Chapter 781: Super Battleship

While the German army was on a rampage in the Soviet Union, winning the Battle of the Crimean Peninsula and the Battle of Donetsk one after another, the days for the Japanese army in the Pacific were getting worse and worse. After Yamamoto Isoroku had assembled the Combined Fleet at Wake Island and had set off aggressively towards Midway, he had only gone halfway when he received the news that Midway had fallen.

To delay the decisive battle, the Japanese military had tried every means possible. Ever since they had received the news of the American attack on Midway, they had organized all sorts of reinforcements, attempting to delay the American capture of the island. But now it seemed that these efforts had all failed.

The naivety of the Japanese army in island defense was fully exposed in the Battle of Midway. A large number of beachhead positions were easily destroyed by the large-caliber naval guns of the U.S. military, failing to achieve the intended purpose of stopping the enemy at the water’s edge. The facts proved that to resist a landing after losing air and sea superiority, setting up defenses on the beachhead was a thankless and wasteful use of troops.

In this battle, the U.S. military had used a typical landing operation strategy, first destroying the Japanese airfield and the outer beachhead defense positions on the island. This had put the Japanese army in a passive position from the very beginning of the battle. They were hard-pressed to cope and ultimately lost Midway, a strategically vital location for them.

The result was that the Japanese Navy Marshal Yamamoto Isoroku, in a fit of rage, had led the Combined Fleet to engage the U.S. Navy in a decisive battle in the waters of Midway. Unfortunately, the airfield on Midway had already been repaired by the U.S. military, and the American fighter units that had rushed over from Hawaii had a clear numerical advantage. The battle was very fierce, and in the end, it could only end in a retreat as the final outcome of this Battle of Midway.

In this battle, the Combined Fleet had, for the first time, had a main naval combatant like an aircraft carrier sunk. Under the repeated attacks of the U.S. Army Air Corps, the Japanese Navy’s air arm had finally shown a weakness. Several torpedoes dropped from U.S. Navy aircraft had hit the carrier Ryūjō, sinking this Japanese carrier that had only barely been completed in 1933.

In terms of age, this warship was definitely a new, frontline carrier. But because it was a halfway conversion from a cruiser hull, its overall performance was not very good. This time, its sinking was not a truly crippling blow to the Japanese Navy.

However, the information contained within this event had made the Japanese high command uneasy. First, they had inexplicably lost an old battleship, the Yamashiro. Then, they had lost a carrier, the Ryūjō, at Midway. The meaning behind this was not as simple as losing one or two warships.

The facts proved that the U.S. Navy was recovering its strength, and at a speed that the Japanese Navy could not match. The loss of Midway had deprived the Japanese Navy of its strategic depth, exposing Wake Island and the Marshall Islands to American attack. The entire Australia strategy had been significantly affected.

In the beginning, it was the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian Islands that had been thwarted. The battle for Kauai had ended in a disastrous defeat for the Japanese. More than 40,000 tenacious Japanese soldiers had died in vain on the island. With that, the Japanese Navy’s strategic offensive of continuous victories had come to an end.

Following that was the Japanese Navy’s southern advance to participate in the campaign for Australia. But just as it had begun, they had inexplicably lost the crucial Midway Island. This could not be explained away as bad luck for Japan. The army had lost more than 20,000 soldiers, and the navy had also lost more than 13,000 men. What was even more terrifying was that more than 200 of the Army Air Arm’s experienced pilots had also been wiped out. This was an irreparable loss for Japan.

Infantry could be quickly replenished through conscription. There were many young Japanese men who had been imbued with the spirit of Bushido since childhood and had been brainwashed by a twisted patriotism for many years. Even if they lost a hundred thousand infantry, they could train and recruit more in a short period of time. Although the quality would inevitably decline, it could be completely compensated for by numbers.

But pilots had always been Japan’s soft underbelly. Their cultural and industrial foundations meant that the nation had little popular understanding of machinery. Japan could only rely on flight schools for training and accumulation to produce pilots. In this respect, it was far behind the United States and Germany. Once pilots were lost, Japan could not quickly replace them, which directly led to a serious decline in the combat effectiveness of the Japanese air force.

In terms of aircraft performance, due to design reasons, it could not be changed and compensated for in a short period of time. The quality of the pilots was also plummeting at a diving speed. This directly led the Japanese air units into a vicious cycle: poor aircraft performance led to excessive pilot losses; the increase in pilot losses led to a significant decrease in the new pilots’ ability to control the aircraft; and the inability to master the already backward aircraft led to even more pilot losses…

On the calm sea, the Japanese Combined Fleet was still full of murderous intent. In terms of scale, it was still a behemoth that the U.S. Navy could not challenge head-on. But over this fleet, dark clouds were gathering. The entire fleet had lost the fierce and sharp feeling it had had at the beginning of the war, and had faintly taken on a more decadent and sorrowful air.

Yamamoto Isoroku left his flagship, handing over command of the battleship Nagato to its captain, Shigeru Fukudome. He went alone to the captain’s cabin of the aircraft carrier Akagi and sat opposite Nagumo Chuichi. He looked at his subordinate with a faint sorrow in his eyes, having lost the sharpness of the past.

“Nagumo-kun, as I feared, our period of advantage has passed. The United States has now emerged from the shadow of the Pearl Harbor defeat,” Yamamoto Isoroku said, pouring out his worries to his subordinate. “Now that the United States has turned the tide, as long as they stabilize their position, we will have no chance of winning.”

Nagumo sighed. He had been sighing countless more times than Yamamoto recently. As a commander, he knew better than anyone the disadvantages of the Japanese Naval Air Arm, so he sighed and worried, but he could not think of any good solution.

After he finished sighing, he said helplessly, “Your Excellency, Marshal, the situation may be even more serious than you think. The performance of our fighter planes has been figured out by the Americans. This is already beyond doubt. In addition, the quality of the replacement pilots has declined. The results we are achieving in air combat are getting smaller and smaller, while our losses are getting bigger and bigger. Although we have not lost air superiority on the battlefield at present, the example of the Ryūjō…”

He paused noticeably when he mentioned the sunken carrier Ryūjō. That was a warship under his command, and its sinking was naturally extremely painful. “The example of the Ryūjō has already shown that our planes can no longer guarantee that our fleet is impregnable. Next time, or perhaps the time after next, we will have to be prepared for our warships’ own air defense.”

“What I’m worried about is the Marshall Islands and Wake Island, and even the entire war situation in Australia,” Yamamoto said, pouring Nagumo a cup of tea and then one for himself. He then continued, “The Combined Fleet is not suitable for another battle in the short term. These places will have to face the attack of the U.S. Navy on their own. Australia is still manageable. After all, its area is huge, and it will be difficult for the United States to swallow it in a short time. Wake Island and the Marshall Islands… it’s hard to say.”

“In any case, we must hold out until the new fighters enter service and the new pilots are trained before we can easily talk of war,” Nagumo Chuichi said, ignoring Yamamoto’s worries. He was more concerned about the future of the Combined Fleet. “If necessary, even if we have to give up these islands, so what?”

Everyone knew that the “giving up” he spoke of was not the kind of giving up where you just handed them over to the Americans, but the kind of giving up where you used the blood of countless soldiers to delay and fight, and ultimately to wear down the American forces. The lives of countless soldiers were so ruthlessly discarded with just a collision of the upper echelons’ two lips.

“I have considered all of what you have said, and in the end, I can’t think of a very good countermeasure either. So we can only take one step at a time. After all, even as a naval marshal, I cannot be held responsible for a series of failures,” Yamamoto said slowly after taking a sip of tea. “This time, I managed to persuade the high command not to think of replacing me. If there is no good result next time, I can only give His Majesty the Emperor an explanation.”

Nagumo Chuichi quickly put down his teacup, bowed his head, and said in a persuasive tone, “Your Excellency, Marshal, you are the person I respect most. The Combined Fleet cannot be without you. I assure you that in the future, when we are fully prepared, the Combined Fleet will surely achieve a decisive victory over the American fleet.”

“Good! Nagumo-kun, I believe you,” Yamamoto said. Comforted by Nagumo, he had somewhat recovered his former spirit. He motioned for Nagumo to continue drinking tea and then picked up his own teacup. “A telegram from General Nagano at the high command. He says that the navy’s secret weapon is almost complete. It is estimated that during the counter-attack, we can use the world’s newest warship to have a showdown with our enemies.”

“Oh? Your Excellency, Marshal, this is a good thing. I hear that the fighter design department led by Jiro Horikoshi has already launched several new types of fighters, some of which are already in the test flight stage and can be put into production at any time… Coupled with the navy’s new weapons, it seems that our Great Japanese Empire’s national fortune still has a chance to fight back,” Nagumo Chuichi said, his spirits also rising after hearing this good news.

Yamamoto nodded in agreement with Nagumo’s words. But the tone of his voice when he continued to speak was still not too optimistic. “But we don’t have many chips left. We only have enough for one more gamble.”

“Is that new warship really worthy of our high hopes?” Nagumo couldn’t help but ask curiously as their conversation ended.

“It is. Otherwise, why would it be named ‘Yamato’?” Yamamoto replied with confidence.

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