Chapter 224: Ambush
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, time had already arrived in February 1940.
After more than a year of standoff and development, the situation in Shanxi seemed to have fallen into a delicate balance on the surface.
Although Shinozuka Yoshio, the commander of the Japanese First Army, hated the Shanxi Militia and Su Yaoyang to the bone, he was troubled by insufficient troops and the complex regional situation, and had never been able to launch a large-scale sweep operation.
The Shanxi Militia led by Su Yaoyang took advantage of this precious breathing space to strive for development and accumulate strength in Wutaishan, especially making significant progress in air force construction.
Today, for the Wutaishan County Flight Academy, it was a memorable day… The second batch of flight trainees from the Shanxi Militia Flight Wing officially graduated, and they would be incorporated into various flight squadrons to become formal pilots.
Jinshalingshan Airport, shedding its usual desolation and tension, was filled with a festive and solemn atmosphere.
On the tarmac, rows of fighter planes and bombers painted with the Blue Sky White Sun emblem were neatly arranged, glistening with cold metallic sheen under the early spring sunshine, like a steel legion about to set out.
In the center of the airport, on the temporary rostrum, a huge banner hung with the prominent words “Warmly Celebrate the Successful Graduation of the Second Batch of Trainees from Wutaishan County Flight Academy.”
Below the rostrum, hundreds of young trainees dressed in brand-new flight suits with graduation badges on their chests stood in neat queues, full of energy and high-spirited.
Su Yaoyang was now standing in the center of the rostrum.
He was wearing a straight dark wool military uniform, with the golden triangular stars on his shoulder epaulets shining brightly in the sunlight.
His gaze swept over the young and energetic faces below the stage, his heart filled with gratification and pride.
These young people were the future aerial eagles of the Shanxi Militia, the hope for defending this land and resisting the invaders.
“Comrades! Trainees!”
Su Yaoyang’s voice was clearly transmitted throughout the entire airport through the amplifier, “Today is a day worth remembering for all of us!
After arduous training and strict assessments, you—the second batch of trainees from Jinshalingshan Flight Academy—have successfully completed your studies and are about to head to various combat positions to become glorious members of our Shanxi Militia air force!”
A burst of warm applause erupted from below the stage, and the young trainees clapped with excitement gleaming in their eyes.
Su Yaoyang raised his hand to signal everyone to quiet down and continued in his infectious voice: “More than a year ago, when we built our first airport here and had our first batch of planes, many people didn’t believe that our local armed forces could truly build a powerful air force.
They mocked us as dreamers, as overreaching ants trying to stop a chariot! But today, with your own efforts and sweat, you have proven to everyone that not only did we do it, but we did it very well!”
“We have ‘Pirate’ fighters that make the enemy tremble in fear, fierce and sturdy Thunderbolt fighters, and Dauntless dive bombers capable of precise strikes!
Our pilots have dealt heavy blows to the Japanese invaders time and again in air battles and ground support missions!
The previous victories were just the beginning; in the future… we will achieve more and greater victories!”
“However!” Su Yaoyang’s tone suddenly turned serious, “I hope comrades will clearly recognize that our achievements are far from enough!
Our enemies are still strong; they occupy large swathes of our land and slaughter our compatriots! The burden on our shoulders is still heavy, the road ahead is still long, and the battles will be even more brutal!”
“I hope that in future battles, you will always remember your mission! Be brave and fearless, like eagles soaring in the sky, using your talons and beak to tear through the enemy’s lines, defend our homeland, and uphold the dignity of our nation!
And for you, I have only one requirement: while bravely striking at the Japanese invaders, protect yourselves and strive to stay alive.
Now I declare that the second batch of trainees from Wutaishan County Flight Academy are permitted to graduate!”
As soon as Su Yaoyang finished speaking, thunderous applause and cheers erupted from below the stage again!
After the graduation ceremony ended, Su Yaoyang did not leave the airport immediately. He found the chief instructor in charge of the flight academy training—Doolittle.
At this moment, Doolittle, though his temples were tinged with frost, was still spirited.
He was wearing the same flight suit as the trainees, but with an extra star badge on his shoulder representing his instructor status. Seeing Su Yaoyang approach, a signature hearty smile appeared on his face.
“Commander, your speech today was excellent! These young men were all moved by you!” Doolittle said in his slightly accented Chinese.
Su Yaoyang smiled and said, “Jimmy, this is all your credit. Without you and your instructor team’s dedicated teaching, we couldn’t have trained so many qualified pilots in such a short time.”
The two walked side by side on the tarmac, watching the trainees gather in small groups, excitedly discussing their future assignments and battles.
Su Yaoyang pondered for a moment and asked, “Jimmy, with this batch of graduates, can we form another new flight wing with all our pilots combined?
You know, that old devil Shinozuka Yoshio hasn’t made any big moves lately, but his troops are still eyeing our base areas covetously. Our air pressure is still great. If we can add another flight wing, our air defense and offensive capabilities would improve significantly.”
Hearing Su Yaoyang’s question, the smile on Doolittle’s face faded slightly. He stopped, turned to face Su Yaoyang, his expression turning somewhat serious and regretful.
“Commander… I understand your idea and very much hope to further expand our air force.” Doolittle sighed and said, “But, I’m afraid… not yet.”
“Oh? Not enough planes? If that’s the reason, don’t worry; I’ll figure out a way to transfer more.” Su Yaoyang asked.
Doolittle gave him a meaningful look and shook his head: “It’s not a plane issue; the main problem is still… pilots.”
“Pilots?” Su Yaoyang was somewhat surprised. In his view, over the past year plus, the flight academy had already graduated two batches of trainees, so the number of pilots should have reached a certain scale, and forming another flight wing shouldn’t be a problem.
Doolittle nodded and explained: “Yes, Commander.
You may not be fully aware of the number of pilots needed to form a complete flight wing and the experience and skill requirements for pilots.”
He extended his fingers and began calculating carefully for Su Yaoyang: “Look, a standard fighter flight wing usually has three to four squadrons, each squadron needing at least twelve to sixteen pilots, not including reserves and command personnel. That means a full-strength fighter wing requires at least fifty to seventy qualified fighter pilots.
“And for a bomber wing, it’s even more complex.
For medium bombers like the B-25 ‘Mitchell’, each plane needs at least five to six crew members, including pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, navigator, radio operator, and gunner.
A bomber squadron with twelve planes requires sixty to seventy crew members. A bomber wing similarly needs over a hundred specially trained crew members.”
Doolittle paused and continued: “Commander… including this graduating class, we currently have about six hundred pilots and crew members capable of combat missions.
“Six hundred people…” Su Yaoyang murmured the number silently.
“Yes, six hundred people.”
Doolittle affirmed, “This number sounds like quite a lot.
But Commander, we have already formed two fighter flight wings, the ‘Pirate’ Wing and the ‘Thunderbolt’ Wing. These two wings, to maintain combat strength, are nearly full strength and have used up nearly one hundred fifty of our most elite fighter pilots.」
“Additionally, we have a bomber wing commanded by Feng Mingqian.
Although this wing has fewer planes than the fighter wings, due to the high crew requirements, it has consumed nearly two hundred bomber crew members.
“So, two fighter wings and one bomber wing have already used up about three hundred fifty of our core air personnel.
The remaining approximately two hundred fifty pilots and crew members: some are newly graduated trainees who still need further in-unit training and combat tempering to truly shoulder heavy responsibilities;
others serve as reserves for the wings and handle reconnaissance, transport, communication, and other support tasks. Some are assistant instructors at the flight academy or undergoing advanced training.”
Doolittle spread his hands, a hint of helplessness on his face: “So Commander, now you understand? With our current total of about six hundred pilots, barely supporting the daily operations and training of two fighter wings and one bomber wing is already extremely strained.
If we want to form another new flight wing, whether fighter or bomber, we face a severe pilot shortage. It’s like a piece of cloth cut into several garments; the scraps left can’t make another decent one.”
After hearing Doolittle’s detailed explanation, Su Yaoyang fell silent. He had thought that with the second batch of flight trainees graduating, the Shanxi Militia’s air force would make a qualitative leap, even allowing consideration of forming more flight units to cope with the increasingly severe war situation. But reality was much harsher than he imagined.
Training pilots is not something that happens overnight.
It requires strict selection, long training cycles, and massive resource investment. Especially in this war-torn era, training a qualified pilot capable of adapting to brutal air combat is extremely difficult.
It seemed that while his air force blueprint was grand, the pilot numbers bottleneck had become the key factor constraining further development.
No wonder, though he had worked very hard, in just over a year he had only trained five or six hundred pilots, a number negligible compared to world powers.
You know, during World War II in another timeline, the Soviet Union had over three hundred thousand pilots.
And as the number one industrial power, the old U.S. could train 11,000 pilots per month（including pilots, bombardiers, etc.）, which is why by the later stages of World War II, German and Japanese pilots were almost all wiped out, while American pilots kept pouring out from assembly-line flight schools, piloting fighters to press Japan and Germany.
Compared to these industrial powers, the air force Su Yaoyang built didn’t even qualify for comparison.
Just as Su Yaoyang was helplessly scratching his head, a communications staff officer rushed up to him and Doolittle, panting heavily, too out of breath to salute as he urgently reported:
“Com… Commander! Du… Doolittle instructor! Bad news! Some… something happened!”
Su Yaoyang’s heart sank; from the communications staff officer’s extremely panicked expression, he already sensed something was wrong. He tried to keep his voice steady and asked gravely: “Don’t panic! Speak slowly. What exactly happened?”
The communications staff officer gasped a few times, his voice choked with sobs, and said urgently: “It’s… it’s the ‘Thunderbolt’ Wing! They… one of their four-plane patrol squads… while on a routine patrol mission… encountered… encountered an ambush by a large number of Japanese fighters!”
“What?” Su Yaoyang and Doolittle exclaimed in unison, their faces instantly turning extremely grave.
The “Thunderbolt” Wing was uniformly equipped with P-47 “Thunderbolt” fighters, guarding the airspace over Wutaishan County, Xiangding, and other eastern Shanxi regions alongside the “Pirate” Wing.
And the Thunderbolt Wing, thanks to One-Eyed Jack, Tom, and other American mercenary pilots, could be said to be even stronger than the Pirate Wing.
Normally, the Thunderbolt Wing’s routine patrols were alert duties on the edges of their area to prevent Japanese planes from infiltrating for reconnaissance or sneak attacks, but they had actually been ambushed by Japanese aircraft.
The communications staff officer’s voice was intermittent from fear and anxiety: “The report says… our patrol squad… in the northeast of the base area, approximately… approximately over Hunyuan County, suddenly encountered… encirclement and attack by at least over ten Japanese fighters! The enemies… too many!”
Over ten Japanese fighters! While they only had four!
This was an encounter with extremely lopsided strength!
Su Yaoyang asked with a grim face: “What’s the battle situation? Our people… our personnel casualties?!”
The communications staff officer’s lips trembled as he said with difficulty: “In… intense battle, our pilots… they… were very heroic… successfully shot down one enemy plane… but… we ourselves… lost two… two planes…”
“Lost two planes!”
This news hit Su Yaoyang and Doolittle like a bolt from the blue!
Two P-47 “Thunderbolt” fighters meant at least two pilots… possibly already…
Su Yaoyang clenched his fists; he had just been worrying about insufficient pilot numbers, and now he might permanently lose two precious pilots! This sudden blow almost made him unsteady.
Doolittle’s face was also grim; he knew well how difficult it was to break out from over ten enemy planes when vastly outnumbered! Shooting down one was already a miracle!
“What about… the remaining two?!” Su Yaoyang suppressed his inner grief and anxiety and asked urgently.
“The remaining… two… also… badly damaged… they’re… struggling… to return to base! Communications… intermittent… last contact… they said… they’ll try… try to fly back…” The communications staff officer’s voice was thick with sobs.
This news, like a bucket of ice water in winter, instantly extinguished all the joy and excitement from the graduation ceremony.
The young trainees around, still immersed in graduation joy, also heard the bad news.
The smiles on their faces froze instantly, replaced by shock, anger, and disbelief.
They had just been dreaming of piloting eagles through the blue sky, and in a flash, cruel reality presented itself in such a bloody way.
The atmosphere on the airport instantly became oppressive and heavy.
“Notify the tower immediately! Closely monitor the returning planes’ signals! All ground support units! Ambulances! Fire trucks! All to level one alert! Stand by at the runway!”
Su Yaoyang forced himself to calm down and rapidly issued a series of orders. His voice was somewhat hoarse from suppressing emotions.
“Yes!” The communications staff officer acknowledged and dashed away.
Doolittle took a deep breath and said gravely: “Commander, let’s go to the runway to wait for them.”
Su Yaoyang nodded, and the two walked with heavy steps toward the main runway.
The news quickly spread throughout the airport. The newly graduated trainees, ground crew, guard troops, and even some instructors from the flight school who heard the news all spontaneously surged to the sides of the runway.
They stood silently, anxiety and anticipation written on every face. The air was filled with a suffocating tension.
Everyone held their breath, eyes fixed on the northeastern sky, waiting for the two planes of uncertain fate to appear.
Time ticked by, each second feeling like a century.
The sunshine was still bright, but it brought no warmth to people. Only the whistling cold wind blew the airport flags, making whooshing sounds.
About ten minutes later.
“Look! What’s that?!” Someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, pointing to the northeastern horizon.
All eyes turned sharply in that direction!
In the blue sky, two tiny black dots were slowly and arduously moving toward the airport.
As the distance closed, the outlines of the two black dots became clearer.
It was P-47 “Thunderbolt”! Their own planes!
But the condition of those two planes made everyone’s hearts clench!
They flew very low and slow, with intermittent black smoke rising from the fuselages, like two wounded giant dragons stubbornly struggling to return to their nest.
One plane’s left wing was riddled with holes, the wingtip missing a large chunk, the fuselage covered in bullet holes, with skin peeled off in places revealing the hideous metal framework inside.
The other plane was no better; its engine seemed severely damaged, emitting irregular, heart-wrenching gasps, with thick black smoke trailing from the tail, drawing a shocking trajectory in the sky.
“It’s them! They’re back! They really flew back!” A suppressed cheer erupted from the crowd, but most remained heavy-hearted.
These two fighters, struggling back from hell, awkwardly lined up one after the other, wobbling toward the runway for landing.
Everyone’s hearts were in their throats!
“Screech—boom—”
The first “Thunderbolt,” less damaged, upon touching the runway, let out a piercing friction from the landing gear, the fuselage jolting violently a few times before finally stopping safely.
Immediately after, the second, more severely damaged “Thunderbolt” made a similarly perilous forced landing. One landing gear seemed broken; after touchdown, the fuselage tilted sharply to one side, scraping a long spark on the runway, finally halting mid-runway amid ear-piercing metal twisting sounds.
As soon as the planes stopped, the waiting ambulances and fire trucks at the runway edge shot forward like arrows, sirens blaring, red and blue lights flashing, rushing toward the two smoking fighters!
Firefighters jumped down quickly, raising high-pressure hoses to spray foam and mist on the smoking parts to prevent explosion and fire.
The pilots waiting nearby rushed to the cockpits at top speed.
Under everyone’s gaze, two pilots were carefully lifted out of the cockpits.
Their flight suits were covered in oil and blood, faces pale as paper; one had a limp arm, clearly badly wounded. The other had eyes tightly closed, seemingly unconscious.
But they were still alive!
Seeing the two pilots quickly loaded onto stretchers and into ambulances, and the two battered, nearly scrapped fighters, everyone on the airport fell into silence.
The joy and ambition from the graduation ceremony were shattered by cruel reality at this moment.
War is not stirring speeches or neat queues, but blood and life paid, sacrifices that can happen any day.
“Let’s… go to the command post…” Su Yaoyang said, leading the way toward the tower…
