Episode 96 Bombing of Okinawa

At 16:40 on the afternoon of the 9th, the Tianshu aircraft carrier formation arrived at the intended attack position after six hours of high-speed sailing——.

By this time, the sun was already very westerly. And the sun on a tropical July afternoon is so scorching that it pierces the eyes. From here, the planes of the Ming army flew from west to east to Okinawa, just in time to follow the sun. Whether it is a warship or an anti-aircraft gun on Okinawa, if you want to shoot a Ming plane, you have to look up in the direction of the sun, and it is very difficult to fight. Moreover, the Ming army group can also use the cover of dazzling sunlight to drill out of the strong light until the last moment, hiding its body until the last moment.

Moreover, after the Ming army bombed Okinawa, it would soon be dark. Even after a few hours, the Japanese aircraft carrier arrived in the nearby seas, it was already dark and it was impossible to find the Ming fleet by plane. The Ming fleet had a whole night to act covertly and go wherever it wanted. And by dawn tomorrow, the Ming fleet may have already gone out of the search range of the Japanese aircraft carriers.

The time and location were very favorable to the Ming army, as if they had been calculated in advance.

The Tianshu detachment sailed against the wind, and three large aircraft carriers began to release their planes. It was still divided into two attack waves, and the main targets of the first attack wave were Japanese aircraft on the airfield on Okinawa, various anti-aircraft artillery positions, oil depots, barracks. There were probably no fighters left on the island, so the target was Japanese bombers. These bombers are not only worth bombing, but they are also necessary. Because if they take off and go to the sea to search for the Ming aircraft carriers, it will still be very dangerous.

The bombing of the Japanese barracks was to kill and injure as many Japanese troops defending the island as possible, and to give Tokyo the feeling that "the Ming army is preparing to land on Okinawa."

The main task of the second attack wave was the bombing of military ports. Although Okinawa Island is not large, it is definitely a good harbor center. From south to north, the bay twists and turns, and there are many places that can be used as ports. There are two military ports, the Naha Military Port on the west coast of the southern part of the island, and the Jinmu Bay Port on the east coast of the central part of the island. The others are fishing ports, which are used by the people of Okinawa (former Ryukyu nationals) on the island to make a living.

The first attack wave will fly over these two military ports, but it will not attack, mainly to see if the Hiei is in the harbor and if there are any other warships in the harbor. The information is then transmitted to the second attack wave group. If Hiei is in the harbor, then the second attack wave is to concentrate on bombing Hiei.

……

A group of dive bombers and a group of fighters flew in a dense formation towards the island of Okinawa, 190 kilometers to the east. It is expected to fly over Naha Airport in 35 minutes. But just after 20 minutes of flying, a Japanese patrol boat appeared on the sea below. The patrol boat was small, about one or two hundred tons, and it was very fast, dragging long white marks. It apparently spotted the large group of planes overhead, and immediately turned its course, and the white mark below made a big turn, and it almost followed the group in the same direction on the sea surface at the highest speed.

Of course, no matter how fast the speedboat is, it is only about one-fifth the speed of the fleet. Soon, the speedboat was left far behind.

The Ming army did not waste time in swooping down to attack the boat, and the second was to continue to fly in the predetermined direction, but at a faster speed. They knew that the Japanese boat had already reported its location to the Okinawa base. It runs with itself, also to try to judge the course, speed, number, and type of aircraft of the group. Now, at the airport in Okinawa, the alarm must have sounded.

The Japanese army was on high alert near the island of Okinawa. In the next 10 minutes of flight, the Ming army group encountered a Japanese reconnaissance plane and a Japanese destroyer one after another. This should be the alert force arranged by the Okinawa base in this direction. When the Ming aircraft group flew over the destroyers, the Japanese destroyers below also fired at the Ming aircraft group, trying to shoot down one or two planes. But the Ming army group didn't pay attention to it, and just accelerated towards Okinawa.

Sure enough, when I saw the mountains of Okinawa in the distance, I could see a large air-proof balloon rising from the harbor below the hillside. Obviously, in such a short period of time after receiving the alarm, the Japanese troops on the island were already in full position.

The Ming army group continued to approach at high speed, and when it reached about 10,000 meters, layers of explosion smoke began to appear in the sky ahead, and large black clouds appeared around the Ming army group. Of course, this distance artillery is not very dense. But when the distance reached several thousand meters, the density of the black clouds suddenly increased, and many Ming military planes felt the turbulence brought by the shock wave, as well as the occasional "clanging" sound of shrapnel grazing the fuselage.

The Ming army flew over the Naha military port, and saw that there were almost 10,000 cannons fired below, and a large man was moored in the port, spitting tongues of fire up and down, like a hedgehog.

The battleship Hiei, that's right. The main target of the Ming army's attack was in the harbor. It wisely didn't go anywhere, relying on the anti-aircraft guns around the harbor to add anti-aircraft fire.

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But the port was not the target of the first attack wave. The first target of the first attack wave was the airfield, as well as the Japanese bombers on the airfield. Everything in the port is dead and won't run. And even if the warships in the harbor run, they will not be able to run far in a short time. But once the bombers on the airfield are gone, it will be difficult to find.

Fearful things happened. When the Ming army divided into two groups and went straight to Naha Airport (Naha City in the south) and Okinawa Airport (Okinawa City in the middle), it was already possible to see some planes scattered in the sky in the north. It looks like there are more than a dozen. At least some of the bombers on the island were already flying and ready to flee.

A squadron of Ming fighters pulled up the throttle and chased after it at high speed. At the same time, the remaining bomber group and three squadron fighters also dispersed, searching Naha and Okinawa airfields to see if there was still time to take off.

The distance between the two airports is 20 kilometers in a straight line. It's a long way to go around the mountain road and around the bay on the ground, but for the planes in the air, it's a blink of an eye. The group of Ming military planes that searched Naha Airport flew low over Naha Airport, and they did not find a single plane on the runway except for being bombarded by anti-aircraft guns. Without delay, this group of planes immediately pulled up and went to rendezvous with the group from the north to search for Okinawa Airport.

There was a burst of explosions at the Okinawa airport in the north, and it was the sound of bombs being thrown. It seems that there is something on the Okinawa airport.

Sure enough, when the previous group of planes rushed to the sky over the Okinawa airport, they saw that the airport had been blown up into thick smoke. There were still about twenty or so Japanese bombers lying on the runway, some of them were already burning, and some were still trying to climb to the middle of the runway. But it was also shot down on the runway by the Ming fighters who swooped and strafed. Once one or two planes are burning on the runway, the rest of the planes can't take off. More than 20 bombers were repeatedly strafed by the Ming army's aircraft group, and all of them burned and exploded, becoming piles of wreckage.

One group of dive bombers was divided into two groups, two squadrons bombed the Okinawa airfield, mainly bombing anti-aircraft guns, conning towers, airfield oil depots, and the other two squadrons bombing the barracks of the Japanese marines. Soon, several Japanese military garrisons in the distance also rose with billowing black smoke.

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Previously, there was also a squadron of Ming fighters, a total of 16 fighters, to chase more than a dozen Japanese bombers that took off and fled. Now there were no Japanese fighters to protect those bombers, and the Ming fighters did not have to face air combat, and they were comparable in number and much faster than bombers. It's like an eagle catching chickens, catching up with those bombers like a playful game, and shooting them all down in three strokes and five divided by two.

Watching one Japanese bomber after another dragging black smoke into the sea, this squadron of Ming fighters returned home, rendezvoused with the group of planes that were "raging" over Okinawa Island, and continued to bomb the Japanese military camps and anti-aircraft artillery positions on the island.

About forty minutes after the bombardment, the leader gave the order to return. Call the flagship and ask it to send a second wave to sink the battleship Hiei.