The Rise of the Third Reich

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

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

Yamamoto Isoroku had been hesitant about occupying Oahu before. On the one hand, they really want to capture Oahu, a key point in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as the frontier fortress of Japan's "absolute defense circle." On the other hand, he felt that a fortress like Oahu could not be defeated in a short time, and in order to destroy Fortress Williston, the "Yamato Hotel" must be risked.

Therefore, Yamamoto has been making two-pronged preparations. If the battle in Hawaii goes well, then Oahu will be captured easily. If the fight in Hawaii does not go well, then just blow up the oil depot and leave. As long as Oahu cannot play its role as the home port of the Pacific Fleet 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...

However, as soon as the "B-17 bombing of Tokyo incident" came out and the Soviet Union's attitude on the matter, Yamamoto Isoroku saw the danger of the United States and the Soviet Union fighting against Japan!

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

If Japan cannot achieve an overwhelming victory with great advantages in the "Hawaiian Operation", then the possibility of the Soviet Union and the United States joining hands to defeat Japan first and then concentrate their efforts on Germany cannot be ruled out.

The occupation of Oahu was undoubtedly an overwhelming victory that allowed Stalin to see that the Japanese navy was powerful and invincible!

Moreover, after seizing Oahu, the Japanese submarine fleet sent from Oahu can even cut off the communication between the west coast of the United States and Australia. This will greatly increase the difficulty of the United States' counterattack. As long as it holds on to the Hawaiian Islands, Japan will not pose any major threats to the southeast. If the Soviet Union dares to join forces with the United States, then Japan can use most of its power to deal with it, and maybe even join forces with Germany to kill the Soviet Union. In this way, the Japanese Empire's hegemony in the East will be unshakable.

Yamamoto Isoroku seemed to have made a great determination, and suddenly said loudly: "Send a message to the military headquarters and request to start the second phase of the 'Operation Plan Z'... With the goal of occupying Oahu, launch the Hawaii strategy immediately!"

…

"What? Are you going to launch your Hawaii strategy now?"

"But several aircraft carriers in the U.S. Pacific Fleet are still intact, and there are three battleships that can be used."

At an emergency meeting at the base camp in the evening of December 9 (Tokyo time), Navy Commander-in-Chief Nagano Shushen put forward Yamamoto Isoroku’s request. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and Chief of Staff Headquarters Gen Sugiyama were both shocked when they heard this.

"Nagano-kun," Tojo frowned and said to Nagano Shushen, "the primary issue now is to seize Guam and the Philippines to prevent the possibility of American planes attacking Tokyo again!"

Fool Yuan also echoed: "The Prime Minister is right, the top priority now is not to 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 "Tsurugao" was already quite unhappy. Tojo Hideki, Nagano Shushen, and Sugiyama Gen even knelt down to apologize to the emperor after the American plane flew away in a swagger, and repeatedly promised not to let the same thing happen again.

The current emergency meeting at the base camp is to discuss how to keep the American B-17s at a distance. Before the meeting began, Tojo Hideki and Yuan Yuan already knew that the B-17s that bombed Tokyo were flying from Guam. Therefore, the two men have reached a private agreement that Guam and the Philippines must be occupied, and no more American planes can be allowed to drop bombs in Tokyo.

After hearing Tojo Hideki's words, Nagano Osamu felt a little dumbfounded. Tojo and Sugiyama, these two idiots, only know how to "treat the head for a headache and the foot for a sore foot." U.S. planes coming from Guam are about to occupy Guam? How many B-17s do they think Guam has? Will there be a second such big bombing?

"Prime Minister, Sugiyama-kun," Nagano Shushen shook his head and said, "American B-17s will no longer come from the Philippines and Guam, because there are no B-17 aircraft there anymore... but there are probably many B-17s in Vladivostok. Bombers! If we want to prevent the possibility of American planes coming to Tokyo, we must occupy Vladivostok!”

Capture Vladivostok? Isn't this looking for death?

"Vladivostok must naturally be captured!" Fool Yuan glanced at Nagano, and then said in a very positive tone, "But not now... we must wait until the Pacific side has determined its absolute advantage, and then we can launch westward and northward operations to solve the problem in the north question."

The problem in the north is, to a lesser extent, the problem in Manchuria. It is nominally occupied by warlords from the East Asian continent, but in fact it is an "independent kingdom" controlled by Japan. But this "independent kingdom" has quotation marks after all. Removing this quotation mark has always been the Japanese Army's greatest wish.

As for the northern problem, if we look at it more broadly, we have to add Mongolia and the Soviet Far East. Only by acquiring both of these territories can Japan's hegemony in the Greater East Asia region be considered rock solid.

But the Soviet Union has always been the biggest obstacle in front of Japan, blocking it from solving the northern problem!

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

"That's it!" Although Nagano Osami did not agree to go to war with the Soviet Union, there was no need to sing a different tune from the army now. "The goal at this stage should be to establish the empire's absolute advantage in the Pacific. And the fastest way to achieve this goal, and the way with the highest probability of success, is to immediately occupy Oahu!"

Nagano Osami's view on the US-Japan war is consistent with Hessman. He analyzed this issue based on the speed of shipbuilding on both sides of Japan and the United States. In his opinion, now is the peak of the Japanese Navy's comparison with the US military. Since the United States has already started a large-scale shipbuilding project, and there is still sufficient national strength to further increase shipbuilding. Therefore, the US naval strength will eventually overwhelm Japan!

Therefore, Japan must fight 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 the current advantage is on Japan's side after all, and Japan is more likely to win, so the bigger the bet, the more it will win.

"As long as Hawaii is captured, it is equivalent to closing the door to the entire Western Pacific!" said Nagano Osami, "At that time, we can rely on the army, shore-based aircraft and fortress fortifications to keep the Americans far away from the country." For the United States, Hawaii is an indispensable fortress in the Pacific direction. Once this fortress is captured by Japan. Then the US route to the Western Pacific will be interrupted. Before retaking the Hawaiian Islands, there is no way to threaten the Japanese mainland. For Japan, once Hawaii is captured, it is possible to implement a land-to-sea strategy. Take advantage of the strategic window period before the large-scale launch of American battleships and aircraft carriers, and invest enough manpower and material resources to build the Hawaiian fortress. Because the Hawaiian Islands are not small, with an area of ​​16,759 square kilometers, and the agriculture and fisheries on the island are relatively developed, it is completely possible to achieve food self-sufficiency for 200,000 or even more garrisons, which is very beneficial for the Japanese army and navy to hold Hawaii for a long time. Once Japan deploys 200,000 to 300,000 ground troops in the Hawaiian Islands, more than 1,000 commonly used aircraft, and sets up a large number of security turrets. It will not be so simple for the United States to retake Hawaii again. Since the west coast of the United States is too far from the Hawaiian Islands, it is impossible to use shore-based aircraft to support the Hawaiian operations. Therefore, they can only rely on carrier-based aircraft on aircraft carriers. To suppress more than 1,000 shore-based aircraft of Japan, the United States must deploy at least 15 large fleet aircraft carriers.

And to defeat the 200,000 or 300,000 Japanese troops who are entrenched in the Hawaiian Islands, the United States must deploy at least 400,000 landing troops. And to transport 400,000 people across 2,000 nautical miles to land in Hawaii, the transport ships, landing ships, escort ships, and battleships responsible for shelling the islands together are a terrifying astronomical figure.

"The navy has repeatedly simulated it," said Nagano Osami. "If we seize the Hawaiian Islands and hold on, then if our defensive force is 1, then the force that the United States must invest to seize it will be 20-30! The unfavorable situation caused by the gap in power between Japan and the United States will be completely reversed by the Hawaiian fortress. As long as Hawaii is taken, our empire will be invincible."

Nagano's view is completely correct. Think about the force that Britain and the United States have used 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 must spend 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 Hideki asked hesitantly.

Nagano Osami nodded heavily and replied, "The airport and oil depot on Oahu Island have been destroyed, and the shore-based aircraft have been almost completely lost. The Pacific Fleet has suffered heavy losses, and we have both naval and air superiority. The only thing the United States can rely on is the two divisions of defenders. I wonder how many troops the army will need to defeat the two American divisions?"