When the first rays of the morning sun fell on the battlefield outside Abersoch, people were amazed to find that the scene here was like purgatory on earth: scorched black craters, stumps and broken arms, blood and water in the depressions, and no vegetation left everywhere. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Another round of offensive was a failure, and the British soldiers who had fought hard all night were physically and mentally exhausted. Faced with a surge in casualties after dawn, the commander had to abandon his attempt at a quick victory and switch from a positional offensive to a stalemate, which gave the coalition landing force an invaluable respite. The soldiers repaired the fortifications and consolidated the defense, and the subsequent landing troops joined the battle line with a whole company and a whole camp, and the panicked military spirit was stabilized, and in the coastal waters of Abersoch, the spectacular scene of "a thousand sails on the side of the boat" made every witness's blood boil......

"Attention all of the Storm Squadron, we are close to the bombardment area, there are signs of firefighting in the nearby airspace, pay attention!"

The radio waves, which carried the communications message, were emitted by a single-engine, two-wing, two-seater fighter plane with a trefoil logo on its fuselage, and two young pilots sat in the cockpit with the canopy closed. The former uses the on-board radio while scanning the forward area with a wary gaze, while the latter is engrossed in the rear view, holding the rear-facing machine gun firmly in both hands.

Around this fighter, more than 30 planes of the same model were lined up in two large herringbone formations, each with a short cigar-shaped medium bomb hanging under the belly, and two short, round light bombs on each wing. These murderous fighters are the IK-20 light bomber developed and manufactured by the Royal Irish Aircraft Factory, which is far less famous than Deutsche Airline's Ju-30, but when it comes to the IK-20T carrier-based aircraft nicknamed "Swordfish", many people will remember the sinking of the USS Ioda that caused a sensation four years ago. Although there is no public claim for this event, which almost led to a world war, it is widely believed that the Swordfish, the Irish aid to the Mexican Christian Resistance, were responsible for the sinking of the American battleship Ioda, and that the pilot was most likely Irish.

Two squadrons of IK-20s flew at an altitude of more than two hundred meters above sea level in a steady manner, and in a few more kilometers they would have reached the predetermined bombing area. At this moment, an exclamation came from the radio communication channel: "Enemy aircraft found in the upper right!" ”

The Irish pilots sitting in the cockpit looked up and saw several lead-colored shadows swooping down from the heights. With the performance characteristics of light bombers, scattering and dodging was the best choice at this time, but their own escort fighters had already met head-on, and the two squadron commanders invariably instructed their subordinates to maintain formation.

On the Coen Peninsula, the battle for air supremacy on the battlefield was undecided, and the lesson of the previous day was so profound that when the coalition forces sent bombers to the Coen Peninsula, the ratio of escort fighters was at least one to one. The appearance of a few enemy planes at this moment seemed to be insignificant, but air combat was often more variable than land and naval battles, and the escort fighters twice as large as the opponent could not guarantee the absolute safety of their own bombers - only to see a British monoplane like a dribbling master on a football field, swaying left and right to dodge down at high speed over the interception of the Irish fighters, followed by a burst of machine guns like fried beans. Between the flashes of lightning, an IK-20 was hit by a barrage of bullets, and billowing black smoke billowed from the engine position. After a few moments, it could no longer maintain a steady flight, and its fuselage skewed, stalling and crashing into the sea.

The sharp performance of the British fighters gave the apprehensive Irish bomber pilots a blow to the slap in the face, and the rear-seat machine guns roared hard, but their firepower pale in front of the nimble British fighters.

The commander's voice sounded in the headphones of the bomber pilots at the right time: "Keep in formation!" Watch for cover! ”

The formation remained unchanged from the fact that the plane had just been shot down, but the pilots were nervous, fearing that the deadly enemy would inflict more losses on them, and that maintaining formation meant living and dying with their comrades - not a battle for their personal luck.

Fortunately, the elite route of the Irish Air Force allowed them to have enough excellent pilots to put themselves on the front line at the beginning of the war, and the two escort fighters quickly came to fill the position.

After this hiccup, the two squadrons of IK-20s quickly flew into the airspace of the battlefield and lowered the flight altitude to about fifty meters as planned - ten stories felt high, but when the plane flew at such an altitude, whether it was its clear appearance, the raised air current, or the loud roar of the engine, it would bring strong sensory stimulation to the people on the ground.

Low-altitude and ultra-low-altitude bombing with tactical bombers is by no means a brain-hot idea of a certain coalition commander, but a new method of warfare that emerged in the early 20s, and the Allied camp and the US-British alliance have many admirers in high positions, so Germany, Ireland, Britain, the Soviet Union, Japan, the United States and other countries have successively developed and equipped light bombers that meet the requirements of low-altitude bombing, among which Germany's Ju-30 "light crossbow" is the most prestigious. Because of the favor of Crown Prince Wilhelm, by the outbreak of the war, the Luftwaffe had more than 2,900 Ju-30s, the largest number of bombers in a single model, and what was different was that many Ju-30 brigades formed a semi-fixed relationship with the army's standing corps, and played a role similar to that of a military heavy artillery group in daily training exercises. On the first day of the war, before the coalition forces landed on the Cohen Peninsula, groups of Ju-30s bombed Redlin and Abersoch under the cover of fighter jets.

"Didn't see the enemy attacking troops, they have already retreated?"

"I didn't see a single British soldier, but there were a lot of motionless chariots, and I don't know if they were completely destroyed."

"Leave them alone, our target is the living British soldiers, who should be in the trenches...... Yes, I think I saw it, there were a lot of people in the trenches ahead...... Notice the trenches in the north-south direction, it was the line of defense that we lost last night, and now it has been taken by the British, we fly along the trenches, then drop, strafe, retreat, watch out for ground fire! ”

Invisible radio waves shuttled over the battlefield, and the two-person herringbone formation gradually adjusted into an incomplete flight column, and when they approached the trench that was crooked and full of craters, the bullets from the ground quickly became dense, but the fighters in a low-altitude flight state were not as free as flying at medium and high altitudes, and every movement must be cautious, otherwise they might crash on their own before being hit by enemy guns.

The lead fighter took the lead in flying over the trench, and before it could start dropping bombs, a series of bullets hit its fuselage and wings, and even a few of them hit the aerial bombs under the belly to splash a little spark, this situation can't help but make people sweat, but like the vast majority of light bombers with low-altitude bombing as their main combat skill, the IK-20's protection settings are very targeted, and it is almost impossible for ordinary bullets fired from below to penetrate its engine, cockpit and fuel tank parts. Penetrating injuries in other locations are usually not fatal.

Piloting the warplanes through a hail of bullets, the Irish pilots were both proud and terrified at the same time. With such ambivalence, they completed the bombing in the shortest possible time - a 150-kilogram aerial bomb could kill or kill a living creature within a radius of thirty or forty meters, and a 50-kilogram aerial bomb could send an entire platoon of soldiers huddled in a trench to heaven, constantly creating circular "vacuum areas" in British positions.

The force of the explosion was so strong that the plane, which was rapidly pulled up after the bomb dropped, had a noticeable tremor in the air.

In the process of pulling up, the rear machine gunners of each IK-20 wasted no time in firing, and most of them used up the entire drum before they gave up. Then, the Irish bombers quickly climbed to an altitude of five or six hundred meters, gathered their formation, and headed westward. After regrouping, the pilots were pleasantly surprised to find that their loss rate was less than 10 percent in this seemingly dangerous low-altitude bombing!

In fact, the British infantry crammed into the trenches were not the most ideal targets, and the field artillery deployed behind the battle line and the woods that might be used to gather troops and hoard ammunition were the most valuable bombing targets.

Before the group left the battlefield, a new warning came from the communication channel: "A group of British fighters is catching up from behind!" Where are our escort fighters? ”

The accompanying escort fighters did not appear in time, but fortunately, several monoplane fighters with gray-green camouflage paint flew in front of them. Their wingspan does not look shorter than that of a biplane bomber like the IK-20, the fuselage is shaped like a sharp shuttle, and the nose landing gear is retracted, and the aerodynamic performance is significantly better than that of earlier fighters.

"It's the Luftwaffe Fokker G-51!" Someone in the communication channel excitedly shouted, "Hooray! ”

"Just in time! It was up to them to deal with the British fighters, and we continued to climb and evacuate at full speed. The squadron commander ordered.

Thanks to its excellent design performance, the German Fokker G-51 appeared to be at ease on the battlefield, but they were not invincible after all, and the British fighters who were chasing after them seemed to have a strong sense of revenge, they only used part of their forces to entangle the German fighters, and the rest desperately chased after them. A few minutes later, the escorting Irish fighters arrived, but there were already six fewer IK-20s capable of returning to Ireland - there was no absolute air supremacy, and every sortie of tactical bombers was bound to take great risks.

(End of chapter)