Chapter 60 patriotic column

In more and more sophisticated amphibious landing battles, ordinary infantry landing craft have long since fallen behind the needs of actual combat, and no longer undertake the task of transporting infantry ashore.American military experts who are good at machine change installed rocket launch tubes, 37mm caliber artillery and heavy machine guns on its deck, and transformed them into landing gunboats. The modified landing gunboat has a relatively shallow draft and can operate on the near-shore sea surface. When the Marine Corps lands, it can provide extremely dense direct fire support. At 8 o'clock in the morning, under the guidance of this kind of landing gunboat and amphibious tanks, 719 crawler landing vehicles carried 8 battalions of marines, pushed through the huge waves, and rushed to the coast on a front with a width of 4 nautical miles. go.

The landing procedure of the U.S. military was carefully designed: the gunboats did not go ashore, but only provided fire support; the tanks went ashore, first climbed onto the beach, covered the tracked vehicles behind them, and then the tracked vehicles transported the troops to the high ground. Despite so much foreshadowing, the practice of many amphibious landing battles has shown that unexpected situations may occur at any time.During the last round of bombing by aircraft carrier-based aircraft, someone muttered: "This smoke and explosion may not mean that the Japanese have been killed." Emotional chewing gum, and told the soldiers that if they need to swim ashore, they must throw away the heavy bullet belt.

Sure enough, when the landing team was only more than 700 meters away from the coast, the Japanese artillery shells began to rain down, and the accident really happened—under the high-intensity attack by the US sea and air, the Japanese positions on the coast did suffer great losses. But then Saito moved the artillery positions behind the ridges in the adjacent area, making it difficult for even carrier-based aircraft to find and destroy them.When the U.S. military approached the coast, these artillery positions reappeared from the reverse slope position. The landing team had to walk through the artillery fire. The 18 tracked vehicles at the front of the team braved the rain of bullets and climbed onto the beach first. Several vehicles behind them were sunk, but most of them followed closely.In less than 20 minutes, 8,000 marines had landed and occupied most of the beach.

After landing, the U.S. military discovered that on the back and flanks of the landing beach, the Japanese army still had many untouched machine gun and mortar fire points.Behind these firepower points, there are artillery deployed in hilly areas to provide support. Due to being blocked by firepower, the tracked vehicle could not continue to move forward when it reached the beach. The troops dismounted to fight, but then got stuck in the sand or bomb craters, making it difficult to move. After discovering this situation, dozens of U.S. planes immediately carried out "remedial lessons" and carried out low-altitude strafing on the Japanese positions, and battleships, cruisers and destroyers at sea also launched support bombardments.The firepower of the Japanese firepower points became weaker and weaker, but the firing was finally stopped until these firepower points were smashed to pieces.

Nagumo watched the entire landing scene from a lookout in Garapan.What touched him the most was still the navy. When he saw the black and iron mountain-like flotilla near the coast, he was stunned. After being dazed for a long time, Nanyun turned his face to the document next to him and asked the other party to write down: Among the US battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor, at least four have been repaired and put into battle. These four old battleships that were wounded are now in the ranks of bombarding Saipan. The recovery ability of the U.S. Navy is so strong that Nagumo both admires and frightens.

Nagumo would only keep expressing his emotions, but Saito was still busy with commanding operations that he had no interest in for a long time. "Tokyo Rose" claimed to know that the U.S. military was going to land that morning, but it was just to make up a fairy tale for the other party. In fact, Saito was not much prepared for this, and the landing operation caught him by surprise.The morning failed to stop the Americans from coming ashore, and in the afternoon he gathered all the troops not on the front line in Garapan, delivered a "patriotic speech", and held an oath ceremony.After such a show, more than 2,000 people gathered in a column and drove towards the beach along the coastal road.

Saito thought that his "patriotic accent" could scare a group of American soldiers to death, but this pig-like stupid thinking actually hurt his subordinates—not to mention the impassioned speech at this critical moment. What a waste of time and inexplicable, even the sound of jingling during the march is enough to arouse the vigilance of the US military.As a result, before this group of people reached the front line, they were completely defeated by the fierce bombardment of the US ship's artillery fire. The shells not only defeated the "Patriotic Column", one of them fell into Saito's temporary headquarters in the cave.When the smoke from the shells dissipated, Saito was still leaning on his command knife, sitting upright, and many people were already lying down beside him, and about half of his staff were killed.

At the same time, the process of the US military's deep advance into Saipan was not smooth.Knowing that the defense system of the Japanese army on the island was not as strong as imagined, some people speculated that the Japanese army's fortifications were made of bamboo and paper, and they could be destroyed as soon as they were attacked. The fact is that the fortifications on Saipan are all A one or two-story reinforced concrete structure, covered with blooming mirabilis outside, each fortification is equivalent to a small fortress. The battle situation on the front line was very tragic. Before dark, the Marine Corps' advance distance on the island had not yet reached half of the mission line.Among the 20,000 marines who landed one after another, the number of casualties has exceeded one-tenth of the total, that is, more than 2,000 people were killed or injured.

After the unforgettable Battle of Betio Island, the U.S. Navy has long been prepared for the cost of casualties.In addition to the command ship, the coast is also equipped with specially designed armed medical ships to accommodate wounded soldiers withdrawn from the battlefield.But in the heat of the battle, even a hospital ship was shot and set ablaze. Saito regained his energy, and he sent a telegram to Tokyo, claiming: "After dark, our division will launch a large-scale night attack, which is expected to annihilate the enemy in one fell swoop."