The arrival of the dispatch team brought joy to the American soldiers who had been depressed due to continuous fighting for more than a month.
In the evening of that day, the soldiers of the Eighth Marine Regiment evacuated to the airport one after another as if they were celebrating the New Year. Many people set up fires and began to boil water for bathing. Many people even got some wild game from nowhere.
Had a barbecue.
The appearance of the American soldiers also stunned the newly arrived Chinese soldiers. Are these Sun Tzu soldiers here to fight or to have fun?
For the Chinese soldiers who were accustomed to hardship, the actions of the American soldiers were incomprehensible. After watching the excitement for a while, the soldiers joined the work of strengthening fortifications and building bunkers under the command of the officers.
While the soldiers of the dispatch team were busy, not far away, Colonel Thomas was watching the movements of the soldiers with great interest, watching MG42 machine guns being placed at the machine gun fire points, and mortars one after another.
After being set up, he nodded with satisfaction and said to the commander of Battalion F behind him.
"Winston, it looks like we can have a good sleep tonight."
Major Winston was an experienced man. He nodded after hearing this: "Yes, the Chinese government did not lie to us. There are many experienced soldiers here, although there are still a lot of new recruits mixed in."
"This is already good." Thomas didn't expect the other party to send their most elite troops. It would be good to have some veterans among a group of new recruits.
"I can guarantee that the 2nd and 6th regiments will be jealous of us."
"It's true." Winston also laughed, "Having five thousand Chinese soldiers standing guard for us is a treatment that even General Fletcher cannot enjoy."
Thomas said: "It's true, but I don't know what the combat effectiveness of these Chinese soldiers is like. I have heard that they were beaten badly by the Japanese in China, and most of the country was occupied by the Japanese."
"Sir..."
"What's up?"
"Now that our reinforcements are here, does that mean we can launch a counterattack against the Japanese?"
Thomas shrugged his shoulders: "This is not a decision I can make. General Fletcher will consider it. As the regiment leader, what I have to consider is how to bring more young men home."
"All right."
Winston decided to skip this topic, "Sir, I mean... if... if we are ordered to fight back against the Japanese, how should we cooperate with those Chinese people?"
"cooperate?"
Thomas said without hesitation: "I don't need any cooperation with them, I just need them to cooperate with us."
"Isn't this bad?" Major Winston hesitated, "He had already quarreled with General Fletcher over this issue when he got off the plane. How could he listen to us?"
"Then we won't be able to control them anymore." Thomas snorted, "This is our home court, and you have to listen to us when you come here."
"Okay." Major Winston shrugged, and the two stopped discussing the topic.
From the conversations between two or more people, we can see the deep-seated arrogance in Americans. Perhaps Thomas and Winston thought they had no ill intentions and were just stating a basic fact.
Maybe they are aware of their arrogance, but so what?
Soldiers have always only respected the strong, and the dispatch corps has never proven itself in war, so naturally it cannot win the respect of its peers.
This is because although the soldiers from the Dispatch Corps have been at Henderson Airport for most of the day, few American soldiers have taken the initiative to say hello to them, even when the soldiers from the Dispatch Corps were reinforcing fortifications and building trenches.
Most of the American soldiers stood aside and watched indifferently.
Night slowly fell, and after a long day of excitement, the American soldiers also fell asleep one after another, and waves of snoring began to resound in every corner of the airport.
5:20 am
It was when people were sleeping most soundly. More than 500 meters away from the front line of defense at Henderson Airport, more than a thousand Japanese soldiers clenched their Type 38 rifles and stared fiercely at the U.S. troops ahead.
defensive position.
These Japanese soldiers were soldiers of the Ichiki detachment led by Ichiki Kiyoshi. Most of these soldiers were elite veterans drawn from the Chinese battlefield.
When they first arrived, these Japanese soldiers, including Ichiki Kiyonao, were very arrogant. Ichiki Kiyonao even thought that they could take away the American troops at the airport with their "Banzai Charge" that they were good at.
But the cruel facts gave Ichiki Kiyoshi a hard slap in the face. The U.S. military's abnormally powerful firepower caused the Ichiki detachment to suffer a lot. More than 2,500 troops were lost in just one charge.
More than 800 people attended.
After reluctantly accepting this reality, Ichiki Kiyonao had to change his strategy and use harassment methods to continuously harass the US military, and this effect did have a good effect.
For more than a month, American soldiers have been disgusted by the Japanese tactics. They cannot sleep well and eat well, causing many soldiers to suffer from night terror syndrome.
Today, after learning that the US military had arrived for reinforcements, Ichiki Kiyoshi realized that he could not wait any longer and must immediately launch a general attack before the Americans were ready.
In addition, he believed that the harassment during this period had had the desired effect and it was time to launch a general attack. Therefore, he decided to personally lead all the soldiers of the Ichiki detachment to launch a general attack on the airport. He did not even report the news to his superiors.
Looking at the dark Japanese troops behind him, Ichiki Kiyoshi lowered his voice and said to the four squadron captains and more than a dozen squad leaders behind him: "Gentlemen, we and the beautiful beasts have been in a stalemate here for more than a month.
General Momoharu and the base camp are watching us. We will either capture Yoshino Airport tonight or die here. Are you willing to move forward with me?"
The officers shouted in unison: "I am willing to follow His Excellency Colonel to death!"
"Yo Xi!" Ichiki Kiyoshi nodded with satisfaction: "In that case, please return to your respective teams. We will launch a general attack in ten minutes...that is, at 5:40. We must capture the airport before dawn.
!”
"Hi!"
ten minutes later
As two red and one green signal bombs were launched into the air, more than a thousand Japanese troops screamed and launched a night attack on Henderson Airport from the east and south, trying to capture the place in one fell swoop.
But what they didn't know was that what greeted them tonight was not the bullets of the American soldiers' Browning light and heavy machine guns and Garand semi-automatic rifles, but the sound of a gunshot that was both familiar and unfamiliar.
"Kick, click, click... click, click, click..."
Accompanied by bursts of gunfire like tearing oilcloth, the Japanese soldiers at the front fell in front of the position like cutting straw...