Episode 66 The Bombing of Pukou

.

Sihong Airport, where the Qing Air Force's Sixth Bomber Aviation Regiment is located, has more than 100 bombers of all kinds, one-third of which are the latest "Dark Cloud" bombers.

But the anti-aircraft artillery units here were not as cowardly as those at Baoying Airport, and they still insisted on firing under the incessant attacks of dive bombers. Although it did not hit the Ming planes, it caused the inexperienced Ming planes to scatter and disorganize their formations, and instead of bombing in an orderly manner according to the predetermined plan, they fought separately and lacked cooperation.

In this case, although more than 30 heavy twin-engine "dark clouds" were blown up on the ground, more than 40 bombers flew up and fled in all directions. The Kingfisher fighters of the Ming army shot down a dozen of them in the air. However, due to the chaos in the air, the "dark clouds" of the Qing army and the "swans" of the Ming army were mixed together, and the kingfisher fighter pilots had never seen this kind of battle. In the end, more than 30 Qing bombers escaped.

But the results were also enormous: 32 Dark Cloud twin-engine bombers and 36 old single-engine bombers, a total of 68 bombers. The Ming army lost one "Swan", but it was shot down by itself.

Dongtai Airport, like Baoying, is close to the Yangtze River, and is the location of the 18th Combat Aviation Regiment of the Qing Air Force, with 92 Jebe fighters and 20 Haidongqing fighters, a total of 112 fighters.

But here, like Baoying, paralyzed and unvigilant, the alarm was not sounded until the group flew overhead. However, due to the hard work of the pilots of the Qing Army Aviation Regiment to fly the planes, and the inexperience of the Ming bombers, only 45 Jebe were blown up on the ground, and 37 fighters flew into the sky, including 10 Hai Dongqing. These 10 Haidongqing and the Ming army's 24 kingfishers were quickly shot down one by one, but the Ming army also shot down two swans and one kingfisher, and let the 27 Jebe escape.

However, the surprise attack here was also successful: 45 Jebe biplane fighters and 10 new Haidongqing fighters were destroyed, a total of 55 fighters. 27 Jebe flew away and escaped, and 20 Jebe and 10 Haidongqing stopped on the ground, and they were not destroyed. The Ming army lost two swans and one kingfisher, both of which were shot down by the 10 Haidongqing.

The fleet of aircraft on the West Road is also a huge success.

Hefei Airport was the location of the 12th Bomber Aviation Regiment of the Qing Air Force, and 71 old single-engine bombers and 40 twin-engine Wuyun bombers were destroyed, a total of 111 planes. However, due to the fierceness of the anti-aircraft guns, the Ming army was shot down 3 Swan bombers and 1 Osprey dive bomber, and the leader ordered to return ahead of schedule, leaving 20 single-engine bombers and 15 Dark Cloud bombers on the airfield.

Lu'an Airport is the location of the Fifth Combat Aviation Regiment of the Qing Air Force, which destroyed 80 Jebe fighters and 24 Haidongqing fighters, which can be said to be a total annihilation. 4 Haidongqing flew forcibly into the sky, but they were all shot down by kingfishers. But the Ming army lost 1 Osprey dive bomber, and 1 Swan bomber.

……

However, the only difference is Fengyang Airport. This is the location of the 1st Combat Aviation Regiment of the Qing Air Force. The 1st Combat Aviation Regiment was the first air force unit of the Qing Empire, and in the Qing Air Force, it was the most heroic and disciplined regiment. The elite of this regiment is concentrated, and many ace pilots belong to this regiment, and the average flight hours of the pilots of the regiment are more than 300 hours, and all kinds of new equipment and new types of aircraft are also given priority to this regiment. It can be said that the 1st Combat Aviation Regiment is the symbol of the Qing Air Force.

Of the 160 fighters in this regiment, 80 are new-type Haidongqing. Moreover, Fengyang Airport is the farthest away from the transit point of the Ming army's aircraft group, and it is the last airfield to be attacked; before that, it has received the alarm that three airfields have been attacked by air, and the fighters of the whole regiment, 43 are in addition to maintenance and repair, and the remaining 60 Haidongqing and 57 Jebe, a total of 117 fighters have all taken to the air and are ready to fight.

The tragic fate of the Fengyang detachment of the middle road machine group of the Ming army began.

Originally, I just thought that the first fighter regiment of the Qing army would be more tenacious, and would fly desperately under the bombing, and there might be some air battles, so more planes were allocated to the Fengyang detachment, and the swans and ospreys were more than other groups, and the kingfisher fighters were equipped with 32 planes.

But what I didn't expect was that the first combat regiment did not "fly stubbornly", but the whole regiment took off and was already in position in the air.

As soon as the Ming army's fighter formation saw this scene, 32 kingfishers immediately bravely greeted it and fought with 117 Qing fighters. The osprey formation and the swan formation also dispersed, evading it while continuing to fly over the airfield.

The Qing army's 44 Haidongqing entangled 32 kingfishers to fight, making them unable to protect the bombers, and the other 16 Haidongqing led 57 Jebe and began to kill the Ming bombers.

When the 60 "Ospreys" and 30 "Swans" of the Ming army flew over the airfield to drop bombs, they had already suffered heavy losses. There are 40 Osprey dive bombers left, and 8 Swan bombers left. Of these 8, 4 are already injured.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the leader of the Ming army immediately ordered the Swan bombers to drop the bombs and flee separately, and the task of the bomber hangar was handed over to the Osprey formation. The Osprey bomber was better, because it was more agile and could dive to dodge, plus the Qing fighters had no experience in dealing with dive bombers, and they mainly focused on big targets such as "swans", and the Osprey suffered limited losses, and it was considered a success in dropping the bomb on the hangar. The 23 Jebe and 20 Haidongqing, which were maintained in the hangar, were blown up.

However, the bulky swan bomber did not escape at all, and was shot down by Hai Dongqing one by one like a turkey, which is in response to the phrase "Hai Dongqing catches swans". When the group leader watched the last "Swan" drag the black smoke to the ground, he gritted his teeth and gave the order to return to the sea. The team leader led the remaining 20 kingfishers and the remaining 40 Haidongqing, trying to create opportunities for the osprey formation to escape.

As fighters of the same generation designed in the early 30s and put into service in the first half of the 30s, it can be said that the performance of the "Kingfisher" and "Haidongqing" is similar. It can be said that the "Kingfisher" is slightly taller. However, the number of "Haidongqing" was twice that of "Kingfisher", and the quality of the pilots of the First Fighter Regiment of the Qing Army was comparable to that of the pilots of the Ming Army. The Qing army could calmly attack a "22 formation" of the Ming army with a "44 formation", that is, use two pairs of long planes and wingmen to attack a pair of long planes and wingmen.

In addition, Fengyang Airport is the farthest airport, and the Ming army came from afar, and at this time, the "Kingfisher" fuel is about to run out, and it can no longer withstand the struggle. There were only 4 kingfishers left, and with the advantage of a slightly faster speed than Hai Dongqing, they fled from the battlefield.

The Fengyang detachment of the Ming army suffered heavy losses: all 30 Swan bombers were lost, 60 Osprey dive bombers were lost 23 units, and 32 Kingfisher fighters were lost 28 units.

In contrast, the results were pitiful. Blew up 23 Jebe and 20 Haidongqing in the hangar, and shot down 24 Haidongqing and 12 Jebe in the air battle. A total of 79 aircraft.

If it is an air battle in which both sides are prepared, this loss ratio should also be considered a defeat, but it cannot be regarded as a fiasco. But as a sneak attack, it was beaten like this, which was a complete fiasco.

……

Around six o'clock in the evening, all the formations returned. At more than a dozen airports, pilots tiredly took off their flight caps, sat in hangars, and told the officers about their achievements. The difference is that most airports are full of triumphant laughter, and only three are shrouded in sadness and frustration. The three airports even seem empty, as there are no more planes left.

Detailed battle reports were sent to the high command one after another. Now there was jubilation in the central command hall. Xiang Xiaoqiang, the direct mastermind, and the two commanders, Lu Airlines and HNA who were the direct commanders, became the focus of everyone, and the officers were overjoyed and congratulated them. The female officers brought champagne and opened it on the spot and poured it for everyone. - This is a great achievement. Even if you count the defeat at Fengyang Airport, the results are much greater than expected.

Xiang Xiaoqiang took the statistical table of battle results, and the bottom column read:

A total of 72 Wuyun twin-engine bombers, 107 old-fashioned single-engine bombers, 98 Haidongqing fighters, and 260 Jebe old-fashioned fighters were destroyed. - A total of 179 bombers and 358 fighters. - 537 in total.

Our losses: 37 Swan twin-engine bombers, 25 Osprey dive bombers, 30 Kingfisher fighters. - 92 in total.

The results are not great! It's not amazing! This is a classic one-sided victory.

Xiang Xiaoqiang looked at the jubilant officers around him, and he couldn't keep his mouth shut. This victory means too much. The Manchu Air Force had about 1,500 combat planes, but now it has lost more than 500 at once, and the number of combat planes in the Ming and Qing dynasties has basically leveled off. Moreover, the performance of the Ming army's aircraft and the quality of its pilots were generally higher than those of the Qing army. This is tantamount to saying that the strategic superiority in the air has been greatly biased in favor of the Ming army.

What is even more valuable is that this operation destroyed 98 Haidongqing fighters of the Qing army. The Manchu Air Force only had about 200 of these new fighters, and now half of them have been destroyed, and there are still about 100 left. And the Nanming Air Force now has about 300 Kingfisher fighters.

It can be said that for a long period of time, the Ming army will have the upper hand in air battles.

Xiang Xiaoqiang even thought that if the time could be coordinated more perfectly this time, and the Fengyang Airport could not be given an early warning, more than 100 fighters of the Qing army would be destroyed, and his own losses would probably not exceed 20, instead of the current 92.

Of course, this unprecedented air raid taught the Qing army a lesson. There will be no such opportunity again. In the future, every time a plane of the Qing army was destroyed, it would have to rely on real air combat.

Now, it's time to solve the problem of Nanjing.

175 Osprey dive bombers remain, 150 remaining. The pilots of these dive bombers were destined to have a hard time today. As soon as they got off the plane, they were given a priority report on the results of the battle, and then they were immediately arranged to have an early dinner. Immediately afterwards, they were assigned a new task, taking advantage of the fact that it was not yet dark, to blow up Pukou and the northwest of Nanjing.

Although the pilots were very tired, they knew that the next action was to directly relieve the siege of Nanjing, and many of them felt very happy and unfinished for the first time in actual combat, and welcomed this important and not too dangerous mission.

150 ospreys were refueled, reloaded with bombs, escorted by 150 kingfishers, and rose into the sky. The escort ratio has reached one to one, which is very high. And it turned out in real combat that such a dive bomber is not as easy to shoot down as a horizontal bomber. But the commander of the army aviation still sent them a large number of escort aircraft. On the one hand, the fighters are relatively idle now, and Xiang Xiaoqiang also suggested that the 150 Ospreys should be protected and that the situation at Fengyang Airport must not occur again. Now dive bombers are too important for ground operations, and the next military operations will be used frequently. And just like that, 150 planes, losing one of them is a huge loss.

……

In a fortification at the Pukou wharf, Emperor Guangwu sat at a table, looking at a report with a blank face. -- About 40 minutes ago, six military airfields in Dongtai, Baoying, Sihong, Fengyang, Hefei, and Lu'an were bombed by a large number of Ming planes at the same time, and our army suffered heavy losses, with the loss of more than 500 planes estimated at more than 500.

He looked at it for a while, looked up blankly, and asked:

"What is this?"

The faces of the generals in front of him were like white paper, and no one dared to speak.

Emperor Guangwu lowered his head and looked at it again, knocking on this piece of paper:

"What the hell is this? Where did it come from? ”

In front of him, an air force staff officer's face turned red, and he said after a long time:

"This ...... It's just ...... The report that has just been delivered. We were bombed by Ming planes and lost ...... Loss ......"

Emperor Guangwu was happy all of a sudden, threw the paper on the table, and said:

"What are you kidding, we lost more than five hundred? How many planes did the Ming army get? …… There are only about 1,000 of them that can fight, so why did they destroy more than 500 of us in half an hour? You check it again, tell them to wake up and write the numbers. ”

This air force staff officer was just a colonel, and he had nothing to do with this attack on Nanjing. He was only one of the officers who followed the emperor to Pukou as a representative of the air force. But now in this report, he believes in the seriousness of the matter. He is not like Emperor Guangwu, who only knows artillery, he knows what the Air Force can do.

"Your Majesty," he said with a dry throat and courage plucked up, "Ming...... The Ming army was a sneak attack, and most of our planes did not fly, and they were blown up on the runway...... So, five...... More than 500 planes, which is completely ...... Possible ......"

The smile on Emperor Guangwu's face froze. He picked it up again and read it carefully. The more I looked at it, the whiter it became, and finally my hands were shaking.

He covered his forehead and muttered:

"So...... Could this be true? ”

The Air Force staff officer nodded with a pale face. Immediately followed by another sentence:

"Your Majesty, the minions don't know anything about this, maybe they made a mistake, and there are ......"

Emperor Guangwu held his forehead, waved his hand lightly, and handed him the report:

"Go, check the side again......"

Suddenly, he seemed to hear a strange cannon sound, faintly coming from outside the fortifications. This is very different from the sound of artillery that has been going on all day.

Flak?

Before he could react, the fortifications seemed to have been slammed, and in the huge vibration, the light bulb went off and on again, and a large amount of dust fell on the top surface.

Several officers rushed in and shouted:

"Your Majesty! Emperor! ”

Emperor Guangwu staggered up from the ground, his ears were still ringing, and he asked in a daze:

"What, the fortifications have been shelled?"

The officers were overjoyed to see that he was fine, and stepped forward and said:

"Your Majesty, it's great that you're okay! …… Your Majesty, it's not a cannonball, it's a bomb! ”

"Bombs?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, the planes of the Ming army are coming, don't go out! …… It's crazy outside, I've never seen a bomber like this! Such a little plane, so accurate! ”

Emperor Guangwu straightened up and said angrily:

"What about our fighters? Knock them down! ”

Several officers looked at each other, and then one said:

"Your Majesty...... Who...... Who knows, it's blowing up outside......"

Emperor Guangwu didn't say a word, grabbed the telephone, shook it a few times, and said:

"It's me. Pick me up at Pukou Airport right away. ”

After a while, the operator's panicked voice reappeared:

"Your Majesty...... The telephone line was blown up, and the emperor ...... The emperor spared his life......"

Emperor Guangwu silently hung up the phone, touched his forehead, listened to the muffled sound of explosions outside from time to time, and the constant vibration under his feet, and let out a long breath:

"Tonight...... Can you still take Nanjing? ”

……

The 150 Osprey dive bombers were divided into three groups, and the first group bombed thousands of Qing troops in the city of Nanjing and in the zoo in the northeast corner.

The second group flew to the Zimu Island area and bombarded the Qing army there that was at a stalemate with the garrison.

The third group, the largest, numbered 100 planes, continued to bombard the docks, barracks, railway station, and six heavy artillery positions arranged a few kilometers to the west.

Tens of thousands of Qing soldiers assembled in the barracks and docks scattered and fled. They watched in horror as the bombers in the sky roared down and swooped down, first with a "da-da-da" machine-gun fire, dozens of people fell in a pool of blood, and then a black thing fell, and there was a loud bang in the crowd, throwing countless flesh and blood limbs.

The problem is that there is no escape, this thing in the sky is blown up too accurately, and there are many people there. Hundreds of thousands of Qing troops gathered in this area of Pukou was dense enough, and it turned out that only the problem of artillery fire on the opposite shore had to be considered. However, the artillery on the other side could not see this side, and could only fight indiscriminately according to estimates, not even indirect aiming, and there were not many casualties.

But now 100 dive bombers are circling overhead, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on people, which is equivalent to 100 cannons directly overhead. And it was a 220-kilogram "giant shell" fired......

In this case, the mental blow to the Qing army was much higher than the number of people actually killed. When the bombers roared down, every Qing soldier on the ground thought that they were coming at them, and they scattered and fled in all directions, all the formations were disrupted, and everyone just wanted to live.

At first, the anti-aircraft artillery positions were still firing stubbornly, but later it was discovered that this kind of plane, which had swooped down vertically at more than 80 degrees, was difficult to hit with anti-aircraft guns. Large and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns are simply impossible, and even small-caliber rapid-fire guns require high technology. When this kind of plane dived down, it was still firing, and the artillerymen who insisted on shooting always suffered heavy casualties, and those who threw down the anti-aircraft guns and fled survived. Soon, no one cared about the anti-aircraft guns anymore, and all the artillerymen, like the infantry, looked around for shelter, hoping to survive the catastrophe.

……

Pukou Airport is a small airfield, with more than 20 Jebe fighters, but it is so close to the Yangtze River that it does not even have a minimum warning time, and it is directly destroyed on the runway.

Now that the planes of the Ming army are experienced, it is sometimes more efficient and economical to strafe them than to throw bombs against planes parked on the runway in the open air. Bombs are kept against high-value hard targets, such as hangars, train stations, etc.

Twenty Ospreys "swept" the Pukou airfield, and then turned around to participate in the bombing of the railway station.

The piercing sirens of the Pukou railway station sounded in the sky, but there were no anti-aircraft guns or Qing fighters around, and they watched as a large group of bombers roared down and fireballs rose on the ground.

The bombing targets were all the buildings, all the trains parked at the station, and the shiny steel rails.

There aren't many buildings on the train station, but they're all important. The dispatch station, the control room, the train depot, etc., collapsed one after another in the explosion of 220 kg bombs. When dealing with long trains lying on the tracks, dive bombers are the best suitable. Especially the kind of train that is parked very densely on the shunting yard, and a bomb blows up a large area.

Several ospreys noticed a few very conspicuous carriages, which seemed to be armoured, with turrets above them, and were very interested, thinking that it was worth exploding. The ospreys each dived once, and finally dropped a bomb on it. Emperor Guangwu's armored train was blown in two with a loud bang, and the fire ignited the shells in the turret compartment, resulting in a series of explosions, which ignited another munitions train on the adjacent track, and the explosion was earth-shattering.

In addition to the explosion and burning of several flatbed trucks with cannons and container trucks pulling munitions at the station, the pilot also saw two long flatbed trucks with tanks tied to them with steel cables. The pilots counted hundreds.

The leader of the team immediately judged that this was the tank that the Qing army had withdrawn from various army units in order to deal with the armored superiority of the People's Guard, and was ready to transport it across the Yangtze River to attack Nanjing. He immediately summoned twenty ospreys and took turns to dive and bomb until each tank was blown to scrap metal by the train.

……

These dive bombers continued to bomb, and as soon as they finished throwing the bombs, they flew back to load, and the pilots didn't even get off the plane, and then flew straight back to the battlefield.

At first, they were loaded with two 220-kilogram bombs, but later hard targets such as railway stations and heavy artillery positions had been completed, and against the Qing infantry who were scattered and fleeing, this kind of bombshell was not effective, and the damage was not as good as that of fighter jets. In addition, it was getting dark, and the bomb delivery accuracy was not very good, so they all went back one after another to replace it with a 100-kilogram bomb. This bomb can be loaded with four at a time, and the lethal effect on infantry is greatly enhanced.

Xiang Xiaoqiang kept seeing the latest battle reports in the fortress, and when he learned of this situation, his mind immediately turned around, and he directly suggested that the commander of the army aviation send horizontal bombers again to carry out extensive bombing of Pukou.

A few old men studied it and also thought that while they had absolute air supremacy and it was not dark, there was nothing wrong with playing a big game, so they sent 50 Swan bombers, each carrying 10 100-kilogram bombs, to fly over Pukou to carry out a thorough bombing of strategic areas such as the barracks area, the dock area, the station area, and the warehouse area.

It wasn't until seven o'clock, when it was completely dark, and accurate dive bombing was no longer possible, that the Osprey formation returned. But the bombing of Pukou did not stop, and more horizontal bombers were brought in from nearby airfields to continue their night bombing. At this time, there is no need to talk about accuracy, just drop bombs into the sea of fire below. In the end, the number of "Swan" bombers and old biplane bombers that participated in the bombing reached 150.

Pukou has become a sea of fire, and as a traditional military town of the Northern Qing Dynasty, it has no value at all.

The dock area, completely unusable. The station area is completely unusable. The warehouse area, completely blown up. In the barracks area, not a single dormitory is not burning. As for the number of Qing soldiers killed...... There are no statistics yet. But according to Ming army estimates, it should be in the five figures.

More importantly, this air raid completely destroyed the Qing army's will to fight on the north bank, and Emperor Guangwu's plan to take Nanjing on Chinese New Year's Eve was completely bankrupt.

As burning as Pukou, there is also a zoo and the position of the Qing army on Zimuzhou.

The zoo is full of corpses, some animals, but more of them are human. A man in the uniform of the Qing army. A bomb landed in the snake house, and hundreds of venomous and non-venomous snakes crawled out and scattered around every corner of the zoo. The Qing soldiers were all northerners, most of whom had never seen snakes, and at this time they were terrified, as if these snakes were ten times more terrifying than the bombers in the sky, and they shouted "long worms" and "long worms" and ran in all directions.

But the Ming army is all southerners, and they know more about snakes, so they are not so afraid, and they all know that in this season, snakes are hibernating. Now that I'm woken up, I'm not so active, and I won't get bitten if I pay a little attention.

But these snakes also caused some trouble for the Ming army. In order to keep warm, many snakes got into the engines of the Ming army's tanks and vehicles, and were wrenched in, always making the engines not working, and it took a lot of effort to get the dead snakes out.

At eight o'clock in the evening, the People's Guards completely occupied the zoo and captured the remaining more than 4,000 Qing troops. These Qing troops were the remnants of the Fourth Division of the Eight Banners. At this point, the Second Eight Banner Division became a prisoner of the People's Guard.

"Now," Xiang Xiaoqiang leaned back in his chair comfortably, let out a long breath, and muttered to himself with his eyes closed, "The Battle of Nanjing has basically been won. ”

After a while, he opened his eyes, looked at the big map, and asked Xiuxiu behind him:

"Hey, the three pontoon bridges on Zimu Island are still there, right?"

Xiuxiu nodded and smiled:

"Well, it's still there. …… Xiang-sama, do you really want to ...... Didn't the Battle of Nanjing be won? ”

"What's really fake," Xiang Xiaoqiang smiled, "I'll have to discuss the detailed plan with the old men...... Won, that's a long time ago...... But this battle is not over yet...... As I said, it can't be so cheap. ”

As he spoke, he stood up, with a fierce light in his eyes, which startled Xiuxiu.