At five o'clock in the morning, it was dark outside, and it was raining moderately. The wind was not strong, and a rookie could barely take off.
If this happened in the past, most missions would be canceled, but Zhou Zhihan felt that the moderate rain was nothing, so he led three Blenheim bombers to take off, fly to an altitude of 3,000 meters, and go to Calais Port to perform the mission.
Ten minutes after the bombers set off, four Spitfires of the 304 Squadron took off. They met with the bombers 20 minutes later and formed an escort four-finger formation five kilometers behind the bombers.
After the baptism of the Dunkirk air battle, the veteran pilots of the Royal Air Force are now accustomed to going out to perform missions in such moderate rainy weather.
Recently, the German Air Force has not taken the moderate rain seriously. It still sends fighter planes across the Taiwan Strait every day, looking for opportunities to challenge British fighter jets. It often drops leaflets saying that the British Air Force has suffered a major blow, hoping to cause panic among the British people. .
But the British people always believed in the positive news published every day by The Times. People believed that the leaflets dropped by the Germans were just a psychological tactic and should be ignored.
So all the leaflets dropped by the Germans became toilet paper in British toilets.
The skies are mild and clear for most of July, but there are occasional bouts of rain over the sea.
Fog covered the coastline in the morning and evening, and cold winds blew across the English Channel, gathering dark clouds with thunder and lightning. Only when a storm suddenly struck did the Germans have to cancel combat operations.
The weather in the Strait is more favorable to the British, because weather changes usually come from the Atlantic and then move eastward, so that the Royal Air Force can understand the weather conditions before the Germans.
But the Germans would take combat operations in all but the worst weather, because Air Marshal Göring wanted a quick victory.
From the perspective of the German military, the air battle seemed to be proceeding according to their plan. Göring's intelligence experts constantly assured him that the RAF commanders were committing all their fighters to the battle over the Channel in a desperate attempt to fend off the invading Reichswehr forward. .
But Göring still refused to give up. In order to prevent the British from retaining reserve forces, he asked the Condor Legion, which had strong combat capabilities and experienced, to do its best to fight alone, and tried every means to lure more British fighters into the air.
Since July 10th, the fierce battle over the English Channel and southern England has turned into a modern gladiator fight, where highly skilled fighter jets use advanced air combat technology to compete here.
The spectacular air battle filled the sky with streaks of condensed smoke swirling wildly.
In these ten days of single, double, and multi-aircraft air combat, the British Royal Family lost a total of 29 Spitfires and 37 Hurricanes. In this regard, the Royal Air Force believed that this loss was acceptable. They successfully delayed the German offensive momentum, deployed defense in depth for the British troops, and bought precious time.
At this stage, the Royal Air Force shot down a total of 102 Luftwaffe aircraft, but most of them were reconnaissance aircraft, bombers and patrol aircraft. Only 38 Messerschmitts, which had strong air combat capabilities, were shot down.
During this period, the Luftwaffe's bombers also caused a lot of trouble for the British transport fleet, which caused the British Royal Navy to frequently complain that the Air Force was not strong enough to respond.
In this regard, Admiral Hugh Dowding ordered his men to resolutely implement delaying tactics. Even if the Navy suffered a greater blow, the Air Force would not be allowed to invest in combat readiness, because the main force defending the English Channel and British airspace was Air Force fighter jets, not the Navy. ships.
Fortunately, the British arsenal was operating at full capacity, manufacturing nearly 500 brand-new fighter jets in one June. In addition, Canadian and American aircraft were also successively shipped to the UK, which greatly increased the number of British Air Force aircraft. But apart from some of these newly produced aircraft replenishing the fighter force, most of them are kept secretly as combat preparations.
Although the Battle of Britain was far from reaching its climax, the British and German pilots fought very hard. The vast majority of pilots in the air forces of both sides were on alert for more than 12 hours every day, waiting for the order to take off.
In the Channel Coast theater of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, the Royal Air Force's flying reconnaissance squadrons flew four or five missions a day, with each reconnaissance lasting two and a half hours.
Fortunately, the United Kingdom has radar early warning, which greatly reduces the attendance rate of pilots, the wear and tear of fighter jets, and the consumption of war resources. Otherwise, facing the German army with a crushing number of fighter jets, the Royal Air Force pilots would have collapsed long ago.
The Luftwaffe's fighter and bomber squadrons without radar support had a relatively harder time. Fighter pilots went out to harass the British Air Force three times a day, and the Stuka bomber pilots were even more miserable.
During this period, the fatigue of most of the pilots on both sides has reached its extreme. It depends on who can survive.
This exhausting confrontation is very beneficial to the Royal Air Force, which is in desperate need of time. The British arsenal is rushing to manufacture fighter jets, while workers in its overseas territories are also working overtime day and night to manufacture more anti-aircraft weapons.
This time Zhou Zhihan went to Calais with all the crews of the other three Blenheim bombers on the mission. They were all rookies. Before departure, Zhou Zhihan once again explained to them the tactics of carrying out the mission in detail, and To comfort these rookies, as long as they resolutely implement his tactics, they will definitely win!
Nowadays, as long as there is an opportunity to train, senior pilots will take rookies out to perform missions.
Flying across the English Channel and reaching the German Air Force's radiation area, Zhou Zhihan discovered that a He126 reconnaissance aircraft of the Luftwaffe was conducting a routine reconnaissance flight. He ordered a Spitfire to attack the reconnaissance aircraft. The fleet accelerated and continued to fly forward. Show a fierce offensive momentum.
Seeing the British fighter-bomber group in the distance, the He126 reconnaissance plane had already started to escape, sending a message to the headquarters about the incoming enemy bombers while running. Even the Spitfire could not catch up.
There were still a few kilometers away from the Calais pier. Zhou Zhihan saw from his helmet that a squadron of Messerschmitts took off from Mark Airport dozens of kilometers away. After confirming that they were coming to intercept them, the British fleet had arrived at the Calais pier. In the sky above, Zhou Zhihan ordered the Spitfire to turn early and ambush at high altitude. The bomber group dropped a few symbolic bombs on the German transport ship at the dock and then immediately turned around and returned.
Sure enough, Messerschmitt, which took off from Mark Airport, gave chase.
It was the first time she saw so many yellow-nosed Messerschmitts chasing after her fiercely. Julia Kristeva felt nervous, sweat dripping from both sides of her delicate nose, and her hands holding the video camera trembled slightly.
Seeing that Julia Kristeva was scared, Zhou Zhihan comforted her, saying that this was a planned tactic to lure the enemy in, and he would ensure her safety.
Comforted by Zhou Zhihan, Kristeva took a deep breath to stabilize her mood.
The British bombers formed a Lufber circle defensive formation and quickly retreated. The rookies were excited and nervous for the first time. Their execution ability was very strong and in place. They hit wherever Zhou Zhihan pointed out.
Four veteran Spitfire fighter jets were placed on both wings of the bomber group to act as a deterrent to the pursuing enemy aircraft. The British aircraft group did not dare to approach at high speed. They could only perform exploratory post-tracking to ensure that the British aircraft group always remained on the Meiji plane. Out of Seschmidt's shooting range.
