Pearl Harbor.

December 21, 1933, 6:20 a.m.

Several long whistles drew the attention of all the American officers and men who were preparing for battle to the battleships in the harbor. I saw thick and black smoke coming out of the chimneys of eight battleships, including the USS Pennsylvania, the USS California, the USS Maryland, the USS Oklahoma, the USS Tennessee, the USS West Virginia, the USS Arizona, and the USS Nevada.

"General White, the American battleships are going to ......" Standing on the roof of the headquarters building of the US Pacific Fleet, Colonel Natalie Lesinskaya (Colonel of the Chinese Navy, of course, temporarily) pulled Rear Admiral Beth, who was fiddling with a German camera next to him.

Bai Siwen looked up, as if he was stunned, and muttered, "One, two, three...... Seven or eight, there are eight battleships to leave the port? Where are they going? Could it be that a Japanese aircraft carrier was discovered? ”

As a high-ranking officer of the Chinese Navy, Bai Siwen's professional knowledge is very proficient, and of course he knows that the cost of each sortie of battleships, which is extremely powerful, is also huge. The fuel cost of operating 8 battleships alone is an astronomical amount, so this kind of giant ship will usually be moored in the harbor and standby, and it is rare to go to sea to wander around, let alone dispatch 8 battleships at a time!

"The Americans must have discovered the Japanese aircraft carrier formation! Little Japan has a hard time now! The person who spoke was a British military correspondent named Clark, not far from Bethwin and Lesinskaya. Bethsven and Leshinskaya were not the only foreign military officers who came to Pearl Harbor to "watch" the battle. Britain, France, and Germany all sent military reporters or military observers, and the Americans did not refuse to come. They were also given the best vantage point overlooking Pearl Harbor. It seems that there is a little bit of meaning to establish power by killing the chicken of the Japanese devil. And these foreign military observers or reporters have been in Pearl Harbor for some time, and they have long been familiar with each other. Almost everyone made friends with Lesinskaya. Now they are gathered together before the big drama has started, and they are talking about it.

"You probably don't know it yet, the Americans have actually discovered the Japanese aircraft carrier formation a long time ago." A German naval officer said in fluent English: "Because the Americans have two air carriers with extremely strong reconnaissance and concealment capabilities!" ”

"Aircraft carriers in the air? What is it? ”

"It's an airship that can carry airplanes, built with the help of our German engineers." The German officer said triumphantly: "As far as I know, this kind of air carrier can carry several reconnaissance planes, with a range of up to thousands of kilometers and a speed of 150 kilometers per hour. With two such air carriers, the Americans will be able to patrol a large area of the sea very efficiently. How could the Japanese aircraft carrier group sneak up on Pearl Harbor? ”

Aircraft carriers in the air? And this goodies! Bai Sven glanced at Leshinskaya secretly, and the beautiful agent nodded and shrugged again. She knew about the aircraft carrier in the air, and reported it early in the morning, but it was like a stone in the sea.

……

At the same time, in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii, inside the island of the aircraft carrier Soryu. Yamamoto Fifty-six was stunned with the telegram he had just received from Nagumo Tadaichi.

"Comrade Commander, are you going to send a seaplane to search?"

In the reminder of the Kuroshima Turtle Man, Yamamoto Fifty-six sighed softly, and walked to the chart table, and the Kuroshima Turtle and the Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet, Onishi Taki Jiro, all came over. Yamamoto pointed to the north of the location of the First Air Fleet on the chart: "Onishi-kun, Kuroshima-kun...... Do you think it's really possible for an American aircraft carrier to be ambushed in the depths of the Pacific Ocean to the north? Could it be that Nagumo made a mistake? ”

Yamamoto Fifty-six trusted Nagumo Tadaichi very much, otherwise he would not have handed over the six aircraft carriers to him for command. However, what Nagumo reported this time was really strange. Nagumo's second squad spotted two American Curtis biplanes. Nagumo then sent several I-18s to drive them away, and the other party fled all the way north, and finally disappeared into the clouds more than a hundred kilometers away...... The pilots of the pursuing I-18 planes, of course, did not believe that these two planes would disappear out of thin air, they thought that there must be an American aircraft carrier nearby! So I lowered my altitude and searched the sea for a long time, but in the end I found nothing.

Onishi Takijiro shook his head: "It's not a mistake. Maybe...... The pilots of the two American planes were desperate, so they committed suicide by throwing their planes into the sea, right? This is a bad joke. Yamamoto and Kuroshima rolled their eyes at the same time, and Onishi's hand pointed to Pearl Harbor on the chart, and his expression became solemn: "No matter where these two planes go, Nagumo's second team has been exposed, and the Americans' planes have installed radios, and now Pearl Harbor is likely to be in full battle, and may even have sent planes to bomb the second team." Therefore, Comrade Commander must immediately make a decision on whether to send fighter jets to cover the second squadron, or go all out against possible American aircraft carriers to the north! ”

The discovery of Nagumo's second squadron and the possible presence of US aircraft carriers in the north suddenly disrupted Yamamoto's original deployment; on the one hand, Pearl Harbor would definitely be ready for battle, and it was likely that land-based aircraft would be dispatched to counterattack, and on the other hand, the US aircraft carriers in the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands could not be taken lightly. If one is not careful, the First Air Fleet may fall into the predicament of being attacked by the enemy on its back! Thinking of this, Yamamoto smacked his lips and sighed, "Let's order the two ships Canglong and Black Dragon to send I-18 to reinforce Nangumo." In addition, let the cruiser send seaplanes to search the Pacific Ocean to the north, and the search to the south...... Just hold off. ”

"Comrade Commander, submarine telegram No. I-38." As soon as Yamamoto's words fell, the communications staff officer of the First Air Fleet shouted. "The battleships of the US Pacific Fleet are leaving port!"

"What?!" Yamamoto Fifty-six almost fell, did the battleships of the US Pacific Fleet want to escape? He hurriedly asked, "Where is the air raid group of the second squadron?" When can I get to Pearl Harbor? ”

"Comrade Commander, neither our Il-18 nor Il-1 have a radio station installed on it. And it's too late to recalibrate the plan. The aviation staff officer on the side reminded.

"Damn." The staff officer's reminder calmed down Yamamoto Fifty-six a little. The fighter plane has already flown out, and it is impossible to take it back, only to wait for the results of the air strike. As for the battleships leaving Pearl Harbor, it is not a problem, the key is to find American aircraft carriers! As long as their two aircraft carriers were sunk, the American battleships, even if they still existed, would not be able to move an inch because of the loss of air cover. So after thinking about it, Yamamoto immediately ordered: "Maneuver north at full speed, and send seaplanes to search the sea area north of our fleet with all your might, immediately!" ”

"Yes."

Wait until the staff officers are gone. Yamamoto Fifty-six sighed heavily, he now only hoped that the first wave of strikes launched by Nagumo would severely damage the Pearl Harbor base and the Pacific Fleet.

……

In the harsh Hawaiian morning sun, the gold sun logo on a red background painted on the white fuselage shines. A swarm of hundreds of Il-18 fighters with streamlined fuselages and Il-1 dive bombers filled a large area of the sky.

Sitting in the cockpit, Kulishenko, the Soviet ace pilot and the chief captain of the Soviet Pilot Corps for Japan, looked at the neat formation composed of more than 300 fighters, and the white wings of the advanced fighters and dive bombers produced by the Soviet Union shining in the sun, and he felt that there was an irrepressible electric current swimming in his body. The last time he felt this way was 10 years ago when he first flew a fighter jet in the "Polish Liberation War".

10 years. He flew Soviet-made planes and took part in one aerial battle after another, fighting White German Fokker planes on the Polish front, British imperialist Hawker fighters in Persia, and British Hurricane planes in Iraq. From an ordinary aircraft pilot, he grew into a brigade commander of the Red Air Force Aviation Brigade. Now he has led 928 pilots from the Soviet Union and Polish Air Force to join the lineup to support the Japanese revolution. Ready to help the Japanese GCD teach a hard lesson to US imperialism that vainly tries to extend the reactionary universal values of democratic constitutionalism to Japan!

And the fighter he piloted has also changed from the earliest I-5 to the current advanced I-18. The streamlined fuselage, 1,000 horsepower engines, retractable landing gear, and two 20mm cannons and two aviation machine guns are enough for powerful firepower. All show that this is an extremely excellent air supremacy fighter, even the best in the world! As for some minor flaws. For example, the engine failure is frequent, the quality of the landing gear is not up to par, and it often cannot be completely put down or retracted, the aircraft is slow and inflexible due to excessive weight (compared to the original Hurricane), the plane is too fast when landing, it is easy to rush out of the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, and the quality of the parachute is not up to standard, etc., which is not a problem in the eyes of the elite pilots of the Soviet Union with great technology and experience! In fact, they all flew fighters that were several times worse than these planes, and they did not survive until now (comrades who can become elite are generally very lucky).

Downwards, there are Il-1 dive bombers/attack aircraft carrying heavy aerial torpedoes and bombshells. In fact, these two types of aircraft (referring to dive bombers and attack aircraft) are fundamentally the same thing, they are both enlarged and reinforced I-18s, with torpedoes on them as torpedo attack planes, and bombs on them as dive bombers. As for the performance, it's still very good, at least among the carrier-based dive bombers/attack aircraft of this era.

Not so much because of how advanced Soviet aviation technology really was, but because of the radical design ideas of Soviet aviation technicians. Apart from them, no one dares to put such a big, bulky and not very thrust plane on an aircraft carrier (in fact, European and American aircraft designers in this era are conservative in their thinking about carrier-based aircraft, especially British designers, so they have world-class aviation technology, but only a bunch of terrible carrier-based aircraft), which is simply murdering the pilot's life!

Therefore, even if the aeronautical engineers of those capitalist countries dare to do this, their capitalist pilots will certainly not dare to fly. In fact, in order to master the technology of the Il-1 taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier, the Soviet Pilot Corps for Japan's aid to Japan has already paid the price of 8 casualties, 6 injuries, and 14 plane crashes. However, the only headache is that until now, only the most experienced carrier-based aircraft pilots have been able to fly the Il-1 to take off and land on aircraft carriers, but the number of excellent pilots in Japan is too small, and they have neither enough aircraft nor enough gasoline to train enough excellent pilots. I heard that in desperation, the Japanese GCD has planned to abandon the imitation of the Il-18 and Il-1. Instead, I got the drawings of Fokker and HS-123 from China to prepare a copycat, which is also painful to think about.

Kurishenko pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at the time - it was a Citizen pocket watch given by the great leader of Japan, Takeda Heng. It is said that the Japanese reactionary capitalists who defected to China opened factories in China to produce them! Although it is a reactionary pocket watch, it is still very accurate, more accurate than the revolutionary brand watches produced in the Soviet Union. So Kurishenko still carried it with him, and as for the other gift from Takeda, a knife more than half a meter long, he no longer knew where to throw it, but the Japanese pilots on the aircraft carrier seemed to prefer knives and carried them with them when they got on the plane. I really don't know what's the use? Are you ready to stab the plane of US imperialism with a knife? Don't they know that this hand-produced knife uses a lot of miscellaneous raw materials, and it will have some magnetism, which will affect the instruments on the plane?

Just when Kurishenko was thinking wildly, he suddenly saw the Il-1 below for a while, and the neat big triangle formation split into two and began to spiral and rise.

"It's ...... Did enemy planes appear? ”

Kurishenko squinted his eyes and looked down, and sure enough, dozens of P-26 fighters flew over. He hurriedly took out a small red flag from the engine room and waved it vigorously three times -- since there was no radio on the IL-18 carrier-based plane supporting Japan, Kurishenko, as the commander-in-chief of today's air raid group, could only use the flag language to command.

The three squadrons of the I-18, which received the order, immediately dispersed and divided into two or two formations. Begin to occupy the commanding heights. Unlike the original Hurricane, which had good combat performance, the engine weight of the I-18 was excessive, and the Soviet plywood industry was not as good as that of the British, so the overall weight of the aircraft was nearly 500 kilograms heavier than that of the Hurricane, and the top speed was only 420 kilometers per hour, even compared to the P-26F fighter equipped with the 750 horsepower Twin Hornet engines. There is also no significant speed advantage. And the flexibility is not as good as the latter, the best tactic is to rely on its maximum take-off weight of nearly 3,500 kg and a relatively strong fuselage for a dive attack.

After separating dozens of I-18s to deal with the American P-26 fleet, Kurishenko pulled out a black flag and waved the banner "The bomber group continues to move forward." Then without looking at the air battle that was being staged, he gently pulled the nose of the plane. Roaring into the air, he led the group from bypassing the battlefield and continuing towards Pearl Harbor.

……

"Sir. The Japanese don't seem to notice us. ”

At this time, in the high clouds less than 10 kilometers from the Japanese fleet, the voice of Major Jensen, commander of the P-26 formation, was heard on the radio of a B-10 Martin bomber piloted by Colonel Sampson.

"Let them be proud for a little longer, there are enough fighters and anti-aircraft guns waiting for them at Pearl Harbor...... And we're going to bomb them and sink their aircraft carriers! The confident U.S. Army Aviation Colonel then ordered: "The 46th, 47th, and 48th Squadrons should be careful to reduce aerial combat as much as possible, the Hurricane is very flexible, and you should use altitude and dives to deal with them!" Well, good luck to you guys, and good luck to me, God is on the side of the United States! ”

After speaking, he pulled the control stick hard, and the two 775-horsepower star engines suddenly roared, and the huge thrust made the 7-ton bomber as light as a small fighter, and instantly accelerated to a speed of 340 kilometers per hour, flying at full speed to the northwest. Behind him was a massive fleet of 38 B-10 bombers, 68 BT-1 dive bombers, 68 Martin BM-2 torpedo bombers, 56 P-26 fighters, and 35 F-2A fighters.

Just when the formation of American and Japanese fighter planes almost passed by, piercing air defense sirens sounded from all over Pearl Harbor and Honolulu, mixed with the announcement of a loudspeaker: "Air raid siren!" Air raid alert! This is not a drill ......"

The island, which had almost become a large barracks, was now fully prepared for battle, and the huge shore guns were all raised (who to fight?). Anti-aircraft guns of all calibers also turned around, looking for targets in the air, and a large number of soldiers burrowed into the pillboxes and trenches on the coast of Oahu, and the M2 tanks, which weighed 17 tons but were extremely weak in firepower and armor, drove around, and there were some headless flies.

GC Doctrine Japan has finally hit! The officers and men of US imperialism were all trembling with nervousness. Of course, there are also more courageous Yankees, such as Captain Claire Lee Chennault of the 48th Fighter Squadron of the US Army Air Force, this 40-year-old captain is probably the most skilled pilot in the US Air Force, and at the same time one of the most reactionary pilots! In another time and place, he was the most famous foreign aid of the Chinese Kuomintang reactionaries. And today, he and the P-35 fighter he piloted, which has just arrived, will also be stained with the blood of GCIST fighters!

"Claire, take out a few Japanese flights!"

Chennault raised his right hand and gave a cool military salute to his old friend, Mechanic Carter, who was waving to him.

Towed by a 1,000-horsepower Wright engine, the 7,000-pound fuselage quickly broke away from gravity and roared into the air, when the rumbling sound of cannon was already heard from a distance.