In order to prevent accidental damage in the ensuing air raids, Pelican 16 Squad, the one that remained outside the Mossok base, had begun to secretly evacuate and left the hideout without alerting the German guards.

The retreat route had been planned in advance during the day, so the retreat went smoothly, and soon there was not a single allied force in the vicinity of the base.

An English Channel, separating the two enemies of Britain and France, under the dark waters, a huge figure slowly cruised, which were submarines of both the Germans and the Allies. In order to deal with the threat from the enemy, the German army built a large number of submarines distributed in the surrounding waters, and the relative British and American submarines were also densely scattered.

The sea, land, and air, every inch of space is filled with the smell of war, and no living thing can survive this war that has swept the world.

The night air raid plan, codenamed "Mandarin Duck Tea", slowly kicked off under the narration of Major Padley.

"You should pay attention to the fact that there is a reconnaissance team of our Allied troops who infiltrated Germany and fled from the direction of Dunkirk to England in a Ju-52, so be careful not to be injured by mistake. Pay attention to the identity of the other party, we may encounter the Germans who are chasing them, and their code name is "Mandarin Duck Tea"! ”

Major Padley's voice echoed over the radio: "Our main mission tonight is to bomb the Mossok base, and the second is to successfully bring this Allied team back to Germany, do you understand?" ”

"Understood!"

He was answered by a neat voice. Major Pardley was very satisfied.

"Very good, everybody pull the altitude to 3000 meters and pay attention to the situation around you. Feel free to report it to me! ”

The fighters that followed the bombers swept over the English Channel like a flock of birds, and everyone knew that in the seemingly dark and bottomless waters below, there were a large number of submarines hiding their own side and the Germans, and maybe a single depth charge could hit one of them.

It's not that no one has ever had such a bad idea. However, it was quickly stopped, not to mention that it was impossible to tell which side of the battleship below was, and casually throwing bombs would only reveal the location of the group in vain. The Germans, who received the news, would not allow their own side to enter the German mainland lightly.

The "Mosquito" bomber, which made Major Padley and the British pilots proud, once swept the Germans in a bad way. January 31, 1943, the morning of the German Field Marshal Goering. A speech at a military parade in Berlin is being prepared. As a result, the 105th squadron of the British that morning. Flying over Berlin in a "Mosquito" plane, the parade was forced to be cancelled on an ad hoc basis.

In desperation, the parade was changed to the afternoon of the same day, but it was canceled again because the "mosquito style" of the 139th squadron flew over Berlin again, and Goebbels, who was about to give a speech in the afternoon, was also forced to cancel his speech. Although not a single bomb was dropped in these two bombings, Goering and Goebbels' boast that "no enemy plane can fly to the sea mouth over Berlin during the day" became a joke, and Goering was greatly outraged by this.

Compared to other airplanes. The wooden "mosquito style" is lighter and more elegant. It's also a compliment, but it's also even more incredible.

Major Lucas, the U.S. representative on the other side, mentioned similar things to Major Paddley, nothing more than about the two purposes of the mission, including a small group of fighters who would be responsible for receiving Zhang Yang's Ju-52 aircraft. Although it is not clear how much valuable information Zhang Yang and the others on the plane have, what makes Lucas and the pilots even more interested is that they can take the opportunity to capture a German Ju-52 and a German pilot with night flight experience, so that they can obtain a lot of useful experience and information for the Air Force.

During the war, both pilots and aircraft suffered heavy losses, and it was also the period of the highest mortality rate ever for pilots. In addition to being shot down on the spot and crashing and exploding, it is also possible that the aircraft is forced to land without exploding, or it may be captured intact.

On the one hand, these captured enemy planes can be used by their own pilots to study, so as to find out the weaknesses of such aircraft and formulate corresponding tactics. On the other hand, these aircraft can be provided to their own aviation schools or training teams to conduct air drills against their own people and increase the experience of pilots as much as possible.

"Children, this Junker aunt we are going to pick up, it is all our American citizens, our comrades-in-arms, our brothers, so we have every reason and obligation to take them back! Witness the victory of this battle together! ”

"Long live America!"

There was a shouting over the radio.

As the temporary representative of the U.S. Air Force, Major Lucas is three years older than Padley, which makes his personality more composed. Colonel Lee May praised him as an officer with great potential, as well as a good pilot. And the subtext of this sentence is that Li Mei hopes that he can participate in more battles and achieve victory.

Li Mei himself was an offensive character and was known as the "Eagle of the Cold War". After forming the 305 Bomber Group, he went to the European theater of operations, and immediately discovered a problem, that is, when the Allied forces at that time carried out air raids on Europe, the bomber group always prematurely adopted the tactical action of evading the anti-aircraft fire network, so it rarely hit the target. That is, they are often in vain. Li Mei immediately found an artillery manual and studied it carefully. After careful study and probabilistic calculations, Li Mei made a bold innovation in the formation form and bombing technology of the bomber.

Before carrying out a mission, Li Mei issued an order to the crew: 'Do not take evasive tactical actions. He assured the skeptical pilots: "We will hit more targets with fewer losses." During this round of bombing, six aircraft were hit by shells (including those piloted by Li May), but the group dropped twice as many bombs on target as the others. Within a few weeks, 'no evasive action' had become the slogan of the entire Eighth Air Force, and Spatz had a different view of Li May. Subsequently, Li Mei rewrote the flight tactics manual.

Li May later invented the 'staggered' flight formation, which made it easy for Allied planes to counterattack German fighters without fear of hitting their own aircraft. In the Pacific theater at the end of the war, the B-29 Superfortress bomber used similar formation and bombing techniques.

During this time, as the commander of the 3rd Bomber Division, he organized the famous 'Regensburg Air Raid'. In this operation, B-17 bombers carried out one-way bombing missions: taking off from the United Kingdom, bombing deep German areas, and finally landing in Africa. He personally flew a B-17 bomber deep into the heart of Nazi Germany to bomb and shot down five Bf 110 fighters that tried to intercept him.

It was precisely such victories and merits that quickly promoted his military rank from major to colonel, and even the rank of major general that is about to be promoted.

Careful people may find a problem, in the military ranks of the United States during World War II, there was a one-star brigadier general between colonel and major general, why Li Mei was not promoted to brigadier general first, but directly and definitely promoted to major general?

The reason is also very simple, a month ago, Lieutenant General Spatz had already proposed a list of personnel for promotion to the US Army (as mentioned earlier, the aviation force at this moment is still subordinate to the army), and Li Mei has been nominated for a one-star brigadier general, but because the losses of the Eighth Air Force are too great, the army is a little dissatisfied, so Li Mei's rank promotion is temporarily suppressed. But despite this, in the eyes of insiders, Li Mei has long been a sure general.

After that, Li Mei did not disappoint everyone, and the prominent table Xiàn made the army also begin to pay attention, because Li Mei had a more severe stomach problem, which would be more painful when the plane took off, but still insisted on personally participating in flight operations, and then Spatz began to limit the number of times he personally flew the plane to participate in battle, because his death was a huge loss for the Army Air Corps.

In this way, it is estimated that it will not take long for Li Mei to be promoted to a one-star brigadier general, and a two-star major general is also at his fingertips, of course, this is awarded after Li Mei was very prominent in the next few bombing operations.

And this time, according to Li Mei's character, he must have participated in person, but he was directly suppressed by Spatz, and instead let Major Lucas lead the team, which reassured Li Mei, in his opinion, the lives of soldiers and generals are not high or low, and he has no reason to let soldiers live and die, and he hides behind smoking cigars and drinking champagne.

Obviously, a general with a character like Li Mei is the luck of the Eighth Air Force, and for soldiers who are active at the bottom and spill their blood, the more generals like Li Mei, the better.

The effects of the war can easily destroy certain perceptions, and as May Lee said, in the rear of the United States, the capitalists with a lot of money are still singing and dancing and living a happy life. But he can't blame it, because the United States itself is capitalism, and in the final analysis, it is to ensure the ultimate interests of these capitalists.

The influence of the big capitalists in the United States can be seen from history, and the president of the United States is actually just a spokesman for the temporary introduction of these big capitalists.

Of course, Li Mei is not a good person, treating his own people as warm as the sun, and treating the enemy as cold as the autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, such as the most impressive "Tokyo bombing", he single-handedly caused 100,000 direct deaths, 400,000 people died in the next few months due to burns and other reasons, and nearly 8 million people were homeless. The death toll of that bombing campaign was even greater than the death toll of the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. (To be continued......)