As soon as the Japanese battleship left, Ron immediately took people with him to count the losses. Sitting in a jeep, several people quickly arrived at the airport.

Although it was still night, the airport was now as bright as day, and the fire caused by the Japanese artillery bombardment illuminated the airfield. The types of shells used in this Japanese shelling included high-explosive shells and explosive incendiary shells. Some of the wooden buildings at the airport were all on fire, the air was filled with smoke and the smell of burnt things, and some of the shrubs around the airport were also set on fire, making it impossible to approach the hot heat. The tower was also hit directly by a huge projectile during the shelling, which was blown to pieces. The runway was even more bombed, but fortunately there was no combustible material on the runway, and Ron and they could still get close to observe. Kuah Island Airport originally had three runways, one of which was built by the Japanese to accommodate bombers taking off and landing. After the US military occupied the airfield, it was expanded to include two shorter auxiliary runways for fighter jets to take off and land. Ron and Vandergraft have recently begun construction of a new bomber runway a little further afield. But the runway hasn't had time to be fully repaired.

When Ron saw the main runway of Kuah Island for the first time, he couldn't help but sigh: "Oh my God, aren't we going to the moon again!" ”

The main runway is full of huge craters, which are nearly 20 meters in diameter and 4-5 meters deep. That is, to build a small house under this large pit, the roof of which is just above the ground. Obviously, even if the U.S. military has construction machinery that the Japanese army does not have, it will not be an overnight thing to fill these big holes. What's more, this kind of pit is not just filled to count, but also to be tamped to ensure that it can withstand the pressure of aircraft taking off and landing.

Now, Ron's hopes are all on other runways. One of the two fighter runways was also blown to shreds and would certainly be unusable in the short term. There is another one, which also dropped a few shells, but fortunately, the shells all fell on the side, although one shot was on the right point, gnawing off a small half of the runway, but as long as you are careful, you should still be able to take off and land fighters.

In addition to this runway, there is an unfinished bomber runway. Although unfinished and unable to take off and land B-17s and the like, it is still possible to take off and land fighter jets and Avenger dive bombers. In the shelling just now, two huge shells that missed fell here, but it can't be so coincidental that they just knocked out the runway, right?

Unfortunately, the weather was not as good as expected, and Ron rushed to take a look, and a huge bomb happened to land in the middle of the runway, obviously, this runway was also abandoned for the time being.

"When will this runway be repaired?" Ron asked.

"This runway can be repaired to a state that can take off and land fighter jets in two days." The answer was Major Rice, who was in charge of the engineering corps.

"Then it's all up to you, whether Kuah Island can hold on depends on this runway."

By the time it was dawn, the losses had already been counted. 5 fighters, 3 bombers (all B-17s) were completely destroyed, another 12 aircraft were damaged to varying degrees. In addition, various vehicles also suffered a lot of damage.

But now Ron doesn't have time to dwell on these losses. He had to take off immediately. He knew that the Japanese would definitely take advantage of the attack on the airport to send more supplies to the island. Once the Japanese Army on the island gets enough heavy weapons, the situation on Kuah Island could get completely out of control......

Ron's P-38 took off from the runway with a 250-pound incendiary bomb, followed by Captain Foss, the No. 2 ace of the fighter unit. Then there are the two of their wingmen, Billy and Will.

The four planes flew together and headed straight for the beachhead, where the Japanese army most often used to receive supplies. As they expected, the beachhead was full of all kinds of supplies, piled up there without shelter. Ron led the dive and dropped incendiary bombs, followed by other planes dropping incendiary bombs on their respective targets. After dropping the bomb, Ron began to strafe the supplies again. The Vulcan is now equipped with armor-piercing incendiary grenades, which are not as powerful as 250-pound incendiary bombs, but can still ignite those supplies.

However, there are too many things on the beachhead, which cannot be solved by 4 aircraft at once. This shows the size of the fleet that docked last night. Ron was going to call more planes, but from the radio, he got a message that a group of Japanese planes was approaching and would be over Kuah Island in two hours. It seems that these goals can only be spared.

"It's really a leak in the house that happened to rain overnight," Ron shook his head and thought with a wry smile, "Even the Japanese air force that was scared a few days ago dared to come and take advantage of the fire to rob it." ”

Time was of the essence, and Ron hurried back to the airport with the group after firing the last shot at the pile of grain.

I have to say that the timing of the Japanese choice is also very appropriate. After the naval artillery strike, the airfield was not completely destroyed, but its operational efficiency was greatly reduced. Due to the serious damage to the runway and the huge damage to the logistics system such as refueling and bomb hanging, the number of planes that can be dispatched at one time at the airport has greatly decreased. If it is bombed with precision during the day for a few more times, I am afraid that the airfield will be completely destroyed.

In the improvised command center, Ron learned about the specific enemy situation: there were 52 enemy planes, including 30 Zero fighters and 12 Attack Planes. And with the capacity of the current airfield, Ron may only be able to take off 10 fighters. And these planes have to take off one after the other. Unlike before, not only could two fighters take off at the same time on the main runway, but also two aircraft could take off at the same time on each secondary runway. This makes it possible to have 6 planes take off at once. But now the remaining fighter runways can only take off one aircraft at a time. And due to the damage to the supporting facilities, the take-off time between each plane was also extended by a terrible ten minutes.

In the present, every second counts. The P-38 fighters began to take off one after the other. Ron and Captain Foss, as the plane had just finished its mission, their take-off priority was scheduled last.

Originally, in the past, when only such a task was wanted, the P-38 only needed to be loaded with about forty percent of the fuel. This greatly improves the maneuverability of the aircraft, especially climbing and hovering. But now, due to the reduced sortie rate, the fighter plane that took off at the beginning had to be fueled with 75 percent so that he could wait for his teammates for a long time over the seven fields. The more the aircraft takes off later, the less fuel it fills. When Ron was the last to take off, he had only forty percent fuel in his tank.

By the time Ron and his wingmen had climbed to an altitude of 5,500 meters, a group of Japanese planes appeared. Again, there is no new double-layer structure, and the fighters are above the front of the bomber group. It was about 500 meters higher than the bomber. But their position was still much lower than that of the P-38. The ceiling of the Zero Combat is 10,000 meters, but because there is no two-stage pressurization, once the altitude exceeds 6,000 meters, the engine performance will drop rapidly. (In fact, it is not good at 5000 meters) so in the air battle on Kuah Island, they will always be seized by American planes to occupy advantageous heights.

If that's all there is to it, it's not the worst thing. Zero Battle is very flexible, the enemy's dive may not be able to hit it, and after a few dives and pulls, the energy gap between the two sides will gradually narrow. But another weakness of the Zero-Fight is just that: its dive performance is a mess. Now all American pilots know: the Zero is super agile at low speeds, but once the speed exceeds 550 kilometers, the efficiency of its ailerons will seriously decrease, and the Zero at this time is as stupid as a stone slab flying in the sky. And this speed, with a slight dive, will be exceeded. So the Zero response in the dive was surprisingly slow. There was even an example of Zero Zhan following the dreadnought dive bomber, and finally when he was about to reach the sea, the dreadnought pulled up, but the Zero Zhan fell headlong. In addition, its dive speed is very low, and the dive acceleration is also very slow. This leaves it in an unsolvable dilemma when carrying out escort missions. As soon as the enemy aircraft did not engage with it and launched a dive attack directly on the bombers, the Zero would be helpless. Because even if it followed someone else's six o'clock, it was not a threat to the enemy, who was too much faster than him, and he could only watch the enemy plane get smaller and smaller in his windshield, and there was nothing he could do. And when it was about to attack the enemy's bombers, it would never dare to put the enemy's fighters in its six-point direction - look for death! As a result, now, the Zero War has become a very embarrassing aircraft. On the one hand, in the hands of experienced pilots, it is very powerful to fight with enemy fighters. In real history, there are even perverts who shot down hundreds of enemy planes and never took a single shot themselves. But on the other hand, whether it is a bomber used to protect itself or a bomber to attack the enemy, it behaves with a weak heart.

This weakness, of course, Ron knows. He immediately ordered: "Don't entangle with enemy fighters, surprise the enemy bombers!" ”

10 P-38s roared down from the sky, and the escorted 30 Zeros tried to block them, but the speed gap between the two sides was too great, and the Zeros had not yet reached the corresponding position, and the P-38s had already whizzed by.

"Yaga!" Hiroshi Nishizawa roared angrily, and at the same time, this terrible ace also sadly realized that the universal fighter Zero was outdated.

Nishizawa did not blindly dive after the enemy's fighters, which was useless. Instead, he pulled the plane a little higher, ready to wait for the enemy plane to climb up before giving them a guy. As for the bombers, there was really nothing he could do.

A one-on-one land attack appeared in Ron's front windshield, and since it was a head-on attack, Ron opened fire from a long distance. Although the first type of land attack is famous for its flexibility among the bombers of its kind, the bomber is a bomber after all, and the reaction speed is still not comparable to that of the fighter, and it cannot dodge it at all in the face of the attack of the Vulcan cannon. Then a spectacular scene appeared, a huge peony flower made of orange-red flames suddenly bloomed in the air. Huge flowers crowded Ron's front windshield.

Ron jerked the lever, and the plane leaped quickly to avoid colliding with the wreckage of a land attack. If his fighter is still in the old-fashioned weapon configuration, this blow will most likely only set the enemy plane on fire, and then if there is leisure, you can see how the enemy plane slowly loses control and how the enemy parachutes one after another. And don't worry about this - it seems that sometimes too much firepower is not necessarily a good thing.

As Ron fired, the other planes opened fire. Under the wave of the dense flame whip of the Vulcan Cannon, one flame peony after another continued to bloom in the sky. In just one assault, seven of the twelve aircraft were shot down in a land attack, and one was wounded and caught fire - almost without help. Of course, Ron's fleet also suffered unexpected losses - a P-38 was hit by the wreckage of an enemy aircraft, the volley exploded, and the pilot was definitely lost; Another was damaged by the wreckage and had to leave the battlefield at high speed.

Ron climbed up with the remaining eight P-38s, then turned back with a half-somersault and swooped over from the six o'clock direction of a land attack. The tail gunners of the Type 1 Land Attack desperately opened fire on Ron and them, but instead of approaching directly from above 6 o'clock, Ron continued to dive under the belly of the Type 1 Land Attack - where the dead end of the self-defense fire was located, and then pulled up at a large angle and began to strafe the target with the Vulcan cannon.

This time Ron was much more careful, he only fired a short burst, and stopped firing when he saw orange-red flames coming out of the right engine of the enemy plane. Anyway, with a land attack on the body, this is already a fatal blow.

But just as Ron was about to pass by the enemy plane, another barrage of shells hit the plane. As a result, the plane immediately exploded into a fireball. And before he could react, Ron got headlong into this fireball.

There was a crackling sound in Ron's ears, and it was the sound of the enemy plane's debris hitting his plane. When he burst out of the fireball, he noticed that his left engine was making a weird clicking sound - apparently, the engine was injured and he was afraid that he would not last long.

It was at this time that Ron suddenly felt a great sense of fear. It was like a mouse being stared at by an owl, and at the same time the wingman's shout came from his ears: "Pay attention to the direction of 10 o'clock!" ”

With a pusher, a barrage of 20mm shells whistled over Ron's landline. Then Ron saw a Zero coming at him.

It was the Japanese pilot Hiroyoshi Nishizawa who had been silently enduring the pain of being unable to do anything about the slaughter of the bomber, waiting for an opportunity. Now Ron's plane had lost a lot of speed after two dives and pull-ups, giving Nishizawa, who had already occupied a higher position, a long-awaited opportunity. Unfortunately, it still missed.

Nishizawa pulled the lever and bit Ron's six points with a straight half-somersault. Ron began to roll to the left, trying to turn into a dive. If his engine is okay, he can still climb directly, and Zero can't keep up with him. But now the engine is injured, and to continue to climb is to find death. A dive was the most reasonable way for him to get out of pursuit now. However, the P-38's low-speed roll was so tragic that Ron had just finished rolling and before he could pull the rod and dive, Nishizawa had already firmly trapped him in the scope.

"You're dead!" Nishizawa thought silently as he prepared to start shooting. But instinctively, he looked in all the other directions.

Billy was now seven or eight hundred meters away from Nishizawa, but he also saw Ron's danger. So, Billy started firing at Nishizawa.

"When rescuing a comrade, you don't need to shoot at close range, instead, you should fire in advance as far as possible. Your goal is not to shoot down enemy planes, but to distract the enemy from concentrating on your comrades. "That's what Ron taught Billy before.

Billy's firing still interfered with Nishizawa, who had already noticed the enemy's astonishingly large range of artillery from his observation of the massacre. If he keeps firing, he will definitely be able to shoot down Ron, but there is also a chance that he will be shot down by Billy. So he kicked the rudder and dodged for a while.

With that in this time, Ron turned to dive, and now Nishizawa had no chance to catch him due to Zero's poor diving ability.

Nishizawa pulled up the plane, and he saw that now all the bombers had been lost, and the enemy planes had begun to retreat at high speed. With a maximum speed of only 530 km, the Zero simply could not catch up with these obviously much faster enemy aircraft. And he didn't have much fuel, so he had to go back. "What a big failure!" Nishizawa thought so.

What Nishizawa didn't know was that this "big failure" of theirs was not meaningless. They bought the island's army time to move supplies exposed to the beach to safety. These supplies not only include food, ammunition, but also five 150mm heavy guns.