Chapter 517 Tiger! Tiger! Tiger 21

"Overwhelming victory?" Ugaki asked, "Commander, what is an overwhelming victory?"

Yamamoto Isoroku was silent for a moment, and then expressed his thoughts, "The so-called overwhelming victory is naturally the occupation of Oahu!"

Yamamoto Isoroku had been hesitant about the occupation of Oahu before. On the one hand, he wanted to take Oahu, a key point in the central Pacific, as the frontier fortress of Japan's "absolute national defense circle". On the other hand, he felt that a fortress like Oahu could not be taken down in a short time, and in order to destroy Fort Williston, he had to take the "Yamato Hotel" at risk.

Therefore, Yamamoto has been making preparations for both situations. If the battle in Hawaii goes smoothly, then Oahu will be taken down. If the battle in Hawaii does not go well, then leave after bombing the oil depot. As long as Oahu cannot play the role of the Pacific Fleet's home port in the next 12 months, it will be enough for Japan to establish an absolute defense circle.

As for defeating the United States, it mainly depends on Germany's efforts...

However, the "B-17 bombing of Tokyo incident" and the Soviet Union's attitude on this matter made Yamamoto Isoroku see the danger of the United States and the Soviet Union fighting against Japan together!

The US B-17 bombing Tokyo from Guam can only be a "one-time event", with far greater symbolic significance than practical significance. But if the B-17 takes off from Vladivostok, it only needs to fly 1,000 kilometers to drop the bomb on Tokyo. With the strong national strength of the United States and the Soviet Union, it is not a problem to mobilize thousands of B-17s. At that time, it will only take a few months to bomb all the large and medium-sized cities in Japan into ruins.

If Japan cannot win an overwhelming victory with a great advantage in the "Hawaii Operation", then it is not ruled out that the Soviet Union and the United States will join hands to defeat Japan first, and then concentrate their forces to deal with Germany.

And the occupation of Oahu is undoubtedly an overwhelming victory that can make Stalin see the invincibility of the Japanese Navy!

Moreover, after capturing Oahu, the submarine-smashing fleet sent by Japan from Oahu can even cut off the connection between the west coast of the United States and Australia. This will greatly increase the difficulty of the US counterattack. As long as the Hawaiian Islands are held, Japan will not have any major threats in the southeast. If the Soviet Union dared to join forces with the United States, then Japan could use most of its strength to deal with it, and maybe even join forces with Germany to kill the Soviet Union, so that the hegemony of the Japanese Empire in the East would be unshakable.

Yamamoto Isoroku seemed to have made a great determination, and suddenly said loudly: "Send a telegram to the Military General Staff, requesting to start the second phase of the "Z Operation Plan"... With the goal of occupying Oahu Island, immediately launch the Hawaii strategy!"

...

"What? We are going to launch the Hawaii strategy now?"

"But several aircraft carriers of the US Pacific Fleet are still intact, and there are 3 battleships available."

At the emergency meeting of the headquarters on the evening of December 9 (Tokyo time), Nagano Osami, the chief of the Navy's military general staff, raised Yamamoto Isoroku's request. Prime Minister Tojo Hideki and Chief of the General Staff Sugiyama Moto were both shocked when they heard this.

"Nagano-kun," Hideki Tojo frowned and said to Nagano Osami, "The first priority now is to seize Guam and the Philippines to prevent American planes from attacking Tokyo again!"

The fool Yuan also echoed: "The Prime Minister is right. The top priority now is to not let American planes come to Tokyo to disturb His Majesty the Emperor!"

Although the bombing of the Imperial Palace in the afternoon did not kill Emperor Hirohito, everyone could see that "Tsuru-yan" was already quite unhappy. After the American plane flew away, Hideki Tojo, Osami Nagano, and Moto Sugiyama knelt down to apologize to the emperor, and repeatedly promised that the same thing would not happen again.

The current emergency meeting of the headquarters is to discuss how to keep the American B-17 away. Before the meeting began, Hideki Tojo and the fool Yuan already knew that the B-17 that bombed Tokyo came from Guam. So the two had reached an agreement in private that Guam and the Philippines must be occupied, and American planes must not be allowed to drop bombs in Tokyo again.

After hearing what Tojo Hideki said, Nagano Osami felt a little amused. Tojo and Sugiyama, these two big fools only know how to "treat the head when it hurts, and the foot when it hurts". American planes coming from Guam are going to occupy Guam immediately? How many B-17s do they think there are in Guam? Will there be a second such bombing?

"Prime Minister, Sugiyama-kun," Nagano Osami shook his head and said, "American B-17s will no longer come from the Philippines and Guam, because there are no B-17 planes there... But there are probably many B-17 bombers in Vladivostok! If you want to eliminate the possibility of American planes coming to Tokyo, you must occupy Vladivostok!"

Occupy Vladivostok? Isn't this courting death?

"Vladivostok must be occupied!" The fool Yuan glanced at Nagano, and then said in a very affirmative tone, "But not now... We must wait until the Pacific side has established absolute superiority before we can launch westward and northward operations to solve the northern problem."

The northern problem is the Manchurian problem to put it simply. In name, there are warlords from the East Asian continent, but in reality, it is an "independent kingdom" controlled by Japan. However, this "independent kingdom" is in quotation marks after all. And removing these quotation marks has always been the biggest wish of the Japanese Army.

As for the northern issue, Mongolia and the Soviet Far East should be included. Only by taking control of these two territories can Japan's hegemony in the Greater East Asia region be as solid as a rock.

But the Soviet Union has always been the biggest obstacle standing in front of Japan and preventing it from solving the northern problem!

Therefore, the Japanese Army has always had this idea - to unite with Germany to attack the Soviet Union from east to west and completely solve the northern problem.

"That's it!" Although Nagano Shushen did not agree with going to war with the Soviet Union, there was no need to go against the people of the Army now. "The goal at this stage should be to establish the empire's absolute superiority in the Pacific. The fastest way to achieve this goal, and the method with the highest probability of success, is to occupy Oahu immediately!"

Nagano's views on the war between the United States and Japan were consistent with Hirschman's. He analyzed this issue based on the ship construction speed of Japan and the United States. In his view, now is the peak of the Japanese navy's comparison with the US military strength. Since the United States has already begun a large-scale shipbuilding project, it also has sufficient national strength to further increase shipbuilding. Therefore, the naval strength of the United States will eventually overwhelm Japan!

Therefore, Japan must engage in a decisive battle with the United States before the United States has completed its shipbuilding plan, and the greater the stakes and scale of the decisive battle, the more beneficial it will be to Japan - because after all, the current advantage is on Japan's side, and Japan has a greater chance of winning, so the bet is worth it The bigger nature wins, the more.

"As long as we seize Hawaii, we will close the door to the entire Western Pacific!" Nagano Shushen said, "At that time, we can rely on the army, shore-based aircraft and fortifications to keep the Americans far away from the country. "

For the United States, Hawaii is an unavoidable fortress in the Pacific. Once this fortress is captured by Japan. Then even if the U.S. shipping route to the Western Pacific is interrupted, there is no way to threaten the Japanese mainland before retaking the Hawaiian Islands. For Japan, once it captures Hawaii, it may implement a land-to-sea strategy. Take advantage of the strategic window before a large number of U.S. battleships and aircraft carriers are launched, and invest enough manpower and material resources to build the Hawaii Fortress.

Because the territory of the Hawaiian Islands is not small, covering 16,759 square kilometers, and the agriculture and fisheries on the islands are relatively developed, they can completely achieve food self-sufficiency for two to three hundred thousand or more garrison troops. This is very important for the Japanese army and navy to stick to Hawaii for a long time. advantageous.

Once Japan deploys two to three hundred thousand ground troops, more than 1,000 commonly used aircraft, and a large number of security forts in the Hawaiian Islands. If the United States wants to take back Hawaii, it will not be that simple.

Since the west coast of the United States is too far away from the Hawaiian Islands, it is impossible to use shore-based aircraft to support operations in Hawaii. Therefore, it can only rely on carrier-based aircraft on aircraft carriers. To suppress Japan's more than 1,000 shore-based aircraft, the United States must invest in at least 15 large fleet aircraft carriers.

To defeat the 200,000 to 300,000 Japanese troops entrenched in the Hawaiian Islands, the United States must invest at least 400,000 landing troops. To transport 400,000 people across 2,000 nautical miles to land in Hawaii, the number of transport ships, landing ships, escort ships, and battleships responsible for bombarding the islands together is a terrifying astronomical figure.

"The Navy has conducted repeated deductions," Nagano Shushen said. "If we seize the Hawaiian Islands and hold them, then if the force we invest in defense is 1, then the force that the United States must invest to seize it will be 20-30. ! The unfavorable situation caused by the power gap between Japan and the United States will be completely reversed by the Hawaiian Fortress. As long as Hawaii is captured, our empire will be invincible. "

Nagano's view is completely correct. Just think about the power used by Britain and the United States in history to cross the English Channel, which has an average width of only 180 kilometers. It is more than 3,000 kilometers from the mainland of the United States to Hawaii! The Americans had to put in several times more effort than Operation Overlord to be able to send hundreds of thousands of landing troops to Hawaii.

"But do we have enough power to seize the Hawaiian Islands now?" Tojo asked hesitantly.

Nagano nodded heavily and replied: "The airport and oil depot on Oahu have now been destroyed, and all the shore-based aircraft have been lost. The Pacific Fleet has suffered heavy losses, and the sea and air superiority is in our hands. The United States is the only one we can rely on. It’s just two divisions of defenders. I wonder how many troops the Army needs to defeat two American divisions?”