It is conceivable that Timoshenko's small report will definitely cause a bloody storm in Moscow, but until then, let's continue to focus on the situation on the battlefield, when the tank and cavalry of the Red Army finally began to open up the situation, and the air force was in the middle of a bitter battle.

As the Kwantung Army continued to send more planes to the battlefield, there was a fierce struggle between the two sides for air supremacy, and in this continuous fierce aerial dogfight, the first Heroes of the Soviet Union were born!

The most famous of these is Sergey. Ivanovich. Grisesvets and Grigory. Panteleevich. Kravchenko, because these two are not only the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, but also the first servicemen in history to be awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union twice!

Let's start with the story of Grisesvets, a young fighter pilot born in 1909, who joined the Bolsheviks in 1931 and joined the army, studied at the Orenburg Military Flying Academy, graduated a year later, and continued to serve in Kiev. In the late thirties, he fought in the Battle of Nomenkan and the Spanish Civil War, shooting down some 42 enemy planes in 1939 when he was killed in a flight accident.

In the present time and space, Grisewets entered the battlefield ahead of schedule, and arrived in Outer Mongolia with the 3rd Fighter Division of the Kiev Air Force before the Righteous Operation was carried out. In the first few days of air battles, the future air ace did not show much of it, because most of the Japanese fighters were destroyed on the airfield, and more often than not, he could only carry out reconnaissance and alert missions.

It wasn't until the tenth day of the battle, when reinforcements of Japanese fighters arrived at the front, that Grisesevitz got busy. On the morning of 10 May, Grisewetz, who had been waiting at the airport, was suddenly told to take off immediately to meet the enemy. The 4th Cavalry Division was attacked by a large number of Japanese bombers.

Griseswitz galloped all the way into the cockpit. Piloting the I-15 with a tail number of 13, he flew briskly into the blue sky. Four Il-15s and four Il-16s flew southeast after liftoff, and their mission was to disperse enemy planes over the 4th Cavalry Division and regain control of the airspace. Shortly after the formation took off, Griseswets noticed six black dots in the sky directly ahead. Although Grisewetz had never seen a Japanese fighter plane, he was alert and quickly judged that these were enemy planes.

Griseswitz was not wrong, and it was the Japanese 6 Type 92 fighters who rushed straight over, and their mission that day was to escort the bombers, but the Japanese pilots who were eager to make meritorious contributions were after the bombers began to drop bombs. chose to continue to go forward and prepare to compete with Lucia's ghost animal.

When this encounter broke out, the Type 92 fighters occupied an altitude advantage of about 150 meters, after all, the Grisewetz had just taken off and had no time to seize the altitude, and from this point of view, the position of the I-15 and I-16 was not favorable, but the Ivan still met decisively, such as Griseswets's squadron leader Rapojevich quickly pulled up the nose and fired at the devil first.

However, Rapojevic's blow did not work, not only did he not hit the enemy plane, but because of the sharp jump to raise his head, his fighter plane lost control, after a short period of raising his head. The head of the I-16 quickly fell, and after a few circles, it fell into a spiral.

Grisewetz will always remember that scene: "The squadron leader fired first. But his fighter plane quickly stalled, and after entering the spiral, he never changed it again, because the altitude was too low, and he quickly crashed into the ground...... The comrades are not happy in their hearts, we have lost our long plane just after the war, and this is not a good sign no matter how you look at it......"

I don't know if it's a bad omen, but Ivan's luck is really not good, because he was the first to take a picture, and when the Japanese opened fire, the first shot blew up an I-15 in the air. In other words, less than five minutes after the battle broke out, the balance of power between the two sides was leveled. This was extremely proud and arrogant for the arrogant Japanese pilots, who laughed wildly and taunted Lucia on the radio:

"The ghost beast of the country is really vulnerable!"

However, the arrogance of them soon paid the price, 12 fighters soon entangled in the air, the sudden gunfire was deafening, at that time Grisewetz was very nervous, he was engrossed in maneuvering the fighters, constantly using the excellent circling performance of the I-15 to entangle with the opponent, soon he won the opportunity, with a beautiful 360-degree circle, he turned around behind the enemy fuselage, at the moment when the nose of the plane staggered with the enemy, Griseweits pulled the trigger, a series of bullets flew out, Soon his opponent was emitting a puff of black smoke and was headlong down!

"I made it! I shot down an enemy plane! ”

Grisewetz shouted excitedly, but his excitement had barely risen when a basin of cold water was poured on him, and a Type 92 suddenly bit his tail, and tracer bullets flew near the cockpit, and in Griseswets's own words: "I could feel the burning heat of the warhead." ”

Grisewetz hurriedly dived, and when he lowered the altitude to about 1,000 meters, he once again performed the circling maneuver, and in only 8 seconds, he got rid of the tail-biting enemy, and even successfully circled behind the enemy fuselage.

Sudden ...... Sudden ......

Griseswets constantly pulled the trigger, but the pilot of the enemy plane was also a veteran, and whenever Griseswets attacked, he would use light jumps or turn maneuvers to get rid of the aim, and Gricewetz's several attacks missed.

After several attempts in a row, Griseswets was also a little annoyed, he pushed the throttle stick to close the distance, and pursued until about 100 meters before decisively firing it, this time the enemy plane could not escape, the tail of the plane was beaten to pieces, and the scattered skin and "skeleton" even "patted" Grisewetz in the face.

Vladimir, the pilot of the I-16, who witnessed this scene at close range, later commented with shock: "Sergey. Ivanovich is a madman, I almost thought he was going to cut off the enemy's ass with a propeller, he was like a bulldog, he bit and did not let go! ”

In just five minutes, Grisewetz had achieved two victories, and just as he was re-elevated, he noticed that the previously arrogant Japanese fighters had begun to flee. After a short firefight. They were shot down three on the spot. This fully shows that the scene in the first moments of the battle was really just an accident.

Of course, the Japanese would soon be surprised again, because they immediately found that they could not even run away in front of Lucia's ghost animals. The reason is simple, the maximum speed of the Type 92 is only 320 km / h, and their opponents have a speed of 367 km / h even the slowest I-15, and the I-16-5 has a maximum speed of nearly 400 km/h. It's no drama at all!

Three I-15s and three I-16s pounced on them, taking turns attacking. In an instant, the Japanese planes were blown up one after another, and Grisewetz also obtained the third result of the day, in fact, he also achieved another "half" result - when an Il-16 forced the Japanese planes down, Grisesevitz used the excellent circling performance of the Il-15 to turn the nose of the plane to meet and fire, and at this time the Il-16 also began to shoot, under the attack at both ends, the 92 was blown up in the air.

Note that this was not all of Griseswets' results today, after annihilating all the Japanese aircraft, six Red Army fighters regrouped. Continue to march towards the airspace where the 4th Cavalry Division is located, and wait for them to arrive at the battlefield. The Japanese bombers had just dropped their bombs and were preparing to return home.

Without saying a word, Griseswetz rushed forward, and a slow Type 93 heavy explosive aircraft came into his eyes, this kind of big stupid bird with a maximum speed of only 220 kilometers where is the opponent of the superior maneuverable I-15, Gricewetz flew around the Type 93 heavy explosion, when he left, the big stupid bird with four dead ghosts and thick black smoke was diving towards the ground, a few minutes later, Gricevets heard the sound of it falling to the ground and exploding.

However, at this time, Griseweitz had no time to pay attention to the Type 93 heavy explosion, because he was targeted by two Type 91 fighters. The maximum speed of this kind of single-wing fighter is almost the same as that of the Type 92, and the hovering performance is not as good as the latter, but this does not mean that the Type 91 is a soft persimmon, and the two Japanese pilots who bit Griseswitz are very skilled and tenacious.

Watching the three planes maneuver violently, tumbling and exchanging bullets with each other, Grisewetz later recalled: "The enemy was very difficult, and every now and then I could hear the sound of bullets hitting the body, and I was worried that I would be shot down in the next second...... I don't know how long it was, maybe short, but maybe long, but I seized the opportunity to briefly stagger the course of the enemy planes and opened fire resolutely, and luckily shot down an enemy. ”

At this time, Grisewetz's comrades also rushed to the rescue, and the two sides worked together to shoot down another Type 91, and then Grisewetz caught up with a Type 93 heavy explosion and shot it down. That is to say, in this day's air battle, Griseswets became a one-day ace (shooting down five enemy planes in one day), of course, in fact, his real record should be to shoot down 5 independently and 2 cooperatively.

Kravchenko, who was born in 1912 and graduated from aviation school in 1934, was a rookie with less than 100 flight hours.

For a novice like him, the I-16 is definitely not a good ride. In particular, Kravchenko drove the I-16-4, the early version of the I-16 using the M-22 engine was really bad, and compared with the I-16-5 with the more powerful M-25 engine, the maximum speed, ceiling and climb speed were a big difference, that is, the fuel consumption was slightly smaller, making the range of the I-16-4 more than 100 kilometers farther than the I-16-5.

The I-16-4 not only has poor performance on paper, but also inherits the biggest problem of the I-16 series -- it is not "friendly" to novices, and the aircraft has poor handling, especially when taking off and landing, and accidents are frequent. A close friend of Kravchenko's crashed into the airfield just after arriving in the Far East and landing, killing people on the spot.

Anyway, for Kravchenko, every time he takes off the plane, he is trembling, for fear that he will accidentally lose his life, in this case, naturally there is no play.

On this morning, according to the established schedule, Kravchenko began his day's work, and this day was a real nightmare for him. As they climbed from 4,000 to 5,000 meters, Kravchenko suddenly noticed that the last two wingmen in the queue were left behind, and the pilots of these two planes were even more experienced novices than Kravchenko. Flying experience is almost minimal.

Knowing that something was wrong, he hurriedly called by radio. But there was no response. Then he hurriedly called the squadron leader, to which Captain Popov replied that he was about to descend to see what the two wayward rookies wanted to do, but then he changed his mind again: "It is too dangerous to disband the formation now, and there is intelligence that a large number of enemy aircraft are in this airspace." ”

Kravchenko never saw the two rookies again, recalling: "What a hate! We went through a lot of hard training to become pilots, and they didn't even have a chance to shoot a single bullet in air combat. The I-16 is so bad, they must have stalled in the jump, these damn fat-headed birds are not good at all! ”

But for Kravchenko at that time. This was just the beginning, and in the battles that followed, he would soon have to understand what it meant to survive death. Like Griseswetz, his squadron was ordered to support the 4th Cavalry Division, although he was one step ahead of Griseswets's squadron.

However, there was no first-mover advantage when they arrived on the battlefield without two fighters, and the sky was full of Japanese fighters and bombers. Kravchenko and his wingman immediately began to dive and attack the 93 Heavy Explosion that was about to enter the bomb drop route, but before he could get close to the 93 Heavy Explosion, he was entangled by the four Type 92 fighters that rushed towards him.

Didn't even have time to fire a shot. Kravchenko was bitten by the tail of a 92, and it was really a rain of bullets. Almost immediately, his engine began to leak and catch fire, even affecting the cockpit. It took a lot of effort for Kravchenko to crawl out of the cockpit, and by this time his ass was already burning.

However, at that time, he didn't have the heart to extinguish the fire, and the Type 92 fighter who was chasing him had no mercy at all, even if he was already on fire, he still kept greeting him with bullets. Kravchenko jumped out of the cockpit almost as if he were dancing, and three seconds later the parachute opened, and he could clearly see the ground under his feet, the smoke rising, and even the cannonballs flying in the air in the distance.

But Kravchenko soon turned his mind back from the ground to the air, as he was shocked to find that the damned Type 92 fighter still didn't let him go, and continued to shoot at him with a machine gun, as if ready to kill him in the air.

At that moment, Kravchenko's hair was about to stand on end, and there was a volcano erupting in his heart, what a shameless and brutal person could do such a thing. In the past, he thought that the ugliness and demonization of the Japanese were just the needs of the government, but when he personally experienced the malice of Japan, he realized that it was not ugly at all, and those bastards were indeed scum!

Once again, Kravchenko began to dance in the air, constantly pulling the parachute line, constantly adjusting his posture, doing his best to avoid enemy bullets, and in his own words: "I became an aerial ballet dancer." ”

Fortunately, the battle soon freed Kravchenko from this aerial ballet dilemma, and when he landed, he found that his parachute had been shot in at least thirty holes, and even a bullet shot the sole of his shoe.

Landing on the ground did not mean safety for Kravchenko, because of the constant ballet dancing in the sky, the future hero of the Soviet Union flew behind the Japanese positions, and wanting to return home meant that he had to cross the Japanese front on foot, which was simply not possible.

Kravchenko pulled out his pistol and rushed into a wood, hiding himself among the trees, he felt a little safer, but how to get back?

Just when Kravchenko was at a loss, he met his squadron leader, Captain Popov, who had also danced an aerial ballet in the previous battle, and even arrived in the grove before Kravchenko.

"Comrade Gregory, don't worry, I've already contacted the rescue team, and soon they will come to pick us up!" Popov comforted with confidence.

Kravchenko, on the other hand, was a little curious and wanted to know how the squadron leader contacted the rescue team. The latter patted the large square box he was carrying behind him, and replied somewhat ostentatiously: "The newly issued micro-radio station can contact friendly troops within ten kilometers!" ”

Kravchenko does not remember that such a radio station was allocated, and Popov explained: "This is the latest equipment, it has not yet been widely used, and for the time being it is only distributed to officers of the rank of squadron commander and above......"

Kravchenko couldn't help but sigh in his heart, and said in his heart: "Those who are officials have privileges!" Even if it's stealing before the next liftoff, I'll have to steal one! ”

In fact, this was not a privilege, because the Red Army had a huge shortage of communications equipment, and according to the statistics of 1934, 42% of the troops needed to replenish the radio station. In fact, the industrialization of the Soviet Union has just begun, and it does not have the ability to provide sufficient radio stations at all, and in desperation, it can only provide limited support for middle and senior commanders, after all, they are more valuable than ordinary pilots.

However, the rescue team did not arrive immediately, and waited until after sunset, when they were "late", and he was stunned when three S11s hovered over Kravchenko's head and threw down the rope ladder. He had always thought that the rescue team should come on horseback or by car, but he really didn't expect them to come from the air.

"Comrade pilot, don't be stunned, hurry up, the devil will soon be surprised!"

When Kravchenko sat in the S11 and returned to his position, he was still a little dizzy, the impact of the helicopter on him was too great, this completely different air flight experience made him very excited, if it was not for the rescue team to perform other tasks, he had the heart to experience it again. However, Kravchenko has no regrets, because he will have to dance a few times in the air battle in the air, and some will have the opportunity to take a helicopter...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank Prince Chu, Kill Potato and Comrade Juventus!