Chapter 102 seamless

Since the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japan has suffered a lot in terms of eyes and ears. Most of the time, the United Fleet does not know what the next move of the US military is, and its own combat plans have been mastered by the opponent. Toyota learned from the pain, and before implementing "Jie 1", it specially used a new password and ordered strict radio silence during the march, all of which made it impossible for Halsey to grasp its combat plan and all its itineraries for the time being. Although Toyota took emergency measures to temporarily block the US military's intelligence spying channels, due to its own conditions, the combined fleet inevitably continued to expose problems in reconnaissance.

The United Fleet originally had 32 fleet search planes with skilled technology, but before the United Fleet attacked, all of these search planes had been delivered to the Naval Air Force assembled in the Philippines. On the modern battlefield, a fleet without reconnaissance planes is like walking blind, which is unimaginable.For this reason, the Kurita fleet once again became dissatisfied, and some officers and soldiers said angrily: "Maybe the battleship was sunk by an enemy submarine, and we are still kept in the dark!" They are all out, so they can only complain, because they have nowhere to go.

Halfway through the journey, the Kurita Fleet divided into two groups. Among them, Kurita himself led a part (Kurita Force) to enter Wright Gulf from the north through the Sibuyan Sea, and his deputy, Lieutenant General Nishimura Shoji, led another part (Nishimura Force) to pass through Soviet Union. Luhai rushes into Wright Bay from the south. In the early hours of October 23, 1944, Kurita's troops quietly entered the Palawan Strait.Palawan is located in the southwestern part of the Philippines. This is a strait with an average width of only 25 nautical miles. It is densely covered with hidden reefs and is called "dangerous shoal". Ships rarely pass here.The reason why Kurita's troops chose this dangerous road was to surprise them and conceal their whereabouts.

Kurita never expected that under the turbulent water and among the hidden reefs, there were still two US military warning submarines patrolling side by side. At 00:16, bursts of echoes appeared on the radar of the U.S. submarine "Flying Fish". The observers were a little puzzled, thinking that it might be an upcoming rain cloud. After a long period of training in actual combat, almost all the captains of U.S. submarines have become masters of submarine warfare. As long as Japanese ships enter their patrol territory, they can find and kill these enemies at any time, at any depth, and at any angle. . After receiving the report, Colonel McClintock, the captain of the "Flying Fish", immediately denied the observer's statement: "Go to hell, Nimbus! That must be the Japanese fleet!"

Further observations confirmed that the captain's guess was completely correct.Then McClintock informed the fellow "Minnow": "Let's do it for a while!" The two submarines immediately surfaced, positioned themselves, and prepared for the ambush at dawn. At 5 o'clock in the morning, the submarine quietly dived underwater, and the crew carefully extended the periscope out of the water, waiting for the approaching Japanese warship to appear on the horizon. Not long after, McClintock saw a large moving "building" in the distance through the periscope, which were battleships and heavy cruisers one after another, and the huge waves set off by their bows were like hills.

The "Flying Fish" encountered a rare "fishing season", and McClintock was overjoyed: "Hey, this is a large fleet of the Japanese army!" He immediately sent a telegram to Halsey, and at the same time ordered the shooter to reload shooting. The "Flying Fish" was in the front, and the "Minnow" was behind. When the "Flying Fish" launched the first attack, the torpedo shooters of the "Minnow" were all standing by the launch tubes and waiting for orders. The atmosphere on the submarine was very tense. . With the sound of a rapid explosion, everyone was relieved, and the attack on the "Flying Fish" was successful!

When Kurita's troops were unaware, the torpedoes hit Kurita's flagship "Atago" consecutively. The constant vibration of the hull made the Japanese officers and soldiers on board into a mess: "It was attacked by the US military!" I only know that it was attacked by the US military, but I don't know what attack it was.Kurita hurriedly ordered to turn on the searchlights and searched the sea, but found nothing. The Japanese's anti-submarine capabilities are too backward.Although they immediately realized that the submarine on the bottom of the sea was attacking, they didn't know where the submarine was, so they could only throw depth charges aimlessly.

From the periscope, the "Minnow" could see the fire of the "Atago" and the chaos of the Japanese. The sea was extremely lively. The other warships of the Japanese army continued to move forward, heading in the direction of the "minnow". The captain of the "Minnow" shouted: "They are coming, ready to fire!" The shooters "whoosh" fired six torpedoes from the launch tube, and soon they heard four explosions in succession, indicating that four torpedoes had hit the target. At the same time, the "Flying Fish" detected a loud noise like a large pile of glass shattering.McClintock was worried at first whether the "Minnow" was counterattacked by the Japanese ship, but in fact this was the movement of the heavy cruiser "Maya" sinking after it was blown into two pieces.