In war, any kind of accidents, big or small, can happen.
Within half an hour after the second wave of Japanese aircraft fleets that attacked Pearl Harbor retreated, Zhou Zhihan led the American fleet to take off, just in time to hit the Japanese reconnaissance aircraft.
It took about 20 minutes for Fuchida's fleet to return and land on the aircraft carrier. The reconnaissance aircraft that returned at almost the same time were unable to land.
The reconnaissance aircraft preparing to take off can only let the injured carrier-based aircraft land first. Landing of carrier-based aircraft is more difficult than taking off. A complete system is needed to relatively ensure the safety of carrier-based aircraft when landing. This is impossible during this period. Remove the landing system and change it to a take-off system to allow Zero View to take off.
So over and over again, the reconnaissance plane of the Japanese withdrawal fleet took off nearly 20 minutes later than scheduled.
In fact, Zhou Zhihan can lead everyone to find the Japanese task force without opening the system.
Because the direction of the Japanese retreat would not change, and five injured Japanese planes crashed into the sea along the way, in order to prevent the Americans from obtaining the data of the fighter planes, the Japanese planes accompanying them used machine guns to blast the fuel tanks, and the fighter planes exploded and burned, calmly There are plane wreckage everywhere on the sea, and they are easy to find at a glance.
The proud and arrogant Japanese aircraft fleet never thought that the Americans still had the strength to fight back.
Looking back at Pearl Harbor from 50 kilometers away, the smoke was still billowing and the fire was soaring into the sky. It was like the end of the world was coming and a hole was blown in the corner of the sea and sky. This made all the American pilots' eyesight split and they vowed to make the Japanese bloodthirsty. Blood is returned.
The sky was clear, the sun was shining brightly, and the visibility was excellent from a distance. When they were still more than 40 nautical miles away from the Japanese task force, the two sides discovered each other's fighter planes.
then.
The air defense alarm was sounded on the aircraft carrier [Akagi], and all warships moved immediately, increasing their speed to 20 knots at full speed.
During battle, the optimal speed of the aircraft carrier battle formation is 20 knots. At this speed, enemy torpedoes and bombs can be avoided with maximum efficiency.
[Canglong] and [Flying Dragon] launched into the wind the 24 Zero Fighters that had been prepared.
After the second wave of attack aircraft returned, the other four aircraft carriers recovered their carrier-based aircraft. Only these two aircraft carriers had 24 zero fighters prepared, as well as some of the bombers expected for the third wave of air strikes. The other four aircraft carriers had zero fighters ready. Takeoff is temporarily unavailable.
The Japanese were completely stunned by the sudden and easy victory.
Although the commanders of each aircraft carrier repeatedly warned themselves to be calm and calm, the soldiers inspired by the victory were not so calm. In the frenzied joy, they naturally neglected a lot of work and became more careless.
And the most important thing is that the Japanese, who thought that Pearl Harbor had no power to fight back, did not expect that American planes would come so quickly, almost one after another.
Although it was caught off guard, the Japanese fleet did not panic. With 6 aircraft carriers, 9 destroyers, 4 heavy battleships and the firepower of fast cruisers, it has the strength to maintain the safety of the aircraft carrier formation. During this period, the Zero fighter can Take off calmly and collect all incoming American fighter planes as ordered.
The Type 95 and Type 94 water reconnaissance aircraft were released from the "Kaga", and while cooperating with the destroyer to defend against enemy submarines, Zero Kan ejected two aircraft from the heavy cruisers "Tone" and "Chikuma" and refueled after returning. , radiate outward from both sides of the rear of the fleet to detect whether there are US aircraft carriers nearby. The detection range is 200 nautical miles.
Seeing Japanese reconnaissance planes in the distance, the American fleet knew that it was inevitable to avoid them, so all the bombers rose into the air.
Since the ceiling of the Dreadnought is less than 8,000 meters, the main protection target of the Wildcat and P40 is the Dreadnought, not the Sky Fortress and B-25, which are powerless in zero combat.
Hearing that about 50 fighter planes were flying from the direction of Pearl Harbor, people in the Akagi conference room had different expressions instantly, and everyone looked at Mizuo Fuchida almost at the same time.
Didn’t you say that in the sky above Pearl Harbor, we didn’t see several US military fighter planes taking off in the past three hours?
50 planes came all of a sudden. How do you explain it?
Mizuo Fuchida was also stunned.
At this time, Nan Yunzhong was determined to retreat. The sudden appearance of 50 fighter planes was absolutely abnormal. They were either flying from a land base or taking off from an aircraft carrier formation.
As soon as the air defense siren sounded, all sailors on all battleships were in place.
At this time, the main anti-aircraft weapons of Japanese naval warships were still 127mm anti-aircraft guns and 25mm machine guns.
Among them, the Type 89 40 times caliber 120 mm anti-aircraft gun has a barrel weight of 3100 kg, a shell weight of 23 kg, a rapid fire rate of 14 rounds per minute, a muzzle velocity of 720 meters per second, a pitch angle of 75% to -7%, a maximum flat-fire range of meters, and a maximum The shooting height is 9400 meters.
Type 96 25mm cannon, mainly twin-mounted and triple-mounted. The shells of this type of machine gun weigh 0.25 kg, the rate of fire is 220 rounds per minute, the muzzle velocity is 900 meters per second, and the pitch angle is 80% to -10 %, the maximum horizontal range is 7500 meters, and the maximum shooting height is 5200 meters.
It was noon at this time, golden light was dancing on the sea, and the sunlight illuminated both fighters equally.
At this time, the American fleet was still 20 nautical miles away from the Japanese task force.
Just when all the commanders of the Japanese ships were holding telescopes and looking at the incoming U.S. aircraft fleet in the air, and the sailors were ready to aim their guns at all angles in the air to form a fleet defense without blind spots, no one knew that a Wildcat fighter jet was almost It was flying at an ultra-low altitude close to the sea, like a light seagull, quietly and quickly breaking through the task force's 10-nautical-mile defense circle on the water.
This was a tactic formulated by Zhou Zhihan. He used a large fleet of 50 aircraft to attract the attention of the Japanese fleet with a slow and swaggering flying attitude. He flew at ultra-low altitude over the water to raid the task force.
Zhou Zhihan knew that the Japanese aircraft carrier had just recovered its carrier-based aircraft and was taking back the hangar to prepare for refueling, loading, and inspection. The next step was to lift the prepared fighters out of the hangar.
During this period, at most 2 to 3 aircraft carriers were equipped with carrier-based aircraft, so he flew at ultra-low altitude to disrupt the take-off order of the Zero fighters.
The U.S. military aircraft fleet first discovered the task force. Before being discovered by the Japanese reconnaissance team, Wildcat No. 214 had already dived to the sea, flying at an ultra-low altitude of almost 2 meters above the sea. This made McCluskey and others sweat. Wildcat No. 214 is a flying boat.
The Japanese would never have dreamed that in this world, there would be fighter jets that dare to fly close to the sea and fly at a speed of more than 600 kilometers per hour.
It was already noon, the waves on the sea were rugged, and golden snakes were dancing wildly. According to the perspective principle of human eyes, even with a telescope, it was difficult to spot a fighter jet flying at ultra-low altitude on the sea 10 nautical miles away.
Wildcat No. 214 is still 5 nautical miles away from the withdrawal fleet and has still not been discovered.
At this time, four Zero Fighters had taken off one after another and climbed into the air. The American fleet is still 10 kilometers away from the task force.
Wildcat No. 214 was discovered by sailors when it entered the defensive circle between the destroyers "Kasumi" and "Hai" at the rear of the Japanese task force.
