On 30 March, the island of Artura in the North Pacific was now densely packed with nearly 200 B-29 bombers.

Within a distance of nearly 3,000 kilometers between Artura Island and Japan's four northern islands, one of the largest naval fleets ever built is approaching Japan's four northern islands. In order to avoid an attack that could come from the direction of the USSR, the American fleet approached the target from the east.

This unprecedentedly large fleet consisted of four Montana-class battleships, four Iowa-class battleships, thirty-four Essex-class aircraft carriers (three more Essex were commissioned in February), twelve Independence-class light carriers, plus a full 170 escort carriers, and more than 400 cruisers and other destroyers of all kinds. As for the auxiliary supply ships that followed, the number was even closer to a thousand.

Such a huge fleet is like a pontoon bridge built on the sea, forcibly "connecting" the United States and Japan, two countries separated by the Pacific Ocean.

When its huge fleet of locusts floated on the surface of the sea and surged westward, the waters of the Pacific Ocean were stirred to a boil.

As early as a week before the U.S. Navy approached the Japanese mainland, the Eurasian coalition was easily aware of their movements. The Americans did not and could not keep this operation secret, this fleet was so large that when it was scattered across the sea, it covered an area of more than five hundred square kilometers. The submarines that had been deployed here in front of the coalition forces easily spotted their movements.

At six o'clock in the morning, when the sun in the North Pacific Ocean had just shown a corner of the sky, the B29 heavy bombers on the island of Artura took off in a row, and two of the B29s carried the weapons that the United States used to flex its muscles to the world: the atomic bomb, and their code names were "Boy" and "Fat Man" respectively.

The two atomic bombs were loaded onto B-29s, specially modified for the operation, and then mixed in a bunch of B-29 bombers to take off together and form two dense flight formations in the air, with their destinations being Kunashir Island and Zeki Island, the largest of the four northern islands in Japan.

It is expected that the planes will fly over the target at 12:15 p.m. on the right.

Those B29 bombers that served as decoy cover. Two large auxiliary fuel tanks and in-flight fuel tanks were added to increase the range of the voyage, so that the "decoy escort" mission, which had a round-trip distance of nearly 6,000 kilometers, could be completed.

For the B29 bomber, the distance of 6,000 kilometers is too long, and all the take-off weight is used to fill up the fuel, and there is basically not much weight left to install the bomb.

This attack on the four northern islands may also clash with the Anglo-German air force that was deployed there in advance. But the American side doesn't care about this anymore.

"Fight without declaring!"

This is the official thinking of the United States.

Everything will be decided after these two "swords of God" are thrown and the hard muscles of the United States of America are flexed to old Europe.

Even though Europe is now in a state of war, President Dewey still tries his best to avoid a situation in which he is the enemy of the whole world, and even though the US Navy is now the world's largest figure on paper, he does not have the courage to make enemies of the whole world with five "divine envoys." By intimidating the atomic bomb and intimidating some countries of the Eurasian coalition to withdraw from the war, that is the best outcome.

At eight o'clock in the morning, about 400 kilometers northeast of the four northern islands of Japan, the largest naval fleet in human history was approaching here. At 8 o'clock, the first wave of about 800 planes took off and made a gesture of attacking the four northern islands.

Aviation technology developed by 1946, and the traditional piston fighter had evolved to the stage of "omnipotence". Traditional specialized dive bombers have been largely phased out. In this operation, the number of fighters in the carrier-based aircraft of the Fletcher fleet, which was carried out in the first wave of assault missions, was close to eighty percent, and all of them were F8F fighters. The rest of the aircraft were torpedo attack aircraft and a small number of long-range reconnaissance aircraft.

In the first wave of 800 attack aircraft, all F8F fighters were used. It's just that 200 of them have heavy bombs hanging under their bellies. This attack, the tactical target of the American aircraft carrier. Not at all for bombing, but for luring the island's air defense fighters out, and then fighting a fighter-on-fighter air battle with them, attracting and depleting the island's air defense forces to facilitate the entry of the B29 fleet. The panda with the bomb will also join the air battle after throwing the bomb.

And a group of 1,000 attack aircraft is only the first wave of today's huge attack aircraft formation of the US military!

The second wave of attack aircraft groups. It will be released at 8:30, and it will be 800 again.

The third wave of attack planes was released at nine o'clock, and the number was also an astonishing 800 attack planes.

The fourth wave of 800 attack planes will be released at half past nine.

As for the remaining more than 1,000 aircraft, they are used for the air defense of the fleet and to prevent sudden sneak attacks by the combined Eurasian navy.

The four waves of attack aircraft totaled 3,200 planes. All of them are made up of F8F Panda fighters, and that's not all the carrier-based aircraft of this American fleet.

Of the 170 escort aircraft carriers, the number of carrier-based aircraft that can be carried is more than 800.

The number of carrier-based aircraft of the thirty-four Essex-class aircraft carriers combined is more than three thousand.

Counting the 12 Independence-class aircraft carriers, the total number of carrier-based aircraft blocked by the US fleet at Japan's doorstep in this battle has exceeded 4,500!

By about ten o'clock, in this first round of offensive, the first wave of aircraft has finished returning home, and when the fuel and ammunition are replenished, the fifth wave of attack aircraft will continue to depart.

According to the operational plan drawn up by the US Navy, in the first round of offensive in the morning, the US Navy dispatched five waves of 4,000 planes in batches within two and a half hours to "flood" the skies over the four northern islands, greatly depleting the local air defense forces.

This cycle continued until the B29 group arrived and dropped the "God Butcher's Weapon" before evacuating.

According to Nimitz's assumption, the US Navy will be able to fly more than 1,500 F8F Panda fighters in the sky over the South Kuril Islands at any given time.

The entire battle plan is nothing to say about military trickery, and it is completely a dignified and upright "regular soldier" crushing air battle. According to Nimitz's idea, it was to saturate the attack with more than 3,000 planes and directly "cover" the sky over the South Kuril Islands.

The largest air battle in the history of mankind was actually launched by naval aviation.

In order to prevent in the process of attacking the four northern islands. The main fleet was attacked by the unscrupulous Eurasian joint navy, and another 20 escort aircraft carriers formed a mobile reconnaissance fleet, which was swimming about 200 kilometers away from the periphery of the main fleet, releasing a large amount of reconnaissance to carry out a dragnet-type interception search.

The tactical purpose of such a large number of fighter sorties is actually only to ensure that the two B29s can safely fly over the target. And then there "two suns were planted".

The US Navy, which has deep pockets, is so "capricious."

At 7:50 a.m., when the US Navy pilots before the sortie sat on their favorite planes, waiting for the take-off order, many pilots took out the crosses around their necks and prayed anxiously.

The reason for the unease comes from the collapse of "faith" and the change of opponents.

In the past, the pilots faced the Japanese Empire under the guidance of the evil gods of Japan, but now the opponents have become all the countries with "gods", and three of them claim to have "divine envoys" sent by God. Although the US government has repeatedly declared that these so-called "divine messengers" are all false heresies blaspheming God. But whether it is "we are at enmity with God's angels." Or "we are fighting against the five evil gods", all of which are a great blow to the morale of the army.

On an F8F fighter jet waiting for a take-off order, pilot Jock is repeatedly checking the transistor radio station on board. These transistor radio stations are the largest military products exported by Germany to the United States in the past three and a half years. Its good quality, light weight, simple maintenance, and low failure rate are highly praised by US Navy pilots. Over the past three years, the U.S. Navy has imported more than 100,000 transistor radios from Germany, as well as related maintenance spare parts. And on transistor radio, the Germans also opened unlimited supplies to the United States.

Some conservative people in the upper echelons of the US Navy insist on using domestically produced vacuum tube radios, but the advantages of transistor radios over electron tube radios are too great, and they have an all-round crushing advantage in terms of communication effect and failure rate. Although the Navy once tried to replace the German products on the aircraft with vacuum tube radios. However, it was met with collective resistance from the pilots, and finally had to give up.

There were times when the British were stuck in the neck by the Germans during the One Year War. As a result, the aviation forces almost had no radio stations to use, and the Americans took precautions on the radio issue, stockpiling a large number of transistor radio stations in advance before the United States and Germany turned their backs. In addition, just in case, the American authorities did not stop the production line of vacuum tube radios as easily as the British had made. To the surprise of the Americans, even the turn of virtue turned on the other. However, Germany's domestic transistor factories still secretly "re-export" transistor products to the United States through third countries. At a time when relations between the United States and Europe have seriously deteriorated and war may break out at any time, the channels for the United States to obtain transistors have been unusually smooth.

As for the transistor radio station manufactured by the United States itself, due to the Bell Laboratory, which developed the transistor, it was poisoned by the botulinum toxin used by Lin Han and Hannah, a dog man and woman, more than ten years ago. The loss of a large group of relevant elite scientists led to the fact that the Americans were falling behind in the study of transistors across the board.

Although the Germans used transistor radios in the Chinese battlefield in 1935, after 1937, they exported them to the world in larger quantities to earn foreign exchange, and then the Americans who caught up increased their research on transistors. However, by 1946, the United States could only manufacture germanium transistors of unsatisfactory quality in the laboratory, and as for the industrial mass production, there was still a distance of 108,000 miles (note: Although the Bell Laboratory made the world's first transistor in 1945, it took six years to solve the large-scale industrial mass production. ）

While the American pilots were manipulating the transistor stations on their F8Fs, the Japanese pilots at land-based airfields hundreds of kilometers away from them were depressingly maneuvering the tube stations on their planes.

The frustration of the Japanese pilots was also related to the radio.

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, because of its "friendly" relations with Germany, both the Japanese Navy and the Army Airlines received a large number of German "cheap" export transistor radios, which were also well received.

However, at the end of last year, the ground staff of airports in Japan suddenly received instructions from their superiors, asking them to be ready to change the tube radio station for the plane at any time. Pilots who had become accustomed to transistor radios were re-asked to familiarize themselves with the use of tube radios.

In February of this year, the ground staff of airports in various places, despite the protests of the pilots, forcibly replaced the transistor radio stations with bulky and old tube radios according to the instructions of their superiors. A week ago, after receiving an alarm that the US fleet was about to launch a large-scale attack on the four northern islands, the higher authorities sent a special commissioner to inspect the replacement of airborne radio stations in the Hokkaido area.

As for why he did this, the explanation from his superiors was that it was a matter of life and death for the pilot. And just after receiving information that a large number of US planes were approaching, one of the instructions given to the ground crew, for the last inspection of the planes before the sortie, was to confirm the replacement of the radio stations of all the sortie fighters for the last time.

Unlike the F8F Panda fighters, which are all opponents, the Japanese fighters parked at the Shimaji airfield on the four islands in the north have a slightly more complicated composition.

The defenders of the island-based airfield are all Japanese Army, and the air defense of the airfield is also the Army Aviation, and the piston fighters they are equipped with are Hurricane II fighters, plus other types of combat aircraft, the total number is about 300. Therefore, the number of aircraft at the four island-based airports is small, and the first is that it is very close to Hokkaido, and it can be supported by thousands of land aviation aircraft in the direction of nearby Hokkaido at any time. Although the strategic position of the four northern islands is extremely important, after all, they are only small islands, isolated and vulnerable to attack, and have little room for maneuver, and once they encounter a large-scale bombing by the other side, they will soon be scrapped and paralyzed, and it is completely unnecessary to pile up too many planes here.

The person who proposed this kind of air defense system that is light on the front and heavy on the back is none other than Li Huamei. Li Huamei herself is a super ace in air combat, and she has also learned the experience and experience of Shanghai's air defense operations, so she has formulated such an air defense system.

On the four northern islands, various types of anti-aircraft guns are the most arranged. From the old triple 25mm anti-aircraft guns that were eliminated by the Navy, to the latest imitation 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns, to the heavy anti-aircraft guns converted from 150mm cannons. In addition to this, there were 3.7-inch, 94-mm anti-aircraft guns supported by the British and Germans.

The current four northern islands have long been built into a hedgehog array full of anti-aircraft artillery by the Japanese. (To be continued......)