"Sir, the 4th Fleet reports that a Type II large boat tracking the American ship formation has been shot down. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

In the early morning of October 9, Tokyo time, the Shozuru, the flagship of Japan's 1st Mobile Fleet in the waters near the Yena Islands, received a notification from the 4th Fleet stationed in the Central Pacific that the seaplane responsible for tracking the U.S. ship formation had been shot down.

"The last position of the U.S. Broken Fleet?"

Jizaburo Ozawa walked to the chart platform in two steps, and Chief of Staff Keizo Furumura had already marked the location of the US fleet before the Type 2 boat went missing.

"Here, it's about 300 nautical miles from us." Furumura said, "It's time to send carrier-based aircraft...... If it is dispatched now, it will be possible to reach the target sea area in two and a half to three hours. ”

300 nautical miles is equivalent to 555 kilometers, and a group of Japanese attack planes with bombs and torpedoes can fly for more than an hour, and the time for take-off and formation is two to two and a half hours.

"Attack!" Jizaburo Ozawa nodded, "A wave of streams, send all carrier-based aircraft!" All Meteor torpedo bombers carried bombs for dive attacks...... Be sure to destroy all the aircraft carriers of the Americans and make them incapacitated! ”

"Hay!"

Almost at the same time, the commander of the 58th U.S. Fleet, Mark Brown. Rear Admiral Mitchell also gave the order for the fleet to turn east and move at full speed.

"Sir, now you can run 56 nautical miles in 2 hours, which is almost 103 kilometers...... If you are lucky, the Japanese will come to us in scattered formations. "Ali. Burke said to Mitchell, "So we'll have a chance to break them all!" ”

Mark. Mitchell himself is an expert in naval aviation. He understood what Burke said, he smiled and said: "Now raise all the carrier-based aircraft to the deck, and in 30 minutes, each of the two aircraft carriers will send a squadron of F6F to act as a direct cover...... I think today will be another unforgettable day of turkey hunting! ”

"Yes, it will definitely be remembered for a lifetime!"

The moment of a lifetime soon came, and the aircraft carriers of Japan's 1st Mobile Fleet began to gallop into the wind at 5:15 a.m. on October 9 to release carrier-based aircraft (the three Japanese aircraft carriers only had flywheel catapults, and only 54 planes could be catapulted into the sky at a time), adopting the tactics of an all-deck assault.

The all-deck assault tactic was originally commonly used by the Americans, because before the United States entered the war, US naval aviation experts believed that aircraft carriers should be dispersed and deployed in wartime to avoid being annihilated by the enemy's regiments -- the anti-aircraft guns at that time were not effective, and the reincarnation rate of the enemy's attack aircraft group was very low. Because the aircraft carriers are deployed separately, it is naturally difficult to coordinate more than two aircraft carriers, so the Americans adopted a full-deck tactic and released all attack aircraft groups at once.

Before the war, Japan adopted the tactics of a two-aircraft carrier formation, which was conducive to coordination, so instead of adopting the full-deck tactic, the carrier-based aircraft were divided into two attack waves and dispatched in turn.

As the war situation changes, so does the tactics of the United States and Japan. Because of the threat of the United States breaking up the diplomatic relations with aircraft carriers, the Japanese Combined Fleet had to detach some aircraft carriers to undertake escort missions, and of course the aircraft carriers undertaking escort missions could not be a two-carrier group. Therefore, the originally practiced wave attack tactics were no longer suitable, and they could only start practicing full-deck tactics (wave attacks did not give up), so the current Japanese naval aviation has mastered the ability to attack on the whole deck -- but there are not many Japanese pilots left who can skillfully take off and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier......

Watching the pilot, who was almost the last essence of the Japanese naval aviation, take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier for the first time, Ozawa's heart was enveloped in an indescribable bitterness.

As a result of the series of battles from September 24 to the present, if we look at the traditional criteria for judging victory or defeat at sea, Japan has undoubtedly won a great victory.

Eight aircraft carriers were sunk (indeed only six), one battleship was sunk, dozens of landing ships, transport ships, and oil tankers were sunk, and more than a dozen ships of various types were destroyed, medium-broken, and small-broken.

And they did not lose a single ship of sufficient weight.

However, the loss of nearly 700 aircraft of various types, coupled with the loss and consumption of hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel, seriously damaged the ability of the Japanese Navy to continue fighting!

To put it in layman's terms, I just can't fight!

The battle was won to the point where it could not be fought......

"Sir, the radar found a Japanese fleet of aircraft, with an azimuth of 253, a distance of 130, a number of more than 30 aircraft, and an altitude of 5000."

At around 8:05 a.m. on October 9, Tokyo time, an air defense siren sounded from the USS Hornet (Essex-class), and radar officers reported the approach of enemy aircraft.

"More than 30 planes...... The Japanese must have scattered in large formations! "Ali. Burke laughed - he had succeeded in his treacherous plan!

According to the generally accepted principles of naval aviation operations, the larger the size of the fleet, the more conducive it is to break through the enemy's air defense. At the same time, the "reincarnation rate" of pilots participating in the war will decrease accordingly. If a large fleet is dismantled into a small group and used to refuel tactics, it is easy to suffer huge losses and gain nothing.

"Command the direct cover fleet to attack!" Without hesitation, Mitchell ordered, "USS Hornet and USS Yorktown each send two more squadrons of fighters to the battle, including one squadron each for F4U and F6F." ”

Now there are 24 F6Fs circling in the air, plus 2 squadrons of F4U and 2 squadrons of F6F, there are 72 fighters on the side of the US military. On the Japanese side, there were about 30 or more than 40 fighters, and most of them were definitely bombers or torpedo planes...... Proper hanging!

Fierce air battles soon ensued between American and Japanese planes, with 72 U.S. F4U and F6F U.S. attacking 12 Japanese Zero 52 and 24 "Meteor" torpedo bombers.

Because the number was only half that of the opponent, the Japanese planes did not dare to fight, and all the "Meteor" torpedo bombers threw away the bombs they carried, and then dived away from the battlefield at full speed. The escorted Zero Type 52 desperately resisted the overwhelming number of American aircraft, winning time for the "Meteor" to retreat, at the cost of the total destruction of 12 Zero Type 52s.

But that's just the beginning of the fierce battle in the air!

At the same time as the "Meteor" torpedo planes retreated, they also radioed the position of the American fleet to other Japanese aircraft that were searching nearby.

Taking advantage of the gap before the Japanese planes arrived one after another, the US 58th Fleet also ended its eastward maneuver for more than two hours, and began to set up a circular air defense formation at the beginning, with two aircraft carriers in the center, surrounded by three battleships and 10 cruisers.

At the same time, aircraft carriers continued to release carrier-based aircraft, and battleships and cruisers released seaplanes -- seaplanes were there to search for the Japanese fleet, and although Mitchell could not launch an air attack on the Japanese fleet, it was necessary to scare them.

At 8:25 a.m., a group of Japanese attack planes, which had been scattered into several groups to search for the US fleet, swarmed in from the northwest, due west, and southwest, with a total of more than 160 planes, and immediately became a mass with the same number of US fighters in the air.

I don't know if the air battles over the past few days have trained the team, and the Americans' F4U and F6F have performed very well. This time, they did not swarm to attack the Japanese aircraft group, but divided into dry waves, and the first to rush to the front were the F6F piloted by experienced veterans, and their purpose was to use the excellent performance of the F6F to fight with the Japanese Zero fighters.

At the same time, F4U fighters climbed to an altitude of 5,000 meters and then circled around the US fleet air defense array.

All Japanese planes that tried to rush into the US ship's air defense fire network from a dive bombing altitude of three or four thousand meters were invariably attacked by the F4U, and they were either shot down on the spot or dropped their bombs and fled for their lives. Occasionally, a few planes that succeed in breaking through the defense will become the concentrated targets of the anti-aircraft fire of surface ships, and they will turn into fireballs one after another.

Piloting a "Comet" dive bomber at an altitude of 5,000 meters to direct the Japanese aircraft group to fight, Heijiro Abe, saw the scene in front of him that he had not been able to attack for a long time, and his whole body was about to burn.

He was a veteran of Japanese naval pilots, and after graduating from the 61st class of the Navy, he entered the pilot school, and has been serving in the naval aviation since then. At the time of Pearl Harbor, he was a squadron leader on the USS Akagi, and later participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the South Pacific (and still fighting), the Panama Sea, and the Christmas Island Sea. It can be said that I watched the aviation of the Americans grow up step by step!

As the commander of the front-line air force, he also knew better than the generals and marshals who were in high command the crisis facing the Japanese empire in the Pacific -- the Japanese air force was getting weaker and weaker the more it fought. In Abe's impression, all the aces (Japanese aces) were pilots trained before the outbreak of the Pacific War, and those who were trained after the war, especially those who entered the pilot school after the war, were simply indiscriminate...... They can't beat the Americans!

As a result, the front-line units are overly dependent on the veteran pilots, allowing them to wither in a brutal war of attrition, and the training of new recruits cannot keep up......

Japan is going to lose the war, unless it adopts the method of fighting with the enemy!

A terrible thought came to the mind of Heijiro Abe, who, as an old pilot and a major in the navy, certainly knew the "kamikaze" at the beginning of the war.

"Gentlemen, I'm Heijiro Abe!" Abe pressed the lower throat communicator and began to convey the order to his subordinates, "Now, this officer will fly the plane to hit the American aircraft carrier!" Die with your enemies! If you are willing to be the king of the dead, please go to death with this official! ”