Blue sky, white clouds, blue waves. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The Norwegian Sea in early summer is the best time of the year, and both the sea and the blue sky are exceptionally clear and transparent.

A buzzing sound suddenly came from above the clouds, breaking the silence between the sea and the sky. Then I saw dozens of SBD and TBD fighters painted with three-color or four-color concentric circle insignia on the fuselage and wings coming out of the white clouds like oil paintings, and the bombs and torpedoes hanging on the belly of the plane could be faintly seen, which made people feel a burst of murderous aura scattered in all directions!

It was a huge attack group of 50 SBDs and 39 TBDs, one less SBD dive bomber than when it took off from four aircraft carriers an hour and a half earlier – the plane had to make a forced landing at sea after its engine failed 30 minutes earlier, and plunged headlong into the sea after the forced landing was unsuccessful......

However, this accident did not dampen the morale of the British pilots, who had become accustomed to all sorts of accidents in the past two or three months, and had heard of the heroic deeds of the carrier-based aircraft units in the past - or heavy losses! Therefore, I have long regarded life and death relatively lightly.

In addition, all of them knew that today's war was directly related to the survival of the British Empire! As members of the Royal Navy, they must do their duty.

Now all eyes are on the sea and searching over and over again, looking for the legendary main force of the German High Seas Fleet!

These planes have been in the sky for an hour and a half, and if you count the time it takes them to take off from an aircraft carrier and then form a formation, most of them have flown for more than 2 hours! If, after another 45 minutes and no more than 1 hour, the whereabouts of the main forces of the German High Seas Fleet are still not found, then the only way to return home is to throw away the bombs. This is too depressing, these planes already knew the coordinates of the German High Seas Fleet when they set off, and received 2 corrected coordinates during the flight, and this will not be the laughing stock of naval aviation all over the world if they can't be found and said?

At this moment, Lieutenant Smith, the commander-in-chief of the air raids of these 89 British bombers/torpedo bombers, suddenly saw a black smoke in front of him quickly passing down from the sky!

Lieutenant Smith, who had repeatedly engaged German planes over the English Channel, immediately recognized that it was a plane crashing with black smoke in tow!

"It must have been planes from the Faroe Islands, they arrived first!" Captain Smith thought to himself, and hurriedly turned the control stick in his hand to accelerate the plane in the direction where it crashed.

Within a few minutes of flying, a picture of air combat that he would never forget (and he didn't have much time left in his life) was unfolded before his eyes.

Explosions, smoke, flames, and countless planes hovered around something.

Captain Smith looked down at the sea and saw that about 20 German ships of various sizes had already formed an anti-aircraft formation on the sea. On the periphery was a circle of light cruisers and destroyers, which would be 2 aircraft carriers and 2 ...... It was as if heavy cruisers were guarding in the middle. The anti-aircraft guns of all German ships were firing, the fire was so dense that it was woven into a protective net almost in the air. From time to time, Bristol "Beaufort" torpedo bombers, which broke through the blocks of German aircraft and forcibly penetrated from low altitudes, were smashed to pieces!

At high altitude, many "Wellington" heavy bombers were being chased by the Fokker Zero, and some of them even dropped a string of bombs indiscriminately, but unfortunately these bombs were all very biased, let alone hit, and there was not even a single miss. On the contrary, one "Wellington" was beaten into a "turkey" by the Fokker Zero in front of Captain Smith's eyes, and fell headlong into the sea.

……

"Lieutenant General, there are dozens of enemy planes, all of them single-engine planes......"

On the aircraft carrier "Seydlitz", Helmut, who was calmly commanding the fleet to fight an air defense battle. Heyer had just received information from the lookout post that the radar had already detected another wave of enemy planes approaching, but he didn't know how many engines these planes had.

"Single-engine aircraft? Is it a fighter? "Helmut. Heyer walked briskly to the side of the bridge and raised his binoculars to look into the sky.

The captain of the "Seydlitz" Fritz. Colonel Hinze put down the telephone receiver and shouted to Heyer: "Lookout report, it's not a fighter, it's an SBD dreadnought dive bomber and a TBD destroyer torpedo attack aircraft!" ”

"It's an American plane!?" Lieutenant General Heyer was taken aback by the news. These two aircraft have not been in the lineup of the British Air Force and Naval Aviation in the past, and the British introduced them in strict secrecy. Although German intelligence has received some information, they are not sure.

"I don't know this yet......" Fritz. Colonel Hince shook his head and said, "The enemy plane is still 20 kilometers away, and the lookout post cannot see the insignia clearly. ”

Heyer gritted his teeth, "No matter how much! Immediately transfer 1, no, transfer 2 squadrons to go up and intercept, and you can't let the dreadnought aircraft enter the dive position! ”

After almost a year of war, now both the Luftwaffe and the Navy already knew that the threat of dive bombers to surface ships was fatal. Because the bombing accuracy of such aircraft is extremely high! The German Fokker 99 theoretically had a bomb hit rate of more than 85%! The JU88 has a lower hit rate, but it's not difficult to reach 50% in training. If dozens of SBDs succeed in penetrating the defense, it will be a big deal.

"Squadron 1 and Squadron 2 follow me to stop those damn Yankees!"

Hersman Jr., who was flying planes in the air, received an order from Major Max, the flight control officer of the "Seydlitz," and hurriedly shook off a P-51 that was fighting with him, and while raising the altitude, he gave orders to the 1st and 2nd squadrons of the 1st Carrier-based Aircraft Group through the airborne radio.

"Kill the Yankees!"

"Kill the Yankees!"

The 30 pilots of the 2 squadrons (including the 31 people in total who were shot down in the battle just now) had long been provoked by the "Katarina" seaplane with "freedom of navigation" - people are fighting a world war, and you will come to break through with a "freedom of navigation" sign, isn't this bullying the Germans to be honest?

At this time, when they got the order, everyone was red-eyed, and they rushed up in the plane to find the Americans desperately.

"Captain, Falk Zero!"

Captain Smith of the British Navy, who commanded these "American planes", was pondering how to arrange the SBD and TBD to attack together, when the machine gunner sitting behind him suddenly shouted, and shouted a name that scared everyone - Fokker Zero!

"They're coming!" The machine gunner's voice sounded panicked to the extreme.

At this time, Captain Smith also spotted the Fokker Zero that was rapidly gaining altitude and rushing towards him. He hurriedly shouted, "Disperse!" Take the detachment as a unit and fight on your own! Come on! ”

As soon as he saw the number of opponents, he knew that it was impossible to maintain the formation anymore, so he immediately ordered to spread out the formation and fight separately, with a simple intention.

How many Fokker Zeros can there be on German aircraft carriers? With the large number of people and planes, there will always be a few planes that can successfully break through, and as long as a few bombs hit the aircraft carrier, the next thing will be easy to do.

With this mentality, the 89 SBDs and TBDs did not care about the formation or cover each other, and they did not hide when they saw the terrible Zero, and all of them rushed towards the anti-aircraft artillery fire net of the German fleet.

Not to mention, such a deadly shock is still useful. In the end, there are only 31 Fokker Zeros carried by Hesman Jr., how can they block 89 oncoming planes? Although these German carrier-based pilots were all elites, they were also a little confused when they encountered this kind of aircraft fighting bayonets. Only about 20 Fokker Zeros fired at interceptions in time, hitting 6 SBDs and 3 TBDs. However, these American planes are very strong, and even if they hit a 20mm shell, they may not be killed immediately, and as a result, only 3 SBDs and 2 TBDs fell.

"Hell, hurry up!" Little Hersman is also anxious, he has already "lost" an aircraft carrier, but it is an Italian aircraft carrier, not very distressed, but this time it is two German aircraft carriers, and he is also the acting captain of the carrier-based fleet of one of the aircraft carriers, so he can't make any more mistakes!

The 31 ace pilots reacted quickly, and at the moment when Hirschman Jr. gave the order, everyone had already piloted the plane to roll in the sky, adjusted the direction of the nose, and then accelerated away after the SBD and TBD in front of them. Most of the pilots turned on the injection combustion system, and by "drugged" the engine, the power and speed were temporarily increased, and soon more than 20 SBDs and TBDs were bitten, and then a string of flames rolled over.

The difference between the ace and the rookie is quickly apparent, the ace is highly skilled in driving and very accurate in shooting. And the rookies will only rush in the plane, and the machine gunner in the back seat will not be able to shoot accurately, only know how to fight randomly.

Fifteen British planes were shot in an instant, dragging smoke and falling down. Hirschman Jr. also shot down one this time, increasing his shot down count to 23 - two more to take the blue Max.

However, the rest of the SBDs and TBDs were not ambiguous, and they all plunged headlong into the fire network composed of anti-aircraft artillery fire, and suddenly seven or eight planes were beaten into "turkeys" by the dense rain of bullets.

This time it was little Hersman's turn to be dumbfounded! Now the anti-aircraft firepower of German surface ships is very powerful, after the Scapa Bay air raid on September 3, 39, the anti-aircraft artillery of German surface ships was upgraded to a second level, and after the naval battle in the Eastern Mediterranean, it was upgraded to a second level, equipped with a large number of Bofors twin 40mm water-cooled anti-aircraft guns, which can shoot a dense fire net. Therefore, according to the regulations, carrier-based planes are not allowed to rush into their own air defense fire circle to pursue enemy planes without permission...... (To be continued.) )