In places like Hawaii, life always goes by exceptionally. In the blink of an eye, it was already late August. Since the last match, the whole team has fallen in love with the P-38, and there are no more voices complaining that the P-38 is too ugly. Even now, when people talk about the shape of the P-38, they just say, "This plane, well, looks so creative." "In the last week, the intensity of flight training has suddenly increased, and there have been a lot of sea and ground attack subjects. This makes everyone faintly feel that the peaceful days may be over.

Ron has now been promoted to vice-captain. Although he is not an old man of this team, this appointment is still supported by everyone. After all, his strength can be recognized by everyone. Especially last time, he used the spiral climbing tactic he proposed to ravage the navy happily. It also helped him get rid of the suspicion of "Litong Navy".

However, the higher the level, the greater the responsibility. At a time when you don't have a staff team and a full-time secretary, it also means that there will be more things and people will be busier. Now Ron is in such a state. During the day, I led the team to practice, and in the evening, I had to prepare a training plan for the next day. It's a painful day.

The training plan for this morning was an attack on the sea. The P-38 is a multifunctional fighter, which can be used not only for air combat, but also for bombing. Even, the maximum bomb load of such an aircraft is close to that of a four-round B-17. Of course, if you really let %1%Ben%Read-Novel xstxt it has so many bombs hung up, don't expect it to fly as high or as far as it goes. So not only Ron, but many people feel that it is a waste for the P-38 not to practice bombing. However, at that time, everyone practiced more ground horizontal bombing.

But a week ago, Major Braun and Ron had received an order: step up their naval assault training and be ready to go to Kuah Island at any time.

It is said that the situation on Kuah Island is not very good now, and the Japanese navy is still strong. The transport fleet was often disturbed by them, unable to safely deliver supplies and personnel to the island, and the temporary docks on the island had very limited capacity, so supplies were quite tight. Fortunately, an airfield on the island has been built, which has the potential to help the U.S. military gain daytime sea control in the waters off Kuah Island, thereby bringing a safe unloading environment for the transport fleet.

Japanese planes often took off from Rabaul to bomb Kuah Island. Of course, such a long-distance run was quite disadvantageous to the Japanese. However, this also means that Kuah needs fighter protection. However, to carry out the task of sea domination, Kuah Island needs bombers very much. However, the throughput capacity of the Kuah Island Pier does not allow too many planes at the airport. At this time, the P-38, which can both fight in the air and drop bombs, became the best choice. In order to carry out the task of sea control, training for sea attack is indispensable.

However, the P-38 is not a suitable aircraft for this type of attack mission, although it can hang a large number of bombs, it cannot carry out dive bombing, and the accuracy of the attack on the ship is a big problem. It would be nice if the P-38 had a torpedo machine modification, but unfortunately there is no one now. So how should the P-38 carry out an attack on ships at sea?

Ron's solution: ricochet. When an airplane drops bombs at a certain speed at a considerable altitude from the surface of the sea, the dropped bombs will not sink after touching the water, but will jump forward on the surface of the sea like tiles used in the water. In this way, it was possible to use ricochets to achieve a torpedo-like effect. Of course, compared to torpedoes, ricochets have a shorter range, which means that the carrier aircraft must brave enemy fire and advance to a closer distance. This significantly increases the danger of being shot down, but the speed of the ricocheting is also much higher than that of a torpedo. This means that once the ricochet is thrown, the hit rate will be higher than that of the torpedo. To attack a well-fortified aircraft carrier formation in such a way would be suicide. But this is a good way to deal with the Japanese convoy. This move once again put Ron in the spotlight. But in fact, this trick is still a copycat. In Europe, the British used this trick to blow up many dams of the Germans, and in the Pacific, the five-star Admiral Big Gray Wolf also used this trick to achieve a great victory in the Solomon Sea. Who is Big Big Wolf? Just think of his most classic line.

This morning's training went well and the lads are getting better and better. The accuracy rate of their training projectiles against towed target ships has reached an astonishing 70 percent. Of course, this has to do with the fact that the target ship did not evade and did not have self-defense firepower. It's really an enemy ship, and it's good to have this half of a hit.

It was in the afternoon of that day that the official order was given: tomorrow, August 25, I will transfer to Kuah Island.

Kuah Island is the second largest island in the Solon Islands, and its strategic location is very important, so on June 16, 1942, Japan sent about 2,000 engineers from the 11th Engineer Brigade to Kuah Island under the command of Mozen Ding Daisa and began to build an airfield. On July 1, about 700 engineers of the 13th Engineer Brigade led by Tokucho Okamura were sent to the island to strengthen the construction force, and the construction was ordered to be completed by August 5. After intense construction, by the beginning of August, Kuah Island Airport has been basically completed, and the auxiliary facilities have been largely completed. At this time, Kuah Island had 2,700 Japanese engineers and 240 garrisons, totaling about 2,940 people. However, the members of these so-called engineering units are mainly forcibly recruited laborers from South Korea, and they have no fighting with them.

On 4 July of that year, US military reconnaissance planes discovered that the Japanese army had built an airfield on Kuah Island, and if the Kuah Island airfield was completed, the Japanese planes taking off from this airfield would be able to reach the line between Espírito Santo, Efate, and New Caledonia, seriously threatening the sea lines of communication between the United States and Australia. To neutralize this threat, U.S. forces landed on Kuah and nearby Tulagi Island on August 7. The Japanese were defenseless, and the American army easily occupied the two islands and took the airfield that Japan had almost built.

On 8 August, the Japanese navy, under the leadership of Mikawa, attacked Kuah Island at night, sinking four US cruisers, damaging one cruiser, and two destroyers at a negligible cost. And forced the American fleet to withdraw from the waters off Kuah Island. Since then, the Japanese army has been in control of the sea at night in the waters of Kuah Island. The safety of Kuah Island now depends entirely on the air force.

After a long flight from the field, it was only in the afternoon that the green figure of Kuah Island appeared in Ron's field of vision. Looking down from an altitude of 6,000 meters, it looks like a turquoise gem set in a huge blue crystal plate. As the altitude gradually decreases, the appearance of Kuah Island becomes clearer and clearer. The southern part of the island is a rolling mountain covered with dense primeval jungle. It's just that in the northern part of the island, there is a small alluvial plain where Henderson Airport on Kuah Island is located.

The plane began to hover at low altitude near the airfield, preparing to land. At this time, the altitude of the plane was already very low, no more than four or five hundred meters. From above, you can clearly see the fortifications built by the US ** team on several hills near the airport. This is probably to expand the shooting range, and the trees on these hills have all been cut down, revealing dark red dirt, and I don't know if it is the true color of the soil here or the dirty blood left by the Japanese Ichiki detachment. In many places, you can still see the grass blackened by the war, which seems to be silently witnessing the cruelty of the battle.

As soon as the plane landed, the pilots jumped out of the cockpit and shouted, "Is there any water?" I'm dying of thirst! "Alas, the P-38 is not cute at all. The only river on Kuah Island flows not far from the airport. Fresh water is not a problem, but it must be boiled for safety and hygiene.

While the pilots were busy drinking water, Ron was busy connecting with friendly troops at the airport. Now there are really many teams at the airport, and there are all kinds of people from all over the world. Among them are 19 F4F "Wildcat" fighters of the 223rd Squadron of the Marine Corps Air Corps and 12 SBD "Dreadnought" bombers of the 232nd Squadron, and 15 P-39 "Flying Snake" fighters of the 67th Squadron of the Army Air Corps. The fighters were originally destined for Burma, but they were lost and transferred to the South Pacific, and then these unloved planes were thrown here. Originally, it was planned to send another batch of bombers, but after examining the P-38's naval attack training, these planes were saved - there were more planes, and the lack of fuel was in vain.

On orders from his superiors, Ron took command of the fighter unit in this motley army.

But now is not the time for Ron to give orders to his new subordinates. Rather, it was these people who educated Ron.

"Sir, we arrived a few days before you, and there are some circumstances that we might want to warn you of." It was Lawrence, a Marine Corps fighter pilot, who spoke, "Kuah is really not a good place, the weather is very hot, and it is not at all like Hawaii. There are a lot of mosquitoes, and it's easy to get malaria if bitten. Our squadron has already fallen three of them. We now use those weeds to light up smoke and smoke mosquitoes at night. ”

"Also, don't leave the range of the airport casually, especially don't go to the river casually, although the Japanese attack last time was repulsed, there are still many Japanese snipers in the jungle." Said another very young pilot.

Ron saw that the clothes he was wearing should be from Lu Hang, he had a baby face, and a big head of at least one meter and eight meters that did not match this baby face.

"What's your name?" Ron asked.

"My name is Suke, sir."

"Sooke flying the plane?" Ron thought, "I wonder if there's a beta who drives a tank." ”

"Anything else?" Ron asked.

"Before you go to bed, check the mattress to see if there are any poisonous snakes and centipedes and spiders in there. There have been snake bites on the Marine infantry. ”

"And if you hide the plane before dark, maybe the Tokyo Express will come back and shell the airport."

"And ,......"

"Sir, in short, this place is a green hell, you will know it in a few days."

This was not to scare people, and early the next morning, something happened in the air force.

Rooney, the ground crew, woke up early in the morning and let out a scream as soon as he put his foot in his boot. At the same time, kick the boot out of the door a few meters away. The boots flew all the way to Ron, who had just gotten out of bed and went out. Ron saw a large, red and black centipede, almost a foot long, crawl out of its boots. Thinking that he had casually put his foot in his boots in the morning, Ron couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. It seems imperative that a detailed security protocol be introduced immediately to avoid such non-combat attrition.