Chapter 230: Aerial Lighter
Shanxi, west of Wutaixian, inside a radar station disguised as an ordinary hill.
A piercing buzzing sound broke the silence of the command room. A young radar operator stared fixedly at the dark green fluorescent screen, his pupils contracting in shock. On the northeast direction of the screen, a large cluster of densely packed green dots, like a swarm of locusts, was moving at astonishing speed toward the main battlefield at Xinxian.
“Large number of targets detected! Bearing 0-4-5, distance 120 kilometers, quantity… unestimable! At least over a hundred!”
Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately grabbed the red phone on the desk connected to the frontline air defense command, and roared with all his strength: “Eagle Eye calling Eagle Nest! Eagle Eye calling Eagle Nest! Large enemy aircraft formation inbound! Repeat! Large enemy aircraft formation inbound!”
Almost simultaneously, the shrill, sharp, heart-chilling air raid siren was pulled from the simple hand-cranked alarm, like the wail of the Grim Reaper, resounding across the entire frontline from Xinxian to Guoxian spanning dozens of kilometers.
“Woo… woo… woo…”
The Shanxi militia infantry, who were fighting bloody battles, instinctively looked up at the sky dyed gray-yellow by gunpowder smoke.
Only to see on the eastern horizon, a cluster of tiny black dots like gnats appearing. These black dots rapidly grew larger, gradually revealing the outlines of aircraft, with ominous rising sun emblems flashing under the wings.
It was the Japanese aircraft formation!
The massive formation, personally led by Lieutenant Colonel Yiga Tetsuji, captain of the 60th Air Squadron, mixing Type 97 heavy bombers, Type 99 twin-engine light bombers, and escorting Zero fighters, arrived like dark clouds pressing down, with the momentum to destroy everything.
The remnants of Japanese ground forces let out cheers of survival after disaster, while the militia soldiers all changed color—ever since airplanes were born, they were destined to be the natural enemies of infantry.
Lieutenant Colonel Yiga Tetsuji sat in his Zero cockpit, looking at the chaotic battlefield below, a cruel and confident smile on his face.
He was about to issue the order for the bomber formation to carpet-bomb those daring Chinese positions into oblivion.
However, just one second before he pressed the talk button.
A sudden change occurred!
Above the Japanese formation, from that seemingly calm, high-hanging cloud layer, countless ghosts suddenly burst out!
P-47 “Thunderbolt” fighters with thick fuselages, wide wingspans, and shark-mouth paint schemes, and another batch of F4U “Corsair” fighters with distinctive gull-wing folding wings, like ferocious seabirds, tore through the cloud camouflage like raptors descending from the heavens!
They were Thunderbolt Squadron and Corsair Squadron, hunters who had long been lying in wait in the high-altitude clouds under Doolittle’s orders!
Over a hundred top-performance American fighters, already holding the height advantage, launched a fatal dive on the unprepared Japanese formation below!
“Totsugeki! （Charge! ）”
Doolittle’s excited roar came over the radio.
Sunlight was shattered into fragments by countless high-speed diving fuselages.
The screech of air being torn apart instantly drowned out the gunfire from the battlefield below.
Yiga Tetsuji’s smile froze on his face, replaced by utter horror! He never dreamed that here, he would encounter an enemy air force of such scale and tactical sophistication!
“Engage! Engage! Scatter!” he bellowed hoarsely over the radio.
But it was all too late.
Ever since watching the documentary Su Yaoyang showed everyone that dissected virtually all the weaknesses of the Zero fighter, Doolittle and pilots like Cheng Rufeng immediately devised a series of tactical drills targeting the Zero’s fragile airframe and poor dive performance—and today was their graduation ceremony!
A P-47 “Thunderbolt” like a howling iron hammer dove from 8,000 meters at near-vertical angle toward a Type 97 heavy bomber preparing to drop its bombs.
The eight 12.7mm Browning heavy machine guns at the P-47’s wing roots roared simultaneously, eight chains of blazing tracer rounds like the Grim Reaper’s scythe instantly tearing the lumbering bomber from wing to tail!
“Boom…”
The massive bomber exploded in mid-air, turning into a huge orange-red fireball, countless burning fragments scattering like celestial maidens dispersing flowers toward the ground.
Meanwhile, on the other side, two F4U “Corsair” fighters were executing a textbook “Thach Weave” maneuver.
A skilled Japanese Zero ace was tenaciously tailing a “Corsair.” But just as he was about to fire, another “Corsair” made a beautiful sharp turn from the side, cutting into his line of fire.
The Zero pilot was forced to abandon the attack and chase the new target. But in the instant he turned, the original pursued “Corsair” had completed the weave crossover and bit his six o’clock!
“Rat-tat-tat-tat…”
The six heavy machine guns on the “Corsair”‘s wings spat deadly tongues of fire, the dense bullet rain instantly enveloping the Zero.
The Zero fighter’s fragile airframe was like paper before .50 caliber armor-piercing incendiary rounds; the canopy glass shattered instantly, the pilot’s body turned into a cloud of blood mist, the entire plane trailing black smoke, spinning out of control toward the ground.
High-speed dive, hit and run!
The entire airspace turned into a one-sided slaughter.
The American fighters, relying on absolute power and structural superiority, refused to dogfight the Zeros.
They used height advantage for high-speed dives, delivered a fatal burst of destructive firepower, then used immense kinetic energy to climb howling back to altitude, seeking the next target.
The Zero fighters, despite excellent horizontal maneuverability, simply couldn’t catch these hit-and-run “gangsters.”
Their fragile airframes couldn’t even withstand a short burst.
In mere minutes, the sky was filled with countless black smoke trails.
White parachutes bloomed in the air one after another, but far more were Japanese planes trailing flames and thick smoke, plummeting like wing-broken birds.
Lieutenant Colonel Yiga Tetsuji watched helplessly as his subordinates, the empire’s most elite pilots, were shot down and crashed in swathes like harvested wheat.
He frantically flew his plane, trying to organize an effective counterattack, but his orders were long drowned in the roar of explosions and the dying screams of comrades.
The sky over a hundred kilometers around had become a grand aerial slaughterhouse belonging to Thunderbolt and Corsair.
Watching the brilliant death flowers blooming one after another in the sky from imperial warplanes, watching the wreckage trailing long black smoke, plummeting powerlessly like birds with pierced wings, Lieutenant Colonel Yiga Tetsuji’s blood froze in an instant.
This was no evenly matched air battle.
This was a conspiracy! A meticulously planned, bloody massacre targeting his 60th Squadron!
“Withdraw! All units withdraw! Break off combat! Hurry!”
He finally snapped out of extreme shock, grabbed the radio transmitter, and in a hoarse, distorted voice issued the most humiliating and powerless order of his life.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
Facing “Thunderbolts” and “Corsairs” with absolute advantages in height, performance, and firepower, issuing a withdrawal order was tantamount to fully exposing their backs to bloodthirsty beasts.
The slaughter lasted only a little over ten minutes.
But those ten-plus minutes were longer than hell for the 60th Squadron’s Japanese pilots.
Their proud Zero fighters were like fragile paper kites before those tough, powerful monsters.
They desperately maneuvered in every way, trying to use their superb skills to tie down the enemy and buy escape time for the lumbering bomber formation.
However, the enemy refused to play the dogfighting game.
A P-47 roared past from high altitude, ignoring the futile shooting of a nearby Zero, precisely pouring destructive bullet rain onto the wing root of a Type 97 heavy bomber frantically turning.
With a muffled giant bang, the heavy bomber’s entire wing was torn off, the plane instantly lost balance, spinning and disintegrating like an out-of-control top, crashing to the ground.
The seven crew members in the cockpit didn’t even have a chance to bail out, torn to pieces in the violent tumbling.
On the other side, a Zero pilot mustered his last courage, trying to ram an F4U “Corsair” pursuing his comrade.
However, the “Corsair” pilot merely contemptuously pushed the stick, the plane smoothly half-rolled to easily evade the Zero’s kamikaze attack, while the six wing-mounted machine guns fired in sequence, riddling the Zero’s cockpit like a sieve, pilot’s blood and brains instantly splattering the canopy.
The withdrawal order instead accelerated the collapse.
The entire Japanese formation completely lost organization, turning into scattered sand, a flock of panicked sheep chased by wolves.
Lieutenant Colonel Yiga Tetsuji’s eyes nearly burst; all he could do was futilely fly his own aircraft, fleeing madly through gaps in the bullet rain.
He saw his wingman covering him get focused by three P-47s, turned into a brilliant burst of fireworks in the air.
He saw those pilots he personally trained, the empire’s finest, along with their beloved warplanes, crashing one after another like dumplings onto Shanxi’s cold soil.
Finally, when this flock of crippled wolves escaped that death airspace, Yiga Tetsuji had a chance to tally his losses.
The massive formation he led, comprising fifty-three Type 97 heavy bombers and attack aircraft plus over sixty Zero fighters, had come in grand style; now…
Only over forty remained!
In those short ten-plus minutes, they left over sixty bomber and Zero fighter wrecks in that airspace named “Xinxian” aerial graveyard!
A third of losses? No! Over half! This was a thorough, humiliating defeat!
Yiga Tetsuji slumped in his cockpit, body ice-cold. He knew what awaited him was military tribunal judgment and shame worse than death.
