afterglow

Chapter 489 The Road to Hell; The Shortcomings of the Marine Brigade

There were Ming warships blocking the sea, and fire from the high ground in the south continued to interfere with the retreat. The Ming army that broke through the airport continued to attack eastward.

The critical battle situation no longer allowed the U.S. military to have any more extravagances. Colonel Wadsworth decisively ordered the abandonment of all heavy weapons, and the entire army strictly implemented the retreat plan and retreated southeastward deep into the jungle.

War correspondent Heyman recorded the embarrassing scene in his notebook.

"The enemy destroyers fired at us at sea, and retreat along the coastline was impossible. Heavy equipment was left behind, anti-tank guns and howitzers were blown up, and engineers hurriedly poured gasoline on trucks and set them on fire..."

"Our team marched to the southeast, with explosions and gunshots constantly coming from behind. The 'Nightmare Heights' to the southwest was flashing with gunfire, and bullets whizzed past us. The planes rushed down like vultures, and the soldiers lay on the ground, Pray that bullets and bombs won’t kill you…”

"The destroyed equipment was burning, their black smoke pooling together, and the sky darkening. The aviation team set fire to the oil storage station at Richard Field before retreating. The flames were at least a hundred feet high, like an erupting volcano. ..."

Such scenes together formed a miserable picture, with the defeated soldiers marching on a muddy and bumpy path, retreating deep into the jungle in a pessimistic atmosphere.

This bloody path is called the Road to Hell - in addition to indicating the difficulty of retreat, it also seems to indicate that the US military on Guadalcanal is actually heading to hell from this.

Although the 1st Marine Brigade, which was at the end of its battle, defeated the US troops on Guadalcanal, it was really unable to completely annihilate them.

Although the soldiers in twos and threes looked sleepy and slovenly, they were cleaning the battlefield enthusiastically and collecting various trophies as souvenirs.

Zhou Changfeng was still riding in the iconic British-made Bren car. He inspected the place where the battle had just ended.

"Junzuo! Are you going to have a celebratory drink today?" Someone shook a bottle of rum that he had found and seized from nowhere, and shouted happily towards Zhou Changfeng in Bren's car.

The Ming army ceased its pursuit across the board on April 4. The troops were exhausted after many days of fierce fighting. The number of non-combat casualties rose sharply and they were in urgent need of rest and recuperation.

The single-cylinder diesel engine used in some power trolleys has a more distinct and unique sound than a tank engine, and it sounds particularly heavy.

The latter smiled and replied: "Just don't get drunk!"

All kinds of equipment and equipment can be seen everywhere along the way, including tents, camp beds, sleeping bags, boots, engineer shovels, rifles, steel helmets, optical rangefinders, etc.

The situation of the 5th Marine Regiment was much better, but they still lost most of their equipment.

The 1st Marine Brigade also suffered heavy losses. The difference is that its structure is intact and it will not take long for it to be restored to its original state after replenishment.

The pursuing Second Marine Regiment continuously broke through the blockades of many American troops. In the end, the large army had to stop because it ran out of ammunition. Only some scattered infantry units were persevering in chasing down the remaining enemies.

第39团级战斗队损失了56%的重机枪、迫击炮以及各种器材，陆战5团亦损失了40%，两支部队剩余的身管火炮居然只剩下一门37㎜反坦克炮。

From a purely military perspective, the US military on Guadalcanal should be characterized as basically annihilated. Such defeated troops will have no combat effectiveness and cannot pose a substantial threat to the Ming army except for harassment.

The 39th Regimental Combat Team suffered the greatest losses in the process. Many demoralized companies surrendered collectively, and one-third of the combat units were lost as a result.

The Bren car advanced slowly, passing by the prisoner team...

As of that day, the number of people killed, deceased, and missing reached 455, and the number of wounded was 1507. In addition, there were thousands of non-combat casualties.

The fire that ignited at the airport's oil storage station sent a billowing heat wave over my face, burning my lips to the point of dryness in just half a quarter of an hour.

Because of this, the rumor that "more Chinese tanks are coming" quickly spread among U.S. soldiers.

The ragged and depressed prisoners formed a long line and were escorted westward.

Next to a blown-up P-36 fighter jet, more than a dozen officers and soldiers of the st Marine Brigade, with their clothes open and even shirtless, stood together, holding up their guns and waving their hands to take photos.

The remnants of the U.S. military retreated to the central area of ​​the island in a minimal order. Before the battle, there were nearly 9,000 troops, but now there are only more than 3,700 left after counting.

A Type 38A medium tank was parked diagonally on the side of the road. The tank crews gathered around and were busy. The hatch of the engine access hatch had been opened, and clouds of smoke poured out from the rear of the vehicle. It seemed that the lubrication system had failed. A malfunction occurred.

Since there was no support from the hospital ship this time, the level of medical support was reduced, and the most difficult battle occurred at Dawangling in the dense jungle, which increased the proportion of casualties due to injuries in the 1st Marine Brigade.

It can be said that the Ming Dynasty devoted very few war resources to Guadalcanal, and its main energy was concentrated in the Central Pacific region to attack Hawaii.

The result was completely contrary to the expectations of the Metropolitan Governor's Staff Office - a fierce battle broke out on Guadalcanal, which was thought to be easily resolved, but Midway Island and Wake Island, where a fierce fight was expected, turned out to be equivalent to actual combat exercises.

Looking at the overall situation at this moment, the US military's strategic defense in the Pacific Theater has reached a more critical stage.

The failure of the Battle of Tarawa caused heavy losses to the aircraft carrier formation, which meant that the Pacific Fleet lost the ability to fight a decisive battle with the Ming army's main fleet.

The surrender of Midway Island and Wake Island without a fight left Hawaii wide open. Once the Ming army was ready, it could use it as an advance base to attack Oahu.

The Battle of Guadalcanal declared that the US military's offensive and defensive attempts were basically bankrupt, and did not attract too much attention and resources from the Ming army.

However, Chester-Nimitz believed that the operation against Guadalcanal was completely hopeful to succeed, purely because there were not enough US ground troops deployed on Guadalcanal, and the strength of the TF-27 task force was weak due to the lack of aircraft carriers. And tied up.

During the three days from April 4 to April 2, there was particularly frequent telegraphic exchange between Pearl Harbor and Washington, as Presidents Chester and Franklin again analyzed the current situation.

Now more and more people are pessimistic about the war, as if the fall of Hawaii will be an unchangeable fact.

In the telegram sent to the president, Chester made it clear that we must not simply defend passively. We must defend Hawaii while launching counterattacks on other fronts to disperse the enemy's troops and war resources.

He plans to continue the Hasband-Kimmel strategy and continue to make a fuss around Guadalcanal.

But if the plan wants to succeed, at least one aircraft carrier must be dispatched to enhance the power of TF-27. Otherwise, it will be almost impossible to seize control of the Solomon Sea.

The naval battle in the Guadalcanal-Tulagi Strait proved that even if the night raid was relatively successful, the US fleet would at most achieve a tactical victory, but would pay a heavy price after dawn under the attack of Ming army aviation. Because of this, Chester solemnly made a request to the president - to send the Saratoga or Enterprise to the Southwest Pacific to strengthen TF-27 and continue to increase troops to Guadalcanal.

Do we need to divide our forces when we only have two aircraft carriers left?

The reason why Chester dared to make such a plan was because there was exciting news a few days ago.

Because the anti-submarine pressure had been reduced, and the Royal Navy had discovered that aircraft carriers were extremely risky when conducting air strikes against the Germans, the British found that their fleet of aircraft carriers seemed to have little use.

When the German army attacked Bordeaux last year, the Glorious was sent to help, but it was violently attacked by the German Air Force. Although she managed to escape, she was too damaged to be repaired, so she was converted into an aircraft carrier that year. The Rosyth shipyard accepted the scrap.

After discussions with the Union Flag men in London, Winston agreed that the Royal Navy would lease the Brave and the Glory to the United States for a tentative period of six months.

The two aircraft carriers will soon leave for the Pacific through the Panama Canal to join the Pacific Fleet, and are expected to arrive in a month.

Among them, the Glorious armored aircraft carrier was only completed and commissioned in February. The sailors had just become familiar with this brand-new warship. The carrier-based aircraft squadron had not conducted many take-off and landing trainings. However, the situation was urgent and it was not allowed to continue to gradually build combat effectiveness step by step.

The British know very well that the realization of war potential cannot be achieved overnight. The shipbuilding cycle is too long. As long as they can help the Americans get through the most difficult time at the moment, everything will be fine.

Because of the help from the British, Chester had the confidence to continue its active defense strategy.

On April 4, President Franklin called back and approved his plan.

Two days later, the prepared Enterprise pulled anchor and set sail, along with the battleship Colorado, the heavy cruisers Portland and New Orleans, as well as several destroyers and supply ships.

On the same day, the 1st Marine Division was proclaimed in Houston, with jurisdiction over the 1st Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Regiment, 7th Marine Regiment, 11th Marine Artillery Regiment, and various division-affiliated units.

Major General Alexander Vandegrift flew from Philadelphia to Houston to take office and presided over the ceremony.

At this time, the 1st Marine Division was actually scattered all over the place. The 1st Marine Regiment was in Los Angeles, the 7th Marine Regiment was in Seattle, and the remnants of the 5th Marine Regiment were even still in the jungle of Guadalcanal. Currently, only the division headquarters and division-affiliated units were there. Houston.

But such a patchwork of chowders, who had not yet been tempered, received an order to immediately go to San Francisco to prepare reinforcements for the Southwest Pacific region.

After the Battle of Tarawa, the Gilbert Islands were under the control of the Ming army, and the regular routes between the United States and Australia no longer existed. Now the journey to Australia will be more difficult.

Marshal Mai was very happy to know that the Southwest Pacific would not be abandoned because of the small setback in Guadalcanal.

He sent a message to the General Headquarters, claiming that the defense line of the Australian mainland was "undoubtedly strong" and that the Australian Army and two American divisions were enough to deter possible future Ming army offensives.

He even confidently said that Australia did not need the First Red Division at all. It could send the First Red Division to Guadalcanal and he could guide their operations on Guadalcanal. It would only take two to three months to consider counterattacking Rabaul.

George Marshall could tell at a glance that this guy wanted to intervene in the Guadalcanal issue, and he was also talking nonsense about counterattacking New Britain Island, and he was immediately very angry.

He immediately called back - if circumstances permit in the future, he may try to counterattack Queensland and drive the Chinese away from Cairns.

The implication is that Marshal Mai should just take care of Australia's affairs and not make plans for other places.

After the U.S. military retreated on Guadalcanal, Ming army engineers and U.S. military prisoners quickly completed the repair of Richard Airport.

Subsequently, the Ming Dynasty Air Force in Rabaul successively dispatched multiple units to settle in, and the second patrol bombardment unit equipped with Type 39 gunships was also not absent, and was ordered to attack any exposed remaining American defeated soldiers.

The Air Force has so far established a total of seven independent patrol detachments, each with three gunship aircraft.

This can only be said to be an inconspicuous small force in the air force sequence with thousands of aircraft, but it has played an important role in many low-intensity battles. After all, only these gunships can frequently fly over the target. Hovering for several hours or even ten hours.

The emperors and ministers of the Ming Dynasty, including Zhou Changfeng, did not know what the Americans were planning. Everyone took it for granted that after the active defense strategy failed, the Americans would choose a conservative strategy to defend Hawaii.

What alarmed Zhou Changfeng was that the Battle of Guadalcanal exposed the shortcomings of the Ming Navy's carefully designed marine brigade organization.

The Marine Brigade, which was designed for "convenient delivery and landing" at that time, did have good ocean delivery advantages, and its combat effectiveness also reached the expected goal - its short-term combat effectiveness was close to that of a division-level unit.

It only takes a standard shipping volume of 110,000 tons to deploy such a force thousands of miles to the target. This is simply not a good deal!

But everything has advantages and disadvantages. The Marine Brigade does not have the ability to fight for a long time. As long as the fighting time is longer, the combat effectiveness will be significantly reduced.

On the one hand, there are only two regiments in the main unit, and on the other hand, the logistics support capabilities are far less than those of standard division-level units.

Such a force should be the vanguard of an amphibious assault, rather than the main force of the entire operation.

This was the case in the Battle of Guadalcanal. Because it was found that there were temporarily no troops to mobilize around, the 1st Marine Brigade had to take over the task of pacifying Guadalcanal alone, and the fight was quite reluctant.

In fact, Zhou Changfeng even considered stopping the attack at the end of March and requesting the Australian Corps to send reinforcements to take over.

In view of the fact that there will only be more similar battles for islands in the future, the adjustment of the Marine Corps' organization is imminent.

"If it were expanded into a division, wouldn't Brother Zhou become the youngest division commander? He would have to be number one again." Zhu Lizhuo sighed.

"It's a great thing. It's time for a change. It's been three years since this happened." Xie Wancheng on the side said with a smile: "When Jun Zuo gets promoted, we will also benefit from it."

The formation of the 1st Marine Brigade has been fixed for two or three years. The main team is still the old members of the 1st Marine Regiment, but they are not saints and have more or less selfish intentions.

Thinking about old friendships is only one aspect. The other aspect is that the land battle brigade keeps winning battles, and a good resume is conducive to promotion.

Company employees are all looking forward to promotions and salary increases. If their military ranks and positions remain unchanged for a long time, dissatisfaction is inevitable.

"Expand into a division? I have a different idea." Zhou Changfeng glanced at the officers present and said thoughtfully: "Create a new marine group at the higher level to include the marine brigade, plus Other infantry, tanks, and heavy artillery units.”

(End of this chapter)