Chapter 208: Solomon Checkers

At 7:15 a.m., 30 nautical miles east of San Cristobal Island and at an altitude of 3,000 meters, an attack aircraft of the Imperial Chinese Navy's JG "Golden Eagle" was cruising along the established search route.

"Cool girl, have you found anything?"

Through the high-power radio station that occupied a person's seat, Lieutenant Qi Bing in the driver's seat called her new follower, Liang Jinchao, a technical corporal in the back seat, through the in-flight wired headset stuck in the ear of the flight leather cap.

"Sir, if you call me a girl again, I'll have to complain."

Liang Jinchao immediately protested, although he was used to the jokes of male colleagues, he still couldn't stand the ridicule of a female chief.

"Alright, Corporal Liang, confirm the route."

Qi Bing tilted her head, she didn't mean to embarrass the rookie behind her, she just felt that she was a little embarrassed to be assigned to do this kind of boring reconnaissance mission, from Pearl Harbor to the Bay of Bengal, when did her octopus fat cat not play forward with Cai Guolan's Rising Sun Crane, but this time...... The uncle, who is the captain of the wing, is too unkind.

"It's 10 nautical miles from the first turning point."

Liang Jinchao's report came from the headphones, Qi Bing replied "continue to observe", grabbed a scarf and wiped the goggles that were clouded by engine oil and exhaust fumes, clamped the joystick between his legs, stood up from the narrow open cockpit, and tried to look at the sea under the clouds from the double-layer wings that occupied most of the field of vision and the gaps between the wings with dense pillars and stretched lines.

"There is a situation in the direction of 9 o'clock."

Liang Jinchao, who is equipped with a high-powered telescope, still made a discovery before Qi Bing.

"Let's lean over and see."

As soon as Qi Bing spoke, he had already sat back in his seat, and immediately pushed the rudder to the left, bulldozed the throttle valve, and flew at full speed in the direction reported by Liang Jinchao.

A cigarette of smoke, through a few broken clouds like broken mosquito nets, Qi Bing can be seen with the naked eye, and the sea surface is densely turned, full of ship shadows, tracks and pillars of smoke.

"Quick, quickly confirm the type and number of ships."

Unable to suppress the excitement in her heart, Qi Bing gave an order to Liang Jinchao, while looking around with wide eyes, looking for the opponent's fighter on duty, she didn't want to be shot down by the enemy in vain before confirming the enemy situation and sending a telegram.

Soon, Liang Jinchao, who had repeatedly won the championship in several observer identification competitions known to Qi Bing, reported the enemy situation after preliminary confirmation: "The main wheel formation found 2 new aircraft carriers, 2 new battleships, 3 New Mexico type battleships, 1 Pennsylvania, 1 New York, and Nevada-type battleships, 4 new type cruisers, 6 Chester-type light cruisers, and 12 1,000-ton destroyers...... There are still unknown ship shadows on the left and right sides of the formation and in the rear, and they need to be observed closely. ”

Qi Bing didn't have time to think about it, and hurriedly ordered: "Send a report now, in addition to the number of the local aircraft and the current position, only say that the enemy task force has been found: 2 aircraft carriers, 8 battleships, and 10 cruisers." Hurry, hurry up"

In fact, Qi Bing still had the last sentence and didn't spit it out - at 3 o'clock, three enemy planes approached

……

At 7:40 a.m., over Kirakira, twenty-three-year-old Claire? Plum? Lieutenant Ault is looking out over the turquoise sea, the verdant rainforest, and the rammed-earth runways that dot the landscape like an impressionist painting.

The Spanish-Swiss 8B liquid-cooled V8 engine with a maximum output of 200 horsepower in front of the cockpit is still running vigorously, and the Vickers machine guns fixed to the sides of the exposed cylinders are ready to be loaded - this Royal Aircraft Factory's latest 5A fighter jet is silently waiting with its American owner to hunt and be hunted.

As the son of corporate immigrants, Chennault was proud of his military lineage from an early age—not to mention that his mother's cousin was Robert Robert, the famous commander in chief of the Confederate forces in the American Civil War. plum

After graduating from high school, Chennault, who was obsessed with aircraft, entered the Cleaver Aviation School to study aircraft building, and achieved excellent results. Soon after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and entered Benjamin, Indiana? He trained at Fort Harrison Military Academy, was awarded the rank of second lieutenant three months later, and then went to the Army No. 1 Flight School on Long Island to learn to fly.

After half a year of hard study, Second Lieutenant Chennault successfully obtained the qualification of fighter pilot, and in 1915, the first aviation unit "Lafayette" squadron, piloted Newport fighters and achieved four results in three months (including one reconnaissance balloon), and he was shot down once, but miraculously unscathed.

In February 1915, Chennault was promoted to lieutenant, and after assisting the U.S. military delegation to Britain to receive a batch of new British-made fighters and the corresponding manuals and manufacturing drawings, he returned to the United States with the ship and became the deputy squadron leader of the 34th Fighter Squadron under Mitchell.

The 34th Fighter Squadron, nicknamed "Adam and Eve", was painted on the emblems on the tail fins of each aircraft, but there was no single figure, except for an apple that had been bitten twice—a metaphor for the biblical allusion to Adam and Eve who ate and was driven out of the Garden of Eden by God.

It's not the Garden of Eden now, but there are still people who are going to be driven out of the city—either the yellow monkeys, or the descendants of Adam and Eve, who still believe in God.

This time, God, is he going to favor us or to punish us again?

Chennault shook his head, unable to believe that this was the thought that came to his head, and at that moment, he suddenly noticed that the squadron leader's plane began to shake its wings violently: Alarm - the enemy is coming

Looking out to sea in a blink of an eye, at nine o'clock, a large group of aircraft approached

A few clusters of red flares pierced through the clouds and fired into the lower part of the air, which was the signal sent to the ground by the squadron of the current enemy aircraft, so that the 24 fighters on duty, who had been on standby on the runway, could take off as soon as possible.

Looking back to the right, the squadron leader's landline had stopped shaking its wings and was gesturing to each plane to "follow me".

Let's go, let's start, whatever he is the Eden Yellow Monkey, just remember that the enemy is the apple, we are the ones who bite the apple, and it's OK to bite it clean in one go.

Kicking the rudder, pushing the valve, and the bare cylinder connecting rod in front of him beating wildly, Chennault briefly recalled the battles in France, the experience of victory, the lessons of defeat, and the "trump card" one step away.

One more victory, and you are the first ace pilot of the United States of America

There were too many meaningless thoughts, as the exhaust fumes from the engine exhaust pipes dissipated behind him and turned to the target, Chennault still did not forget to observe the situation: the enemy's aircraft group came from the north-northeast direction, the size was about fifty planes, and his 34th squadron would be the first to press the front of the enemy from a high altitude, and the two British squadrons located in the left and right rear of the squadron would break through from above both sides of the enemy formation at the same time, and the two squadrons that had already started their engines and were on standby on the ground would meet them from below the enemy group.

The ratio of the number of enemies to the enemy is equal, but more than half of the enemy's fleet should be carrier-based bombers with heavy bombs, and their own fighters are completely lightly armed, so the actual ratio of fighters should be one to two, and at first glance it seems that you have an absolute advantage - of course, it is only a look.

As early as when assisting the British delegation in receiving new fighters, Chennault learned from the British population that the Chinese had an incredible advantage in aviation technology, and after coming to Kirakira, in the increasingly intimate exchanges with his British counterparts in the "Tucano" United Air Force, he realized that the Chinese naval aviation was not only superior to the army and naval aviation of any country in the Entente camp in terms of the average quality of pilots, but also in the advanced and practical aviation tactics of aviation.

So...... So what?

So just lock the scurrying shadows in the sight and press the trigger hard

Dive at full speed from top to bottom, the first round of raids caused a single-seat fighter to spin out of control, and before it had time to watch the opponent spin like a top and fall into the sea, he quickly pulled the rod to climb, turned around with a somersault, and caught up with a two-seater bomber with a dark bomb hanging under the fuselage.

While attacking, it is necessary to keep an eye on all directions and be on guard against sudden attacks at any time—this is the rule of survival that Chennault summed up from the battlefields of Western Europe.

If you have a premonition of danger, follow your feelings

The lever, the rudder, and the burning bomber disappeared from Chennault's field of vision in an instant, and when he turned his head to glance, he was indeed following an enemy plane behind him

For the next few minutes, Chennault felt like he had only a few minutes left to live.

No matter how you roll, dive, slide, skim the treetops or brush the sea, the opponent follows him like Chennault's tail, and the skillful short point shot flutters through the canvas skin from time to time, and the occasional bullet hitting the engine grabs the sparkle enough to make the scalp tingle.

Just as Chennault was desperately making his deathbed confession in his heart—there was salvation at 3 o'clock

The timely arrival of the two friendly planes seemed to have turned the tide immediately, but what happened next was something Chennault will remember for the rest of his life.

The other party did give up the pursuit of Chennault at the first time, but did not turn around and run away, but rushed at full speed against the two British fighters who came to help, rolled and shot in the chain of bullets that came from the face, and before they staggered at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per hour, they had already beaten one of them out of control, plunged headlong into the sea, and rushed into the snow-white waves.

Chennault, of course, was not idle, he turned his head and chased after him, not wanting the other party to slip off the nose with a beautiful half-somersault and side in the blink of an eye, and before Chennault could react, he had already whistling over his head, and the huge wheels under the opponent's fuselage almost rubbed against his upper wing

The great sense of humiliation drove Chennault to handle the plane to the limit, ignoring the rattling of the steel skeleton under the skin, and instantly twisted the nose of the plane in hot pursuit, and before putting the opponent's shadow into the sight, he noticed the emblem on the opponent's tail: a crane with outstretched wings under a red circle, and at the same time he also saw the fuselage of another 5 wrapped in flames.

"It's over."

The cross inside the sight finally bit the crane, and Chennault did not hesitate to pull the trigger.

……