The first to take off were 36 "Shark" attack aircraft. This was followed by 19 Javelin attack aircraft, all carrying heavy bombs. When this group formed over the aircraft carrier, 10 "Wind Thunder" heavy fighters and 15 "Tenma" all-weather fighters took off one after another and flew to Yakushima. All of these planes appear to be slow and bulky, disproportionate to their power. The aircraft used on aircraft carriers must first be sturdy, stronger than the Army's aircraft, to withstand the emergency braking force when landing on deck.

As soon as the moon sank in the west, a morning light spat out from the east, dyeing the sky golden. From the stern of the aircraft carrier, the low silhouette of the destroyer is faintly visible. On the aircraft carrier "Xuanyuan", other fighters are still taking off. Six fighters (without bombs) took off and headed for Kagoshima. The morning light grew stronger, and dawn came.

Six minutes earlier, the last plane had left the deck. Under the clouds, Kagoshima is in sight. Several people said they saw several planes emerging from the clouds over Kagoshima. A wisp of smoke rose from the island, gathering thicker and thicker in the sky, followed by another wisp. Then there was a dull explosion: the cruiser began shelling. People look curiously towards Kagoshima. Suddenly, they turned their heads and heard the pilot shouting, as if the aircraft carrier was in the middle of an air battle.

I don't know who first proposed to turn up the volume, listen to the radio conversations between the planes, and turn on the ship's radio horns. Psychologically, this was an unusually good idea in the Second World War. From then on, air battles were carried out at a great distance from the aircraft carrier, but the crews could still watch the battle. They watch the game the way a radio listener listens to a sports game. But listening to a live air battle is no better than listening to a show or exercise, it's a battle with live ammunition! There were planes down, there were casualties, and it sounded more thrilling than any boxing and ball match.

Pilots communicate with each other in close proximity during and outside of combat. The verbatim transmission of live reconnaissance and patrol feeds is often tiresome. However, once the enemy is discovered, it is convenient to broadcast it, and this reason is not difficult to understand. The pilots, in principle, spoke to each other in code. Each aircraft is called by a name. For example: "Hey, fox, I'm a wild cat, and I found a plane, three kilometers away." In fact, in addition to being called in code, the pilot also used a kind of jargon that the layman could not understand. When the battle was fierce, they didn't care about any code words or jargon, so they just called themselves by their own names, "Joe, get out of the way!" This chubby doll is mine...... Hit, this badass! The people on the "Xuanyuan" heard the shouting, even the sound of bullets hitting the plane, and the "click" of machine guns, the rumbling explosions.

People on the deck of an aircraft carrier heard very clearly. Their eyes were fixed on the bombing of Kagoshima, and their ears listened to the live broadcast of the battle over Yakushima. Those who were in the boiler room and the engine room also heard it clearly. When a modern warship is sailing, the people working in the engine room generally have nothing else to do except look at the instruments, the level, and turn the longitudinal plate. Chinese are very literate in listening to radio broadcasts, and listening to radio has become a part of their lives. Mechanics and drivers can listen to the radio while they work, and stay focused and not squinting. The waiters working in the kitchen and pantry can also hear about the air battle on Yakushima. Whenever they heard that a plane had been shot down, or a warship had been hit, they grinned and showed a mouthful of white teeth; When the pilots were silent for a moment, and only the sound of the battle could be heard, they always turned their big round eyes anxiously. In the sealed room, furthest from the deck, there is a security team and a fire brigade. These people, without damage to the ship, did not have any combat posts, and had nothing else to do but wait. They gathered in small groups in sealed rooms, the lights as dazzling as if they were on death row, wearing special protective hats and asbestos suits, like robots. They sat in a row along the bulkheads, listening to the sound of the pilots coming to the bottom of the ship from over the reef 200 kilometers away.

The task of the six fighters sent by the aircraft carrier "Regulus" over Kagoshima was to pin down the enemy, and at the same time, the cruiser launched an artillery bombardment. The sudden attack caught the Yue army by surprise. As soon as the fighters arrived, they first strafed the ** patrol boat moored at the anchorage, and then strafed the airfield. He was beaten in a panic and fled in all directions. The fighters strafed back and forth over the airfield, and he said that he struggled desperately and took off several "Gale" fighters. The anti-aircraft gunners on the island also followed into the gun emplacements and began to fire at the air. The earth trembled at their feet: the cruisers fired in unison. Thick smoke rose into the sky. All the facilities were wiped out in an instant, and all the warships were destroyed. In the morning, the "Xuanyuan" sent eight more "Tianyu" planes to end the battle. But by the time they arrived, nothing had been found. "They bombed everything that seemed to be still standing on the island." 4 "Gale" aircraft were shot down. China also did not lose a single aircraft over Kagoshima. On the whole, the battle over the islands was well fought. The purpose of this campaign was only to bomb the military bases, not to land on these islands.

The Second Task Force (commanded by Rear Admiral Fu Renxuan) encountered little resistance from the attack, but fought a fierce battle with the storm. The planes sent by the aircraft carrier "Caifeng" encountered a storm on the way to the target of the attack. A gust of wind struck, and in an instant, the sky was dark, the wind roared and the tsunami roared, lightning and thunder roared, and then the torrential rain came. The fleet operates in small teams and tries to keep in touch with each other. After the storm, the flying teams converged again. As we approached Tanegashima, we encountered another storm that was even more violent than the previous one. In the sky over the coastal area of Yuben, there are often thundershowers, which come and go quickly, and life and death are impermanent. The fleet of the "Caifeng" was again separated in the storm. Some planes fly low over the waves; Some fly up to 4,000 meters in the air; Others were caught in thunderstorms and flew blindly. As a result, six torpedo planes went and did not return. In the end, Kagoshima was razed to the ground as originally planned. However, these targets were far less noticeable than those attacked by the planes of the "Regulus".

The "Regulus" cruised around the Kagoshima Islands all morning. At 12 noon, the cruisers and destroyers converged with the aircraft carriers, and the task force set sail for the port of Dalian. The officers and men of the "Xuanyuan" all felt that this victory was light, so they were all at ease.

At 13 o'clock, a group of five Yuben bombers, lined up in a "human" shape, drilled out of the clouds 2,000 meters above the right front of the "Xuanyuan." The anti-aircraft guns of all ships opened fire in unison, only to see the shells flying and dancing in the sky, and the fierce artillery fire built a pyramid that towered into the sky. The officers and men on board the "Xuanyuan" saw the three planes and were immediately crushed. The gunners were so excited in the center of the actual battle that they completely forgot the shooting essentials of towing targets. The fighters escorting the air were unable to meet the enemy in front of the enemy, due to the fire of their own fleet's anti-aircraft guns. The deck of the "Xuanyuan" began to tilt from side to side, sailing in a serpentine shape, and the escort ships also followed the yaw from side to side. The officers and men of the "Xuanyuan" heard the sound of the plane's motor and saw aerial bombs falling down like glittering balloons. A 45-meter-high column of water rose around "Xuanyuan".

He said that several of the bombs he dropped fell into the sea. The bomb that fell closest to the ship seriously injured one of the first mates, and in addition blew up an oil pipe and caught fire, firefighters in asbestos suits immediately ran to the deck.

It is said that the plane flew over 500 meters above the head of the aircraft carrier after dropping the bomb. Suddenly, the leading plane made a left turn, then made an "S" shape, flew over the bow of the aircraft carrier again, circled to the stern, and swooped down, spitting out flames from several machine guns on the plane. I saw that the plane braved the dense artillery fire and swooped down on the aircraft carrier, and the plane was hit several times and fell down like a stone. At this moment, everyone who saw this fire meteor flying down was dumbfounded, and they thought together that this was a "suicide plane".

From the very beginning of the war, there was a legend about the "suicide plane". The so-called "suicide plane" means that once the plane takes off, it will never return, and the pilot will drive the plane to crash into the attack target and commit suicide. These pilots are organized into special flight squadrons. At the beginning of the war, there were no such special flying squadrons in the Air Force. However, there are also cases where individual pilots themselves have made up their minds to "fight to the death." Some of them did so because they had been wounded by a bullet or because they knew they could not return to base when they saw that their plane had been damaged; There are also because the ghost is obsessed and vows to hit the target.

The plane that smashed down like a stone on the deck of the "Xuanyuan". The plane was about to hit the stern, and it was too late to say that it was too late, and a few shells smashed the fuselage to pieces, only to see that its fuselage slanted and fell. The plane slammed into the sea not far from the stern of the ship with a loud bang, debris flew in all directions, one of the plane's wings was blown off, the fuselage was broken in two, gasoline spilled, burned for a while and then sank. Navy Colonel Mo Yunsheng, who was piloting the "Xuanyuan" at that time, made a sharp rudder turn just before the meteor hit the stern of the ship, avoiding a direct collision. At the same time, a mechanic jumped into the back cockpit of a plane parked on the deck and fired at the engine compartment of the plane, trying to kill the pilot (who was probably dead at the time). When the plane slid into the stern, it ripped off the fuselage of a Chinese plane parked in the last row. Other than that, there were no other losses, not even anywhere on fire. However, the shock caused by this incident did not subside for a long time. After the plane was destroyed, after a long time, some gunners were still in a state of shock, and suddenly they saw some target, and suddenly started firing like crazy.

The task force is moving forward again. At around 2 p.m., a pontoon seaplane suddenly emerged from the distant clouds. But the plane was shot down by fighters escorting in the air before it could get close to the fleet. At this point, everything is calm. The task force headed for the port of Dalian at a speed of 25 knots. As the sun began to sink in the west, and the shadow of the fleet swam in the bright sea, the ship's upper duty guard reported that two heavy bombers had been spotted 5,000 meters above the stern. The crew suddenly became nervous again.

The anti-aircraft guns aimed at the air, but the aircraft kept the flight altitude out of range. It is said that the plane first made a maneuver outside the clouds, and then rushed from one cloud to another and began to approach the fleet. The crew of the "Xuanyuan" clearly saw that the fighter squadron escorting the air tried to intercept the two planes, but could not catch up. These are two fast heavy bombers. They flew cautiously towards the task force, aiming directly at the "Regulus". The ship's anti-aircraft guns fired, but still did not work. The fighter squad leader began to want to intercept the plane, and when he found that he could not catch up, he tried to correct the firing deviation of the ship's anti-aircraft guns with a wireless telephone: "It's low,...... Too tall, ninety meters...... That's right...... That's right...... Hit! "The two planes are still approaching. The tail of one of the planes was smoking, and it dragged the smoke with it, but it was still closely following the plane in front of it. They each dropped two bombs, dropped very far from their targets, and then burrowed into the clouds. Anti-aircraft guns were ordered to stop firing. The fighter squad launched an attack on the plane in the sky above the clouds. The officers and men of the "Xuanyuan" watched as the fighter jets rushed into the clouds and swayed like wasps out of the clouds. As soon as the radio phones between the planes were turned on the radio horns, the pilots were heard shouting to each other. The pilots reported their directions to each other, and their excited shouts and machine gun roars could be heard from the ship. I saw that the plane that had been shot had come out of the clouds, and the smoke was still dragging on its tail, and it was getting thicker and thicker, like a wounded beast dragging the internal organs that flowed out of the abdomen. It was obvious that the enemy plane was not going far, and the fighter asked to leave it alone and go all out to deal with the other enemy plane. Machine guns whistled, and the sound was getting closer. The roar of the engines as the plane fell down was intertwined with the extremely dense roar of machine guns, followed by the surprise shout of Admiral McKinley: "Look! The officers and men of the "Xuanyuan" responded to the prestige, only to see the fragments of the plane falling from a thick cumulus cloud like raindrops, and some of them seemed to be still circling in the air; Looking at it, a few long strips suddenly appeared, not spinning or turning, it turned out to be the limbs of the pilot.

The sun sinks into the horizon. After a while, "Regulus" retracted the plane. The task force returned to the port of Dalian on 4 July. A battle report had been transmitted to the port of Dalian before the fleet, announcing the successful completion of their mission. The recruits in the harbor, who had cursed them less than a month earlier for not catching up with the attack of the Bun, today ran to the top of the shelter and cheered at them. On dock No. 1, hundreds of arms were waving incessantly to welcome the aircraft carrier back. As for the success of its first sortie, the press gave the greatest amount of coverage to the fullest. This is in stark contrast to the previous newspaper reports of the Soviet battlefield, and the Chinese public is keenly aware of the changes.

After invading the West Coast of the United States, he continued to expand into the Central and South Pacific and advanced into Australia. The command of the Chinese Navy decided to send a fleet to attack the mainland again. This is a small consolation to the traumatized American public. Wu Qianlong accepted the mission of this sortie on July 11. On the 21st, he issued an order for battle. The task force was taking advantage of the battle break for shooting training, and when it received the order, it set sail for Tsushima. 24Early in the morning, the battle began. There was nothing to talk about this sortie, except that the plane took off with extra difficulty. In the early morning of that day, the sky was still dark and hollow, the east wind was blowing more and more fiercely with the raindrops, and the "Xuanyuan" was speeding forward against the strong wind. The propeller of the plane spun rapidly, raising patches of mist that obscured the pilot's vision, and a iridescent circle formed around the propeller, dazzling and bright as a mirror, reflecting the blue flames ejected from the exhaust pipe. Taking off in such a situation, it is simply impossible. However, time was of the essence, and the cruisers that went to shell the coast of Tsushima had to wait for the first round of aircraft bombardment before they could open fire. Several dive bombers still forced their way off. A plane plunged from the ship into the sea during takeoff, and the destroyer had to turn on its searchlights to search for the overboard crew. The driver was saved, and the machine gunner drowned in the sea. At the same time, several planes that had already taken off were hovering over the aircraft carrier, the rain and fog in front of them were so vast that they could not see anything, and if they wanted to form in such a situation, there was a danger of collision at any time. Wu Qianlong, who was in a hurry, had to order a 30-minute delay in departure.

The cruiser waited for no planes to come, and was afraid that it would be discovered by the enemy, so it opened fire without waiting for the planes to bomb. Visibility gradually improved, and the plane finally took off. When the pilots saw Tsushima from afar, they saw the smoke and fire from the shells. There were no fighters in the air, and the anti-aircraft guns on the island were weak and weak. The island, which had once resisted the invasion of the Yuan army, was bombed for 40 minutes.

On a whim, the naval command had a growing appetite and immediately ordered an attack on Iki Island in an attempt to expand the results of this consolation sortie. Wu Qianlong led the fleet from Tsushima Island to Dalian Port on the way back to Dalian when he received this order. As soon as the new sortie target was announced, it immediately caused a sensation on the ship. Iki Island is a small island that is only 17 kilometers long, located halfway between Tsushima and Kyushu, and is only 16 kilometers from Kyushu. This islet has always been the territory of Yuben. China's Naval Intelligence Agency said the island has an airfield, a radio station and a weather station that is important to the island. The battle to attack Iki Island began before dawn on August 4. The moon was shining, 31 bombers, 6 fighters took off from the sea 125 nautical miles from the target of the attack.

(To be continued)