Chapter 58 mess

The person who sent the message to Ozawa was none other than the long-lost Lieutenant General Nagumo Chuichi. The so-called fallen phoenix is ​​not as good as a chicken. After being dismissed by Yamamoto, Nagumo, who was once so popular, was sent to Saipan to command a small regional fleet.Of course, in the Mariana Islands, the living conditions in Saipan are considered good.This is an island that the Japanese put a lot of thought into and deliberately developed. By the time of the Pearl Harbor incident, Saipan had become a "Little Tokyo". Two-thirds of the island's population were Japanese immigrants.

In the early days of the Pacific War, Saipan was nothing more than a supply and relay base. Even after the US military occupied Tarawa and Kwajalein, the garrison here was still just a symbolic force. Apart from sporadically building some bunkers, little was done. measures to strengthen the defense.Cao Lu passed by Saipan before he was promoted to the Joint Fleet Command. In addition to greeting his old boss, he was also disturbed by the island's weak defense and suggested that Nagumo strengthen its defense. After the Mariana Islands gradually became a first-line area, Nagumo was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the newly formed Central Pacific Fleet.Theoretically, all naval and army forces in the entire central Pacific region, including the Mariana Islands, are under the command of Nagumo. In fact, he is only a nominal figure, and there is still only one island that can directly govern Saipan.

To strengthen the defense of Saipan Island, it still needs to rely on external reinforcements. However, the road to reinforcements is not smooth. Nimitz has already dispatched the "Wolf Pack" submarine brigade to conduct regular patrols in the Philippine Sea.The commander of the submarine brigade is Colonel Blair, so it is also known as the "Blair Demolition Team". Since late May, the 43rd Division has gone to Saipan in two batches for reinforcements. The first batch was lucky enough to be unharmed, and the second batch suffered heavy losses under the attack of the "Blair Demolition Team". A total of 7 transport ships were sunk. one, and the decks of the other two were packed with survivors.

There were 7,000 people in the second batch of Japanese troops when they set off, but only 5,500 actually arrived in Saipan.Many were badly burned or wounded, much of their equipment and weapons had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and even soldiers who were still able to fight were given only rationed ammunition.What they brought to the Saipan defenders was not a sense of security, but a deep fear.A staff officer of the 43rd Division reported that it would take six months for the division to return to full combat effectiveness. The fortress project has not yet been completed.Lieutenant General Obata Hideyoshi, commander of the 31st Army of the Japanese Army stationed in Saipan, was in charge of supervising the repair of the fort. He complained to Nagumo, saying that he must be given enough materials such as steel bars, cement, barbed wire, and wood, otherwise no matter how many troops there were, , and it was impossible to build fortifications.

If people cannot be transported, how can materials be spared?It's not that Nanyun never wanted it, and it's not that he didn't never send it to the base camp. However, tens of thousands of tons of construction materials were buried on the seabed with the ship during transportation, and there is no more. Nanyun is really unlucky, no one cares about him when he is not needed, and he is such a mess when he is needed, the key is that the opponent who comes to attack the "mess" is too powerful.In the battle situation message sent to Ozawa on June 13, Nagumo described the lineup of the US military to attack Saipan: "9 battleships, 5 large cruisers, and 30 destroyers were divided into 4 groups for bombardment. Minesweeping on the waterways of Saipan Island, 10 carrier-based fighter jets provide direct escort at high altitude at all times..."

There were not 9 US battleships bombarding Saipan, but 7 were also very powerful.In one day, the support fleet with these 7 new battleships as the main force fired a total of 15,000 shells at Saipan. Saipan is a volcanic island with many hills, which is completely different from the flat coral island like Betio Island, which means new tests and challenges for the US military.Holland Smith expressed his concerns at the pre-war preparation meeting: "We have now solved the problem of conquering the flat atoll island. We have learned to grind the atoll island into powder, but we are now facing the challenge of conquering the flat atoll island." Caves and hills, the Japs are going to stick to those places. A week from now the Marines are going to die a lot."

In order to fight for fewer Marine Corps deaths, Spruance, Turner, and Holland Smith racked their brains when formulating the "surprise attack" plan. They especially considered bombarding Serbia with extremely strong firepower before landing. Ban Island. 15,000 rounds of artillery shells are fully worthy of the word "extremely strong", but subsequent inspections of the results of the battle showed that many fortifications were still intact, and the shelling failed to cause military-important losses on the island. The shelling effect is not ideal, not because the number of shells is not enough, but because the gunners on the new battleships are inexperienced in shooting targets on the shore, and they don't know how to adjust patiently when shooting, so they can't always aim at specific targets.

At dawn on June 14, a support group consisting of 8 old battleships, 6 heavy cruisers and 5 light cruisers arrived at Saipan to replace Lee's new battleship group. Among the 8 old-style battleships, several were declared "sunk" after Nagumo's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The gunners were battle-tested and experienced. They aimed carefully and had a high hit rate. The fortifications on the island began to be systematically destroyed. . The impact of shells gradually shifted from the coast to Garapan, the largest town on the island.Garapan was in flames, the air was suffocatingly hot, the streets were littered with bodies and rubble, and even the first-aid post was blown to the ground.

Simultaneously with the bombardment, Mitchell dispatched four battalions of Task Force 58, two of which headed north to attack Iwo Jima and Chichijima airfields in order to cut off the Marianas' air link with the Japanese mainland and plunge them into complete siege. Isolated, the other two brigades detoured to the west of Saipan to directly cover the landing on Saipan. On this day, the U.S. Navy's underwater demolition team also conducted reconnaissance of the nearby waters approaching the landing site.While the Battle of Betio Island cost the U.S. Navy huge losses, it also prompted them to make a series of changes in tactics and technology, and one of the changes in technology was underwater blasting.

The members of the demolition team are called "frogmen", and they are specially trained and courageous fighters.Under the cover of artillery fire, the frogmen sneaked forward in a rubber boat, got into the water after reaching the coast, and used explosives to blow up all obstacles and mines. They thought that the landing site would be difficult and dangerous, but the frogmen did not find many obstacles that caused them headaches. This shows that the defense system on the island is not as strict as imagined. This is exactly the fact. When the U.S. military launched an attack, neither the reefs nor the beachheads of Saipan were laid. The fortress project was only half completed as planned, and the heavy coastal defense guns were placed outside and had not yet been erected.That said, Saipan does not have an organized defense in depth like Betio.