In the early morning, 620 kilometers southeast of Manila, four Zero fighters of the Japanese Army Air Corps engaged in an "encounter" with eight Hellcat carrier-based fighters of the US Naval Air Force. At this time www.biquge.info less than three hours had passed since the US carrier-based aircraft group had finished its raid on Manila Harbor, and because of the uncertainty about the location and formation of the US aircraft carriers, the Japanese fighters taking off from various airfields in the Philippines did not take large-scale group action, but mainly formed small reconnaissance formations. On such a sunny day, the field of view of the sea was very broad, and the pilots of the fighters of both sides discovered each other from a distance, and the air battle began without any foreshadowing......

For the first two rounds, the U.S. pilots tried to crush their opponents with numerical superiority. The "Hellcat" they piloted is not only the same as the name of the top killing weapon in the Pacific Theater in the old time and space, but also the perfect fusion of the four basic indicators of firepower, armor, speed, and mobility, and is one of the best piston carrier-based aircraft in this era, and its comprehensive performance is much ahead of the Japanese Zero fighter. However, only two of the eight US pilots had actual combat experience, and the last time they shot down an enemy plane was eight years ago, and three of the four Zero War pilots on the opposite side had participated in the Japanese-Soviet War, and the protracted and fierce war had tempered them into ferocious, keen, and extraordinarily patient "flying wolves." They undoubtedly had a significant advantage over US Navy pilots.

At the beginning of the engagement, the four Japanese pilots skillfully avoided the opponent's edge and dragged the US fighters into a low-altitude dogfight as much as possible in order to give full play to the superiority of their own fighters in terms of maneuverability, while the US pilots used the valuable experience they had gained from the Soviet and Russian air forces to try their best to avoid entanglement with the Japanese fighters at close range. Fighters on both sides rolled, whimpered, and whistled above the sea and air, and the roar of climb and dive mingled with the roar of machine guns......

After a series of struggles, the US fighters both gained momentum and scored, and they shot down two Japanese fighters one after another, winning a 2-0 victory, and the other two Japanese fighters seemed to be fleeing in embarrassment, but in fact quietly expanded the reconnaissance range a lot. It didn't take long for the Japanese pilots to see a gray group of ships on the sea, and then decisively sent a telegram to inform the garrison headquarters of the coordinates of the American ship group.

Through the tracking and interpretation of the radio communication signals of the Japanese fighters, the Americans soon learned about the exposed position of their aircraft carrier formation. Admiral William Frederick Halsey, Jr., who served as commander of the 1st U.S. Task Force in the Pacific, was not at all flustered, and he quickly adjusted the fleet from an anti-submarine alert formation at night to an anti-aircraft formation during the day, and kept the current course moving southward. At this time, the position of the US fleet was more than 2,000 kilometers away from the US military bases on Saipan and New Guinea, and it was unrealistic to expect the US land-based air units to provide fire support; at present, only the carrier-based aircraft on eight aircraft carriers were used to resist the counterattack of the Japanese air forces, and each fighter plane was very precious, and how to make good use of them was obviously the key to this battle!

At 9:10 a.m., a huge group of more than 200 Japanese fighters struck at the US aircraft carrier formation, and the dense light spots on the radar curtain made the US military technicians in the radar control room sweat a lot for their fate. However, in the face of the surging Japanese aircraft group, the US fighters who took off from the aircraft carrier formation to meet the attack also discharged a powerful lineup, and the eleven squadrons of "Hellcat" and one squadron of IR-39T quickly formed a three-dimensional mobile barrier between their own fleet and the enemy aircraft group.

Within ten minutes, a fierce air battle was unfolding on the vast sea.

The distance in space can theoretically be extended indefinitely, but the more than 400 fighters are engaged head-on, giving people a feeling of being crowded and rubbing shoulders, and the slightest negligence may cause collisions with enemy planes or friendly planes. In the Japanese air fleet, the ratio of escort fighters to bombers was about three to two, and about half of the fighters were Zero fighters that were favored by the Japanese air force, and the rest were Type 97 fighters with relatively weak comprehensive performance and Type 1 heavy fighters with twin engine configurations. In the time that the battle had been going on for only a cigarette, the balance of victory and defeat had already tilted significantly. Seeing that it was difficult for their escort fighters to fight their way through the enemy's impregnable walls, the Japanese bombers gave up the strong attack strategy of group assault one after another, and quickly dispersed to find their own fighters.

A group of Japanese troops carrying heavy aerial bombs soon ran into big trouble in front of an interceptor formation consisting of 12 IR-39Ts. As the leader of three consecutive international air shows, the Irish carrier-based aircraft was so good in all respects that these Japanese land bombers, which first flew two years later, were embarrassed. Carrying 1,500 kg of bombs, they could only fly at slightly faster speeds of 400 kilometers per hour, and although they were armed with up to seven 7.7mm machine guns, they were like toy guns in the hands of Irish carrier-based fighters. In one shot, four of these land attacks have been shot down, and the rest, not to mention attacking US warships, even looked very reluctant to run for their lives......

These aging land-based bombers had made great feats in the war of aggression against China and the war between Japan and the Soviet Union, and caused considerable casualties to the Chinese and Soviet armies. In a few rounds, the remaining Japanese bombers dropped torpedoes more than ten kilometers away from the American fleet and retreated in panic......

By 10 o'clock in the battle, the Japanese attack plane group had shot down 47 fighters and 41 bombers, with a loss rate of more than 40 percent, while the American side had lost only 21 carrier-based fighters, and another 14 were wounded and returned home. At first glance, the Japanese air force can send wave after wave of aircraft from their land bases, and the US aircraft carrier group loses one less carrier-based aircraft when fighting at sea, but at the same time, 60 percent of the downed US fighters survived and returned to the battlefield, while less than half of the Japanese pilots survived, and less than one-third were able to return to the blue sky during the war......

The heavy losses suffered in the first wave of attacks did not deter the Filipino Japanese, who were determined to use their overall superiority in the number of combat aircraft to carry out wheel operations until they destroyed the American aircraft carrier group or drove it far out of Philippine waters.

At 10:50 a.m., more than 140 Japanese fighters attacked the southbound US aircraft carrier formation in two large formations. This time, the Japanese air force changed its attack strategy, and the escort fighters no longer went all out to entangle the US carrier-based planes, but divided a part of them to attack the US aircraft carriers, so as to divert the attention of the US carrier-based fighters and reduce the resistance suffered by their own bombers. As soon as these Japanese fighters came into range of the naval guns, the twin 127-mm high-level dual-purpose guns on the US aircraft carriers and cruisers opened fire one after another. The most prominent role of this large-caliber antiaircraft gun in air defense operations is to disperse the incoming enemy aircraft group, so that the enemy cannot threaten surface targets in a pre-arranged formation, and then, the 40-mm anti-aircraft guns and 20-mm machine guns of the escort destroyers also can't wait to start firing, forming a relatively tight defensive circle with the barrage to guard against the Japanese fighters attacking from low altitudes.

Under the combined attack of large, medium, and small-caliber anti-aircraft guns of US warships, the Japanese troops that penetrated through the defense were blown up or shot down one after another, and the rest lingered on the periphery due to the dense anti-aircraft artillery fire of the US warships. Although these Japanese fighters did not pose a substantial threat to US warships, especially aircraft carriers, their direct penetration still had the effect of interfering with the sight of US carrier-based fighter pilots, and some Japanese bombers took the opportunity to find a loophole. In addition to the Japanese Army Aviation units stationed in the Philippines, Japanese Navy aircraft carriers anchored in Manila Bay and naval air forces deployed on Luzon Island also sent torpedo bombers into battle. In the midst of the fierce battle, the Japanese bomber attack began to cause damage to the American aircraft carrier. The "Enterprise," which served as the flagship of the task force, bore the brunt of the attack, first evading four torpedoes dropped by Japanese torpedo planes over a long distance, and then being bombed by several Japanese land attacks, and an aerial bomb exploded at its near side, which not only caused an impact on the hull structure below the waterline, but also injured a number of sailors fighting in the broadside air defense positions. Thankfully, the Enterprise was not the most defended aircraft carrier ever built, but it was able to withstand damage from near-misses thanks to its thick armor and tight compartment structure.

With the penetration of the last group of Japanese torpedo planes, the sea and air battles suddenly entered a climax. Several U.S. aircraft carriers opened fire with all their might while maneuvering on the surface at a large angle. Fortunately, the "lone battle" of the US surface ships did not last long, and the Japanese fighters, who had been exhausted by the battle, began to turn around and return home, and the "Hellcats," who were able to withdraw, quickly joined the low-altitude battle. There was not much suspense in the confrontation between the carrier-based fighters and the bombers, and the battle soon turned into a training and exhibition match for the American pilots, and some highly skilled pilots even fired accurately at the weak parts of the Japanese bombers' cockpits and fuel tanks at a distance of less than 50 meters.

Seeing the fighters coated with red plaster being shot down one after another, the US crew members rejoiced. With negligible losses, the U.S. Pacific Task Force continued to sail south under Halsey's command, and as their distance from the Philippine Islands continued to increase, short-legged bombers such as the Type 96 Land Attack could no longer pose a threat to them, and the Type 1 Land Attack had to reduce its payload to ensure effective range, and the effective escort time of land-based fighters was correspondingly shortened.

(End of chapter)