"Attention! Spot enemy aircraft! Get ready for battle! ”

When the rapid voice of the pilot, Ensign Kane, came from the headset, Sergeant John Parra, the machine gunner of the TBD-2 torpedo bomber, chuckled in his heart, and the long-standing apprehension finally turned into a harsh reality. www.biquge.info Nervous, he couldn't help but grip the handle of the machine gun in front of him, but the twin 7.62mm aviation machine gun didn't bring him much comfort.

As far as the eye can see, our carrier-based bombers are still lined up in neat formations, each carrying hundreds of kilograms of torpedoes or aerial bombs under their bellies. When the enemy situation appeared, the US fighters escorting the escort accelerated one after another. The fighters of the two sides, which were traveling at a relative speed of more than 750 kilometers per hour, quickly rushed within range of each other, and a fierce aerial battle began.

Although no enemy aircraft approached, Para loaded the machine gun in front of him early, and through the simple visual sight on the front of the machine gun, he was extremely careful to let the front sight move back and forth between the gaps between friendly planes, so as to open fire in the shortest possible time when enemy planes appeared.

The anxious wait didn't last long, and Pala saw a Japanese fighter in sight. There were no U.S. fighter planes tailgating, no U.S. fighter planes meeting it, and it flew alone near the U.S. bomber formation, but no one dared to ignore its threat. After a while, Parra faintly heard the sound of fried bean-like machine guns coming from the group ahead, and the Japanese fighter nimbly turned in one direction in the air, locking on the one at the very front.

Seeing this, Para secretly breathed a sigh of relief. A moment later, a rain of bullets with tracer bullets burst out from the American fleet in front of them, they were so dense. The Japanese fighter that tried to approach and attack could hardly find a chance to strike, and before long it foolishly crashed into one of the rows of bullets, breaking one wing on the spot, and then spun and crashed towards the sea.

Under the leadership of the captain of the first formation, the torpedo bomber group began to lower its altitude one after another, and the dive bomber group climbed to an altitude of three or four thousand meters as usual. The plane's gentle descent did not give a drastic visual impact, but when Pala looked up, he was shocked by what he saw: two Japanese fighters had slipped out of nowhere, and were now only two or three kilometers away from the group.

Para quickly activated the machine gun, but he soon found that the other party was still under his own gun - before he could pull the trigger, the other party slipped into the dead end of the machine gun shooting, the US Navy sergeant panicked, the biggest disadvantage of the V-shaped formation is that it is difficult for the planes to use fire to cover each other. Although the squadron consisted of 14 aircraft, Parra did not intend to pin his hopes on the enemy to attack friendly planes first, because such a sequence was meaningless in the unobstructed sea and with the huge difference in speed and firepower between the two sides.

Through the windshield, Parra watched painfully as the two Japanese fighters with plaster logos painted on their wings quickly disappeared from view. It was only a few moments before they reappeared, the nose of the machine was already facing its side, and the machine guns were already aimed at the defenseless torpedo machines.

As the enemy planes approached closer and closer, the shooters of several planes next to them could no longer care about the lack of firing angles and opened fire, such a shot may only slightly ease their tense emotions, Pala did not do such a meaningless thing, but after about half a minute, he watched the Japanese fighter calmly fire, and a string of bullets ruthlessly penetrated the weak fuselage of a friendly plane not far away. With little warning, its engine suddenly exploded and burned, and the entire plane lost its balance before stalling and crashing into the sea.

After the attack, Japanese fighters continued to whizz at a much faster speed than American carrier-based bombers. In an instant, Para found one of them in his shooting sight, and he pulled the trigger like a frenzy, the machine gun roaring, and the bullet ran off into the distance with a falling arc. But when he felt extremely painful, until the entire bullet belt was gone, his bullet never came close to the flying object with the sunburst logo.

It quickly and deftly turned in one direction, and slipped out of its own shooting range in the blink of an eye.

Parra, as he changed the belt of his machine gun as fast as he could, blamed himself for not taking advantage of such an opportunity, as if he had forgotten that he had a weapon that was rather "weak" in front of a fighter, and the Japanese pilot was clearly pleased with it.

Seeing that this group of slow torpedo planes were about to suffer one after another, a savior was born. I saw two "Eagle Falcons" swooping down from a high altitude, and while the Japanese pilots were still immersed in the thrill of slaughter and defenseless, they poured a series of bullets on them, and one of the Japanese Type 92 land-based fighters appeared on the metal skin of a row of bullet holes, and when these bullet holes finally extended to the pilot's cockpit and engine position, another life ended its own war journey.

Upon discovering that his companion had met with bad luck, another Japanese fighter immediately abandoned its delicious prey and escaped the pursuit of the "Eagle Falcon" through a dazzling air maneuver.

After surviving this catastrophe, the torpedo group of Ensign Kane and Sergeant Parra had already flown into the predetermined airspace, and the Truk Island and Reef group and Japanese ships appeared on the sea under the fuselage. The commander of the formation then issued a combat command by radio: each looking for a target and launching an attack, and the torpedo projection height must not exceed 100 feet!

Considering that the carrying of torpedoes affects the flight speed and maneuverability, giving priority to attacking ships outside the islands and reefs has become the unanimous choice of all crews.

It is worth mentioning that in the two-person crew of the American-made TBD torpedo machine, the dropping of torpedoes is not the task of the machine gunner and bombardier, but the responsibility of the pilot. The pilot must first visually measure the size, speed and distance of the target, input the observations into the torpedo drop controller below the sight, and then put the target into the sight and keep flying in a straight line until it flies to the drop point given by the torpedo drop controller through feedback data. It sounds a bit unbelievable, and people think it's too complicated for a pilot to do it alone, but it's a complete set of fixed maneuvers for TBD to perform torpedo attacks, and only a well-trained pilot can do it in an orderly manner. If the situation forced the bombardier to operate the bombing sight, he had to climb from the seat in the middle of the cockpit directly below the pilot in the front seat, and the sight could only be operated correctly by lying prone in the belly......

"We've found our target, and we're ready to launch a torpedo attack, John, help me keep an eye on the back, and don't let the Japanese kick us in the ass!" Second Lieutenant Kane gave orders to Sergeant Parra.

Para had been watching warily as far as his vision could see, and he replied decisively, "Understood, sir! ”

The torpedo planes soon entered a dangerous state of low-altitude level flight, and fearful things followed, and a camouflage-painted 95 ship battle suddenly swooped down from the sky. Para hurriedly pulled the trigger, but the guy flickered his wings lightly, and then opened fire condescendingly, and the four machine guns instantly spewed out deadly tongues of fire!

"Sir, pull the plane up!" Para exclaimed, but it was too late, as bullets from Japanese planes swept across the tail and left wing.

"Oh, damn it, we got shot, and the plane didn't listen......" After only a few moments, Second Lieutenant Kane yelled, "Sit tight! We're going to land on the surface! ”

Fortunately, they flew at a low altitude and at a slow speed, and before the plane made a forced landing, Ensign Kane dropped the torpedo in a very timely manner. When the fuselage of the plane touched the water, the whole plane trembled violently, and it seemed that it could disintegrate at any time, but after bouncing and taxiing on the sea surface relatively calmly for some distance, it finally stopped, the fuselage was almost split in half from the middle, the nose of the plane was already immersed in water, and the cocked tail was still close to the water.

"Hey, John, are you alright?"

While inquiring about the situation of the deputy, Ensign Kane tried to inflate the buoyancy packs under the wings - as an aid to escape, a rubber inflatable buoyancy bag was installed under the wings on each side of the TBD torpedo plane, and when the plane made a forced landing at sea, they could be operated by the pilot or automatically inflated and opened, so that the plane could float on the surface of the sea for a long enough time for the aircraft crew to complete the series of escape maneuvers. However, next to these two buoyancy packets are two with a total of nearly 1,000 liters of aviation fuel, and the fuel tanks are not designed to be self-sealing, which cannot but be said to be a great safety hazard.

"I'm fine, it's just...... I heard that the Japanese army treated prisoners of war very unkindly! Para muttered as he pushed open the sliding cabin glass, but as he poked his head out to look around, he was dumbfounded by the fierce fighting scene. In a small area of sight, dozens of dark-painted U.S. Navy bombers were exhausted by the relatively small but extremely ferocious Japanese fighters, and the U.S. fighters that had previously escorted the ship were nowhere to be found. Almost every minute or two, a wounded American bomber fell with a thick smoke whimpering, and tragic scenes of volley explosions also occurred from time to time.

Not far away, the sea is surrounded by islands and reefs, the smoke of artillery flames is filled, and the outlines of warships are faintly visible. As a matter of fact, the tragic sacrifice of the US torpedo bomber unit was not worthless; while the Japanese fighter pilots were hunting these slow and stupid birds at low altitudes, SBD and Ju-17T dive bombers that took off from the US aircraft carriers launched a wave of fierce bombardment of the Japanese warships and land facilities on Truk Island, severely damaging two Japanese capital ships and sinking and damaging one auxiliary aircraft carrier on the spot.

(End of chapter)