After two days and nights of sailing, the Kurita fleet had already sailed to the waters of the southern Philippines, and the Shimizu Squadron, which was in charge of reconnaissance and decoy in front of the fleet, adjusted its course as planned and searched and advanced towards the waters of the eastern Philippines. www.biquge.info In the afternoon of this day, heavy rain fell on the sea, and the light aircraft carrier "Hequan" had no choice but to suspend its open-air flight deck operations, and the reconnaissance and vigilance tasks were completely entrusted to the accompanying light ships.

At about 3 p.m., the destroyer "Xuefeng," which was sailing more than 60 nautical miles in front of the "Izumi," suddenly issued an enemy attack warning by radio, and the sound of the battle alarm immediately woke the officers and men under the command of Mitsumi Shimizu from their drowsy state. Shimizu eagerly inquired about the situation of the battle, and at first received intermittent answers, and after only a few minutes, the "Snow Peak" with more than 200 crew members on board was not heard from.

Under such circumstances, Mitsumi Shimizu could not take care of the potential safety hazards brought by bad weather to the take-off and landing of carrier-based aircraft, and forced a group of Zero fighters to take off for reconnaissance. Although she didn't lose a single plane during takeoff, Mitsumi Shimizu's mood was as heavy as if she was carrying a thousand pounds of burden. A quarter of an hour later, the fighters who had gone to reconnoiter began to send back news that the pilots had found a large number of people who had fallen overboard and a large number of oil stains at the missing location of the "Snow Peak", and that the Japanese destroyer appeared to have been sunk by surprise.

The Zero fighter sent by Shimizu could not land on the sea, and before the reinforcements arrived at the scene, he had no way of knowing the sinking of the "Snow Peak", so he had to order those Zero Combat to reconnoiter separately, but the rain had a very great impact on the naked eye's vision, and several Zero Combat did not make any new discoveries.

Because it was expected that the enemy would most likely be hiding behind the rain curtain, Kurita gave a combat readiness order to the three main aircraft carriers, all carrier-based aircraft were refueled and bombed, and the fighters and bombers ready to launch the first wave of attack entered the take-off position, and the pilots were on standby in the combat duty room to ensure that they could be put into attack in the shortest possible time after the combat order was issued.

After another half hour, the cautious Kurita decided that he could not wait any longer, and he decided to send a quarter of the "Gale" fighters to conduct a large reconnaissance of the sector from southeast to due north.

As soon as Kurita's order was given, the upper hangars of "Kasaki", "Ikoma", and "Aso" were suddenly busy. On the wounded "Kasaki", the 11 Gale fighters of the 1st Air Combat Squadron were already equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks and rockets on their bellies and main wings, and the front four had wide wings, and the rest of the service personnel with wings folded but skills of more than four stars were able to turn them into a standard state in less than 40 seconds.

At this time, Lieutenant Masao Ogasa, who held the title of the first ace of air combat in the Japanese Navy, faced the direction of the Japanese archipelago, folded his hands, closed his eyes and prayed. After a moment, he opened his eyes and turned around, and gave a brief admonition to the fighter pilots who were about to go into battle in a subdued tone: "In this battle, the enemy planes will be several times larger than ours, but their performance is incomparable to that of 'Gale'. You must go all out, so that there are no distractions and sincere cooperation. The Imperial Army will win! ”

The pilots shouted "victory" in unison, and immediately rushed to their respective landlines.

The biggest feature of the Yunlong-class aircraft carrier is the orbital catapult placed in the upper hangar, which is powered by compressed gas, which can eject the Gale carrier-based aircraft with a combat weight of more than 4 tons, and this take-off method is less affected by the weather, which can greatly improve the overall combat efficiency of the aircraft carrier.

As the leader of the long plane, Masao Ogasa is the first to catapult and take off every time. Entering the cockpit, fastening the buckle, checking the dashboard, and then looking affectionately at the photo of his wife and daughter next to the dashboard, then took a deep breath, gently pushed the throttle forward, the engine began to make a loud roar, the hand of the rpm meter moved forward, and the plane quickly reached a state suitable for catapult takeoff. Ogasa turned his head, bowed slightly to the orderly officers with respect and anticipation, and then gave a thumbs up to the military cao who was operating the catapult.

Outside the cockpit, Jun Cao, who was in charge of directing the catapult, ordered in his usual high voice: "Number one...... Catapult ready! Catapult fire! ”

Under the action of a compressed-gas orbital catapult, the Gale accelerated from a standstill to a speed of nearly 200 kilometers per hour in the blink of an eye, but this was not enough for the carrier-based fighter to rise smoothly. In the line of sight of the service personnel, the height of the "Gale" quickly fell, and just as it was about to disappear from the horizontal line of sight, the flight trajectory of the all-metal aircraft began to rise, which meant that the catapult takeoff was successfully carried out, and a burst of cheers rang out from the hangar and bridge as usual.

There are two orbital catapults of the Yunlong-class aircraft carrier, which are placed in front of the upper hangar in a parallel way, in order to avoid the fighters from interfering with each other in the process of preparing for take-off, the No. 1 catapult on the left is slightly forward, and the No. 2 catapult on the right is slightly behind, the ejection interval between the two is usually half a minute, and it only takes less than ten minutes to eject all 11 Gale out, that is, the Japanese aircraft carrier equipped with orbital catapults and "Gale" carrier-based aircraft, The combat effectiveness is much higher than that of aircraft carriers that use the traditional taxiing take-off method and are equipped with Zero fighters. This change was not the result of a single person or research institute, but was the result of the Japanese Navy's "Eagle Program", which had been implemented since 1942. That year, the Japanese naval aviation and the Soviet Russian aviation forces fought an unprecedentedly fierce battle in Peter the Great Bay, in which both sides claimed to be the victors of the battle, but in fact both sides paid very heavy losses. After this battle, the Japanese Navy developed and began to implement the "Eagle Plan". The core of the plan is to develop and equip the successor models of carrier-based aircraft in service, and at the same time adjust the elite training mode of carrier-based aircraft pilots, lower the screening threshold for naval pilots, and implement segmented training for entry-level naval pilots, so as to greatly expand the number of naval pilots, and the most elite pilots will still give priority to the selection of carrier-based fighter units, so as to maximize the combat effectiveness of naval aviation.

By 1946, the "Eagle Plan" had achieved remarkable results, and new carrier-based aircraft such as Gale and Meteor were successively equipped with the navy, and the number of qualified pilots of the Japanese naval aviation increased from 7,600 four years ago to 14,900, including 7,300 carrier-based pilots; The number of aircraft in service has increased from 4,850 to 9,000, including 4,100 carrier-based aircraft. With the implementation of the Eagle Plan, the strength of the Japanese naval aviation doubled, and during these four years, Japan's economic and military power did not maintain the rapid development in the mid-to-late 30s, but was stagnant due to the containment of Soviet Russia, the sanctions of the League of Nations, and the resistance of the people in the occupied areas......

After more than 30 "Gale" planes took off smoothly and deployed according to the deployment, Kurita's nervousness was finally somewhat relieved. This new type of carrier-based aircraft is regarded by the Japanese navy as a secret treasure for defeating the enemy, not only because they fly faster than the Zero War and have stronger firepower than the Zero War, but because they have fully learned the lessons of World War II and the Japanese-Soviet War, and its design integrates almost all advanced elements such as self-enclosed fuel tanks, armored cockpits, bulletproof glass, hydraulic landing gear, and mechanical superchargers, and is Japan's first fighter aircraft equipped with airborne electronic reconnaissance equipment, and can carry 75 mm air-to-air rockets into the air. With the strong power provided by the 18-cylinder air-cooled star-shaped engine, they reached a maximum speed of 630 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 6,000 meters, a practical ceiling of 10,900 meters, and had a maneuverability that was not inferior to that of the Zero fighter -- it can be said that the strength of the "Gale" fully embodied the achievements of Japan's aviation and military science and technology in catching up with the world's top level, and in the early days of the outbreak of the Second Pacific War, every pilot who flew the "Gale" was the elite of the Japanese naval elite and the ace of aces. Of course, the investment in the formation and maintenance of such an elite aviation unit is far greater than that of ordinary aviation units, and the speed of engine supply cannot keep up with the plan, the "Gale" was officially put into operation for 14 months, and the output was only 960 aircraft, far less than the 2,600 aircraft produced by the US "Hellcat" in the same period.

The "Gale," which was reconnoitring eastward, detected a large number of US fighters in the 44th minute after takeoff, and swooped down towards Mitsumi Shimizu's 2nd Sentai team. Without hesitation, the Japanese pilots contacted the mothership, and then summoned friendly fighters to attack the American bombers. However, in the encounter with more than a dozen "Wildcats" and "Hellcats," the Japanese pilots won a tactical victory of 1 to 4, washing away the humiliation of the Japanese air force at the defeat of its opponent in the Philippine waters a few days ago.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of the "gale wind" to return home, the US fighter plane carried out long-distance tracking and tracking. This time, because the Japanese airborne radar was much behind the US military, the "Gale" pilots who had made the early sortie did not realize that their lost steps did not play a role at all, and when they returned with the joy of victory, they also exposed the whereabouts of the mothership to their opponents, which made them and their comrades-in-arms have to desperately block the tidal wave of US fighters in the later battles.

Alerted to the enemy attack of the Kurita fleet, Mitsumi Shimizu's 2nd Sentai had ten minutes to prepare. Thanks to the efforts of all the officers and men, especially the crew, the "Izumi" released all the carrier-based fighters before the US fighters arrived, and the pilots of the Zero Combat also showed commendable courage and technology, but the gap in numbers between the two sides was too great. In the midst of the storm, the "Izumi" and its escort ships were not able to fight back at all under the fierce attack of nearly 200 US carrier-based planes, and thousands of Japanese officers and men really felt the helplessness and sorrow of the weaker side on the battlefield, and the support they hoped for did not arrive until the end of the battle -- Kurita ordered some of his carrier-based fighters to search for the enemy aircraft carrier along the return route of the US fighters, and the rest of the carrier-based fighters led and covered the bombers to attack the enemy aircraft carrier, without even a single "gale" Sent to rescue the Shimizu Sentoun.

(End of chapter)