readx;

Chapter 1279 Air Battle in North China (3)

At 10:15 a.m., after a brutal, half-hour-long air-ground battle, as 25 fighters of the 4th Brigade of the Central Air Force joined the battle group, the anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft machine gun positions on the ground automatically stopped firing. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

In coordination with the sortie of the Fourth Group, the fighters of the 1st, 4th, and 6th Independent Squadrons of the Central Air Force, which had previously evaded in the southwest direction, turned back as planned, and soon joined the melee with the Japanese fighters.

"Whoosh-"

After Gao Zhihang drove the A26 fighter into the Japanese fighter group, he aimed at the tail of a Mitsubishi 92 reconnaissance plane in front of him and opened fire. Gao Zhihang smiled, and just wanted to follow the pursuit, when suddenly the sound of bullets hitting the shell of the plane was heard in his ears, and he quickly turned his head to look, only to see a Kawasaki 95 fighter plane in the right rear firing at himself.

Gao Zhihang hurriedly raised the nose of the plane, avoided the rain of bullets, and then made a sharp turn to the right, and at the same time increased his horsepower, and circled behind the enemy plane like lightning.

The Japanese Kawasaki Type 95 fighter turned sharply, clenching the tail of the Gao Zhihang fighter, and the two fighters spun in circles in the air. In desperation, Gao Zhihang had to choose to temporarily avoid and pull up the nose of the plane again to climb rapidly into the air.

It is estimated that he understood that the climbing efficiency of his fighter was not as good as that of his opponent, and the pilot of the Kawasaki Type 95 fighter decisively chose to give up, turned the nose of the plane, and pounced on another Chinese fighter.

Gao Zhihang glanced back, smiled slightly, made a beautiful vertical turn, and made another high-altitude dive, rushing towards the Kawasaki Type 95 fighter that had already turned.

The Kawasaki Type 95 fighter didn't realize that the fleeing opponent was weirdly glued to himself, and his attention was all focused on the Hawker III fighter in front.

Gao Zhihang smiled with satisfaction, flexibly piloted the fighter, and continued to look for the next target.

At this time, Li Guidan, the leader of the 21st Squadron, was chasing the Nakajima Type 95 fighter plane that was desperately escaping in front, and the enemy plane was very cunning, and even made a downward maneuver. Although the nose and wings of this heavy bomber, which could carry seven people, were not equipped with machine guns, they could be fired from fixed machine guns by the crew using the firing port on the cockpit.

At the moment when the two sides looked at each other, the firing ports on the cabins of the three bombers erupted with surging tongues of fire, but Li Guidan was not afraid and pulled the control stick suddenly, and the A26 fighters immediately entered a state of horizontal flight, rushing out of the firepower network carefully composed of the three machine guns of the Japanese planes like lightning.

Li Guidan flew again, and suddenly went around behind one of the clumsy Japanese bombers, pressed the machine gun launch button, and saw countless bullets instantly hit the cockpit of the bomber in front, and the Mitsubishi Type 97 heavy bomber suddenly lost control and planted straight to the ground.

Of course, not every pilot has Li Guidan's astuteness, and in the death traps that have been deliberately woven into many exercises during the training of Japanese fighters and bombers, there are still many Chinese fighters who have suffered heavy losses, but fortunately this is Baoding, China's airspace, pilots can choose to parachute, and even after the plane falls to the ground, there is still a chance to survive because it was rescued in time.

As time went on, the battles in the skies became more and more intense, the number of fighters that the Japanese could use to escort ships became less and less, and the balance of victory began to tilt in favor of the Chinese Air Force.

After Gao Zhihang killed two obstructive Japanese bombers in a row, he pulled up the fighter again, carefully observed it in the air for a while, a satisfied smile appeared on his face, and shouted an order at the intercom:

"Almost all of the Japanese fighters were killed by us, and the 21st Squadron cleaned up the battlefield with me to see if there were any fish that slipped through the net. The 22nd and 23rd squadrons immediately pursued and killed the enemy's bombers and reconnaissance planes, and if they could take down ten enemy fighters in one go, I would like to ask you for credit! ”

There was a burst of cheers from the intercom, and the arrogant voice of Squadron Leader Li Guidan of the 21st Squadron came: "Guanghan, Yingchu, you go to practice target shooting first, even if I let you go for ten minutes, wait until the battlefield is cleaned up and then compare with you on the number of enemy planes shot down, there will be time for it!" ”

Li Guidan's words attracted a disdainful laughter, and Huang Guanghan, the leader of the 22nd squadron, scolded with a smile: "You grandson, just wait to lose and cry your nose, although our A25 is not as good as the A26, but it is enough to deal with slow bombers!" Mao Yingchu, the leader of the 23rd Squadron, was even more arrogant: "Guidan, why don't we bet on the fighter?" If I shoot down more enemy planes than you, how about your squadron's A26 being replaced by us? ”

Li Guidan scolded angrily: "My grandson just bet on you!" After speaking, ignoring the laughter of everyone in the headphones, he accelerated violently and followed closely behind Gao Zhihang's plane, and the rest of the fighters of the 21st Squadron followed.

As a result, the fighters of the 4th Brigade in the sky instantly split into two parts, one of which chased the Japanese bombers and reconnaissance planes that were still stubbornly resisting, and the other part suddenly accelerated and turned, circling the entire skies of the exchange of fire, looking for the remaining fighters of the Japanese army.

At this time of the air battle, almost all the Japanese air force officers who participated in the war knew that the situation was not good, but it was a pity that the Japanese fighters at this time were generally not equipped with radio communication systems, and there was no way to even consult with someone, so they could only fight their own battles in frustration and carry out stupid and tragic air bayonet operations. However, there are also sober-minded people who know that the defeat is now decided, and begin to look for every opportunity to escape - the task that was originally thought to be easy to complete has now turned into a painful defeat, and someone must go back to report it, at least let the people above understand that the Empire's fighters have fallen behind, and if some improvements are not made, a similar fiasco will be inevitable.

It is a pity that the A26 fighters hovering on the edge of the battlefield did not give a few sober-minded Japanese pilots a chance to escape at all, and before the other side had time to accelerate, they turned into shining fireworks in the lightning-fast pursuit of the A26.

At this time, due to the cessation of artillery fire on the ground, the people outside the city of Baoding have left the shelter and the hidden caves of the city wall, extinguishing the fire, saving people and saving people, and the rest have occupied the houses or the high places of the city wall, looking forward to watching. Every time a Japanese fighter plane exploded or fell, it let out earth-shattering cheers.

Just as time passed, and the Japanese bombers and reconnaissance planes, which still had a clear numerical superiority, were looking for every opportunity to find a collision with the opponent's fighters in order to end up together, dozens of Chinese fighters flew again in the skies of the northwest and south, which was like the last straw on the camel's back, making the Japanese Air Force pilots, who had not lost their fighting spirit before, completely desperate, and escaping seemed to be the only choice at present.

As a result, in a very short period of time, almost all the Japanese fighters began to turn around their noses, fired all their horsepower, and fled frantically to the northwest like bees that exploded their nests, and the air battle evolved from an extremely chaotic struggle to a one-sided pursuit.

Obviously, it is unrealistic to let clumsy bombers and fighters compete with dexterity and speed, so in the airspace of North China, there is an extremely rare scene: after the Japanese light and heavy bombers are targeted by the Chinese fighters who are chasing after them, just like hitting balloon targets during flight training on weekdays, they shoot and blast one by one, and you can see bright and extinguished sparks in the sky from time to time, brilliant and spectacular!

The journey from Baoding to Bohai Haikou became a terrifying journey to death, and all the bombers of the Japanese North China Garrison Air Corps were annihilated in this pursuit and escape battle.

Relatively speaking, the fate of the reconnaissance aircraft was better. All along, one of the principles of the development of the Japanese Army's reconnaissance planes has been that they must be faster and more agile and flexible than the enemy's fighters, so that they can independently invade the enemy's depth and gather intelligence under the threat of the enemy's fighters; therefore, in the confrontation with the Chinese Air Force, the Mitsubishi Type 97 Command reconnaissance plane, which the Japanese Army Air Force just equipped with last year, barely managed to gain a glimmer of life with a speed of nearly 480 kilometers per hour.

But then again, if it weren't for Tokugawa's great rejoicing and the fact that reconnaissance planes with a serial bomb capacity of only one or two hundred kilograms were sent out to serve as bombers, it is estimated that it would have been impossible for Japanese planes to return safely to the airfields where they were stationed, and naturally they would not have known the secret of the Chinese Air Force's victory, and to a certain extent, this could be regarded as a kind of luck for the Japanese Air Force. Of course, no one is aware of this now, in the previous air battle, of the 72 reconnaissance planes dispatched by the Japanese army, only 30 or so remained, and along with this escape, the slightly slower winged Nakajima Type 94 reconnaissance plane was cleaned up, while the Mitsubishi Type 97 Command reconnaissance plane, which had a speed of up to 480 kilometers per hour, was chased and killed by A26 fighters with a speed comparable to it, and five of them escaped by luck, which was also the only surviving Japanese fighter in this air battle.

The Japanese officers and soldiers who confronted the squadron on the front line in Langfang witnessed the Chinese Air Force's pursuit and killing of Japanese fighters, and they were all stunned and could hardly believe their eyes. On the contrary, the officers and men of the 17th Army were deeply encouraged, and the cheers and shouts of "Long live the Chinese Air Force" came and went. When the scarred Japanese reconnaissance plane landed at Dalian Airport half an hour later, I wonder what kind of strong shock it would cause the Japanese army and navy.

With no Japanese fighters in the airspace over North China, the Fourth, Third, Fifth, and Ninth Brigades of the Central Air Force and their independent squadrons began to return one after another.

In this thrilling air battle, the initiative was firmly in the hands of the squadron from the very beginning. After a great war, although the ground air defense units suffered heavy losses, the Central Air Force only lost 18 fighters, while the Japanese fighters lost as much as 226 planes. The Chinese Air Force, which has made history, will surely become the focus of attention all over the world.