Great time travel

Chapter 18. Raid on Etajima

It was not until the eve of dawn the next day that the successive explosions gradually subsided, and then Principal Keno Kurita climbed out of the air-raid shelter tremblingly, returned to the office building where only half of it was blown up, and lit candles to summon his subordinates to inquire about the cause of the air raid. The loss situation, and then I just feel black in front of my eyes:
Among Wugang's capital ships, among the original four battleships, only the King Kong battleship left for North Korea just last week to help the army transport a batch of gold, silver and precious metals.The remaining three battleships Haruna, Ise, and Hyuga all sank. Among them, the place where the battleship Haruna sank was shallow, and half of the bridge could emerge from the water, while the two ships Ise and Hyuga could not even see the tip of the mast. .What's worse is that the four aircraft carriers Tiancheng, Katsuragi, Fengxiang and Longfeng are the primary targets of the US aircraft, and none of them survived the air raid.

Among the original eight cruisers, Iwate, Tone, Yakumo, and Kashima were sunk in battle, Kitakami and Izumo, Aoba were severely damaged, and Oyodo was slightly damaged.Basically lost their fighting power.There are 22 destroyers left in the port, and almost all of them are injured. Another part of the destroyers sailed out to sea in the chaos to avoid the air attack, and temporarily lost contact. Therefore, the exact number of losses remains to be further ascertained.Then there are all kinds of gunboats, torpedo boats, submarines on the docks, mine-laying ships, mine-sweeping boats, supply ships, work ships, transport merchant ships, etc. At present, at least 150 ships are known to have sunk, and more than 100 ships are still missing. The ship may have fled to another port, or it may have been sunk far away on the way to escape.

The planes of various air teams under the Japanese Navy were shot down by enemy planes from 500 to [-], and more than [-] planes were destroyed in airports on the ground and in the hangars of aircraft carriers.The loss of the Japanese Army Aviation Corps is temporarily unknown, but it is estimated that it will not be less than [-] aircraft.

The confirmed casualties in the Wugang and Jiangtian Island areas are at least 4 people, half of whom are civilians, and this number is still increasing.Due to the basic interruption of communication, the situation in the urban area of ​​Hiroshima after the bombing has not yet been counted.

Of course, even if it encounters a surprise attack while mooring, the Japanese navy is not a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.After a day and night of fierce fighting, the Americans also shot down at least [-] planes.But compared to the devastating losses of the Japanese navy, the price paid by the US military is really insignificant.

——In just 24 hours, the Wugang tutelary fortress and Jiangtian Island sea area, which looked like a mighty and powerful fleet, and most of the essence of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s local fleet, were blown into pieces by American planes Wrecked ruins.

By the way, the Naval Academy in Jiangtian Island was also bombed into a large piece of charred, hideous, ugly, and foul-smelling ruins.The shopping street attached to the school was burnt to a fiery hell due to the dense houses, and no one even escaped.The steel-framed high-voltage line towers were actually forcibly burned and turned into a pile of crooked rotten iron.The school’s dormitory building was hit by a [-]-kilogram bomb, causing human flesh, brains, and intestines to splash on the red brick wall, making people afraid to go up to bury the corpse.And Principal Takeo Kurita's car was unfortunately burnt into a scorched iron shell.

Looking at the devastated and smoky campus in the twilight morning light, Principal Keno Kurita finally couldn't help feeling sad and howled up to the sky.

In the final analysis, he, the principal, must bear a great deal of responsibility for the catastrophe befalling Jiangtian Island.

——From the beginning to the end, although a certain degree of security measures were taken, Principal Takeo Kurita did not think that the US military would fight again.

Because, in his mind, the current situation of the Japanese Empire should be similar to that of the Second German Empire after the defeat of World War I and the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, but the Paris Peace Conference had not yet been held. The front lines to the west and the west are still on the territory of other countries, and none of the Allies have stepped into the territory of Germany.Although there will be a humiliating Paris peace conference and an unequal treaty that will make the Germans miserable, but for the millions of soldiers of the Second German Reich, the long and cruel war is over after all.Since the Allied Powers did not attack the Kiel military port after the Kaiser abdicated, the current U.S. military should not attack the Wugang tutelary fort again, right?
Therefore, according to Kurita Takeo's thinking, the imperial country of Japan is now doomed to defeat, and the general situation is basically irreversible, so the next step should be the task of politicians.The first is to elect a new government that the Japanese military and civilians can accept, not the current self-talking grassroots team.Then use the bargaining chips in your hands to find a way to bargain with the United States and try to get a more relaxed peace treaty.

In the past few days, he has actually been waiting for the "Interim Government of Japan" to send someone to come over and offer the terms of recruitment - since you want to represent Japan in peace talks with the Yankees, you can't completely ignore the opinions of the navy and the army , Don't arrange seats for the big bosses of the navy and army!
In Kurita Takeo's view, the army's build-up in the Hiroshima area is actually just a gesture to force the "Interim Government of Japan" to consider the interests of the army: even if the war is to end, the millions of people in the navy and army should How to place it?What about the millions of square kilometers of occupied areas overseas and the millions of Japanese immigrants who have migrated overseas?You can't just let a few of you politicians and chaebols have the final say on behalf of the whole of Japan!

Perhaps those radical young generals and schools would have the idea of ​​raising troops to make trouble, advancing to seize power, and retreating to separate one side: there were many such people at the end of the Tokugawa period.But as a cowardly old man who has passed away, President Takeo Kurita, nicknamed "Kurita the Escape", holds the second largest fleet in Japan (the main force of the combined fleet is in Truk), but he really does not have such a I am angry, and I don't think I have the qualifications to be added to the yellow robe.

It is precisely because of such considerations that President Keno Kurita has been doing nothing for the past month or so. He only arranges supplies and rest for the naval ships fleeing from various places, so that these fleeing colleagues can live comfortably without any initiative at all. The idea of ​​attacking, even the defensive security of the anchorage of the military port is very sloppy.All kinds of radical proposals made by Ozawa Jisaburo are just perfunctory and humming haha, deliberately delaying time.

The army in Hiroshima mistakenly believed that with the navy at the front, the city should be safe and sound for the time being, so it was also very slack in air defense alert.

In short, Principal Takeo Kurita only wants to stand on the last post of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and it is best to wait for peace quietly-who knows that the old experience of World War I is completely inconsistent with the new environment of World War II: the special envoy of the Provisional Government Didn't wait, but waited for the big air strike of the US Naval Air Force!

Until this moment, looking at the burning bay and the smoky sky, Principal Takeo Kurita finally realized:
What the Halsey Fleet wants is not just to let Japan cease fighting and seek peace, but to completely destroy the Japanese navy that has given them countless humiliations!
As a result, Principal Keno Kurita beat his chest, burst into tears, and regretted it in his heart: if he could arrange port security more seriously instead of passively coping with errands; if he could evacuate some ships to a safer place when the port is congested The Sasebo tutelary fort and Maizuru tutelary fort; if he could send out the ocean-going submarines in the port in advance to monitor the movements of the Halsey fleet... maybe the situation would be different?
However, the bad news that Principal Takeo Kurita will receive one after another during this day is far from over.

——"...What? The naval oil depot in Tokuyama Bay was blown up?! Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa failed to organize the firefighting and was seriously injured?!"

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——As an oil-poor island country, heavy oil is almost second only to warships in the concept of the Japanese navy. Direct bombing with [-]kg aerial bombs.

But the problem is that the U.S. military's B-29 Super Sky Fortress bomber formation dropped a 1-pound "earthquake bomb" (5.4 tons)...Although the hit rate of the B-29 Super Sky Fortress bomber at high altitude was not high, after all the indiscriminate bombing, there were still a few bombs that accurately smashed through the top of the concrete oil storage tank, and then It exploded violently, turning the oil storage tank full of oil into a burning giant alcohol lamp, and the ignited oil was thrown everywhere for a while.

Faced with seemingly endless air strikes by U.S. military planes, the firefighting system, which had a large number of casualties and escapes, soon became completely paralyzed in panic and chaos, and the out-of-control fire spread rapidly out of control. open.

When Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa rushed over on a torpedo speedboat against the U.S. air raid and saw that oil storage tanks turned into giant blowtorches one after another, he almost held his breath in fright: You must know that the Japanese navy is hoarding oil here. A full 60 tons of oil!If the burning oil tanks in front of you cannot be resolved as soon as possible, otherwise the fire will spread to the remaining oil tanks, and then the entire Japanese Navy's local fleet will be laid down because of the lack of fuel.

Needless to say, all naval officers and soldiers who can move will go up with me to fight the fire!

However, it is not easy to fight the fire. The smoke produced by the burning of heavy oil is so irritating that people can hardly keep their eyes open. Tears and snot flow all over the face. It is difficult to get close without wearing a gas mask, let alone put out the fire.Moreover, the water pipes and pumping stations also had problems due to the air raids. The water sprayed from the fire water pipes was intermittent, and even spraying water from a distance could not lower the temperature. more uncontrollable.

When the next wave of U.S. planes came to bomb and shoot, all the firefighters organized temporarily were killed, and the oil tanks that were already on fire were hit by several [-]-kilogram aerial bombs... So, accompanied by a sound like a volcano With a loud eruption, the oil storage tanks finally exploded one by one!

——The thermal radiation generated by the violent combustion on the surface of the oil layer actually boiled the water and oil in the depths of the oil tank, but the bubbles generated by the boiling were difficult to pass through the heavy and viscous oil layer, resulting in a large amount of boiling The steam and oil were pressed under the thick oil layer and continuously accumulated, and then finally reached a certain critical point, just like the soda or champagne that was shaken vigorously and then opened, the whole sprayed out!

In an instant, hundreds of thousands of tons of oil were thrown tens of meters into the air, forming a series of spectacular flame fountains, which splashed all around.Many amateur firefighters who couldn't escape were doused by a large amount of burning fuel, and instantly became lumps of roasted meat with a burnt smell.

General Jisaburo Ozawa, who was standing in the distance directing the firefighting, was not fried into tempura by a frying pan on the spot, but was smashed into his lungs by a piece of hot steel, and lost consciousness in the severe pain. Put on the torpedo boat and escape.And the rest of the rescuers immediately dispersed, running away almost like a conditioned reflex.Work ethic and all that kind of thing has been thrown out of my mind, and the only thing left in my mind is running wild.

——Fortunately among misfortunes, after the emergency rescue by military doctors, although Principal Jisaburo Ozawa was seriously injured and unconscious, it seems that his life is not in danger for the time being.

By the time Principal Takeo Kurita, who was at the Etajima Military Academy, learned of the incident, Tokuyama Bay, the largest fuel reserve base of the Japanese Navy, had completely turned into a flaming volcano, which could no longer be saved.Tanks of oil were first ignited to heat up, and then exploded due to the pressure built up inside, igniting everything around them, from houses to woods and even human bodies.Even in the Etajima Naval Academy, which is far away, you can still see the huge smoke column that runs through the sky in the direction of Tokuyama Bay at the end of the sky. The scene is so tragic that it is like a volcanic eruption. Apart from a small amount of reserves in the Japanese government, Maizuru tutelary fort and several civilian ports, the Japanese navy has no more fuel in the mainland.

What is even more frightening is that there is more than one smoke column in the sky: in the direction of downtown Hiroshima, there is another thicker smoke column rising...

An hour after receiving the sad news that the naval oil storage tanks in Tokuyama Bay were completely destroyed, Principal Takeo Kurita learned from several army soldiers who were half-burned to death that the U.S. military first carried out poison gas bombing on Hiroshima, and then dropped countless bombs. Incendiary bombs, the entire city and the seven army divisions assembled on the outskirts of the city were not only inhumanely smoked by poison gas, but even more inhumanely burned by flames. Now they are basically almost finished...

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In this time and space, although Hiroshima City, a major industrial city in Japan, did not encounter a nuclear bomb explosion, it endured the same terrible strategic bombing.

Before this day, Hiroshima City had never been bombed by American planes, and the citizens did not have much intuitive experience of air raids.Although several air defense exercises have been organized, they are purely perfunctory. Even more than half of the air defense shelters that are scheduled to be dug have never been started.

So on this day, American planes were like flying devils, attacking the unsuspecting people like lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

The first thing dropped from the sky was a new type of gas bomb with a strange fruity scent. Because the smell looks sweet and pleasant, it is completely different from the old-fashioned poisonous gas such as chlorine gas mentioned by the Japanese military when educating the public. Many people will First take a few breaths subconsciously.By the time they realized something was wrong, most of them had already collapsed to the ground due to tracheal convulsions and difficulty in breathing, and they were even unable to make the last sound before dying...

Although some people quickly put on gas masks, and some covered their mouths and noses with wet cloth strips, but in the face of new types of poison gas that can penetrate the human body through the skin, this simple preventive measure is of little use, and there is no time to escape. The people who opened it still died piece by piece.

After the gas bombs caused chaos in the whole city, countless red incendiary bombs followed, exploding above the urban area like blooming fireworks, ejecting hundreds of miniature flame bombs, dragging the burning The trail fell from the sky like a rain of fire.Soon the Japanese-style wood and paper house was lit, and the flames burned as brightly as day.For a while, the surviving people no longer cared about the threat of poison gas, and the road was full of people fleeing in panic, as well as their carts and cars.But collapsed buildings and car wrecks clogged the roads, forcing many to flee, while abandoned cars blocked the roads, forcing the rest to abandon their immobile cars. In the end, the entire road traffic was almost paralyzed, and people could only escape by their own feet, or dive and swim, but it was still difficult to escape the flame storm, and charred dead bodies could be seen everywhere on the street.

Indeed, the remaining anti-aircraft artillery and night fighters of the Japanese Army are still struggling to resist, but they are really powerless in the face of the B-29 super sky fortress bomber flying at an altitude of nearly [-] meters.The small-caliber anti-aircraft guns on the ground are useless except to frighten the Americans with their noise.And soon the follow-up was exhausted, the noise was sparse, and it was estimated that they could not even scare the birds. It is estimated that the officers and soldiers operating the artillery were also overwhelmed by the poisonous gas.

When those Japanese night fighter jets that scrambled to take off fought fiercely with the thick-skinned B-29 "Super Sky Fortress", they managed to shoot down a few enemy planes, and when they ran out of fuel or ammunition and were about to return, they often found that The airport was full of burning plane wreckage, and the hangar was blown up in a mess. The remaining living people were being repeatedly shot by American planes. The runway was full of potholes, and it was impossible to land safely.

On the contrary, the American B-29 seems to be endless!From dusk to dawn, the explosions in Hiroshima never stopped!Every time, a string of long black spots fell, and then exploded into huge balls of flames on the ground, and the long impact points exploded to form a Great Wall of flames!
At dawn, just after the B-29 left, the dive bombers of the U.S. Navy Air Corps came again. The bombs were dropped with such precision as if they were blessed by the devil. It made people wonder whether there were moles in the army!The ammunition depots and barracks in Hiroshima were quickly destroyed, especially the more than 80 tanks that had just been transported from Manchukuo, all of which were blown up.And the shrapnel that flew from the explosion also cracked the head of Major General Hoshino Toshimoto, the brigade commander of the Kwantung Army Tank Brigade.

By this time, the fire in downtown Hiroshima had actually gotten out of control, and both soldiers and citizens could only flee to the suburbs in a panic.However, the power of the napalm incendiary bombs of the U.S. military is so terrifying that even the forest outside the city was ignited, and a raging fire was set ablaze!

In such a time of turmoil, it is naturally impossible for someone to dig a firebreak to control the fire. People can only run around in a panic to avoid the flames. However, many people are still trapped in the fire and burnt alive. The charred corpse.

By the end of the second day's air raid, the more than [-] Japanese army gathered in the Hiroshima area had completely lost their airs. The soldiers could not find officers, and the officers could not find soldiers. The supreme commander Umezu Yoshijiro and his entire command The troops also ran away during the air raid and evacuation. It was not until the third day that they were found in a nunnery in the countryside, and they reconnected with the troops, but they were no longer as strong as they were when they returned to China...