March 1, 1941, Philippine Sea, 170 nautical miles northeast of Truk.

The Guangdong aircraft carrier, the flagship of the Chinese Navy's 211 aircraft carrier battle group, drew a clear arc on the sea surface, and the bow of the ship quickly met the hot wind coming from the equator. To its left, the sister ship Guangxi aircraft carrier and more than a dozen escort ships are also moving in the same direction.

The wide and flat flight decks of the two ships were already crowded with all kinds of carrier-based aircraft. The famous lightning, yaksha and osprey are tightly packed together. All attack aircraft were loaded with ground attack ammunition under their bellies, waiting for the take-off order. "Mark my words! Swoop! Pull it up! Swoop! Pull it up! Dive: This is the way to deal with Zero! I warn you at the end that I don't want to see heroes alone! If anyone has this idea, I will report and transfer him to Wolf Mountain and brush the airport runway with a toothbrush for a year! What I want to see is two to one, three to one, four to one, and five to one ravage little Japan alive! So keep in mind the tactics of one domain, multiple layers, and four systems, and remember the weaknesses of Zero Battle! Knock them down from the sky! Zhang Peng stood next to the ship island and pointed to the temporary blackboard behind him. The blackboard is densely packed with lines, each of which is a treasure in the eyes of the pilot. Because this is the brainchild of the Navy and Air Force after more than a year of fierce warfare, dealing with dozens of aircraft types, and paying the price of thousands of outstanding pilots killed and wounded!

"He's good at boosting morale."

Outside the crowd, Pan Duheng stood with several fleet officers and looked at Zhang Peng with a smile. "Zero Killer! I heard that in the past six months in Wolf Mountain, they and the Air Force have worked out a new tactic called "One Domain, Multi-Layer, Four-Four", and even the president was shocked and put forward a lot of opinions, which is an extremely powerful air attack tactic. An officer smiled and introduced.

"I'll find out later." Pan Duheng turned his head and asked, "Isn't there any news about the Haruna and Kumano on the reconnaissance plane?" ”

The battleship Haruna and the heavy cruiser Kumano were the biggest opponents in front of the XN21 battle group. Therefore, after setting off, Pan Duheng ordered submarines and reconnaissance planes to repeatedly reconnoiter the Truk Islands. The young staff officer on the left shook his head: "We have called for more than 30 water reconnaissance planes, but except for the discovery that they were in the Truk Atoll three days ago, there was no trace of them in the next two days, and even the four cruisers Furutaka, Kako, Oi and Kiso were not there, so they should have fled in fright by the reconnaissance planes." ”

"Don't be so arbitrary, Tsukahara and Nagumo are smart people, and they won't know that we will take the opportunity to seize Truk and Wake Island. In this case, we also left the Haruna and Kumano in the hope that they would be used to fight guerrillas, so that we would not dare to concentrate our efforts. ”

Pan Duheng's face was slightly red when he said this, and Bai Fu'an, who was next to him, pulled him and asked him to take two steps back, before he smiled and said: "What the commander said makes sense, you, you just lack experience." After resolving the embarrassment, he continued to ask: "Commander, what should I do now?" One battleship and five cruisers could not be allowed to move under their noses. Why don't you let me take the heavy patrol formation to search. ”

"Actually, don't worry, in the entire Micronesia, Marshall, and Gilbert, there is only one place where Truk can supply the battleships, so as long as the Truk base is destroyed, there are only two ways for the Haruna formation to go, either to Rabaul or back to the Ogasawara Islands." Everyone was wondering where the Haruna battleship was, when an outermost voice interrupted everyone. Turning his head, he saw that it was Yan Wenyu, who had formulated a plan for a sneak attack on Guam.

Now he is also a captain and has been transferred to the fleet as an aviation staff officer.

Being able to come up with a water plane and use the lagoon to land a sneak attack shows that he is very familiar with the environment of the nearby seas. So Pan Duheng looked into his eyes and asked, "Then where do you think Hirata Sheng will hide?" ”

"Noboru Hirata was born into a Tokyo aristocracy, and this kind of person often thinks very highly of himself, saying that if he voluntarily retreats to the Ogasawara Islands, it means that he will completely abandon Truk and Marshall. Although Japan may not have the confidence to hold on, the idea that they want to use this place to consume us is definitely there. Moreover, I think that Japan would like to have our main forces transferred to participate in the battle to seize the islands, so that we can take advantage of the island environment and cooperate with the guerrilla fleet to hold us back, thereby delaying our attack on the Ryukyus and the Japanese mainland. Based on the above analysis, I believe that Noboru Hirata will not return to the Ogasawara Islands, and it is most likely that he will hide in Marshall and Gilbert. But surely they could not have imagined that we would attack and not take it, and go straight to Wake Island and Marshall, so he would either come out and fight us, or there would be only one way. ”

"Nauru?"

"Yes, Nauru. Blow up Truk and he'll be out of supplies. Marshall back to Rabaul, the only place that can avoid us is there! Yan Wenyu, who was staring at by everyone, looked calm.

Pan Duheng nodded to the talented young staff officer with appreciative eyes, and was just about to ask a few more questions, but a piercing scream suddenly sounded from the lookout overhead: "Commander!" The Danxia discovered a Japanese submarine! Radio signal detected! ”

"Where is it?"

"Boom in our southwest!" Before the staff officer could finish speaking, the sound of artillery shelling was heard in the southwest. The dull sound alarmed everyone, and the pilots and sailors all rushed to starboard. From a distance, I saw that two Qinling-class destroyers and one Linghai-class frigate had already begun to fire at the sea, and even the electronic reconnaissance ship USS Ryukyu, which was on guard on the periphery, began to turn, and several water reconnaissance planes were even diving straight over there like falcons.

"How far is it from Truk?" The accident did not disrupt Pan Duheng's deployment, because of various intelligence and reconnaissance, Japan had long thought that the XN21 battle group would attack Truk. Because without pulling out the nail of Truk, the fleet will not be able to continue south.

"170 nautical miles, twenty minutes before the scheduled time of the attack."

"Don't wait, take off now! Inform Guam and let the bomber group arrive as soon as possible! ”

Amid the rumbling explosion of the encirclement submarine, the attack alarm bell sounded twenty minutes early. Hearing the bell, Zhang Peng and the pilot quickly rushed into the landline that had been prepared for a long time. Soon, the first wave of 48 Lightning fighters and 48 Yaksha dive bombers led by him took to the skies one after another. At the same time, fifty nautical miles away, the 212 and 213 carrier battle groups also issued attack orders at the same time, and a total of 130 lightning and 120 dive bomber groups formed a three-wave group and rushed towards the Truk Islands.

On Zhang Peng's fighter plane, five gold stars representing the downed zero battle shone in the sun.

At the same time, Truk also received a signal from the submarine, and hundreds of Japanese pilots rushed out of the dormitory and rushed to his plane.

The Truk (present-day Chuuk Islands), which means "mountain towering into the sky" in Malay, is strategically located in central Micronesia, radiating to the Mariana to the north, Rabaul and the Solomon Islands to the south, Palau and the Philippines to the west, and Marshall and Gilbert to the east. Not only that, but Truk is also a natural harbor. The entire atoll is triangular in shape, 64 kilometers long on each side, consisting of sand reefs and coral islands, with a huge lagoon of 2,129 square kilometers in the center, with a maximum diameter of 65 kilometers and an average depth of 1,600 to 3,200 meters, with six waterways to enter and exit. In the center of the lagoon are fourteen cliff-like volcanic islands, ranging in height between 300 and 500 meters, with a total land area of about 100 square kilometers. Because of the depth of the water and the short shore, there are many good harbors and hidden deep bays. Because of these natural advantages, Japan regarded it as a godsend after it was seized from Germany in the European War. In order to maintain secrecy, the archipelago was completely blockaded, outsiders were forbidden to enter and leave, and it took advantage of its unique geographical advantages to build submarines, oil depots, aviation bases, and other facilities here, and built a large number of heavy artillery positions on prominent hills. Densely packed with large-caliber shore guns, more than 300 warplanes and patrol fleets stationed all year round have turned this place into a well-fortified sea fortress. The Japanese once boasted that this was an "unsinkable" aircraft carrier, the "Pearl Harbor" of the Southwest Pacific.

In the strategy of the Japanese Navy, the rising China and the United States are the biggest competitors. China relies on the Ryukyu and North Korean barriers, while the United States relies on a chain of islands such as the Marshall and Micronesia. The reason why the Japanese navy continued to strengthen the defense of these islands, stationed heavy troops, and exhausted its national strength to build fortifications was that in the event of an attack by China and the United States, it could use them to delay the US Navy and win time to defeat the Chinese Navy.

Now that the turning time has been won, the naval battle of Wake Island has made the United States unable to move for at least half a year, and the next thing is to see if Truk can play a role.

"Absolutely!" Toshio Ota sat down on his Zero, tightened the headband with the word "Yong" written on it, and then leaned out half-way and waved his arms at the group of planes following behind. As the great hero of the naval battle of Wake Island, one of the few ace pilots of the Japanese Navy, Tsukahara 243 was in urgent need of experienced pilots and aircraft, but considering the importance of Truk, after the naval battle, he urgently transferred zero combat from the country to replenish the losses, and left sixteen elites, including Toshio Ota, intending to use them to lead the air team to protect the islands.

Tsukahara is indeed all-encompassing, but there is one thing he can't help about. Truk is an "unsinkable aircraft carrier", but also an "aircraft carrier that can never move". No matter how strong an aircraft carrier that cannot move, it will not be able to compete with a real aircraft carrier. Therefore, the only thing that the Japanese Navy can rely on now is the 20,000 army troops stationed here, hoping to drag down the powerful XN21 battle group with a brutal battle for the island.

With the wave of the flag, Toshio Ota was the first to take to the air. A moment later, the 64 Zeros, which were the first to take off, flew around the island and pounced on the location where the submarine found the aircraft carrier. Behind them, 72 Falcon fighters, 56 99 Ship Bombs, and 52 97 Ship Attack planes also took off one after another, and the black-pressed aircraft group made the army stationed on the island scream with excitement.

But soon the cheering was interrupted, and a large flowing "metal cloud" appeared northeast of Truk.

"Kill them all!"

During Zhang Peng's cold order, 66 Jian-Ba Tianquan fighters and 46 Haijiao interceptors (the naval version of the Air Force's double-headed Jiao) also quickly took off from Guam and rushed to the island at a speed of 550 kilometers per hour. Behind them, there were 122 H-7 bombers loaded with 4 tons of napalm.

At 9:15 a.m., a massive Truk air battle broke out.

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