Rear seat machine gunner Ozawa Totoshi was bored fiddling with the machine gun in his hand. His ears were full of excited shouts from the pilot in the front seat, Bakawa Sato: "Okay, shoot down another one...... Haha, another enemy plane is smoking. "When I found out that an enemy plane was attacking just now, Ozawa was nervous, but Sato said disapprovingly;" It's okay, those ghost beasts don't have the ability to break through the interception of our escort force. We can just see a good show. Things then turned out almost exactly as Sato had predicted. The air battle was completely one-sided, and the Empire had an overwhelming advantage. It is a pity that the air battle was fought in front of the bomber group, and Ozawa, as a self-defense machine gunner, sat facing back. He had to turn his head as hard as he could, looking in the direction of the air battle. But it's not real.

"Well, it's better to have a view from the front seat." Ozawa sighed as he twisted his somewhat sore neck. "Hey, what's there?" In his field of vision, a group of small black dots appeared. These little black dots are rapidly getting bigger and bigger. "Enemy attack!" Ozawa shouted loudly, trying to turn the machine gun in the direction in which the enemy appeared.

"This is Fox One, there are no enemy aircraft to intercept and attack! Attack! Captain Heysel gave the order, and 14 fighters swooped down with a roar.

Due to the successful guidance of the radar, the angle at which the fox formation pounced was exactly at the dead end of the fire of the self-defense machine guns of most Japanese bombers. In addition, the previous air battle not only dragged down the escort Zero Battle, but even interfered with the attention of many bomber pilots. /一/本/Read/Novel YBDU's sudden blow made several bombers smoke. More bombers were also forced to drop their bombs in advance. The Japanese bomber was designed in almost the same style as the Zero War, nimble but not sturdy. In terms of turning alone, the circling ability of the 99 ship explosion is even better than that of the F4F, not to mention the bulky buffalo. However, like the Zero, it is not strong enough, and compared to its thick-skinned American counterpart, it is as flexible as a bird, but also as fragile as a bird. It only takes a dozen or even a few .50 bullets to kill it. The Japanese Navy believes that flexibility is the best defense, and as long as you can't hit, what difference does it make if you don't have armor?

But if you want to be flexible, you can't carry a bomb. It's like you can't expect a footballer to be able to deftly shake off several defenders in quick succession to score while carrying a weight equal to his body weight, even if it's Messi. The 99 shipburst also could not remain flexible with a bomb. Now, under the blows of American fighters, in order to keep their planes, many bombers had to drop their bombs in advance.

Sato Bakawa also dropped the bomb. During the raid just now, Sato dodged the first attack of the American fighter jets thanks to a reminder from the back seat. However, after diving down, the American fighter immediately jumped up at a large angle and attacked again by taking advantage of the fire blind spot in the bomber's belly. This attack was completely different from just now, when the American planes dived down, and they were very fast, and they were getting faster and faster. So when they approach the target, the window of time to shoot is very short. And this time the American planes are jumping, and as the altitude increases, their speed is also slowing down, so that the firing window will be much longer. This time, Sato was targeted again, and in order to dodge, he had to drop the bomb. In this way, even if he flies over the target, he will not be of much use.

After dropping the bomb, the bomber suddenly became much lighter, and with a slight sharp turn, it dodged the F2A buffalo that swooped down. Since the bomber was out of bombs, the buffalo gave up attacking him, turned around, and stared at the other bomber that had not dropped its bombs.

But just as the F2A was about to attack again, a 99 shipburst suddenly cut directly into its inner line and fired at it. This 99 ship explosion is the one piloted by Sato. The 99 shipblast, which dropped its bombs, almost immediately turned into a dexterous fighter. It began to look like an old hen with wings, trying to protect the other bombers.

After the second round of attacks, five more bombers were hit, but at the same time, at least four American fighters were wounded and had to withdraw from the battle. The pilots of Japan Navy Airlines are all top pilots. (Japan's best pilots are fighting on the front lines, but not the U.S. military.) The best pilots are always transferred to the rear to train new pilots as instructors. As a result, in the early days of the war, American pilots were often at a technical disadvantage when facing Japanese pilots. However, as the war dragged on, when the old pilots on the Japanese front line were exhausted, the skills of the new Japanese pilots who succeeded them were often extremely poor compared to those of the new American pilots. Despite the surprise attack, and although it was an unfair air battle between fighters and bombers, they still showed superior technical capabilities. In the second round of the battle, they actually played an amazing record close to 1:1.

Now that Zero has found that he has been fooled, he is about to come over, and if he continues to attack, he is afraid that he will end up in the annihilation of the whole army. So the fox formation began to retreat on its own initiative, and in these two rounds of attacks, they shot down at least 6 bombers, damaged about 3 or 4, and forced at least 10 or more Japanese bombers to drop their bombs in advance. Lost only 4 aircraft on his own. The task has been well accomplished. At least compared to previous air battles, such an exchange ratio is simply a miracle. If you don't see it and take it again, what are you waiting for?

Fearing the possibility of other attackers, Zero did not dare to pursue them. Now, they honestly protected the bomber and continued to move towards the target.

When the Japanese bomber group reached Midway, their first target was Midway Airfield. At this time, the Midway airport was empty, all the planes had already taken off, and all that was left was an empty runway. They were also greeted by intensive anti-aircraft fire on the island.

Braving artillery fire, the bombers launched a dive attack on the target, although the bombers were constantly hit by the anti-aircraft guns and exploded into a huge fireball in the air, they still smashed the bombshells with a piercing whistling sound to the ground accurately, and then, a violent explosion sound was heard on the ground, and a huge column of smoke was raised. The entire island trembled at the sound of the explosion. The bombing lasted almost 20 minutes, and the Japanese blew up an oil depot and a sea hangar. However, the Japanese bombers' attempt to destroy the enemy's air force at Midway failed. All they could find was an empty airstrip and a few empty hangars.

After the attack, Captain Toonaga, the leader of the group, flew a plane around the island. He saw that although Midway Island had become a sea of fire, the airstrip on the island had not been completely destroyed. He believed that a second wave of attacks on Midway was necessary. But at this time, the first attack wave plane led by him ran out of ammunition and had little fuel left, so he had to turn back.

It was 7 a.m. Central Pacific Time. Captain Tokunaga sent a telegram from the plane to the Nagumo fleet: "The assault group is returning, and it is necessary to strike again. "A third of his fleet was shot down by ground anti-aircraft fire during the bombing of Midway. Relative to the results achieved, such an attack really outweighed the losses. However, if the second group of bombers is dispatched quickly enough, it should be able to catch the fleet of American planes that must land at the airfield due to fuel consumption.

At the same time as the Japanese launched an attack on Midway, General Frye also received a telegram from the "Catlena" maritime reconnaissance plane on board the Yorktown aircraft that the Japanese aircraft carrier had been discovered. General Frye immediately planned to send bombers, but at this time, the 10 reconnaissance planes that had just been sent were preparing for the ship, and they were almost out of fuel. The aircraft carrier at that time had not yet invented the beveled deck, and take-off and landing could not be carried out simultaneously on the aircraft carrier. In order for these planes to land, the entire runway had to be vacated. Therefore, the bombers could only wait for these planes to land on the ship before they could be brought out of the hangar and prepared to strike on the runway. And at this time, the aircraft carrier Yorktown was a little further away from the Japanese aircraft carrier. If the bomber force is directly taken off at this time, it will be difficult for many aircraft to return to the aircraft carrier after the mission due to range restrictions. At 6 o'clock, General Fletcher sent a telegram to General Spruance, ordering Task Force 16 to launch an air attack on the enemy fleet first, followed by Task Force 17.

But Spruance struggled to attack right away, as he was only 15 nautical miles ahead of Fry. The problem of insufficient range existed with him as well. So on board the USS Enterprise, the officers were urgently summoned, and Ron was among them.

In the conference room, General Spruance's adjutant briefed everyone on the situation:

"At 5:13, reconnaissance aircraft spotted a group of Japanese bombers, and at 5:25, reconnaissance aircraft spotted the Japanese fleet in area No. 12 and confirmed the presence of 4 aircraft carriers in it. Admiral Fletcher demanded that our fleet immediately attack the enemy. At the moment our fleet is ...... from the enemy"

"If we attack now, how many planes will not fly back?" General Spruance asked.

"Sir, if you take off now, probably more than half of the planes won't be able to fly back." Answered by Chief of Staff Mitchell?? Colonel Browning.

"So, how about letting them turn to Midway and land?"

"Sir, the Midway airfield has just been bombed, and we will soon have to accept the landing of their own planes, and I don't think they can help us much."

"So when are we going to send planes if we want to get to the right distance?"

Several aviation staff officers quickly calculated, and one of them replied:

"General, it must be around 9 o'clock for our fleet to reach the right distance."

"Ah, nine o'clock...... General Spruance mused, "that means we'll have to wait almost three hours." No, it's too dangerous. In 3 hours, the Japanese fleet could move at least 60 nautical miles, and by that time, the bombers we sent might not find anything. Moreover, the Japanese planes had a longer range than ours, and they must have sent reconnaissance planes, and they could detect us and strike us at any time during these three hours. ”

"So when do you think we're going to send bombers?" The general asked suddenly.

After a buzzing discussion, the room fell silent.

"General, I think we should send bombers around 7 o'clock." Mitchell?? "So that when we reach the skies over the enemy, the enemy ships should be recovering the attack aircraft group, which is when they are most vulnerable." ”

"So how many planes should we send?"

"As a rule, we should divide the cluster into at least two batches, so that we can send ...... in the first wave"

General Spruance frowned, clasped his hands to his chest, and walked around the charts.

Ron looked at General Spruance, and he knew that in history, Spruance, a general known for his prudence, had the biggest highlight in this battle was to send almost all the bombers out at once, with no second wave and no reserves. It was precisely because of this desperate decision that the US military won this decisive battle with a huge disparity in power. But at this time, General Spruance was still hesitating. After all, such a deal is extremely risky, and in the event of defeat, the entire fleet will lose the ability to defend itself. And once this fleet is lost, the US military will have no fleet to fight in the entire Pacific Ocean for quite some time. As a result, not only will Midway be lost, but Pearl Harbor will also be threatened, and even the entire West Coast will be threatened. Although Ron believed that, even in the worst-case scenario, the Japanese would not be able to land on the west coast of the United States, and at most would use carrier-based aircraft to carry out a few harassing air raids of limited scale and more limited effect; And the United States, with its overwhelming industrial superiority, will eventually win. But the road to victory will be even more rugged as a result. It's just that the accumulation of years as a small technician in a large company has made him very unaccustomed to taking the initiative to show himself in front of his superiors.

Perhaps noticing Ron's staring at him, or perhaps because Ron always surprises during these days of drills, General Spruance spoke to him, "What do you think, young man?" ”

Although he had already thought of a lot of plans in his mind, Ron was still a little nervous when asked. Looking into the general's blazing eyes, Ron unexpectedly had a sense of panic when he was defending his thesis in college, facing a series of questions from a professor who was notoriously difficult to speak. (Later, I learned that the more severe the old gentleman kept asking, the more satisfied he was.) ）

"Hmm...... General," Ron slowly stood up, reaching out and holding his hat to steady himself. After all, this answer may affect the entire battle situation. "General, I think," Ron steadied himself, raised his head, looked firmly at General Spruance, and replied, "I think we should take all the bombers at once!" ”

"It's too risky!" It was said.

"If we fail, we won't be able to fight back!"

But General Spruance just smiled faintly and said, "Oh, the idea is interesting, let's talk about it carefully!" ”

"General, the enemy aircraft are significantly superior to our army in terms of numbers, performance and even the level of training, if the conventional approach is adopted, under the interception of Japanese fighters, how many aircraft in the first wave will be able to complete the breakthrough? Even if the breakthrough is completed, how many will actually hit? Therefore, going in batches will only keep them constantly being killed by Japanese fighters. And it was difficult to destroy the entire Japanese fleet in one fell swoop. On the contrary, if the Japanese keep their aircraft carriers and launch a counterattack against us, will our two aircraft carriers be able to withstand the Japanese counterattack? Even if we leave all the fighters behind, we will not be able to withstand the surprise attack of four aircraft carriers! Yesterday's tactical drill proved it! ”

Ron stopped and looked at everyone, the tension just now had long disappeared without a trace, and now his face was full of determination, so that his eyes had a little provocation in them.

"Since we don't have enough defense, the only way is to wipe out all the enemy's aircraft carriers at once. When we arrived, the enemy should be recovering the plane, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! There will still be fighters in the skies over the enemy, but there will not be too many, but if we organize well, then there will be more of our aircraft in the sky over the enemy ships at the same time than the enemy's fighters. In this way, even if the enemy's fighters are given the most powerful command, and each of them can bite one of our planes, we can still ensure that a group of planes can successfully penetrate the defense and deal a fatal blow to the enemy! ”

"Well said!" General Spruance applauded, and the others applauded.

"Then we decided that we would send all the bombers and the vast majority of fighters at once. Now, ladies and gentlemen, let's refine my battle plan. ”

At seven o'clock in the morning, the first Avenger torpedo attack aircraft flew off the deck of the Enterprise, and behind the torpedo planes took off dive bombers, then F4F Wildcat fighters.

This take-off sequence is very different from normal. Normally, it is prudent to have the fighter take off first and fly to the front of the fleet to escort the group. But now, in order to gain time, and to save fuel -- and to know that almost all planes attack at the limit of their range -- the fleet has chosen to let the slowest torpedo planes depart first, and then the faster planes that take off last, first the fighters that take off last, and then the dive bombers to catch up with them, and they will assemble on the way, and launch a general attack together. Because the weather forecast showed that the sky was cloudy today and the cloud height was relatively low, the fighter unit was instructed not to fly too high and to maintain visual contact with the torpedo group at all times. This was Ron's suggestion, originally if there were no clouds, the fighter should have flown a little higher, and once and again achieved a high superiority over the Zero. But now, if this is still done, the consequences are likely to be due to the fact that the fighters fly above the clouds, and the torpedo planes fly under the clouds, and as a result, they fly and get separated.

In the original history, such a situation happened that the torpedo planes that arrived first attacked the Japanese fleet alone without any fighter cover, as a result of which they were all shot down and failed to hit a single torpedo. If it weren't for the sudden appearance of the dive bombers that had been lost, and the Japanese fighters were all attracted to a low altitude, the outcome of the battle might have been different.

Of course, letting the F4F fly low, which would make them extremely passive in the face of the Zero, and perhaps with a lot of sacrifices, but, in any case, it is better than having the torpedo machine face the Zero alone. In fact, Ron's suggestion was even aided by the VF-6 fighter unit commander on the USS Enterprise, James Brown. Support of Rear Admiral Gray. "War requires sacrifice, and we are ready to sacrifice ourselves for the motherland, for freedom and justice!" James. That's what Lieutenant Commander Gray said at the time. Ron was so moved by his categorical words that he offered to set up a plane instead of staying to protect the mothership, as had been previously arranged. In fact, Ron knew that if nothing else, it was quite safe to stay. Because in the original history, the Enterprise was not attacked during the entire course of the campaign. Now Ron is sitting in the cockpit of the attacking F4F, faintly regretting. After all, he is not a real American pilot Ron, he doesn't even belong to this era, and he is far from James in his heart. Lieutenant Gray's sense of responsibility. So he could only say to himself: "For every devil killed in the Pacific, the Chinese on the other side of the ocean will shed less and more blood." I can fight for my country like these people! ”

With this in mind, Ron looked around, and now the entire fleet was assembled, and beside him was an assault group of 29 Avenger torpedo planes, 67 dreadnought dive bombers, and 40 F4F Wildcat fighters (General Spruance had sent more fighters than ever before), and this all-or-nothing sortie would decide the tide of battle.