Chapter 399: Pirates Without a Home (Second Update)

At the end of November 1942, the first Corsair fighters were delivered, and it took a few more days to solve the problem of the hood exhaust flap spraying the windshield. Then these fighters, who still had a bunch of minor problems and did not solve the pirate problem, were forcibly loaded onto the aircraft carriers Essex and Yorktown, and walked on the road to Oahu.

As for the issue of the landing of the Corsair fighter, this is still not resolved, but for the US Navy it is not a problem for the time being. Because this is a one-way flight, the Corsair fighter will land at a land-based airfield after taking off from the aircraft carrier, so the landing difficulty can be ignored for the time being.

In addition to the 40 Corsairs, there were also a large number of P40s and some F4F Tomcats. At present, on Oahu, there are sufficient spare parts for the maintenance of these two types of aircraft, and the current US military can only come up with such aircraft for the time being. As for the other two members of the "Bottle Three" who use the "Re2800 engine", the F6F Villain and the P47 Lightning, they are still in the process of development and refinement, and they don't want to see them on the battlefield for the time being.

The sick pirates and the backward fighters, instigated by political factors, took off from the deck of the aircraft carrier one after another, and flew to Oahu under the guidance of several PB4Y navigators.

In order to maintain secrecy, the entire fighter formation used radio silence after takeoff, but this was a redundant action, and soon after they took off, they were discovered by the radar on the HE177R early warning aircraft cruising over the Pacific Ocean, and reported it to the Japanese army, and soon the Japanese army took corresponding action in response to this situation.

The first to strike were bombers parked on the islands of Kauai, Hawaii, Maui, and Molokai, and they were given only one mission: to blow up all the airfields on Oahu.

When a large number of US planes transferred to Oahu. Yamato Nadeshiko, incarnated by Li Huamei and Katyusha, is with Lin Han, parasitic on the aircraft carrier Musashi.

The aircraft carrier Musashi and the three aircraft carriers Flying Dragon and Soryu around him did not take off fighter planes to intercept these US planes, and the land-based airfields on the many islands around Oahu did not take off fighter planes early to intercept US fighter planes halfway.

The reason is simple: it is not necessary.

When a large number of US planes were spotted flying towards Oahu. A large number of bombers first took off on the surrounding islands, ranging from the four-shot HE177 to the 97 heavy bombardment, the 93 heavy bombardment, and so on.

As early as the first three times when the US military transferred planes to Oahu with the aircraft carrier Guò, the Japanese side was aware of the intentions of the Americans.

Li Huamei has no intention of turning Oahu into a second Kuah Island, where she will engage in a plane-to-plane battle with the US military. Even now, when the Japanese air force has the upper hand in both aircraft performance and pilots, she is not willing.

The reason is simple: the United States now has 200,000 aviation reservists, more than 1 million flying enthusiasts, and the ability to train 70,000 to 80,000 fighter pilots every year. What if it's a 10-to-1 swap ratio?

Japan will definitely lose this war, but before it loses. The goal of Li Huamei and Lin Han is to use the hand of Japan to make the United States bleed.

At that time, Li Huamei said to Yamaguchi, the captain of the Musashi:

"The best way to shoot down enemy fighters is to destroy them directly on the airfield. The United States has ten times as many people as the Empire, and even if there is a 10-to-1 exchange ratio in an air battle, the Empire will still lose. ”

In the past two days, Li Huamei guessed early on that the US military would have a large-scale aircraft transfer operation. So she ordered the Hawaiian islands to prepare the bombers of the Navy and Army Airlines. Before the war, they cooperated with the Americans and deliberately did not destroy the airport that had just been repaired. It is just waiting for the opportunity for a large number of US military planes to be transferred.

After the HE177R early warning aircraft discovered that a large number of US planes were approaching after sorting, a large number of bombers took off from the Japanese airfields around Oahu. Before the arrival of the US planes, all the airfields on Oahu were bombed indiscriminately, and all the military runways on Oahu that were still usable were bombed by the Japanese planes. In order to guarantee a better destructive effect. The Japanese planes also dropped a batch of "butterfly fuses" imported from Germany on the airfield on the island, and the time of the explosion was set within 40 to two hours.

The U.S. military's engineering repair capabilities on Oahu are excellent, though. But it is impossible to repair a bombed-out runway in an hour, especially when there are planes in the sky that are constantly bombing and disrupting. In order to ensure that the airfields on Oahu could not operate normally, the two old battleships Yamashiro and Fuso also sailed to a distance of 28,000 kilometers from Oahu at this time, hid in the dead end of the island's shore defense batteries, and fired heavy grenades at the island's airfields -- if the island's defense batteries were intact in the past, even if the battleships were even 30,000 meters close to the island, it would be a very dangerous act of seeking death. However, after a long period of bombing, a large number of open-air and semi-open-air batteries or superficial batteries on the island were destroyed, and the defensive circle of its coastal defense artillery has appeared to shoot at dead ends.

Without an airfield, these planes that the US Navy had worked so hard to send to reinforce would not have been able to transfer and land here.

At 1:15 a.m. on 12 July, another group of Japanese troops withdrew after bombing the Oahu airfield, and 10 minutes later, a large number of US fighter groups approached Oahu, but at this moment there was no airfield on Oahu for them to land.

Halsey's worst fears came when President Wilkie did not heed his military advisers and forcibly sent support planes to Oahu, only to throw them into a trap.

December 12 became a disaster day in the history of the development of the US Air Force.

The 300 US planes that flew over the island of Oahu over a distance of 700 kilometers sadly found that they could not find a place to land at all when they arrived at their destination.

They are now left with only three options.

1. Forcibly landing on a runway riddled with craters without hesitation, and then smashing the plane with a big roof in the process of taxiing.

2. Abandon the plane directly and parachute.

3. If you die, you will drag your back, and take advantage of the fact that there is still some fuel on the plane to attack the surrounding island airfields and nearby Japanese planes.

In the end, the third option was chosen during the flight of these US planes. However, before the noon sortie on the same day, both the take-off fighters and the pilots of the Japanese planes who fought with them were reminded that the US planes did not have much fuel, and there was no need to fight with them, but only to entangle the other side to keep them out of fuel.

Matsuda's plane was only allowed to take off by air traffic control when the US plane was still 15 minutes away from Oahu.

Realizing that they had nowhere to stay, the U.S. pilots angrily flew planes with little fuel left to engage in air battles with the surrounding Japanese planes. However, at this time, the Japanese aircraft were very clear about the state of the American plane. Except for the 40 latest Corsair fighters, the rest of the US planes are inferior to their opponents in speed.

In the afternoon, around Oahu and the surrounding islands, more than 600 planes chased and flew in the sky, and the planes were as numerous as locusts, but the air battle was not fierce. After intercepting the opponent in the air, the Japanese planes that took off naturally chose the most secure "mushroom delay" tactic in the air battle, relying on the fact that their fuel tanks were still full shortly after they had just taken off.

As long as these Japanese planes are in a disadvantageous position in the air battle, the means they adopt are to increase the throttle and keep running forward, bullying the shortcomings of the US planes that cannot catch up and are running low on fuel, and playing the tactic of delaying time with them.

This extremely unfair air battle began at about 1:20 p.m. and basically ended at 2:10 p.m.

At about two o'clock, the soldiers on the islands around Oahu and the Japanese warships sailing the sea saw a strange scene: a large number of American planes painted with red star markings were flying in the air, and then, because they ran out of fuel, suddenly plunged headlong into the sea.

"The scene of countless planes throwing themselves into the sea like dumplings is comforting."

On the same day, a German journalist who was serving as a military observer on a Japanese warship and observing the battle used his camera to take pictures of many US planes crashing into the sea due to running out of fuel.

On the same day, the U.S. aircraft carrier Tongguò transferred 312 planes to Oahu, but because the airfield on the island was destroyed and destroyed before they arrived, they could not find a place to stay, and because they were intercepted by Japanese fighters at the last moment, only a few planes finally succeeded in making a forced landing on Oahu by virtue of the pilot's superb skills and excellent luck. And the rest of the planes were either shot down by the Japanese in the air, crashed during a forced landing, or crashed directly into the sea because of the exhaustion of fuel. In addition, several US planes were stunned in the air battle and landed directly on the surrounding airfields occupied by the Japanese army, only to be captured by the Japanese army along with the people and the plane.

As for the 40 Corsair fighters that had high hopes before the war, many of them barely made a forced landing on the island's potholed and dilapidated runway, but all of them crashed during landing, and none of them were intact. During the landing, two pirates were mistaken for Japanese Sky Thunder bombers by American gunners on the ground, and shot down by mistake - because the appearance of the two is too similar, both have a pair of beautiful and wide inverted Seagull wings, the only difference is that the back of the Sky Thunder bomber is flattened, and the cockpit protrudes from the fuselage, with an excellent 360-degree full viewing angle, while the back of the pirate is not flattened and is connected to the cockpit. (Note: This is a problem with the early Corsair fighters, most of the fighters of various countries in World War II had the shortcomings of not flattening the back of the aircraft and poor rear vision.) However, after participating in actual combat for half a year to a year, this problem will be improved and solved due to the strong demand of the pilots. Spitfire, P51 Mustang, and Pull Series fighters all have this problem when they first debuted. However, FW190 and Japanese fighters pay great attention to this problem, and there is no zài problem) (to be continued......)

PS: The third watch will start after 8 o'clock. Ask for a thumbs up.