"Yes! It's just a feint!" Zhang Chi looked at MacArthur and explained with a little picky meaning: "The feint is that neither of these two attacks is really an attack!"

"So..." MacArthur asked: "Where is the real offense?"

"General!" Zhang Chi asked MacArthur: "If you were the Japanese commander, how would you deal with the US military's large-scale attack from land and sea?"

MacArthur held the pipe in his mouth, thought for a while, and replied: "I will send the troops out and block the US military layer by layer!"

"It's right!" Zhang Chi replied: "It can even be said that the Japanese will seize advantageous positions in advance before we launch an attack. This is mainly at sea. They will build fortifications on the island and even build airports. This will take us a lot of time and troops to reach the vicinity of Rabaul, and the Japanese army can make more adequate preparations in Rabaul."

MacArthur looked at Halsey again.

Halsey shook his head awkwardly: "During this period, I have devoted my energy to 'hunting peacocks' and reconnaissance Rabaul, and I haven't conducted too many reconnaissances along the road."

As Zhang Chi said, when the US Navy and the Army debated which line to launch a counterattack, the Japanese army had already turned passively into actively and actively occupied the coastal islands of the US military from Guadalam to Rabaul, the closest to Guadalam is only 110 nautical miles, which is even within the combat radius of the Guadalam Wildcat fighter jets.

Halsey and MacArthur obviously ignored this point. They, including the vast majority of US generals, thought that the Japanese would suffer a severe blow after Yamamoto Iroku was shot and fell into a slump.

But in fact, the news of Yamamoto Izuru's death had not been announced in the Japanese army at this time... In order to avoid affecting the morale of the Japanese army, Yamamoto Izuru's death was sealed, and even Rabaul's Japanese army did not know about it. The code of "Naval A Incident" was only used to deal with it.

On the third day after Yamamoto Isoroji was shot dead, Koga Fengyi secretly replaced Yamamoto Isoroji's command. He raised the flag on the Japanese joint fleet flagship "Musashi". Everyone thought that this flag belonged to Yamamoto Go-Shi, but Yamamoto Isoroji was also on the ship. To be precise, Yamamoto Isoroji's coffin was on the ship.

Therefore, this incident has not caused much damage to the morale of the Japanese army so far. If there is any blow, it is that Koga Fengichi still needs time to get familiar with the headquarters left by Shimoyama Moto Iroku.

"It seems we need to step up our reconnaissance work!" MacArthur said: "We seem to be too careless during this period!"

"Yes!" Halsey looked at Zhang Chi with appreciation and said, "Zhang... As you said, we need to know whether the Japanese are growing food in Rabaul, whether they have the ability to be self-sufficient, and whether they have accumulated a lot of ammunition. In addition, we also need to know whether the Japanese are already seizing the island when we are not prepared!"

"If all you said is true!" MacArthur looked at Zhang Chi: "Then what's the point of our feint? Will we pull the Japanese out of Rabaul?"

"Yes!" Zhang Chi replied.

"Colin!" MacArthur smiled and said, "You must know that the Japanese troops in the Rabaul area are likely to have 100,000, and as long as they are willing, more may be transferred!"

"Then we will seize more islands from them!" Zhang Chi said: "The Japanese can invest more than 30,000 troops in Guadalam, not to mention the attack from the Allied forces in the direction of New Guinea... My purpose is to ask the Japanese to drag their troops out of Rabaul's air defense fortress and turn Rabaul into an empty island!"

Halsey nodded and said, "This is possible. On the one hand, the Japanese thought we were on the battlefield step by step, so even if Rabaul's troops were taken out, there would be no danger. They could retreat step by step. In the end, they would retreat to Rabaul. On the other hand, Rabaul has a large airport and naval base. They would form a maritime defense circle with planes and warships, so they did not think that we would go through their defense circle and attack Rabaul directly!"

"The point is, how can we attack Rabaul!" MacArthur pointed to Rabaul on the map and said to Zhang Chi: "Col. IMHO, your plan is too whimsical. As General Halsey said, Rabaul has a large airport and naval base. There are hundreds of Japanese aircraft, unknown warships, and even aircraft carriers. How can we start landing operations there? Our warships were sunk by Japanese warships or fighter jets before they even got close to Rabaul!"

It should be said that MacArthur's words still make sense, and this is also the reason why the island battle is the first priority to grab air supremacy. Without air supremacy, warships are the targets of enemy fighters...

"We need aircraft carriers!" Halsey said.

"We have no aircraft carriers to use anymore!" MacArthur said: "I hope there are, too, but our aircraft carriers are either in a repair shop or have just been in service and are not suitable for fighting! Even if they are in combat, it doesn't make any sense!"

This happened to be the time when the US Navy aircraft carrier was in trouble.

This is because the United States was not sure about the combat power of the aircraft carrier before participating in the war. At that time, battleships were still regarded as the backbone of maritime power. The aircraft carrier was just a kind of sea floating airport, taking off and landing reconnaissance aircraft and attack aircraft that had not yet proved its power. The strategy, tactics and its role of the carrier-based aviation are still in theoretical debates. Therefore, the construction of aircraft carriers has never been paid attention to. Some people even think that aircraft carriers are like shoes floating on the sea surface. Because of their huge size, they do not have much survival power, and will be beaten to the bottom of the sea by the enemy in a few strokes.

So when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US Navy had only five aircraft carriers, and five were under construction... However, during the war, the aircraft carriers "Lexington", "York City", "Hornet" and "Bumblebee" sank one after another, and the US military could use only a handful of aircraft carriers.

As MacArthur said, they were either in a repair shop or just in service... The first ones were the Essex, the Independence and Princeton. Among them, the Independence and Princeton were converted into aircraft carriers to emergency use by the US Navy in order to fill the serious shortcomings of aircraft carriers and the construction speed of the Essex-class aircraft carriers cannot meet combat needs, so they converted the cruiser into aircraft carriers for emergency use, and each of them could only 33 carrier-based aircraft aircraft.
Chapter completed!