Chapter 44 crumbling

There is a striking similarity in history. The situation when the United Fleet attacked Pearl Harbor was partly reproduced in the "Pearl Harbor of Japan"-the defenders of Truk Harbor were all in a daze, stretched their waists and dozed off, as if they were captured by the Monkey King Let sleepy bugs go. It wasn't until the radar found the attacking target that Truk's Japanese military radio station panicked and issued a combat alarm, and the "Zero" pilots also hurriedly took off to intercept. In the fierce battle in the air, the Japanese army was far inferior to the American army regardless of the number of aircraft, performance or pilot quality, especially before Interluk was not on the front line, and the pilots who stayed in the port were even worse. In it, it's just a sham.After several rounds of dodging and maneuvering, 127 "Zeros" were shot down by "Hellcats". The 60 Japanese planes parked on the ground had nowhere to hide, and became piles of smoking garbage.

The strength of the combat power of the 58th Task Force stunned the Japanese army: "The vigor of the enemy's mobile force is really overwhelming and frightening." When it fell into the lagoon, it was also rescued by a single-engine seaplane. At the same time as the air battle, the "Dreadnought" dive bombers and "Avenger" torpedo planes separated from the fleet and launched a fierce attack on the defense facilities of Truk Island.The Japanese ammunition depot and oil depot on Truk Island were hit and exploded. The island immediately ignited a fire, and the ground was in a mess.

At around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the second attack wave of US carrier-based aircraft arrived. At this time, there were only a few Japanese aircraft that could take off and intercept, and they could swallow it with a bowl of water.Sure enough, in the blink of an eye, they disappeared without a trace. Without the air fence, as long as it is outside the firing range of the anti-aircraft guns, the US plane can freely drop bombs over Truk, and Truk was blown to pieces. During the Pearl Harbor incident, the Japanese planes only attacked Pearl Harbor twice. That was because Nagumo had no idea. Spruance and Mitchell were not willing to let it go. They would come a third time, tonight.

At midnight, the third attack group arrived. Without the cover of any escort aircraft, the "Avenger" torpedo fleet appeared.After the Japanese army found out, they immediately fired anti-aircraft artillery fire into the air, but the gunners would not have thought that almost all the anti-aircraft artillery shells exploded above the US aircraft.The reason is that the torpedo plane lowered its flight altitude to only 60 meters from the ground! Flying at night is a very dangerous altitude. If you are not careful, the plane will crash into the ground structure and the plane will be destroyed.The US aircraft dared to do this because they installed night vision radar on the torpedo aircraft for the first time, so that they can avoid buildings and accurately lock the attack target.

The Japanese anti-aircraft gunners could see the aircraft during the day, but their vision was limited at night, which enabled the US torpedo fleet to achieve better air strike effects than during the day.When the Japanese discovered that the US plane was flying so low and quickly adjusted the shooting angle of the anti-aircraft guns, the torpedo fleet had already returned to the target. The Japanese army suffered heavy losses in Truk, with a total of 298 aircraft destroyed, 1,700 casualties, and the accumulation of fuel and many other military supplies were destroyed.Although Koga withdrew most of the warships in advance, some ships remained in the port of Truk. A total of two light cruisers, four destroyers, 26 transport ships and merchant ships were destroyed, including a 10,000-ton ship. tanker.

Truk has been reduced to ruins and has basically lost the existence value of a military base.The captain of the combined fleet's flagship "Musashi" said: "The heavy loss of Truk is difficult for the empire to make up for. As a military hub, Truk was almost reduced to ruins by the enemy. Don't remind people of Pearl Harbor, which was destroyed by our Imperial Japanese Army..." Nimitz made no secret of his intentions: "We just want to let those Japanese feel the taste of the military port being attacked!" For the Japanese, the "second Pearl Harbor incident" is not just as simple as being hit.Truk is regarded as an important bastion in the chain of the "Absolute National Defense Circle", and its critical situation also means that the "Absolute National Defense Circle" is already crumbling.Tokyo Radio commented: "The battle situation has become unprecedentedly serious. The speed of the enemy's operations shows that the offensive power has threatened our homeland."

In the past, Koga focused his defense on Rabaul. At this time, he also had to withdraw the WWII flight team to Truk for support. On 20 February, Jojima led the remaining aircraft out of Rabaul.A month ago, the Second Aviation War could still make up 132 aircraft, and a month later, there were only 46 left, which is one-third of the time when it was dispatched, including some fighter jets from the original Rabaul base, which seemed very bleak Pitiful. Losing the WWII Air Force, Rabaul immediately lost its strategic value.Since then, the U.S. reconnaissance plane found in Rabaul, except for the destroyed plane on the ground, there was no longer a good Japanese plane.

Although Nimitz failed to capture the main force of the United Fleet, the successive paralysis of Truk and Rabaul also made the US military no longer have to worry about their threats when launching an offensive in the Central Pacific. On February 22, the US military occupied all the islands of the Marshall Islands.