train a strong team, you must give enough time, but Henderson has no time, and he is forced to find another way.Henderson divided his squadron into two groups. Those with more skilled skills and better training performance were in one group, and the novices were in the other group, and the experienced squadron leaders would guide them. Although there was a team leader, the novice group did not let Henderson worry. When it took off that day, many planes were vying to fly, and it took 10 minutes for all planes to fly. lift off. For as long as 1 hour, the Midway Island Command Post failed to contact the Henderson Squadron, and the order they issued to attack the Japanese aircraft carrier failed to receive a reply. This made the Command Post once worried that the dive bombing had disappeared for bubbles.

However, in hindsight, such worries are completely unnecessary.Henderson had already received the order and answered the call, but the radio contact was interrupted at the time when Midway was attacked by air. Even if Henderson really didn’t receive the order, he didn’t have to worry about not having a source of information—after three rounds of attacks, all aviation units of the U.S. military kept forwarding the position, distance, and course of the Japanese aircraft carrier. Pots and jars have ears, not to mention the attack fleet looking for meat everywhere? Henderson Squadron flew in formation at an altitude of 9,000 feet. Among the US attack aircraft groups, they were the first to have a panoramic view of all four old aircraft carriers of the maneuver force.

Henderson gave the order to attack without hesitation.Dive-bombing is an effective attack tactic in sea-air battles, but to drop bombs while diving quickly, most rookies can't react, let alone complete basic actions.For this reason, Henderson had to give up the dive-bombing and replaced it with a slower but less effective downward bombing, in order to prevent novices from getting dizzy on the spot. When the bomber circled and descended, the escorting "Zero" rushed over.