Chapter 864: The Dying Bird's Song

It was truly bizarre. The U.S. Navy, at the start of this naval battle, had somehow found incredible luck. From a distance of over ten kilometers, their opening shots, on just the second salvo, had miraculously sunk a Japanese destroyer.

Such high accuracy was something even the great naval power of Britain had never achieved. The Japanese Navy, which prided itself on being invincible in gunnery duels, had been so inexplicably defeated in a firefight by the U.S. Navy. In modern terms, it was simply—unscientific.

But perhaps it was a case of extremes meeting, or perhaps the U.S. Navy had used up all its good luck in the first moments of the battle. It was even more likely that the enemy destroyer truly possessed some kind of magical power… In any case, the miracle did not repeat itself for the U.S. Navy.

Or, to put it less politely, the quality the U.S. Navy displayed in the subsequent battle was a truer reflection of their usual training level.

The lead cruiser continued to fire, aiming for the Japanese destroyer Yukikaze which was heading straight for it. But this time, the shot not only failed to replicate the miraculous effect of the first two salvos, it didn’t even come close to the Yukikaze. The shell landed at least several hundred meters off, causing the jubilant mood of the American sailors to plummet.

What followed was the beginning of the U.S. Navy’s cursed journey for the day. Three cruisers took turns firing, their main guns sending a dense hail of shells towards the two Japanese destroyers. But these two destroyers, as if equipped with some sort of defensive shield, simply could not be hit.

Then it was the U.S. Navy’s turn to scramble to avoid the torpedoes launched by the Japanese. The result was that they nearly collided with each other, almost handing the Japanese Navy a free kill. Although they ultimately escaped disaster, they broke out in a cold sweat.

The Japanese destroyers on the other side suddenly changed course and turned to flee, which also brought a sigh of relief to the U.S. Navy. In any case, our objective of driving off the enemy warships has been achieved, and we even created a combat record of sinking an enemy destroyer with just two salvos. That’s enough to report back.

And so, these two Japanese destroyers, named Shigure and Yukikaze, had miraculously made a loop around the periphery of the main American fleet and had returned to the main combat sequence of the Japanese Combined Fleet in the Marshall Islands, unscathed, beginning their legendary journey across the Pacific.

The telegram reached the Combined Fleet’s headquarters. Yamamoto Isoroku felt that his worries were finally becoming a reality. The United States, finding no advantage against the Germans, was destined to turn its full attention to the Japanese Combined Fleet. And this was precisely the moment when the Japanese Navy was at its weakest, its sun setting.

At this moment, the Japanese Navy only had the carriers Akagi and Kaga at full strength and combat-ready. After that, they could only count the pitiful number of battleships and cruisers in their hands. In this situation, the best operational plan Yamamoto could think of was to rely on the army’s land-based fighter planes on the Marshall Islands to help destroy the U.S. Navy fleet.

The feasibility of his plan was very high. It mainly relied on the Army Air Arm to pin down the U.S. Navy’s fighter forces, and then to use the Naval Air Arm, which had more sufficient anti-shipping training, to launch a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy and disrupt their operational deployment. Subsequently, he would rely on the battleships in his hands to cut into the American fleet and achieve a decisive victory.

And so, while ordering the Combined Fleet to prepare for sortie, Yamamoto picked up the phone in his hand and ordered his subordinates to send a telegram requesting reinforcements from the Australian theater army command, which was capable of immediately reinforcing the Marshall Islands.

However, just as Yamamoto had boarded his flagship, the battleship Nagato, and was discussing with Captain Fukudome Shigeru how to launch a surprise attack on the American fleet in the chaos, he received a reply from the army. This reply almost made Yamamoto spit out a mouthful of blood.

It turned out that more than ten days ago, in order to launch their operational plan to advance into India, the army had drawn off most of the combat power they could find. Nearly a third of the army’s fighter planes in the Australian theater had been transferred, and they really had no spare forces to support the navy’s battle.

And that plan to attack India had been criticized by the Japanese Navy from the very beginning. In the end, he had never thought that the army would be so headstrong as to directly bypass the navy and carry out this massive offensive plan on its own, beginning the attack on the Imphal region of India in March.

This battle was still ongoing. The army was also proclaiming that its offensive was like a hot knife through butter. Yamamoto could not comment on this battle far away in Southeast Asia for the time being. But this battle had weakened the Japanese forces in the Pacific, which was an indisputable fact. And these transferred Army Air Arm units were the important reason why Yamamoto was lingering in the Marshall Islands.

But now, the Army Air Arm cover that should have been near the Marshall Islands had become a luxury. To fight a decisive battle with the American fleet in the Marshall Islands had become a joke. If the Japanese Combined Fleet could win, why would it need to cower in the Marshalls? Couldn’t it just go and attack the U.S. Navy directly?

Yamamoto Isoroku stood on the deck of the battleship Nagato, his whole body trembling with anger. His meticulously planned strategy of luring the enemy into a decisive battle at the Marshalls had turned into a fantasy because of the Army Air Arm’s unannounced departure. It was a good thing Yamamoto’s self-control was astonishing. Had it been anyone else, they probably would have started cursing out loud.

News is never completely blocked at any time, especially in Japan. It was a common occurrence for the army to help publicize the navy’s problems, or for the navy to gossip about the army’s blunders. So, even though they were far away in the Marshall Islands, the Japanese Navy knew that the army had made many laughable mistakes in the Battle of Imphal in India.

The attacking troops were driving flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, riding bicycles, carrying a few days’ worth of rations, a single rifle, and not much ammunition. Their slogan was “Take Imphal and eat Mountbatten’s rations.” The 31st Division, which was in charge of the attack, had even been forced to set off without completing its basic combat preparations.

And the exhortation of the 15th Army commander in charge of the frontline operations, General Mutaguchi, to his subordinates was: “You can’t fight a war without supplies? How can that be! The Japanese army can endure any hardship. If there’s no food, you can take it from the enemy. I don’t believe we can be worse than those cowards in the navy!”

An operational plan drawn up with this attitude was simply a tragedy in the eyes of an expert. The Japanese Army had not at all assessed the Chinese Expeditionary Force that was holding out in northern Burma, nor had it considered the British resistance. In the eyes of the Japanese Army general Mutaguchi, the Chinese army was a pushover, and the British army in India was even more of a clay chicken and a pottery dog. As long as his troops marched all the way, these units would collapse and surrender.

But Mutaguchi’s subordinates were not so optimistic. Many felt that this was an unwinnable battle. Many of the soldiers in the army pessimistically felt that they were just going to their deaths.

Before crossing the Chindwin River, the commander of the 31st Army Division, General Sato, had pessimistically admonished his men: “Gentlemen, tonight we will begin to cross the Chindwin River. Before that, I have something to say to you all. Please listen carefully! Unless a miracle happens, your lives will be lost in the upcoming operation. But you will not fall to guns and bullets. Most of you will starve to death in the Arakan Mountains. Please be mentally prepared!”

Of course, Yamamoto did not know about these things at present. He was still fuming over the army’s transfer of the air arm. In the end, the furious Yamamoto Isoroku gave the order for the entire army to retreat, abandoning the 30,000 Japanese troops stationed on the Marshall Islands and retreating with the Combined Fleet to the Solomon Islands behind them.

“Since you have been so ruthless! Then don’t blame me, Yamamoto Isoroku, for using your army as a shield to save the navy! The entire Combined Fleet will retreat to the Solomons. The destroyers Yukikaze and Shigure will be assigned to the 16th and 27th Destroyer Divisions, which are bringing up the rear.” This was the last sentence Yamamoto Isoroku had spoken before he had collapsed from a fit of rage and illness. Then this naval marshal had fainted at his post.

The Combined Fleet, having lost its pillar, Yamamoto Isoroku, fled in disarray. After losing the two destroyer divisions that were bringing up the rear, they had barely managed to retreat to the Solomon Islands. After taking stock of their forces, they found that apart from the indestructible Yukikaze and Shigure, the pitiful 16th and 27th Destroyer Divisions had been completely wiped out.

This battle had given back to the U.S. Navy all the advantages that the Japanese destroyer fleets had gained in their previous patrol encounters in the Marshall Islands. In terms of destroyer losses, the Japanese Navy had now surpassed the U.S. Navy. After this battle, the total number of ships sunk exceeded that of the U.S. Navy. The Japanese Combined Fleet, in the war of attrition they were most reluctant to fight, had actually suffered greater losses than the U.S. Navy.

Such an intolerable thing had actually happened. Just as Yamamoto Isoroku was painstakingly calculating how many American destroyers one Japanese destroyer had to trade for, the report card the Japanese Navy had handed him was that, on average, for every 1.1 Japanese destroyers lost, only one American destroyer was sunk…

Time was not on Japan’s side. Now it seemed that luck was not on Japan’s side either. And Yamamoto Isoroku was now in no mood to fight a decisive battle with the U.S. Navy, because what he now had to face was the fact that, after arbitrarily retreating to the Solomon Islands and abandoning the Marshalls, the army’s letters of complaint were flying like snowflakes to the high command.

At this moment, the Japanese Combined Fleet was a scene of gloom and despair. As the saying goes: when a bird is about to die, its song is mournful.

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