At around 4 a.m., just ten minutes after Zhou Zhihan took off in a Martin Heavy Bomber, two Fighter MKI fighter jets, and two Hawker 2 fighter jets, all Chinese Air Force fighter jets stationed at Jianqiao Airport took off.
At this time, the night was getting darker. We still used the old method of lighting up both sides of the airport runway with bonfires and car lights to guide the fighter planes to take off. Leave a safe distance, form a battle formation, and fly towards Shanghai.
This flight formation is slightly different from the past.
According to Zhou Zhihan's suggestion, three Hawker 3 fighter jets formed a guard with swords at the rear of the fleet to defend the rear of the fleet. The three fighters took turns doing a 180-degree flip every five minutes to observe whether there was any enemy behind them.
When the sky brightened slightly and the aerial vision gradually became clearer, the fleet flew over Jinshan Mountain in Shanghai. Behind the right wing of the fleet, flying a Hawker 3 fighter jet, flying a hundred meters above the fleet was the captain of the 8th detachment of the 5th Air Force Group. Captain Wang Tianxiang.
Wang Tianxiang's Hawker 3 fighter made a slow 180-degree right roll, and suddenly found a looming bright spot similar to a firefly in his rearview mirror.
Wang Tianxiang's heart skipped a beat. What was the bright spot in the rearview mirror?
Fireflies cannot fly this high.
Wang Tianxiang once again made a 180-degree roll to the right. This time he could see clearly that about 2,000 meters behind him, there were also a group of fighter jets with shining lights on their fuselages, flying at a lower altitude. Rapidly approaching the Chinese Air Force fleet.
Captain Wang Tianxiang suddenly broke out in cold sweat. He was secretly grateful that he had been reminded by the chief instructor early this morning to arrange a guard with a knife behind the large aircraft group, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous.
Wang Tianxiang immediately shouted on the radio: "A large number of enemy planes were found behind my group. The number is unknown! A large number of enemy planes were found behind me and they were approaching. The escort fighters changed out of escort mode and were ready to intercept the enemy planes."
As soon as Wang Tianxiang finished speaking, Second Lieutenant Li Hengnan of the 14th Air Force Squadron of the 2nd Air Force flying at the front of the group fired two purple-red flares into the sky. This was to notify those fighters in the group that did not have radio communication that there were fighters behind them. When an enemy plane attacks, the interceptor planes withdraw from the escort formation and intercept the following enemy planes.
This kind of drill has been performed hundreds of times. As soon as the signal flare is sent out, the aircraft group immediately knows that an enemy plane is incoming and responds immediately.
At the moment when the signal flare was raised, the Japanese fighter plane following behind knew that it had been discovered by the Chinese Air Force and the sneak attack plan was shattered, so it immediately accelerated its flight speed and prepared to launch a rear-tail attack.
Chinese fighter planes are well-trained. At the moment they received the signal flare order, all interceptor planes used the usual maneuvering methods to maneuver towards both sides of the bomber formation and pulled up, forming a combat formation that intercepted the incoming aircraft group from behind. Switch from defense to offense in an instant.
This transformation is very subtle.
The interceptor plane broke away from the flight formation, and the fighter plane escorting it on the left recovered and flew upward to the left. Then it flew out of a U-shaped turn and pointed its nose directly at the left nose of the incoming Japanese plane;
The right escort fighter of the Chinese bomber formation recovered, pulled up to the upper right corner, and also flew a U-shaped turn, with its nose pointed directly at the right nose of the incoming Japanese aircraft;
The three trailing Blade Guards directly pulled up, turned 180 degrees, and the fighter planes recovered their noses to meet the enemy aircraft at high altitude. They formed a triangle with the interceptors on the left and right sides, high and low altitude attack formations, and faced the enemy. Japanese fighter plane.
If the Japanese fighter planes continue to pursue the Chinese bomber formation, they will be attacked by Chinese fighter planes from both wings. At the same time, they will also be forcibly attacked by three swooping fighter planes from the air. They will get into the Chinese Air Force and pose. In the "pin" shaped attack formation.
This is currently the best defensive formation for the Chinese Air Force to intercept incoming enemy aircraft and protect its own bomber fleet.
This is also a popular defensive tactic among air forces around the world.
In order to keep their whereabouts secret, most of the sneak attack fighter planes choose to follow the aircraft at high altitude or low altitude for attack. They rarely use parallel follow, which is easy to be discovered by the lead aircraft. At this time, the sky is still relatively dark. If the Japanese army flies at high altitude, it is easy to lose the Chinese fighter formation. There were traces of it, so they chose to follow it at low altitude.
A few days ago, what the Japanese army had been confused about was why the Chinese Air Force's aircraft fleet could launch an attack on the Japanese positions at dawn?
Although all pilots have practiced blind flying at night to prepare for emergencies.
But pilots from all over the world know that it is very dangerous to fly with a large group of aircraft at night.
Due to the short visual distance when flying at night, it is easy for a group of aircraft to collide if they fly too close to each other. If they are too far away, the aircraft will yaw or deviate from the formation. It is extremely dangerous for bombers to leave the formation.
The closest Chinese military airport to Shanghai is Hangzhou Jianqiao Airport. Fighters taking off from Jianqiao Airport will take at least half an hour to reach Shanghai. However, Chinese military aircraft can appear over Shanghai at dawn and launch a surprise attack. This shows that The Chinese Air Force has found a way to fly at night and identify headings.
Later, the Japanese army found the mystery from the downed fighter planes of the Chinese Air Force, which was the angry wind lantern.
Therefore, the Japanese also learned this method and took off large groups of aircraft at night.
Just as Japanese fighter planes and Chinese interceptors were fighting each other, the Chinese bomber formation turned around from the front and returned to Jianqiao Airport and Nanjing Airport.
Since there are Japanese fighter planes following, it means that the Japanese army has obtained the bombing plan of the Chinese Air Force. If they go to carry out bombing, they may fall into the trap of Japanese anti-aircraft fire.
Bombers can exert their greatest attack power mostly under the circumstances of sneak attacks.
Therefore, the bombing crew immediately returned home. For safety reasons, some of the bombers flew to Nanjing Airport and the other part returned to Jianqiao Airport.
Before every fighter plane takes off for combat, the Air Force Operations Department will use sandboxes to deduce to the extreme various emergencies that may arise during the flight of the fighter plane and during the battle.
In such an unexpected situation, the bombers can only return. Since the Japanese know the intentions of the Chinese Air Force, they will definitely take advantageous measures.
We can only retreat!
The Chinese Air Force currently has almost all its assets here, and now is not the time to fight head-on.
Faced with the increasing number of Japanese fighter planes, the Chinese Air Force cannot afford to fight, cannot fight, and dare not fight!
Now, due to the huge losses of fighter aircraft, the Chinese Air Force is no longer able to launch a multi-point attack. It can only change its strategy from the initial offensive fulcrum to the current one point where it concentrates its forces to attack the enemy.
Air battles often last only a few minutes or ten minutes.
Ten minutes later, the Chinese interceptors withdrew from the battlefield. They shot down six Japanese Type 95 warships, but at the cost of two Boeing 281 fighter jets and a Hawker 3 fighter jet being shot down by the enemy, as well as a bomber. The wing was punctured and the auxiliary fuel tank hanging under the wing caught fire, endangering the bomb. In order to protect the bomber, the pilot only dropped the bomb to explode in an uninhabited place. Even so, the bomber was still unable to fly back to the base and crashed in mid-air. , the driver parachuted to escape and suffered minor injuries.
In the sky above Wusongkou, the four fighter planes led by Zhou Zhihan failed to wait for reinforcements and were surrounded by enemy planes and fell into a deadly battle.
