Not so long ago, the Golden Dragon Maru was a large cruise ship between Japan and North America, this ship had a high center of gravity, and it did not have any armor, and the only thing that came close to military ships was only slightly faster. The so-called cruiser with the bottom of such a civilian ship, even if it was hit by 500 pounds* of limited power, was enough to drink a pot, let alone a series of blows.

The first * blew up the bridge, and the second fell in front of the turret, among a bunch of soldiers looking up. * Penetrate the wooden deck and explode at the ammunition depot. About 200 members of the Maizuru Special Marine Corps, who had committed heinous crimes during the landing operations in Guangzhou and Hainan Island, were instantly swept into the air by the air waves, and then fell like rags.

Captain Best drove his SBD and continued to stay in the air, feeling like a wolf in a sheepfold, a little picky. The more moments like this, the more you need to be calm. Just now he heard a report from the Wildcat formation in the formation channel, confirming the discovery of a seaplane carrier.

He asked the VB6 8 bombers to follow him closely, maintain altitude, and not follow the reconnaissance squadron down and waste 1000 pounds* on those thousand-ton boats.

He participated in several exercises and knew very well how difficult it was to deal with destroyers that sailed at high speed, turned in a small radius, and were small and narrow. At a standard altitude of 1,200 meters, a destroyer turning at high speed is like a leaf swirling in a whirlpool, and it is impossible to calculate the amount of advance. He asked his crew to attack freighters and tankers docked in the distance, which were of slightly higher value. But he himself was still reluctant to drop the bomb.

"Captain VF6." He called the Wildcat fighters in the channel, hoping that they would indicate the location of that seaplane carrier, and the higher they flew, the farther they naturally looked.

"Direction 300, find a large swarm," on the radio, VF6 didn't have time to answer him, they saw a swarm approaching from the northwest, and from the azimuth they couldn't tell if it was their own people who took off from Saratoga, "Call CV6, whether the north is a CV3 take-off fighter." ”

"The CV3 did not take off from the large fleet."

"Oh my God, it's the Japanese devil's Zero fighter."

While receiving an answer, the sharp-eyed pilot saw a dazzling sun flag.

Halsey, who was sitting in the command room of the Enterprise, was also surprised at the same time, the large group of aircraft could only come from a Japanese aircraft carrier, which means that there was an air force nearby? How is this possible? He was more reckless than Fletcher, and he didn't believe that there would be Japanese aircraft carriers nearby, and if so, why didn't they go into battle?

Halsey knew that before the fleet left Pearl Harbor, the wind was to clean up the Marshall Islands, and that the only people who knew where the fleet was really going were the senior officers of the Navy and the Marine Corps, and all the crew members were kept in the dark.

With no choice but to continue to take off the fighter squadron, which was a standard defensive measure to prevent Japanese planes from following the returning aircraft from spotting the carrier.

At this time, he was still lucky, hoping that all he would encounter was a small aircraft carrier like Long Xiang or Feng Xiang. Of course, all his judgments were wrong, and his only luck today came from Commander Yamaguchi's petty selfishness, and he asked Major General Tadaichi Hara to hold his troops for the time being.

At the same time, in the communication room of the Wyvern, a staff officer read out the two call signs CV6 and CV2 from the chaotic air call of the US military. Knowing that the stakes were high, the communications staff officer immediately rushed to the command bridge. In this era, voice communication cannot be encrypted, but the US aircraft carrier is not equipped with personnel who can understand Japanese, and there are people on the Japanese aircraft carrier who can understand some English.

Major General Yamaguchi, who was anxiously waiting for the battle ahead, trembled excitedly when he got the news. He didn't care that Kio's fleet was in ruins. Immediately ask Xianghe Zuihe to move closer to him, but don't interfere for the time being, wait for changes.

Captain Best's bombers fled south, taking advantage of the entanglement of the fighters on both sides to avoid the Japanese fighters, and he ordered the groups that had not yet dropped bombs to drop 1,000 pounds* on the bridgehead of the Japanese landing force on the island, and then returned lightly.

But he himself did not make a move, but watched as his companions threw their precious * into the motorized sampans that were parked on the beachhead. In the morning, 500 Japanese troops and 4 field guns had already landed here, and due to the fire blockade on the island, they were squeezed on a rather narrow beach, waiting for the order of their superiors to launch a surprise attack.

The unfortunate special aircraft carrier of the Saikawa Maru, not sooner or later, happened to arrive at the south side of Wake Island, 15 kilometers, which is a safe distance for shore artillery.

Originally, its aircraft carrier, which came from the east, was in a state of passive acceptance, and learned that the Kioo fleet had found a submarine in the north of the island, and temporarily changed its course, hoping to detour the south of Wake Island to avoid being discovered by the submarine, of course, he hid out of the range of shore guns.

Captain Best saw the faint smoke in the distance, and he ordered the rest of the bombers to return and try their luck alone.

At the same time, 9 Wildcat fighters encountered twice as many Zeros as they were taking off from the Wyvern and Canglong. Before the start of the war, the aviation units in various regions had already obtained some characteristics of Japanese aircraft from Chennault and how to deal with them, but the hasti encounter caused the VF6 commander to be somewhat inappropriate. He did not climb decisively and had some height advantage. Instead, he crashed into a huge group of 18 enemy planes.

The Japanese air commander was Captain Sumio Nono, who was not prepared to suppress the opponent in numbers, but ordered to lure the enemy planes to a low altitude and be completely annihilated in a short time. He himself did not participate in the attack, the knowledge led a small team, out of the climb and detached, he did not want to get entangled with the fighters, that would inevitably throw away the fuel tank, and lose enough range.

He had a more important mission, following the returning American bombers to find the enemy carrier. He gave orders to the pilots who remained in the air to settle the battle for a maximum of five minutes, and not to let go of any enemy aircraft.

The wild cats rushed towards the Japanese planes, and when they found the enemy planes in number, they did not collide head-on, but retreated to a low altitude.

The Japanese planes began to display their skills outside the range of the US machine-gun fire net in an attempt to disperse the US planes, and they were divided into units of three, some of which circled horizontally, while others suddenly pulled up and maneuvered vertically.

The Wildcats, who had taken the initiative to seek battle, immediately disbanded their formations and began to pursue the enemy planes that were deliberately showing weakness, the last of a series of mistakes they made today.

Toshio Makinoda of the Wyvern Flying Team won three records in the Battle of Pearl Harbor, two in the air (take-off phase) and one on the ground. He is well aware of the superiority of the Zero, but he is not familiar with the wild cats of the American army.

A wild cat lunged over, and Makinoda turned to one side, deliberately unhurried. He could see that the enemy was in a hurry, and now was not the time to exert his strength.

The weakness of the firepower of US planes lies in the serious attenuation of the long-range range, so experienced pilots must keep their distance at all times. He flies left and right, controlling his distance and testing how far the enemy can keep up with his angular velocity. Gradually, he grabbed the cat's catty, and seeing that the fire was ready, he suddenly rolled and pulled the rod to the side, this time no longer making scissors that rolled repeatedly, but dubbed the plate.

Sure enough, the enemy aircraft could not keep up with the rhythm, and the turning rate fell all at once.

The Zero fighter escaped with incredible turning efficiency before the opponent caught the shooting advance angle, and snatched 3 o'clock in front of the stunned American pilots.

The wildcat found that he couldn't keep up with the other party and tried to dive and slip away, but there wasn't much height for him to do so, which was a foreshadowing of the previous 0 deliberately showing weakness and lowering the altitude, and if these American planes stayed at a higher altitude, they might be able to escape by diving.

Makinoda Feicao quickly bit the rear of the enemy plane, and seeing the enemy plane plunging into the sea, he felt that the dive speed of this plane was even inferior to that of the P40, and the turning performance was on the foot and foot.

Fei Cao pulled the handle in front of him and immediately strafed. Quickly destroy the opponent's rudder and the rudder surface on one side of the wing, and watch as the plane loses control and smashes into the sea.

At the same time, the one-sided carnage in the air was still going on, and the Wildcats, who had been divided into separate battles, found that the Type 0 had an advantage in almost every aspect, whether it was turning or climbing or horizontal speed, they had no chance of winning at all.

On the other side of Wake Island, Captain Best finally found his target, a warship that looked quite large. If he had known that the Wildcat fighters standing behind him would have been annihilated by the book in a matter of minutes, he should have thrown * into the sea and slipped away close to the surface.

The Heavy in the back seat reminded him that the north was turning sharply, but it was too late to escape. He had already seen the dimensions of the warship in the distance, and could see two large cranes on the foredeck, and two columns of seaplanes side by side on the aft deck, no more, no less, a total of 12 of them. This is indeed a goal that has entered his eyes, and it is worth fighting for his life. So he began to climb. This allowed him to be seen by the Zero pilots in the distance.

The sailors on the Saikawa Maru also saw a lone plane coming by, it was an American plane, and it looked quite clumsy, perhaps because there was a rather large mass hanging under the nose.

At a distance of 10 kilometers, a 120-mm gun on the ship, which did not have a firing commander, began to fight blindly, and then the 76-mm gun on board also joined the senseless fire. The Japanese fleet lacked good weapons in air defense at the long, middle, and near levels, and the firepower of such ad hoc ships was even weaker.

As Captain Best climbs high, Zero in the distance begins to fly towards him. Obviously, there is no return today, and the most important thing for blindness is that the bomb must be delivered accurately, so that it can pull the back of about a lot of people.

The captain delegated command on the radio and reminded the VB6 not to be followed by Japanese planes on the return flight. After arranging everything, he plunged headlong, and by this time, the bomber was already in the position above the enemy ship, in the dead end of all the anti-aircraft fire of the ship; He suddenly felt that this war should become the best stage for dive bombers.

Satsukawamaru turns half-dead in an attempt to escape the fate of being destroyed. The deck crew craned their necks and watched as the American plane separated from the *. * Whistling into the middle of the ship.

* There was a huge explosion in the boiler room, the sound of the explosion was even heard by the 419 sonar room 1000 km away.

Two squads of Zero fighters arrived and attacked the dive bomber as it tried to escape. One turn, i.e. shoot it down and shoot the recoiler heavy.

Captain Best chose to glide into the distance and make a forced landing at reduced speed, hoping to get close to Wake Island, at least with his own marines on the island, but the Japanese pursued him in the opposite direction. The plane was forced to land on the sea. Before the Zero arrived to strafe fire, the captain managed to get out of the smoking cabin and jump into the sea.