After the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Philippines and Guam, which were former Spanish colonies, were forcibly ceded to the United States, and the Philippines became the only American colony in Asia. As the U.S. power in Asia, the Philippines has been at the forefront of the U.S. struggle with Germany and Austria for spheres of influence in the Pacific. When the United States became involved in the global war in June, the United States mobilized its fleet and sent its air force to strengthen the Asian colony's defenses.

The U.S. Far East Air Command at Fort Auchinlai, Manila, U.S. Far East Air Force Commander Lewis? Air Force Major General Britton received the Chief of Staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the US Far East Army, General MacArthur, Richard ? Major General Sutherland called General MacArthur to receive a warning from Marshall, Chief of the General Staff of the U.S. Army, that the Axis coalition might launch an attack on the Philippines in the near future. As MacArthur feared that Clarke's airfield would be bombed, he ordered him to transfer all bombers from Clarke's airfield to Delmont airfield on Mindanao.

Britton flew from the United States to Manila just three months ago and was tasked with forming the U.S. Far East Air Force.

After the United States entered the war in June, it began to form the US Far East Army in the Philippines. MacArthur reinstated himself to the rank of lieutenant general and became commander-in-chief of the U.S. Far East Army.

It is surprising that Americans living in the Philippines now seem to be living peacefully and have never been bombed by enemy planes.

The situation in the Philippines has been worrying ever since the Axis fleet entered the South China Sea in July, gaining maritime superiority.

The "Philippine Field Marshal" MacArthur threw a tantrum at the Chief of the Army's General Staff, Admiral Marshall, at his palace in Manila, while the man sitting in the Pentagon coped by agreeing to send more reinforcements to the Philippines and provide more supplies. On the other hand, according to Major General Eisenhower's advice, most of the war materiel and combat aircraft that had been planned to be allocated to the Philippines were transferred to Australia to strengthen the defense forces there.

The Philippines is the "Achilles heel" of the United States, and if it wants to hold it, it needs to send at least 500,000 troops and more than 2,000 combat aircraft, and the size of the US Army has only just exceeded one million so far. In addition, it is necessary to continuously transport a large amount of military supplies from within the United States thousands of miles.

But the United States is not yet in control of the sea supremacy in the Western Pacific, unless they are prepared to abandon Europe and concentrate all their naval forces in the Pacific.

The Philippines has actually been treated as an "outcast" by Washington, and the commander of the Asian fleet, Thomas? Admiral Hart had already received orders from the Pacific Fleet, and the Navy had deployed the main forces of the East Asian Fleet to Port Legazpi despite MacArthur's objections, ready to evacuate at any time.

Now MacArthur could only count on Britton's newly formed Far East Air Force.

In December 1940, the United States declared war on the Axis powers under the pretext that the German-Austrian fleet had sunk the American battleship "Arizona", and entered the war a year earlier than the other time and space, so the war preparations were much earlier than the other time and space.

After the Axis powers began their counteroffensive against Burma. MacArthur began to prepare a plan for the defense of the Philippines in the event of an Axis attack on the Philippines at any time. After Admiral Yankel led the Axis fleet to defeat the Japanese fleet and force his way into the South China Sea, MacArthur felt even more pressed for time.

Half a year ago, on the orders of Secretary of War Stimson, US Army Chief of Staff Marshall sent a telegram to MacArthur, announcing the formation of the US Far East Army, and MacArthur returned to active duty. He served as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Far East Army, but his rank was downgraded from a four-star general to a three-star lieutenant general. The composition of the US Far East Army is in addition to the US troops stationed in the Philippines. It also includes Philippine forces that have pledged allegiance to the United States.

Because the US military industry has not yet completed the process of transforming into a wartime economy, a large number of newly built military industrial enterprises have not yet been put into operation, and the United States has to provide necessary military assistance to Britain, Japan, and Soviet Russia, the US military strength has so far not been fully prepared to enter the war.

This is despite the fact that Washington has greatly strengthened its air presence in the Philippines over the past six months. The newly formed Far East Air Force has 36 B17 bombers and 16 new B24 bombers, as well as 302 new P40 fighters. However, it is limited by the backward airport facilities in the Philippines. The Far East Air Force could no longer be expanded, with only 12 squadrons of fighters in its 10 field airfields, and only Clark Airfield capable of taking off and landing heavy bombers, and the Delmont Airfield on Mindanao could only accommodate these heavy bombers for emergency takeoffs and landings.

Britton ordered 18 B17s to fly to Delmont, as another batch of B24s will fly to the Philippines in the next two days. So he needed to make room for this batch of planes at Delmont Airport.

In Wenchang County, Hainan Island, it is the season of harvesting sugarcane in early winter, and the fields are large green gauze tents. Farmers and peasant women in the fields were busy chopping ripe sugar cane, and from time to time they looked up at a huge airport in the distance. Since July, the Wehrmacht has begun a large-scale expansion of Wenchang Airport. Due to the lack of necessary machinery, the construction of this large airport, which has a 3,300-meter-long and 150-meter-wide permanent concrete runway, was requisitioned by more than 50,000 people, day and night, with manual digging and rolling, and finally completed after four months of intense construction.

Now that the airport is almost complete, several huge warehouses have been built next to the airport's apron, and trucks are constantly bringing in barrels of fuel from the port. The Wehrmacht around the airfield also multiplied, and they deployed a large number of cannons on the hill around the airfield, camouflaged with branches on the long barrels, and pointed high at the sky.

After this, groups of huge planes that had never been seen before flew from a distance and fell from the sky. These planes were huge, more than ten times larger than the fighters originally deployed at Wenchang Airport, and the wheels under the belly of the planes alone were more than a person's height.

Several medium-sized off-road vehicles flying five-color military flags drove through dirt roads in the fields and into the airport.

Air Force Rear Admiral Ding Jixu, commander of the newly formed Fifth Bomber Wing of the Chinese Air Force, got out of the jeep and loudly announced to the pilots who were playing football on the grass next to the airport: "The new combat mission has been issued, and all the captains and navigators will go to the war room at 5 p.m. to hold a pre-war combat meeting!" ”

After months of preparation, the Philippine campaign is finally about to begin.

Ding Jixu looked at the long row of behemoths on the tarmac, and his mood was very excited. This is the first combat operation of the Chinese Air Force since its inception, and the opponent is still the Americans.

Since the beginning of the year, the Chinese side has modeled itself on the Austro-Hungarian Empire and has formed its own air force independent of the army and navy, namely the Strategic Transport and Bomber Command. Based on the technology provided by Austria-Hungary, the Chinese side successfully copied the SM35 twin-engine medium-sized transport/bomber and the SMB39 four-engine heavy transport/bomber.

The SM35 twin-engine medium-sized transport/bomber introduced and produced by the Xi'an aircraft factory is quite smooth, and the monthly production is now 28 units. This medium bomber, equipped with two 1650 hp Steyr ST-218F eighteen-cylinder star-shaped air-cooled engines, has a length of 19.6 meters, a wingspan of 24.3 meters, a maximum range of 3600 km, a cruising speed of 346 km / h, and a maximum speed of 448 km / h. The total weight of the aircraft is 16.9 tons, the maximum load is 3.5 tons, and the maximum ceiling is 7780 meters.

However, the Beijing and Chengdu aircraft manufacturing companies encountered many difficulties in introducing the SMB39 four-engine heavy transport/bomber, which produced very advanced technology.

The SMB39 heavy bomber has a length of 31.2 meters, a wingspan of up to 41.2 meters, four 1,720 hp Linz standard SK-42 twin fourteen star-shaped air-cooled engines, a maximum bomb load of 10 tons, a maximum range of 6,600 kilometers, and a ceiling of 11,200 meters.

Many technical indicators of the SMB39 heavy bomber exceed China's existing industrial technical capabilities, such as double fourteen-star engines, radar automatic targeting bombardiers, automatic radio navigation systems, etc., so the output is extremely low, and the two major domestic aircraft manufacturing companies can only produce four aircraft per month. After receiving 24 SMB39 heavy bombers from two squadrons aided by Austria-Hungary, the Chinese Air Force was able to gather enough 38 heavy bombers for a strategic bomber group.

As the battle order was issued, the entire airport suddenly became busy. (To be continued......)