The return of the commander of the first wave of attack aircraft groups, Mizu Fuchida and Yunakasa Fuchida is long overdue.

As soon as he jumped out of the cabin of the Type 97 fighter, the ground crew in white overalls and the pilots in yellow-green combat uniforms rushed up to him, cheering and cheering and surrounding him in the middle to salute him.

Fuchida Nakasa first replied with a strong and powerful military salute, and then shouted loudly: "Have you finished replenishing fuel and ammunition?" We must make a sortie before the second wave of attack aircraft returns, otherwise it will be too late? ”

An operations staff officer handed a blank piece of paper to Fuchita.

"Fuel and ammunition are all replenished, and spare fighters and back-up pilots are ready for combat and ready to go. Commander Nagumo sent a new order for us to send a reconnaissance plane to reconnoiter the sea about 100 nautical miles east of Pearl Harbor, which are the specific coordinates. ”

Fuchida read the order suspiciously, and his frown loosened.

It turned out that the Enterprise, the Maryland, and the Pennsylvania turned out to be here, and it is no wonder that they were not found at Pearl Harbor.

"Hurry up and get my plane to refuel, we'll strike right away." Fuchida shouted.

Nine Type 97 attack planes, which were not carrying bombs and torpedoes, roared out of the deck and flew towards the coordinates provided by Nagumo in search of the whereabouts of the Enterprise.

Fuchida was approached by Nagumo on the bridge for a lecture, and when he returned to deck, his landline had already been refueled.

Fuchida immediately jumped on the plane and took off first, followed by 46 Type 99 dive bombers, 37 Type 97 horizontal bombers, and 48 Type Zero fighters.

The trio stood on the deck, waving white turbans to see off their comrades.

Seeing the huge group of planes gathering in the sky and disappearing into the southern sky, Izuki said, "I really envy them, they can attack again so soon." ”

"When our reconnaissance planes find the enemy's remaining aircraft carrier, it's time for us to strike again."

About 150 nautical miles east of Pearl Harbor, the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were leisurely sailing on the surface of the sea at a pace like a "walk after dinner."

Shortly after leaving Tokyo, Chen Dao changed the flagship back to the Prinz Eugen.

Standing on the foredeck of the Prinz Eugen, Chen Dao held a twelve-fold magnification telescope in his hand and looked at the sea in the northwest direction. And yet nothing was found.

Looking up at the two unrecognizable US planes in the sky, Chen Dao touched his chin and said to Major Bach beside him boredly: "These two Yankee planes are really persistent, they should already know that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, but they still have the leisure to spy on us here." ”

Major Bach shrugged his shoulders and said: "They are reconnaissance aircraft. There is no combat effectiveness, and going back at this time will just add two more to the fighters of the Japanese. ”

Major Lorenz chimed in: "Look, our seaplane is back. ”

Chen Dao looked at the sky to the northwest, and sure enough, he saw four black dots flying towards the Prince Eugen.

Look at these few meritorious men. Chen Dao laughed wildly in his heart, he originally wanted to catch two tigers, but he didn't want to catch an eagle with him, this kind of luck should really buy a lottery ticket.

With the help of the FUMO-type radar on the warship, the warships and aircraft of the Pacific Fleet tracked and monitored Chen Dao, and Chen Dao was also monitoring them.

In initial contact, Chen Dao confirmed that there were only two light cruisers and four destroyers in the vicinity.

On the evening of Christmas Eve, Chen Dao suddenly noticed that there were battleships among the American warships monitoring him, and there were two of them, perhaps because he had no fear. The two battleships always maintained a range of about ten nautical miles from him.

It wasn't until Christmas morning, when the sky lit up, that the two battleships departed with their little brothers, such as light cruisers and destroyers, and in their place were two reconnaissance planes.

Knowing that he was in a wolf's den, Chen Dao hated those US ** ships and planes that were blatantly spying on him, but he could only choose to endure until he received two telegrams.

The first telegram Chen Dao received came from Fuchida Nakasa, and the content was "Tiger, Tiger, Tiger" reporting the success of the surprise attack.

The second telegram was a plain-code telegram from the U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor.

Faced with a surprise attack by the Japanese naval aviation, the American troops at Pearl Harbor resisted stubbornly and did not forget to report to the US mainland.

The situation is urgent. Moreover, there is no need to keep the content secret, and the US military at Pearl Harbor chose to send the report in clear code.

Chen Dao easily intercepted the message, and the content of the message was simple and straightforward: Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese air, and this was not an exercise.

It was confirmed that the U.S. forces in Pearl Harbor were already in a league with the Japanese naval air force at this time. Chen Dao's courage instantly grew.

At his command, two AR-196 seaplanes were ejected from each of the Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck, and the two departing battleships were the first to follow him in the nearby sea.

Because I want to abide by neutrality, I can't attack you, but that doesn't mean I can't kill people with a knife.

Chen Dao made up his mind to use the power of Japanese fighters to kill those two battleships. Unexpectedly, about half an hour after the departure of the four AR-196 seaplanes, they actually sent him an astonishing piece of good news.

In addition to finding the two American battleships, they also found an American fleet, consisting of one aircraft carrier, two light cruisers, and five destroyers.

The bearing was about fifty nautical miles northwest of the two German battleships and about one hundred nautical miles due east of Pearl Harbor.

Without hesitation, Chen Dao marked the coordinates sent by the reconnaissance plane on the nautical chart, and then sent them to Nagumo's fleet.

The tasks of the Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck have been completed, and as for whether or not the aircraft carrier and the two battleships can be sent to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, I believe that with the capabilities of the Japanese naval aviation, they will not let themselves down.

Retracting the plane, Chen Dao took one last glimpse in the direction of Pearl Harbor, and then ordered to speed up and sail towards the mainland of the United States

When Fuchida led the third wave of attack teams to fly over Pearl Harbor again, the sky over Pearl Harbor was already a different scene.

Seeing the Japanese planes attacking again, the US troops, who had recovered from the sudden air raid, were extremely red-eyed.

The 36 remaining P-40 fighters and 16 P-36 fighters at the base rushed forward to meet them, and quickly fought with the 48 Zero fighters escorting the escort, and the blue sky was full of fighters chasing and biting each other, the smoke from the cannons, the black smoke dragged out by the bombed planes, the broken wings, and the broken parts scattered in the sky.

Coupled with the countless black smoke columns rising into the sky and reaching a height of two or three thousand meters on the port, the battlefield looks unique and thrilling.

Under the desperate cover of the Zero fighter. The Type 99 dive bombers rushed to the naval shipyard at Pearl Harbor in formation.

Anti-aircraft gun positions around the shipyard spewed out countless shells, vainly trying to stop the Japanese planes in vain.

Forty-six Type 99 dive bombers dived at a very large angle and accurately returned 250 kg of bombs to the shipyard's facilities.

In the clouds of miniature mushrooms one after another, the door cranes of the shipyard, the dock pump room, and the dock door were all turned into ruins. Cold processing equipment and machining equipment have also been destroyed, and various wires and parts of machinery and equipment are all over the sky.

The most terrifying scene occurred in the gantry crane of the shipyard, a 99 is a dive bomber dived into the huge gantry crane, but was unexpectedly injured by the shrapnel of the anti-aircraft guns defending the shipyard.

Maybe it's a coincidence. Or perhaps it was the pilot's bloody behavior, the Type 99 dive bomber dragged a long black smoke and carried a bomb on the belly of the plane, and hit the slide on the right side of the gantry crane.

In the fierce fire and explosion, the gantry crane "knelt down on its right knee", and its tall and mighty body fell to the ground, no longer majestic as before.

Thirty-seven Type 97 horizontal bombers caused even more damage, and they rushed to target the oil depot at Pearl Harbor.

And the Japanese regard it as the root of their lives, holding it in their mouths for fear of melting, and holding it on the top of their heads for fear of being scared. In the end, the strategic reserve oil depot is not at ease when it is hidden underground, and the US military, which has always had a lot of money, has built the strategic reserve oil depot on the ground.

Near Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, huge oil tanks with a diameter of 100 meters stand proudly like Titans, and their huge bodies contain more than 4 million tons of oil.

Although the Type 97 bomber did not have the performance of dive bombing, it could not stop the Japanese pilots from playing.

The Japanese pilots who participated in the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor can be said to be the elite of the elite among the Japanese pilots, and the graduation test of these Type 97 bomber pilots when they were trained was to drop bombs and hit the battleship at an altitude of 3,000 meters, the width of the battleship was more than 30 meters, and the diameter of the oil depot reached 100 meters, so there was no pressure on the pilots.

The targets are different, and the suspended ammunition is different. The Type 97 horizontal bomber was suspended this time with two 250-kilogram bombs, or six 60-kilogram bombs.

Thirty-seven Type 97 bombers flew over the oil storage area, and hundreds of 250-kilogram bombs and 60-kilogram bombs drew a graceful parabola and mercilessly smashed into huge oil tanks.

The sky was filled with firelight and gray-white gunsmoke. Holes of various sizes were smashed into the weak steel plates of the tank, followed by a series of explosions comparable to those of a volcanic eruption, loud enough to shake Pearl Harbor.

The vast oil reservoir turned into an active volcano, with blazing flames, obscure smoke, and countless steel plate fragments flying into the sky. Even the nearby U.S. military outpost was turned into a sea of fire, the soldiers screamed and were consumed by the flames, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of fuel oil, mixed with the pungent smell of human meat barbecue.

The unprecedented explosion alarmed the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Kimmel.

He could tell at a glance that the explosion was coming from the oil storage area.

Kimmel became commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in 1941 and was promoted to admiral.

After the inauguration of the conscientious Kimmer, he repeatedly complained about the Pacific Fleet's warships being seconded by the Atlantic Fleet and other missions, resulting in the emptiness of Pearl Harbor's defense, and even reported to President Roosevelt in person, but it has not been taken seriously until today, this Christmas that he will never forget.

Looking at the devastated and devastated port and the Japanese warplanes raging in the sky, the then 59-year-old Kimmer burst into tears and muttered to himself: "Why don't you come at me, why don't you kill me?"

Kimmel had a rigid personality and was regarded as a model military officer by the officers with whom he came into contact.

During his tenure as commander of the Pacific Fleet, he promoted a number of young officers, almost all of whom later became independent captains. But he has a short temper and is irritable, and it is difficult to communicate with others, and he even has the experience of slapping the table with Marshall, the chief of the Army General Staff.

But Kimmel is not a fool, he knows very well that suffering such a loss, unprecedented in the history of the United States, cannot be escaped with the cunning and shamelessness of the enemy, without declaring war.

This kind of loss is enough to shock the United States, and even shock the world, the White House will definitely look for a scapegoat, and the top brass of the US military department, especially Marshall, who is at odds with him, will also do it, no need to ask, this person must be him, and maybe there is also the equally unlucky Lieutenant General Short, commander-in-chief of the ground forces at Pearl Harbor.

The war ended up like this, and it was extremely unlucky that the two men were used as scapegoats by the White House and the military as a matter of course.

Kimmel is not afraid of being dismissed, nor is he afraid of being demoted or even convicted.

What he really feared was that, as a professional soldier, he would say goodbye to the war at the beginning of the war and forever lose the opportunity to take revenge on the enemy. For a professional soldier like Kimmel, who lives with honor, this blow is the deadliest.

A staff officer ran to the tearful Kimmel and handed him the telegram in his hand.

"General, general, a telegram was sent from the radar station at Cape Opama, and they confirmed that the Japanese plane was from the north. Calls were also made from other radar stations, and the signals of these enemy planes were not detected in other directions before they arrived. ”

Kimmel stopped crying, turned his head to face north, and cried out through gritted teeth: "North? Very good. Order the submarine force and all the reconnaissance planes that can take off in the harbor to attack and go north to find the location of the Japanese aircraft carrier formation, and we must let the Japanese pay the bloody debt. ”

The staff officer turned around and was about to leave, when he was grabbed by Kimmer's right hand.

"Inform our bomber, tell him that the Japanese fleet is north of Pearl Harbor, and tell him not to go in the wrong direction."

The staff officer knew that Kimmel was talking about Vice Admiral Halsey, commander of the Eighth Task Force, who was called a "bomber" in the military because he liked to advocate new equipment and new technologies, and was especially good at bombing.

"I'll inform General Halsey right away." After speaking, the staff officer hurriedly ran into the headquarters.

Less than ten minutes later, on the sea east of Pearl Harbor, on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the flagship of Task Force 8, Vice Admiral Halsey held a telescope and stared anxiously in the direction of Pearl Harbor.

"There was black smoke everywhere, and you couldn't see the Japanese planes, so where were those miscellaneous pieces hiding? Haven't the reconnaissance planes found out the location of those miscellaneous ones? Halsi scolded red-earedly.

"Our reconnaissance aircraft are searching the south, and it is believed that there will be results soon." A staff officer said.

"Report, an urgent telegram from the headquarters that the Japanese fleet is on the sea north of the base, and the specific location is unknown." The communications staff officer shouted as he rushed into the bridge.

Halsey's lungs almost exploded when he heard the shouts, after the base informed him that the Japanese fleet was south of the base.

The first two groups of Japanese planes retreated first and then retreated, and the American troops in the harbor mistakenly judged the position of the Japanese fleet to be in the south of the island based on the assembly place of the Japanese planes, which allowed Halsey to make an empty trip.

Halsey slammed his fist on the bridge glass: "Those smashes turned out to be in the north, immediately let the fleet turn around, and we will go to the north to seek revenge on them." (To be continued.) )