"Click!"

The short knife stabbed the coconut shell hard, then sliced it apart in one fell swoop.

Bearded and loose-haired, Fan Sizhi reached for an albatross roasting on the fire, and then scooped a piece of coconut meat with a short knife.

The blue sky and white clouds, the vast sea, what a beautiful scenery.

It's a pity that I've been tired of watching it for so many days.

He sat cross-legged on the beach, looking out at the blue sky in the distance.

After sunset that day, most of the pilots successfully abandoned their planes and parachuted in Mayana Atoll, but unfortunately, the Type 37 bomber piloted by Versace ran out of fuel because of the loss of some extra fuel, and had to parachute 20 minutes away from the destination.

The rear-seat Heavy drowned before he could pull out his knife and cut the paracord due to his incorrect posture when entering the water.

Fan Sizhi had to climb into the life raft alone, he was pushed westward by the warm current of the north equator for two days and one night, and was lucky enough to see an island and reef in the distance, and then paddled hard to get closer to it.

After more than ten hours of intermittent struggle, he finally succeeded in landing after exhausting his physical strength, and since then he has been alone for more than half a month on this unknown island and reef in the southwest Pacific.

Fortunately, the life-saving equipment equipped by the Ming Navy for the expensive carrier-based aircraft pilots is luxurious and dazzling.

After all, the huge amount of money spent on cultivating these elites has been spent, and how much money can be spent to complete the life-saving equipment?

The 36-style ocean self-rescue bag is a canvas crossbody bag with all kinds of things inside.

Tools include a dual-purpose tent poncho, a crumpled mosquito net, a pair of protective gloves, and a flashlight.

The sending items include a reflective signal mirror and three disposable signal tubes.

The medical items include three packs of bandages, a pack of triangular scarves, a bottle of Dagin's liquid, a tube of burn ointment, a bottle of antidiarrheal medicine, and a bottle of sulfonamides.

Predators include a bottle of water purifier, two convex lenses, two rolls of fishing line and hooks, and five packets of high-sugar compressed dry food.

As the deputy of the carrier-based aircraft detachment of the Taiwei Youyuan, Fan Sizhi only felt deeply after his own experience of being in the wilderness - in the past, he despised survival training too much.

Although these life-saving equipment are complete, pilots who lack corresponding training may not be able to make the best use of them, so they can only slowly explore the scene according to the manual.

For example, Fan Sizhi himself was able to catch fish more efficiently after countless failures, thanks to the fact that he was on land, so he could rely on coconuts and bird eggs to feed his stomach.

As the sun began to go down, he took the string of albatross from the campfire, sprinkled some of the salt he had made from evaporating the seawater, and ate it bite after bite.

In the past 20 days, he has seen the planes four times and sent signals to them, but all of them have failed.

Salt seems to be spilled too much? Eating salty roast bird meat, Fan Sizhi once again thought of the scene at that time.

At that time, before taking off and attacking, he said very casually that he would not drink Zhuangxing wine, and he would have dinner after returning triumphantly, and he also asked for an extra wine-stuffed ball, and the result was ......

Thinking of this, he laughed self-deprecatingly - it turns out that being too chic is a hardship.

Suddenly, at the crackling sound of the campfire, he seemed to hear a faint propeller noise.

Convinced that it was not an auditory hallucination, Fan Sizhi hurriedly looked up and around.

Sure enough, a plane was passing through the clouds overhead.

He hurriedly took out the reflector from his crossbody bag, separated the index and middle fingers of his left hand in a V-shape, and then sandwiched the mirror in the middle and aimed at the plane in the sky.

Failed to attract the attention of the pilot four times before, Fan Sizhi didn't know if it was his own operation, these days he pondered the words on the manual repeatedly, and was sure that he had done absolutely nothing wrong.

The plane in the sky was a Type 35 transport plane that had taken off from Nauru and was carrying a shipment of supplies destined for Tarawa.

The sunlight reflected on the side window glass of the cockpit and shook the co-pilot's eyes, and he squinted and complained: "Tsk! What's the situation, there's a light on my face. ”

The main driver didn't take it seriously, and said casually: "It's the debris that floated ashore." ”

In the days following the battle, things could occasionally be seen floating in the waters near Tarawa Atoll, but this had been more than half a month and had long since disappeared.

The suspicious co-pilot pressed his face to the side window and squinted his eyes to look there.

"Da Tao, I feel that something is wrong, fly low and take a look." The suspicious co-pilot said.

The main driver now just wants to finish the mission early and have a good meal with wine.

He was a little reluctant, but he still reached out and flipped the switch on the autopilot, then turned right on the rudder, and lowered the plane as he turned right.

Seeing this scene, Fan Sizhi's heart rose to his throat in an instant.

With trembling hands, he picked up a disposable signal tube, unscrewed the protective cover, aimed it at the sky, and pulled the pull ring with his index finger.

"Bang!"

The flare rushed into the sky, dragging out a conspicuous red tail smoke.

The transport plane circled several times over the small reef, and it shook its wings to show that it knew what was going on.

Then he turned back to his original course and disappeared into the eastern sky......

Following.

A single-engine seaplane slowly landed and picked up Fans, who was dressed in tattered clothes and had a messy hair.

It was only at this time that he learned that the Taiwei Youyuan no longer existed, and the carrier-based aircraft detachment had now withdrawn to the Ming mainland.

He rejected the offer to recuperate for a few days in Rabaul and rushed to Guangzhou overnight.

Dozens of pilots of the detachment were so surprised that they couldn't even speak, and they stared at each other with wide eyes and looked at each other.

Missing for more than half a month, he was found?

You must know that everyone is already planning Fan Sizhi's funeral and burial mound, because according to the custom of the Ming Navy, a missing person will be considered dead if he is not found after a month.

When Fan Sizhi arrived at the Heshan Naval Aviation Base, a large group of people swarmed up, looking at him with excited eyes.

At this time, everyone's cheers came to an abrupt end.

The pilots shifted their seats to either side, making way in the middle, and the detachment was slowly walking through it.

The two looked at each other, and after a moment, Fan Sizhi clasped his fists and said calmly: "Fan Sizhi, deputy of the Taiyou detachment, parachuted out of fuel due to landline fuel and asked to return to the team. ”

"Exactly."

"Yes!"

After so long, Fan Sizhi finally fulfilled his little wish when he attacked that afternoon - he can now be regarded as eating wine-stuffed balls, but he is more than half a month late.

The rice wine is fragrant, and the soft and glutinous dumplings are so delicious.

While the major was enjoying a meal on his homeland, thousands of miles away on the island of Guadalcanal, the prelude to the battle had quietly begun.

From above, the island is a tropical paradise with corals near the coastline and lush primeval forests behind the beachhead.

The island is equivalent to the entire Shanghai Prefecture and is not small at all, resembling a petal of a pea. The southern half is surrounded by rolling mountain ranges, the northern coast is bordered by plains and rivers, and the rest of the country is shrouded in dense forests.

It's hot and humid, ants, spiders, locusts, scorpions, and fierce bay crocodiles lurk in the water and rivers.

It was here that a series of fierce land, sea and air amphibious wars broke out, which completely changed the course of the Pacific War, and also made the name of Kuah Island forever engraved in the world's military history.

[Picture]

"How's the progress in Area H? What are they doing? ”

Outside a large tent, Colonel Wadsworth crossed his waist and questioned loudly.

According to the original plan, the US troops deployed to Kuah should be ready to retreat to the southern jungle for a long period of resistance.

Previously, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Barrett, commander of the 5th Marine Regiment, marked a total of more than 20 locations on the map, naming them from A to Y, which were used to disperse and store various military supplies.

But now the supreme commander is Colonel Wadsworth of the Army's 39th Regiment Combat Team, who may have wanted to show that the Army is superior to the Marines, or he may have really disagreed, so he changed the locations of five of the sites with a stroke of his pen.

Move your mouth on the top and break your leg on the bottom.

The U.S. soldiers had to reopen clearings in dense forests, chop through jungles, jump into swamps, wade through creeks, and trudge through thickets taller than people......

On an unknown slope in the middle of Kuah Island, more than a dozen figures were lying quietly here, the muzzles of the black holes pointed into the distance.

The steel helmet was tied with branches and leaves on the rope net, and the fragmented camouflage cloak was draped in a fragmented camouflage cape, and he was armed with a Type 39 short automatic rifle, but only the paratrooper dagger in his hand could identify the group.

Zhou Changfeng did not fully believe the aerial reconnaissance report, and he asked the paratrooper unit to send several capable detachments to infiltrate Kuah Island in advance to investigate the actual situation.

So the first regiment of the air force paratroopers organized three search detachments at the level of reinforcement squads, and unknowingly parachuted into Kuah Island.

"The horse team, I saw the figure, and I was walking slowly this way, half an hour."

"Pass the word, get ready, move quickly, fight and leave."

"Great!"

Warrant Officer Ma Jie is the commander of this detachment, and he has been in the army for more than 10 years, and he is a veteran noncommissioned officer, who was transferred from the army to the air force the year before last and was selected for the officer training class.

They had been lurking in the area for two days, intending to quietly capture a lone enemy soldier and capture them for interrogation to avoid a big disturbance.

It's a pity that they didn't find the opportunity, these American troops have always acted in groups, and the smallest number of people was four people at a time.

So there is no other way but to come hard.

Seven minutes later, the incomprehensible voices were getting closer and closer, and the figures of those American soldiers had already appeared in the corner of their eyes.

The paratroopers held their breath and moved their thumbs slightly, turning the safety of their automatic rifles to a semi-automatic setting.

I saw six people carrying shovels and saws, forming a column and strolling leisurely along this forest path.

"Hit!"

With the order of the Ma Jieren, a short "da-da" sound immediately sounded.

A 7.36×40mm mid-power bullet flew out of the muzzle, easily penetrating the khaki uniform and flesh, and burrowing deep into the dirt on the opposite side.

In addition to the two in front, the next four were shot in an instant.

The first two soldiers were stunned by the sudden situation, which caused their brains to shut down for a few seconds - in their minds, the Ming army had not yet landed on Kuah Island.

"Up!"

In the midst of the lightning, the paratroopers swarmed up and threw them to the ground, snatching the rifles that were not even loaded.

"Got it!"

"Leave."

While the two hapless American soldiers were escorted away with their hands tied behind their backs, several paratroopers quickly placed a directional mine next to them, pulled the tripwire to the nearby tree, and then walked away without looking back.

Everything went smoothly and smoothly, without the slightest dragging mud.

In just a minute and a half, more than a dozen figures disappeared without a trace.

Soon after, dozens of officers and men of the 39th regimental combat team rushed to hear the news.

Looking at the four corpses lying on the ground, their faces were full of incredulity.

"What happened?"

"Where are they?"

"I can't believe the Chinese are here!"

The lieutenant who led the team shouted: "Stay on alert, the enemy may still be nearby." ”

A group of rookies who had never been in the war vigilantly held the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, looking around and their hearts racing.

"Pay attention to the direction of ten o'clock and three o'clock, check the current situation, and go!"

The two soldiers walked cautiously forward hunched over, no one noticing a thin thread of silk among the lush grass beneath their feet.

The former was extremely lucky, and the step just crossed the tripline.

However, the latter did not receive God's favor, and when his left foot was raised, he hooked a tripwire.

The tripping fuse of the Type 38 anti-infantry directional mine was triggered, and as the bolt was pulled out, the firing pin was pushed down by the spring, detonating the detonator......

"Boom-"

After the search team was at least two miles away from the ambush site just now, a low explosion suddenly came into their ears from behind them.

Before the war began, a few names had to be added to the list of Americans' casualties!

Everyone smiled.

Of course, the two unlucky guys in the team couldn't laugh.

The search detachment organized by the 1st Paratrooper Regiment was based on a paratrooper squad with the temporary addition of two dispatchers and one English-speaking officer.

Both captured privates were rookies who had just joined the Army's 9th Infantry Division after 16 weeks of training.

They really don't know much information, but objectively speaking, it is very useful, and it can make the Ming army commander make a correct judgment.

The results of the interrogation were quickly summarized, and a telegram was sent out, carrying an electro-electromagnetic wave carrying important information into the ionosphere, where it was finally captured by a receiver in Moresby.

「…… After interrogation by the Ministry of Employment, he confessed that there were more than 8,000 infantry regiments, 40 to 50 combat vehicles, and about dozens of planes that had landed on the island. Yours sincerely."

"There are more than 8,000 people in two infantry regiments?" Yao Liangchuan was a little surprised.

"Have you forgotten the Overseer?" Zhou Changfeng on the side said leisurely: "The Americans will not send a separate regiment, they will stuff some support troops to strengthen it, and call it a regimental combat team, which is the same as our mixed regiment." ”

"Brother Zhou, let's ...... When to leave? Zhu Lishuo shook his hand, his eyes were blazing, he couldn't wait to compete with the so-called "regular troops of the US military".

"It's not much like what I predicted." Zhou Changfeng muttered, "Hmm...... As planned! Let the detachment prepare for departure. ”

(End of chapter)