On November 1, Showa 18, the Tokyo Airfield (airfield) located in Edomi-cho, Haneda, Putian Ward, Tokyo, was already heavily guarded by military police who appeared out of nowhere. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Tokyo Airfield, Japan's first state-run civil aviation airport, opened in August 1931 and covers an area of 53 hectares with a runway with a total length of 300 meters and a width of 15 meters.

However, from May of Showa 18 (43), this civilian airport, which had been largely deserted since the outbreak of the Pacific War, suddenly opened up a large number of engineers belonging to the army, began to expand on a large scale, and requisitioned hundreds of hectares of land around it. After several months of hectic construction, by the end of October 18, the expansion was completed, and the airport was more than ten times larger than before. In addition, barbed wire fences have been set up around it, signs of military restricted areas have been hung, and large groups of military police patrol around all day.

What was once a civilian airport is now a highly classified military airport.

In the original terminal building, the current Haneda Base Headquarters building, the most powerful ministers of the Japanese Empire, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo (the Minister of War is also him), Navy Minister Yamamoto Isoroku, Army General Staff Headquarters Chief Sugiyama Moto, Navy Commander Nagano Shusu and others. At this time, they were all in military uniforms and carrying sabers, standing in a hall facing the airport runway on the second floor, watching one huge four-round long-range bomber after another roar down on the airport runway.

Landing are 42 Me264 long-range bombers that flew 15,000 kilometers from Germany back to Japan.

The price of each of these Me264s purchased by the Japanese is as high as 1.5 million European marks, and if you add the cost of crew training, various modifications, fuel when returning to Japan, as well as the cost of random parts and random technicians, the total price of each aircraft will be as high as 2 million European marks.

84 planes, a total of 168 million euromarks, converted into 285.6 million yen! Even more than the cost of a battleship of the "Yamato" class......

The Japanese base camp naturally took the treasures back at a sky-high price, and large airports were built for them to take off and land on Haneda near Tokyo and Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands.

At the same time, Japan's Mitsubishi, Nakajima, Kawasaki, Kawanishi and other aircraft manufacturers have also been instructed to form a research team to disassemble and study the two Me264s and the two Me262s (each priced at 1 million euromarks) that arrived at the same time. If possible, it is necessary to imitate it.

In addition, the "Silver Reaper" suicide missile, which also took a huge amount of money to get its hands on, was also the object of imitation by the Japanese military industry.

To this end, Hasegawa Kiyoshi also requested at his meeting with Hersmann on October 30 (Berlin time) that the Me264, which had returned from the early voyage, carry two more "Silver Reaper" (1 trainer bullet and 1 normal bullet).

In addition to two Me262 jet fighters and two Silver Reaper, 42 Me264 long-range bombers returned from Germany with 250 Mercedes-Benz DB601F engines with a maximum output of 1,350 hp. Compared with the previous two big deals worth more than 100 million euromarks, the value of 250 Mercedes-Benz DB601E engines is less than 10 million euromarks, which is really a small business.

However, for the upcoming "Jet One Operation", this deal is no less important than the purchase of Me264 and the Silver Reaper.

Because these 250 "backward engines" (which are backward for the current Luftwaffe) turned out of the Luftwaffe warehouses were intended to be installed on the Japanese Army's most advanced Type 3 "Feiyan" II fighters.

The Type 3 "Feiyan" fighter is based on the He-100 fighter sold by Germany to Japan in its early years. Because there was a He-100 to copy, the development process went very smoothly, and it was mass-produced in early 1942.

However, because the aircraft copied from Germany uses a liquid-cooled engine (copycat DB601) that the Japanese aviation industry has not fully mastered, the failure rate is high, and the ground crew also finds it difficult to maintain.

Therefore, since the day of its birth, the Type III "Feiyan" fighter has not been liked by the Japanese Army Air Force, and its popularity cannot be compared with that of the Type 4 "Hurricane" fighter.

So it has been in service for a long time, and there are not many aviation units using the three-type "Feiyan". However, the series of fierce battles in the Pacific Ocean that began on September 24 brought out the prototype of the Type 4 "Hurricane" fighter that had been pinned on people -- this is simply a fighter that cannot be high or low, and cannot beat the F4U at high altitudes and F6F at medium and low altitudes. If you are unfortunate enough to encounter the P51 and P47, which are also shore-based aircraft, it will simply be a send-off.

In desperation, the leaders of the Japanese Army Aviation thought of the Type 3 "Feiyan" fighter that had not been welcomed before. Although the performance of the "Feiyan" is not as good as that of the "Hurricane", the good thing is that the "Feiyan" is easy to upgrade, because the current performance of the "Feiyan" is based on the Ha-40 engine that copied the Mercedes-Benz DB601A engine. The Mercedes-Benz DB601 has been developed to the F model in Germany (in fact, the DB601 series was replaced by the DB605 series at the beginning of 42). The shape and weight of DB601E and DB601A are not much different, as long as the three-type "Feiyan" is slightly improved, the original German DB601E engine can be installed.

The DB601E engine was originally designed for medium and high altitude combat, so after the installation of the DB601E engine, the maximum speed of the three-type "Feiyan" II can not only be greatly increased to 630 km / h, but also the medium and high altitude performance above 6000 meters has also been greatly improved. Although it will definitely not be able to beat the P51 and P47, it is enough to fight the shipborne F4U.

……

"With the Type 3 'Feiyan' II fighter, there should be no problem in the middle and high altitudes of the Hawaiian Islands, right?" When Hideki Tojo saw the last Me264 land safely, he exhaled lightly and began to ask about the situation of the Type 3 'Feiyan' II fighter.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, in the short term, the three-type 'Feiyan' II is sufficient to deal with medium-altitude air superiority operations in the Hawaiian Islands." Takeo Yasuda, head of the Army Aviation Headquarters and director of aviation, said, "But the introduction of the Fw-190 high-altitude model or the imitation of the Me-262 jet fighter is the ultimate solution." ”

"You can bring in the FW-190," Tojo said, nodding, "but only imitations can be introduced." ”

The purchase of the Me264 and the "Silver Reaper" missile was a last resort, and the two orders together cost 288 million euromarks, which is equivalent to 490 million yen!

Unless the German Reichstag can pass the Lend-Lease Act, Japan will not be able to buy many expensive high-end German arms at all. Fortunately, the purchase of Me264 can be paid in installments, and there is no need to pay real money, you can use natural rubber and nickel ore, tin ore, and palm oil produced in the South Seas to make up the amount.

The purchase of the Silver Reaper was entirely billed in gold, silver, and Euromarks. Rolls-Royce, one of the suppliers of the Silver Reaper, does not accept any form of payment in cash and does not agree to open credit.

"Is it difficult to imitate Me262 and the Reaper missile?" Hideki Tojo then asked.

"The Me262 is not easy to copy," replied Takeo Yasuda, "and the difficulty lies in the fact that there are two high-thrust jet engines that can last up to 100 hours. ”

Historically, the jet engines used in the Me262 usually only worked for a dozen hours (the initial prototype could have worked for 100 hours due to the open use of non-ferrous metals), but there is no shortage of non-ferrous metals in Germany today, so it is possible to produce a jet engine that can theoretically work for 100 hours.

However, neither Japan nor New Rome, which cooperated in the development of jet aircraft, had such technical capabilities, and the engine produced in the trial lacked thrust and reliability, and was simply unusable.

"However, it shouldn't be difficult to imitate the Reaper missile." "Because the Reaper missile is a disposable weapon, it doesn't have to use a jet engine with a 100-hour life at all, and it is enough to be able to work for 10 to 20 minutes," Yasuda said. And it's nothing if the thrust is not enough, you can attach two rocket booster engines. ”

Rocket engines are also disposable things that can be used for a few minutes, so they are less difficult to manufacture than jet engines -- of course, depending on what kind of rocket engine, the engine for V2 rockets is not easy to make at all, but Japan can still make a rocket engine with small thrust.

"Then make a batch of Reaper missiles as soon as possible...... "Hideki Tojo thought for a moment, "Let's call it Sakura missiles!" This missile is as brilliant as a cherry blossom and will never be forgotten. ”

"Hay."

Hideki Tojo then asked Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, "Yamamoto-kun, when will the Navy's man-operated torpedoes be put into service?" ”

Inspired by the idea of man-operated missiles in Japan, the idea was proposed in early 1943 and was officially established after the Panama campaign. Now several rounds have been modified with 93 spear torpedoes, which are being tested.

"The man-to-torpedo must have been finalized at the beginning of Showa 19," replied Isoroku Yamamoto, "and is currently preparing to train personnel, and it should be able to catch up with the decisive battle in the Hawaiian Islands!" ”

"That's great!" Hideki Tojo said, "With Sakura missiles and human-operated torpedoes, the Hawaiian Islands will inevitably become the burial place of the US Pacific Fleet!" The Jet-1 program can now officially begin. ”