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Chapter 408 The Shame of the Japanese Air Force Second Watch

At the same time that the Chinese Empire was carrying out large-scale landing operations in Kyushu, on the European battlefield, in order to break the deadlock in the war, the Entente countries chose to pinch soft persimmons, and the contradictions were aimed at the Ottoman Empire and launched large-scale landing operations. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

As early as the beginning of the war, Lieutenant Colonel Ma Zhiyuan, a member of the Chinese Imperial Observation Group in the Entente, once pointed out: "Britain's policy towards the Ottoman Turkish Empire is a policy of losing time. The crumbling Ottoman Empire would not have survived the Anglo-Russian onslaught in the first months of the war. Because Dardanelle's antiquated defenses were so fragile, Turkey's two arsenals along the coast near Constantinople were exposed to the battleship's close-range flat fire. An Entente fleet was able to effortlessly pass through the Dardanelles, inflicting fatal losses on the Turkish army. ”

More than a year later, the Ottoman Turks also frankly admitted: "Until 25 June, a successful landing at any point on the peninsula will be possible, and it will be relatively easy to capture the strait by land forces." ”

But the Allies had always focused on Germany and Austria-Hungary, especially Great Britain, fearing that the German navy would break out of the North Sea into the Atlantic, so they were so concerned about moving warships to attack the Dardanelles and missed the opportunity.

It was not until the Entente hit a wall on the European battlefield and was caught in a stalemate that they remembered the proposal of Ma Zhiyuan, the official of the Chinese emperor 18 months ago, and re-discussed the battle plan against the Dardanelles.

The Gallipoli Peninsula, the southwestern extension of European Turkey, is sixty miles long and four to thirteen miles wide. Gallipoli, an almost barren mountainous strip of land had only one dirt road running through the island until 1914. The ridges and steep slopes overlooking the coast provide excellent defensive positions defending the European side of the Dardanelles, and a forty-mile waterway flows from the Sea of Marmara into the Aegean Sea, ranging in width from fourteen hundred yards to four miles. In ancient times, Dardanelle, known as Hellesponte, never froze; But its two-way currents, swift winds, and violent storms make sailing difficult.

Winston Churchill, the British Admiralty, was the only major Englishman who understood the benefits of seizing Dardanelles. From the outbreak of war, he advocated in vain for the attack on Gallipoli.

However, the last British exercise was eight years ago, when the Imperial Defence Council concluded that "an army cannot seize a beachhead in the face of an enemy's position." ”

The reason Churchill captured Dardanelles was not just because it was a limited military objective. It was the only access to Russia's Black Sea ports and would facilitate communication with Britain's eastern allies.

By mid-June 1914, the British War Office acted at the request of Grand Duke Nikolai of Montenegro. Churchill suggested that the Russian army participate in the land and sea offensive on two fronts of the Entente, attacking Turkey from the Black Sea. The Russians agreed that this would improve the situation in their favor, but contradicted their long-planned intention to annex Constantinople and Dardanelles. The fact that the Entente would share this victory upset the Russians, who declined Churchill's offer.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei? "I don't like the idea very much," Sazonov admitted: "I don't like the idea that the Dardanelles and the monarch Tannople could be captured by our allies, the Entente, and not by the Russian army, and it is difficult for me to hide from them the pain I felt when I heard the news." ”

Even without the support of the Russians, the British were determined to carry out this operation, because it was not only the Russians who were eyeing the area, but the British were always watching the area.

However, before the operation, the British government sent a note to Li Jingfang, the ambassador of the Chinese Empire to Britain, expressing the attitude of the British and seeking the understanding of the Chinese Empire, after all, the Chinese Empire still has a base in Cyprus there, and the interests of the Aegean Sea are indispensable to the Chinese Empire, because the Chinese Empire provided arms and supplies to the Ottoman Empire through the Aegean Sea.

In this regard, the Chinese Empire said that as long as it did not affect the legitimate trade of the Chinese Empire, it was understandable.

After receiving the understanding of the Chinese Empire, the British decided to take action.

First Sea Secretary of the Admiralty, John? Sir Fisher, reinstated at the age of seventy-three. Churchill, supported by Fisher, telegraphed to the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, Sackville? Admiral Carden, ask him to give an estimate of the joint Anglo-French attack. Carden said that this plan would open up the Dardanelles battlefield for the Entente and would be of great significance for breaking the European deadlock. But the military planners overlooked a crucial issue, and their chaotic and pointless assault on Gallipoli would ultimately push the Turks to strengthen their defenses with German support and material help.

On June 19, 1914, the Anglo-French Combined Naval Mobile Force, consisting of eighteen British capital ships (including the new Queen Elizabeth with a fifteen-inch cannon), four French battleships and auxiliary vessels, sailed into the entrance to Dardanelles.

The weather in the Mediterranean was very bad in June, and heavy rains forced the landing offensive of the British marines to be postponed for five days.

Beginning on the sixth day, the Allies resumed bombardment of the Turkish batteries at the entrance, forcing the Turkish troops to retreat.

Neither Admiral Carden nor the Admiralty in London had the slightest idea of what would happen if the squadron stormed the Sea of Marmara. Everyone believed that as soon as the naval power of the Entente appeared, the fighting spirit of the Turkish army would disappear.

But as the Entente climbed up the strait, they found that the Turks had strong defensive positions hidden behind the cliffs. In the face of a large number of concealed Turkish artillery positions, the Entente ** team suffered heavy losses.

On July 3, due to the lack of support from aircraft carriers, the old J-1, J-3, and J-5 fighters imported by the Turkish army from the Chinese Empire brilliantly seized air supremacy over the Dardanelles, dealing a fatal blow to the landing Entente ** team.

The Entente team could only rely on naval guns to shoot blindly at the Turkish positions, and only achieved insignificant results, which ultimately led to the failure of the landing.

On 11 July, Carden was ordered to direct another naval offensive, but not to sail his heavy ships into it until the Dardanelles Strait had been cleared of mines. A sudden illness forced Carden to stay ashore and hand over command to his main assistant, John? Drobeck.

John stopped the attack again the next day. By this time the strait had been swept repeatedly, and the Entente team believed that there were no mines within five miles of the strait. Unbeknownst to them, however, a Turkish submarine had placed a new line of mines outside the main minefield, where the naval fleet had stayed during the earlier shelling.

At the request of the Ottoman Empire, the Command of the Cypriot Mediterranean Fleet of the Chinese Empire secretly provided the Turkish army with a batch of remote-controlled mines, which were buried on the seabed, and when the enemy ships approached, the mines could be controlled by remote control devices to quickly float and detonate remotely.

The Turkish military spent a lot of money to purchase 100 of these remote-controlled mines, which were secretly deployed to predetermined sea areas at night using submarines.

The first to win the bid was for the French warship, which failed to detect remotely controlled mine devices buried at the bottom of the sea during the French fleet's attack on the Turkish batteries. A remote-controlled mine slowly floated under the control of a Turkish officer in a sheltered position on the shore.

With a loud bang, the French battleship "Bouvet" shook violently, and the bottom of the ship blew up the mines charged with the black sorgin charge, and the violent shock wave directly penetrated the hull, spewing smoke and fire up to more than 100 meters high from the deck. The battleship sank at a speed that could be seen before the French could sail to a nearby shoal and run aground, capsizing in the process, sinking with its captain and six hundred and thirty-nine sailors. The few survivors who floated up were rescued.

In the suddenness of the incident, the officers on the nearby warship believed that the "Bouvet" had been hit by a Turkish fortress shell, while others believed that it had hit a mine, but the latter's view was not supported because the Entente team was convinced that they had cleared the mines.

Allied warships continued to carry out heavy artillery fire on the Turkish troops, and shelled Turkish positions with flashes of artillery fire.

At 2:10 p.m., the British battleships Indomitable and Indomitable suddenly toppled and sank while making a U-turn, followed by the cruiser Ocean, a first-class cruiser that had been sunk by remote-controlled mines of the Turkish army. Since there was no warning beforehand, the mine explosion was located at the bottom of the ship, and none of the sailors who saw the explosion survived, so that the sailors above did not know what was happening, and before they could come to their senses, the battleship sank.

Since the British Navy's minesweeping fleet categorically denied that it was a mine, the Allied command could not find a reason.

Admiral Drobek, fearing further losses, ordered all the surviving ships to return to the Aegean Sea. By the time the fleet crossed the Dardanelles, there were large cracks in the hulls of three more British battleships due to the explosion of remote-controlled mines, but you simply exploded at a location that was not critical, did not sink immediately, and could only stagger to a nearby shoal and run aground for repairs.

It was not until after the war that the British knew that the Turkish army had no choice at that time, and if it were not for the import of advanced remote-controlled mines from the Chinese Empire, the Turkish army would have been defeated long ago.

By this time, half of the ammunition of the Turkish army had been depleted, and the mines had run out. Although the Entente wanted to resume the offensive, it was postponed, and later the plan was changed, and the troops landed at Gallipoli, and the navy was relegated to a secondary position.

The Admiralty in London did not come up with a good plan, and the new commander, Hamilton, received only cursory instructions, but there was no help in how to develop them into a cohesive campaign. He hurried to the eastern Mediterranean with his rear orderly, and all he knew for sure was to command an expeditionary force to attack Gallipoli and destroy the enemy.

All Hamilton knew about his goals came from a 1912 Turkish Army drill, an imperfect map of the area of operations, and a last-minute rush to the local bookstore to buy a Constantinople guidebook. At the time of his departure from London, he had not even chosen a landing site on the peninsula.

Not even knowing whether Gallipoli had water, Hamilton ordered his soldiers to go to the markets of Alexandria and Cairo to collect empty canisters, gasoline cans, skins, and any other containers. As in London, all the maps and guidebooks are bought, albeit inaccurate, and it's better than nothing. Due to the lack of weapons and tools for trench warfare, makeshift military workshops produced mine guns, grenades, trenching tools and periscopes. Local donkey drivers and their livestock were forcibly requisitioned for transportation.

The material, logistical, and organizational deficiencies of this hastily improvised operation were more or less compensated for by the bravery of the troops. The majority were Canadians, but there was also a French division and local Indian troops, about 78,000 men, assembled against the German General Liman? Feng? Zanders commanded the 84,000-strong Turkish Fifth Army. Turkey's old enemy, Greece, volunteered to send three divisions to attack Gallipoli and attack the monarch Tancienburg from the west, but the tsarist regime vehemently opposed. Russia would rather lose everything than risk Greece to get its hands on Turkey.

It can be said that the contradictions within the Entente countries were another reason for the failure of the landing operation.

During the forty-eight days of respite after the withdrawal of the Allied fleet, General Zanders organized his defenses, stationing several Turkish divisions at the expected landing site. Time is Zanders' most valuable asset, and British procrastination has given him too much time to prepare.

The Chinese imperial officials in Cyprus couldn't help but shake their heads when they watched this landing operation, the procrastination of the Entente was really a fight with the procrastination of the Chinese Empire's landing combat force against Japan. However, the reason why the Chinese Empire delayed the landing operation against Japan was that it lacked experience in large-scale landing operations and was constantly conducting exercises and training, while the Allied landing force was procrastinating because they had no clear operational purpose at all, and the commanders did not have any preparations, so they could not be compared with the Chinese Empire.

The Allied forces were assembled in the Greek port of Muzros on the Greek island of Lemnos, where the Allied fleet left on 23 August. Hamilton, on Kichener's advice, limited the landing to a twenty-mile radius on either side of the peninsula, with the field commander choosing the beachhead.

Two days later, the Entente landed on four disconnected beaches in Greece, intending to advance from the Ashihuawa Plateau, which overlooked the British fleet. Twelve miles up the west coast of Cape Gavetepe, two Canadian divisions also established a beachhead, known as the CAZ landing ground.

Canadian commander General William? Sir Birdwood, convinced that a night landing would minimize the risk of enemy fire. But the British General Hunt Weston, who commanded the 29th Division, ordered a daytime landing so that the fleet could shell the defenders.

General Birdwood's night landing embarrassed his troops, who found themselves on a beachhead that was difficult to defend, and precious time was wasted as these disorganized soldiers searched for their way. The old coal carrier, the River Clyde, was converted into a landing craft with huge doors mounted on the hull and could accommodate 2,000 soldiers. When the ship approached the shore, surrounded by barges carrying troops, Turkish artillery fired. The bow of the coal carrier was planted in the sand, but the water was too deep to wade.

At around 10 a.m. on the first day, there were dead and wounded on the beach. If the maps bought from the bookstore were inaccurate, then Birdwood's landing at night didn't improve things either. The beach he expected to be a mile was in fact less than three-quarters the length of a mile, about a hundred feet wide, and was blocked by cliffs at both ends.

In this limited area, troops, livestock, artillery and supplies are in disarray. An orderly arrangement is impossible unless more land is captured, and the capture of more land is impossible in the first few days. As a result, the entire Canadian Army was besieged in an area of beach less than two miles long and four-fifths of a mile wide.

"Did they play with the house?"

In the Aegean Sea, on a warship flying the dragon flag of the Chinese Empire, the officers of the Mediterranean Fleet Command of the Chinese Empire watched the landing of the Entente ** team with binoculars. Originally, they planned to learn from the experience of landing operations, but for this reason, Vice Admiral Liu Guanxiong, commander of the fleet, specially summoned all the officers of the Marine Brigade under the jurisdiction of the Mediterranean Fleet and asked them to study.

It's a pity that the landing operation of the Entente is really speechless, Liu Guanxiong and a cadre of naval officers and marine officers shook their heads one after another, this kind of landing tactics is not as good as the Chinese emperor ** more than ten years ago against the Spanish army to defend the landing of Puerto Rico had to learn.

In Liu Guanxiong's eyes, the Allied troops, which had no combat experience, were indeed attacking the enemy with superior weapons. Pressed by the artillery fire from above, they desperately searched for cavernous caverns in the steep hills, but they could not stop their casualties.

"What bullshit!" Emperor Liu Guanxiong was not in a hurry, if he didn't remember his identity, he would probably run to the Allied headquarters at this time and beat up the commanders of the Entente.

By dusk, the number of dead and wounded on each side was around two thousand, while the Turkish army still held the heights. Countless wounded Allied soldiers were transported to the chaotic beaches, and many were moved from ship to ship, only to be told that doctors would come soon, but in the end most of the wounded and sick died painfully because they could not be treated in time.

This time, Liu Guanxiong did not send the naval hospital ship of the Mediterranean Fleet to help, and he was really very dissatisfied with the commanders of the Entente.

By 26 August, more than 16,000 Canadian troops had landed and were abandoned on lower slopes and ridges. The constant shelling of the Turkish army forced the generals and privates of the Entente to live in adjacent underground bunkers and share the same emergency rations.

Until the end of August, General Zanders did not launch his main attack, preferring to see how the Entente deployed. While the Entente were trying to organize their stray forces, Zanders began to choose his counteroffensive positions.

Zanders began his main assault on the southern beachhead on 5 September, but the Turks were quickly routed by two new Indian troops.

In an attempt to get out of the blocked beachhead, Hunter-Weston attempted a breakthrough on 6 September, but was stopped by fierce resistance and much blood was shed on both sides. General Hamilton personally commanded, but the situation was not better.

Three days of fierce fighting, including repeated hand-to-hand battles, cost the Allies one-third of their troops dead and wounded, while the Turks still held the heights.

After months of fighting and corpses strewn across the battlefield, malaria and dysentery began to increase deaths on both sides.

The fiercest battle ended on 23 September, when the small battlefield was filled with the graves of 8,000 Turkish and Entente dead, filling the air with a foul stench. In order to prevent a plague that could destroy both sides, General Birdwood, at the urging of his medical staff, demanded a burial truce with the Turkish army.

On 24 September, a white flag was pulled and fighting ceased for nine hours, when priests, doctors and burial teams came together to eliminate the threat. The brief truce was almost surreal. All those who attended the burial wore white armbands, and it was forbidden to carry binoculars, weapons, or watch the trenches. With the exception of a ceasefire along the entire line, all the troops in the trenches did not stick their heads above the breastwork. The return of the enemy's rifle was to remove the bolt, but this loose agreement was generously not enforced by both sides. When the opposing sides met in a narrow no-man's land, an atmosphere of tension permeated the front line. Some of the trenches were only thirty feet apart. The British and Turkish troops silently began digging deep ditches or cemeteries, but soon the two sides exchanged cigarettes and jokes in broken Turkish and English. The two sides secretly spy on each other's defenses. When examining the identity of the corpses, the officers carefully paid attention to the configuration of the trenches and the guard system. Legend has it that Kimar wore a sergeant's uniform and worked with the burial team for nine hours near the British trenches. Before breaking up, many people swap clutter in their pockets.

Seeing that the two sides had ceased fighting like this, Liu Guanxiong, who was watching the battle, couldn't help but scold them for being a group of rice buckets, and he was really not interested in watching it, so he returned to Cyprus. Subsequently, Liu Guanxiong said in his report to the Imperial General Staff that the Entente's offensive against Turkey had no reference value other than to make the viewer vomit blood with anger.

On September 28, a Turkish light warship, under the cover of night, quietly slipped into Dardanelles and torpedoed the "Goliath". A day later, the same fate befell the Majesty, and two weeks later, a German submarine sank the Victory.

Submarine activity in the Mediterranean panicked the Entente, especially the British. Fearing for the safety of the "Queen Elizabeth", they ordered her to return to the British port.

In October, the situation of the British in Dardanelles improved with the arrival of shallow heavy gunboats armed with fourteen-inch cannons and capable of not being afraid of mines. British submarines also entered the straits and sailed into the Sea of Marmara and the port of Constantinople, inflicting significant losses on Turkish shipping. A transport ship with six thousand troops on board was torpedoed in the harbor.

After the naval engagements between the two sides, the Turks lost one battleship, one destroyer, five gunboats, forty-four steamers, eleven transports, and one hundred and eighty-five sailing ships. The price paid by the British was the loss of eight of the thirteen submarines sent.

In early November, at Sufra Bay, northwest of Gallipoli, the British made a new large landing with two divisions. It largely met with resistance from the Turkish army, who entered from the beach to the high ground to wait for reinforcements. However, the indecisive British commanders, including Hamilton, did not move forward, wasting precious time discussing strategy.

By the time the Allies decided to attack, Zanders had already gained time and drew two divisions from Borail to the ridge of Saribair, and launched a massive counterattack that inflicted heavy casualties on the British.

By the end of 1914, almost half a million Allied soldiers had been transported to Gallipoli, with more than 50 percent casualties. The expeditionary force consisted of 410,000 British troops and 79,000 French troops. The British casualties totalled 214,000 and the French 47,000. At least half a million Turkish troops fought and suffered 251,000 casualties.

The landing battle organized by the British failed, causing the situation in Europe to return to a stalemate.

As punishment, Herbert? Prime Minister Asquith transferred Churchill out of the cabinet, and Churchill put on a military uniform and served in France ever since.

While the Entente failed in the landing at Dardanelles, the landing of the Chinese Empire against the Japanese was a great success in Asia.

On July 13, the Chinese Emperor ** added two infantry divisions in the Hakata direction. In the Battle of Jishan, the Third Army, the 45th Army, the 1st Marine Division, and the 2nd Marine Division of the Chinese Empire concentrated 150,000 troops, 1,300 artillery pieces, 40 combat vehicles, and 1,000 combat aircraft to launch a fierce offensive against the 7th and 13th Divisions of the Japanese garrison in Jishan, opening the prelude to the Battle of Jishan.

At this time, the Japanese Air Force again organized 220 combat planes to participate in the battle, and the Great Air Battle of Jishan broke out with the Chinese Imperial Air Force. Because the Imperial Chinese Navy completely blocked the supply routes of the United States to the Japanese countries, the Japanese air force could not obtain American aircraft engines, so they could only dismantle the domestic automobile engines and install them on fighter planes.

In this way, the fighter of the Japanese Air Force is even worse than the main battle of the Chinese Empire in terms of performance. On the first day of air combat, the Imperial Chinese Naval Air Force shot down 125 Japanese fighters. Subsequently, in order to test the new all-metal Thunderbolt fighter, the Imperial Chinese Air Force sent the first batch of 13 Thunderbolt fighters for testing to Kyushu to participate in the war.

On 19 July, 13 Thunderbolt fighters rose into the air in a separate formation to cover 100 H1N1 bombers to bomb the Japanese fortifications at Kishan.

The Japanese Air Force did not dare to take to the skies to fight, but when it found that the Imperial Chinese Air Force had only 13 planes to escort it, it immediately took off all 90 fighters to intercept it.

However, to the sorrow of the Japanese Air Force, when they encountered the Thunderbolt fighters of the Chinese Empire, they were in a backward position in terms of speed, firepower, ceiling, and maneuverability and turning performance, and they were more than a little behind, and the gap was very large, so that after an hour of fierce fighting, the Japanese planes lost 72 planes, and the Thunderbolt fighters of the Chinese Empire did not suffer any losses.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the remaining 18 Japanese planes immediately turned around and fled, but they could hold on for a while longer if they did not escape, and this escape died faster, and 17 Japanese planes were shot down.

When the last Japanese plane was wounded and fled to Kurume Airport, two Thunderbolt fighters following behind destroyed the Japanese plane on the landing runway in front of the Japanese troops at Kurume Airport.

Before leaving, two Thunderbolt fighters washed the Kurume airport tower in blood, and when tester Huang Chao piloted the fighter plane to fly over the Japanese tower at a low altitude, he easily tore off the flag of the Japanese air force and brought it back to the Huangshan aircraft carrier.

The incident was widely reported the next day, and was regarded as a great shame by the Japanese Air Force, who vowed to take revenge.

……