The huge B-17 has a larger reflection area than the single-engine aircraft, and the attack formation of more than a dozen B-17s allowed the experimental radar carried by the Ziwei Zuoyuan to receive an echo signal when it was 77km apart.

After confirming that this was not clutter interference, the department officer immediately reported the situation.

At 10:33, Ouyang Zhanghua ordered the radio silence to be lifted.

In accordance with his orders, the Ziwei Zuoyuan began to guide the vigilant aircraft group in the sky to intercept it, and at the same time, the rest of the carrier-based aircraft on standby on the flight deck with direct cover tasks immediately took to the air.

After receiving the telegram from the first formation, the two Ziweiyuan-class ships had already released more than 20 fighters.

Now, the 23 Type 37 ships of the Left and Right Hubs continued to climb to an altitude of 6,000 meters in accordance with the instructions of the aircraft carriers, and then flew head-on towards the incoming aircraft group.

"In pairs of two, cut in from the top left, and then break away from the right, don't be in a hurry, see if they panic first."

"Do you want to be a decoy?"

"Me!"

The Ming naval aviation's attack methods against bomber formations were still immature, and the pilots still believed in the conclusions reached through mutual discussion compared with the pamphlet "Methods for Intercepting Enemy Heavy Bombers" issued by their superiors.

At 11:02, more than 20 carrier-based planes flew near the US military aircraft group and visually confirmed these big guys who came together.

The two sides were heading in opposite directions, head to head, but the Ming army group was at a higher altitude.

Immediately, a Type 37 ship broke away from the formation and began to dive down alone.

Then, it began to fire long bursts from a long distance, and then flew past the front of the US military fleet in successive barrel-rolling maneuvers, and deftly circled below them.

The abrupt situation attracted the attention of the American crew, and at least five or six self-defense machine guns were firing at the lone fighter.

About twenty seconds later, while the enemy had been attracted by the decoy, the Ming carrier-based aircraft formation in the sky officially launched an attack.

Type 37 carrier-based destroyers are in groups of two, with an interval of 20 seconds between each group, and give priority to attacking the enemy's long or pilot planes.

This tactic of head-on dive attack avoided a counterattack by the B-17 bomber's powerful tail turret, but the disadvantage was that the window was short and the time to fire was fleeting.

The Ming army's carrier-based aircraft continued to dive and attack, and the back self-defense turret of the long plane was quickly penetrated, and the transparent bulletproof glass dome was splashed with red blood.

The B-17 bomber formation quickly shrank into a tighter diamond-shaped formation, each plane separated by only twenty feet, or six meters, almost wing to wing.

After paying the price of two bombers being shot down, they barely managed to reach the sky above the first formation of the Ming special fleet.

This is not easy for the crew members of the US military, considering that many of them were ordinary people just a few months ago, including farm farmers, shop clerks, bus drivers, and flying club enthusiasts......

The anti-aircraft artillery fire fired from below was extremely fierce, and the shells fired from the large-caliber high-level dual-purpose guns continued to explode in the rear of the group, and the shock wave shook the plane up and down, and the high-speed fragments cut the thin aluminum alloy skin one after another.

From the bomb sight, the bombardier could see the Ming fleet maneuvering on the sea surface to evade.

More than 2,000 meters below, warships of different sizes drew arc-shaped white tracks on the sea surface like ants.

"Grass! That's a lot of boats. ”

Corporal Donn activates the auto-bomb mode after aiming at the target, and the plane maintains its course and automatically drops the bomb when it flies to the calculated drop point.

However, Corporal Donn may not have had the best luck today, as the bomb dropping device malfunctioned, and only three of the eight 500-pound bombs were successfully released.

The performance of the Army Air Force's bombers in attacking surface ships was not improved in the slightest compared with the Battle of Tarawa, and more than 90 heavy bombs could be said to have thundered and rained, and basically all of them fell into the sea and listened to the sound.

However, the authorities were confused, and the US crew members did not know the outcome of this round of air strikes, and they hurriedly flew away from the airspace almost blackened by anti-aircraft fire.

Even with little effect, the soaring water jet that was stirred up when the bombshell exploded in the water still thrilled the fledgling rookies.

The battleship Kaihuang was directly hit by a bomb on the stern deck, and the battleship Jianwu was also hit by a direct hit by a bomb and a near-miss bomb, killing a total of 8 people and wounding 25 others.

As a result, both of them burst out with a large ball of fire and gunpowder smoke that went straight into the sky, which was different from the falling waves, and it seemed that the damage was extremely great, which made many US crew members shout with joy.

On the way back, four or five telegrams flew back to Oahu's Hickam airport.

"Sir, sir, Colonel Clarence, they succeeded!"

"Calm down, you're an officer."

"Yes, sir. The bomber squadron reported that they hit 2 battleships, 3 cruisers or destroyers. The enemy had 2 battleships on fire, probably with serious damage. ”

"Well done!" Colonel Clarence couldn't help but shout "well done" several times in a row.

In the Pacific Fleet Command, Lieutenant Colonel Barnett, an operations staff officer, was also very excited, and his heart instantly ignited the originally slim hope - as if only bombers could repel the enemy?

Chester-Nimitz was as calm as ever, "Be 50% 50% convinced and 50% suspicious of such an anomalous report, you should be well aware of how strong the battleships were, and the possibility of serious damage to them by bombs is very small." ”

"Understood, sir, do we need to send submarines over?"

"Of course."

Although the battle reports sent back by the B-17 group were seriously flooded, they also greatly boosted the morale of the three air fleets.

At 11:15, a white flare flew into the sky from the Hiller Army airfield in central Oahu, and the second wave of attack formations began to take off.

As time went on, the Ming fleet got closer and closer to Hawaii, so this time planes with a closer combat radius also joined the sortie sequence.

After nearly twenty minutes of busyness, 12 B-18 Broadsword bombers from the Army and 11 SB2U Dive bombers from the Marine Corps were all lifted into the air.

Each B-18 dropped its bombs in favor of an Mk13 torpedo, a first for an army pilot.

Due to inadequate preparation, the modification of the bomb delivery pylons was only completed last week, and everyone only heard from the Navy pilots about the steps and essentials of torpedo dropping, but most army pilots only remembered to pay attention to the amount of advance when dropping.

According to the careful planning of the staff officers, the attack formation of this wave could be escorted by fighters.

The fighters on the escort mission came from Kauai – which would be closer to the Ming fleet and give the shorter-range fighters more time in the air, after which the two sides should converge 30km west of Kauai.

However, things went wrong at Kauai's Lihue airport when a Buffalo fighter broke its landing gear during liftoff, damaged the plane and spilled fuel to ignite a fire that blocked the runway.

Ground crews, soldiers, and bulldozers rushed up, but the remaining dozen or so fighters could not take off in time, and the originally planned convergence was in vain.

At 13:13 p.m., the second wave of US aircraft arrived over the Ming fleet.

There are only three F2A Buffalo fighters to escort the group, and in the face of the swarming Ming carrier-based aircraft, they are destined to be invincible with two fists and four hands, not to mention that this fist is very crotch-pulling.

The air battle lasted only four minutes in the strict sense, and all three Buffaloes crashed into the sea, among which the Type 37 ship drive numbered QZ-ZWY-1-3 broke down, and the 12.8mm machine gun in the nose jammed, otherwise the battle could have ended earlier.

Then, U.S. planes continued to be shot down, and new fireballs could be seen sliding from the sky almost every half minute.

The B-18 Broadsword medium bomber was not as strong as the Flying Fortress, and its self-defense firepower was dwarfed, and the pilots struggled to maintain their formation, but they were still broken up by the rampaging Ming fighters.

[Picture]

Further afield, the Marine Corps' dive bombers are even more miserable, with only six of the 11 SB2U Defenders now remaining.

The American planes continued to attack in a situation of poor organization and disorder, and most of the pilots ignored the outer screens of the Ming fleet and rushed straight to the battleships in the center without any scruples.

Although he knew that the gentleman would not stand under the dangerous wall, Zhou Changfeng couldn't help but come to the platform outside the bridge.

He saw countless light streaks shooting into the blue sky, the roar of anti-aircraft guns was deafening, and the dense flow of tracer and tracer blasting shells weaved a huge web of fire.

It can be said that the bravery of the American pilots far surpassed their attack skills, and the inexperienced army pilots dropped the torpedo very unfamiliarly.

After the heavy torpedo left, the lighter plane jumped upward, and many people were even startled by the sudden momentum.

Several B-18s that broke into the center of the fleet were dropped one after another, ranging from 700 to 300 meters, which exceeded design expectations, and fragile torpedoes lacking deceleration devices were very vulnerable to failure due to the huge impact of falling into the water.

After the four torpedoes entered the sea, they stopped moving, and sank directly to the bottom of the sea at a depth of several thousand meters, and one torpedo may have damaged the gyroscope, so it was impossible to keep sailing in a straight line, and began to circle in the middle of the Ming fleet, so frightened that the Kaihuang, Longshuo, and Kunlunshan fled in all directions.

"Mother, Xipi! It's turning again! ”

"Shut up!"

"Full rudder right."

Lin Xunzhen walked quickly out of the main gun command tower of the Longshuo, looked at it for a while, and then said to the clerk on the side: "It is suspected that it has been attacked by the enemy's new torpedo, and it can find the target independently." Do you hear that? Documented! ”

Next, the remnants of dive bombers also began to attack.

At 13:31, a flash of fire appeared on the port side of the Kaihuang, and many debris splashed into the water, and several sailors were also swept into the sea by the shock wave.

The 500-pound semi-armor-piercing bomb meant little for a battleship, neither high nor low, nor could it penetrate horizontal deck armor nor destroy more deck installations.

Another apologists swooped down and strafed the heavy cruiser Taihang Mountain, and several sailors operating anti-aircraft guns were shot and killed.

As soon as the plane was dropped, it was hit by several 20.8mm shells, billowing black smoke and falling into the sea.

The bombs it dropped fell into the sea at almost the same time as it, and two water columns, one high and one low, completely soaked the starboard deck of the Taihang Mountain......

At 14:10, a Katerina, which was part of the Marine Corps, spotted the fifth formation.

Suddenly, a telegram made everyone in the command of the aviation force nervous.

"Enemy fleet spotted, 1 aircraft carrier, 2 seaplane carriers, a large number of transport ships, 255 degrees azimuth."

"This is the landing force of the Chinese! Sir! ”

"We have to try to weaken them as much as possible." Colonel Clarence asked, "Tell them to report their course." ”

The command immediately called back to inquire, but there was no news, but there was no news, but they did not know that Caterina who sent this telegram was being chased and killed by the Ming army's carrier-based aircraft, and there was no time to respond to the base's inquiries.

Only half an hour later, at 14:38, more important information was received.

An SBD Dreadnought, which conducted a search based on radio direction finding, sent back a telegram - "2 enemy aircraft carriers have been found, at an azimuth of 260 degrees and at a distance of 220 nautical miles."

Suddenly, the airfield, which had just released the third wave of attack formations, was busy again, and the exhausted ground crews had to prepare for the fourth wave of air raids.

Ouyang Zhanghua had long been prepared for the situation exposed by his fleet, and the lifting of radio silence before meant that the possibility of being discovered was greatly increased.

Now, it's your turn to fight back.

The U.S. Air Forces on Kauai must be dealt with as neatly as possible to stifle their ability to fight back.

"Report! Chief officer, the teams are ready and ready to take off at any time! ”

"Command, sortie."

At 14:45, Ouyang Zhanghua gave the order for carrier-based aircraft to attack in formation.

Both Ziweiyuan-class armored aircraft carriers had been raised to their maximum speed and turned to the windward direction, and a series of ship drives and ship bombardments laden with ammunition slid off the flight deck.

Because it was not clear where the Saratoga was, out of caution, Ouyang Zhanghua then ordered the 20th Air Raid Fleet to turn to the northwest, away from its previous position.

Although the radar gave the U.S. military an advantage, the interceptor force unleashed by the U.S. military stationed on Kauai did not take advantage of this advantage.

The planned plan for a high-altitude ambush was disrupted, and nine P-40 fighters of the Army Air Corps made their own sorts of attacks – the commander of the squadron thought he had discovered a brilliant fighter and could not afford to miss it.

The 12 F4F Wildcat fighters of the Naval Air Corps took off a little later, and they have not yet climbed to the intended heights.

Seeing that the army had already attacked, the pilots were stunned, and the commander also cursed bitterly on the radio.

The menacing Ming army plane group was suddenly attacked, and in the blink of an eye, two or three planes caught fire and smoked.

This was the first time that a pilot of a carrier-based aircraft of the Ming Navy had encountered a P-40 fighter, and this "sharp-nosed" aircraft gave the impression that it must have been flying quite fast.

However, the fierce air battle soon became one-sided, and the smug army pilots did not take advantage of the P-40 fighter jets and emboldened themselves in close-quarters dogfights.

The performance of the Type 37 carrier-based destroyer is quite mediocre to say that it is difficult to hear, and it has no special skills to speak of, but if it is better to say, it has become a "hexagonal warrior, invulnerable."

The power that such an aircraft can exert under the control of a skilled old bird is actually not inferior to the 36 type destroyer of the Ming Air Force, which is famous for its outstanding rolling ability.

The naval fighters that arrived later also ended up in the same fate because they were eager to save people, and in fact, the theoretical performance of the F4F Wildcat fighter was stronger than that of the Type 37 ship drive.

Defend against barrel rolling, scissor maneuvering......

In the face of a sharp opponent, US planes dragged black smoke into the sea one after another.

"Damn! Those bitch fools in the Army! Someone shouted angrily over the radio.

(End of chapter)

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