Chapter 806: Zero's Mortal Enemy
"Rudolf, this sword is for you!"
On the afternoon of March 17, in the hangar of the Akagi aircraft carrier, Shigeru Itani, who was about to fly a Comet carrier-based bomber, suddenly handed the katana in his hand to little Hersman who came to see him off.
Little Hersman took Itaya's katana, which was a long sword with a beautiful scabbard - I really don't know how this thing was stuffed into the cockpit of the airplane?
"What's wrong? You didn't bring a machete on the plane?" Little Hersman asked strangely.
"Bringing a big knife on the plane... Haha, this is really a very stupid thing." Itaya Shigeru laughed, "Rudolf, you are right, I am flying a plane, why should I bring a knife? So today When I saw you, I gave you this knife. I will never carry a knife to heaven again.”
"So...can I bring a parachute?" Little Hersman said cautiously, "Even if you get shot down, it's normal. I've been shot down five times by the enemy."
It is said that little Hersman's driving skills are really not very good. He crashed three times in the European battlefield. He continued to crash in the Pacific battlefield and lost two more Fw-190Ts. However, his fate was relatively high, and every time he crashed, there was a near miss.
"Baga!" Itaya Shigeru glared at the little Hessman who was talking randomly, "Isn't this a curse on me? I'm about to attack, so I might as well say something nice."
"Bring on a parachute, and the military will last forever. Is that okay? But, Itaya, the new American aircraft are really powerful, so be careful." Little Hersman still mentioned the parachute because he was very worried. My Japanese friend - he has fought against American F4Us and F6Fs in the North Pacific, and has also read many reports about the P51, knowing that these three types of aircraft are difficult to deal with, and his two crashes in the Pacific Ocean The machines are all made from F4U and F6F.
After hearing what Little Hersman said, Shigeru Itaya didn't take it too seriously. He had been with German pilots like Little Hersman for a long time, and he knew that the Germans were not good at talking, and they were all guys who said one thing and another.
"Okay." Itaya nodded, took the parachute from a deck crew member next to him, carried it on his body, and then said with a smile, "Rudolph, wait to hear our success report!"
After finishing speaking, he strode towards the Comet carrier-based blaster he was piloting. This is a dive bomber that can fly at 580 kilometers per hour, even faster than the Zero, and can easily break through the interception of US military fighter jets from an altitude of 6,000 meters.
However, this high speed also has side effects, that is, the speed during dive is faster and the accuracy of bombing is reduced. Among the Japanese naval aviation, only experienced "veteran pilots" like Shigeru Itani can fly such an aircraft. It was also because of this reason that Shigeru Itani changed from a Zero Fighter pilot to a Comet pilot.
In the attack plan formulated by Mitsuo Fuchida based on the instructions of Osawa Jisaburo, among the 180 fighters that formed the first attack wave, there were 120 Comet shipboard blasters carrying 500 kilograms of armor-piercing bombs.
In 3 hours, they will bring a devastating disaster to the 19th U.S. Task Force!
…
"Hasn't the radar found it yet?"
Rear Admiral Smith of the U.S. Navy on the heavy cruiser USS Wichita seemed a little impatient to wait for death, and once again turned back to ask his chief of staff.
Captain Stannap Lin looked at the blue sky outside the bridge and the F6F fighter jets hovering in the sky, then shook his head and said, "Sir, maybe the Japanese don't plan to attack us anymore..."
Before he finished speaking, the phone rang. The staff officer picked up the phone and answered the call first, then his expression quickly changed.
"What's wrong?" Colonel Lin asked immediately after discovering the abnormality.
"They are coming... The radar has detected enemy aircraft, numbering more than 100, altitude 6,000, distance 100 (miles, equivalent to 160 kilometers)."
"Just in time! Order all the fighter jets to take off to intercept them!" Upon hearing the news, Major General Smith jumped up and immediately ordered all the fighter jets on the three Borgs to take off to fight.
As the German Ju288 and remotely controlled glide bombs replaced submarines as the main threat to American ships. Therefore, the main mission of U.S. escort aircraft carriers now is air defense rather than anti-submarine warfare, so the types of aircraft equipped are also different from those in history. Each Borg-class escort carrier has a squadron of F6Fs and a squadron of F4Us, a total of 24 fighters, and 4 backup aircraft.
In addition, although these Borg-class aircraft carriers are small, slow and incompetent, they have not cut corners on the catapults. They are all equipped with flywheel catapults - the current catapults have just developed into hydraulic catapults, both in the United States and the United Kingdom. This technology has been developed, but it has not yet become popular, and the Japanese aircraft carrier uses a gunpowder catapult, so there is no catapult available yet - it can eject 18 carrier-based aircraft into the sky in a very short time (the flywheel is Energy storage catapult, it will be temporarily unavailable when the energy storage is exhausted), plus the 18 F6Fs already in the sky, 72 F6Fs and F4Us were soon circling back and forth outside the formation of the 19th U.S. Task Force.
The commander of the first attack wave was Major Takahashi Kakuichi from the Shokaku aircraft carrier. He was an "old man" who graduated from the 56th Marine Corps, two classes earlier than Itaya Shigeru, and was naturally an experienced elite. In the past year or so of war, he led the fleet to fight more than once. However, he had never encountered F6F and F4U, but had only seen their photos and heard about these two difficult American aircraft from pilots on several light aircraft carriers that undertook escort missions.
After discovering that the fighters hovering in the air to cover the American aircraft carriers were all F4U and F6F, Takahashi knew that it would be a tough fight today.
He first gave orders to the squadron leaders of his six fighter squadrons: "Sasai-kun, Shiga-kun, Shindo-kun, Fujita-kun, Tsukamoto-kun, Okajima-kun, the American fighters are in your hands, please!"
"Hai!"
"Onboard!"
A cheering response came back from the airborne radio imported from Germany. Obviously, the six fighter squadron leaders were full of confidence.
Then Takahashi began to give orders to the captains of the six bomber squadrons (Takahashi himself was also a bomber pilot), and assigned the three escort aircraft carriers, one heavy cruiser and two large light cruisers on the sea below to the six bomber squadrons.
"Egasa-kun, Itaya-kun, Kobayashi-kun, Murata-kun, Ema-kun, Sanfuku-kun, follow me to charge, board!" Takahashi Heyi shouted at the end, and then he manipulated his Comet bomber to dive at full speed towards the American fleet below.
At the same time, the 60 escorting Zero 52 fighters had already fought with the American fighters in the sky. Although the pilots driving these Zero 52s were elites and had learned a lot about the F4U and F6F before, everyone was still greatly surprised.
Lieutenant Junichi Sasai, nicknamed "Military Chicken" (I don't know if it's because of homosexuality) and "Japanese Richthofen", was a shore-based pilot of the "Tainan Air Force" when the war started. He shot down many F2A, P40 and F4F in the Philippines and the South Pacific battlefields, and also shot down the US B-17. He was an ace in the Japanese naval aviation. However, today was his first time to fight as a carrier-based pilot.
And... it is likely to be a bad start!
Because he encountered an American carrier-based aircraft that could circle almost like the Zero 52, but Junichi Sasai was not afraid of circling, he was an ace who had experienced many battles. Although the speed of this American F6F was faster than the Zero 52, Sasai quickly caught up with the opponent's tail with his superb aerial maneuvering skills.
But before Sasai completed the aiming, this American aircraft, which should have been characterized by flexible maneuverability, suddenly began to dive at a large angle, as if it were an Fw-190T. Sasai followed it for more than ten seconds, and knew he couldn't catch up. The plane's diving performance was much better than that of the Zero 52, and it ran away in the blink of an eye.
Just when Sasai wanted to find another American plane to shoot down, he suddenly found two strings of fire flashing from the right side of his plane - a plane was firing at his plane from a high altitude.
Sasai knew that something was wrong, and hurriedly drove the plane to do an S-shaped maneuver, trying to avoid the opponent diving from high altitude. But he was still a beat too late, and a string of 20mm machine gun shells swept the wing of the Zero 52 he was driving, and the wing was immediately broken into two pieces. The plane could not keep balance and rolled down.
"I'm going to become a god now!" Sasai was unwilling, but he didn't bring a parachute, and there was only a big knife beside him. It seemed that there was nothing he could do except wait for death. However, just as the plane was falling rapidly, he saw a ball of fire rising on the sea surface. It was obviously the Comet bomber that had made a contribution...
Just when Junichi Sasai, who was driving a fighter, was shot down by an F4U that dived from high altitude, Shigeru Itaya excitedly shouted "Long live".
Because the bomber squadron he led had just made a contribution and sank an American aircraft carrier!
Although the Zero fighter now encountered the two mortal enemies, F4U and F6F, and was no longer as sharp as when the war started. But the "Comet" carrier-based bomber that Shigeru Itaya was now driving was difficult to deal with. Because the speed of the "Comet" was too fast, if it dived and attacked from an altitude of 6,000 meters, it would easily break through the enemy aircraft's obstruction and rush into the fleet's anti-aircraft firepower network. Although the accuracy of the bombing was reduced by more than half compared to the 99 carrier-based bomber due to the fast dive speed. But the hit rate of about 30% was still enough to cause the heaviest blow to the US fleet on the water!