Chapter 966 American Divine Wind
"How many?"
Kuroshima Kameto and Mikawa Jun glanced at each other, but neither of them took it seriously.
On the top of the day, a few American night planes took advantage of the Japanese aviation's lack of night fighters to harass Oahu. This was already anticipated in the "Operation Jet-1" plan. Moreover, several squadrons of moonlight night fighters were deployed in the Hawaiian Islands in a very targeted manner.
"Go and inform Commander Takasu and the Army's Hawaiian Front Command." Kuroshima Kameto ordered.
Takasu Shiro has been ill recently, and the Military Command has decided to withdraw him and replace him with Tsukahara 243. However, Tsukahara is now the head of the Naval Aviation Headquarters, and has a lot of things at hand that have to be handed over to his successor, so he cannot take up the new post immediately. He can only let the sick man Takasu continue to be the commander on Oahu.
However, Takasu, a sick man, managed the central Pacific fleet in an orderly manner and did not delay anything. The main reason why this is possible is because the fleet in the Central Pacific does not play the leading role. The island-defending forces on the Hawaiian Islands, including aviation forces, mainly belong to the army commanded by Yamashita Tomofumi. The maritime forces are not under the jurisdiction of Takasu, but are in charge of the 8th Fleet Commander Mikawa Junichi and the 6th Fleet Commander Takagi Takeo (in charge of submarines).
The so-called Central Pacific Fleet only manages the naval forts, shore-based aircraft and electrical detection stations on the shore.
Among them, the shore-based aircraft, in addition to various special attack teams prepared to be used as suicide aircraft, are moonlight night fighters, Zero fighters, Zidian modified fighters, Galaxy land bombers, Type 1 land attack aircraft, and East China Sea anti-submarine patrol aircraft. and some seaplanes.
Although there are hundreds of commonly used aircraft, they are incomparable to the more than 2,000 commonly used aircraft of the Army. Moreover, except for less than 200 Zidian Kai and Galaxy, other aircraft are not the main force and can only serve as a base for the Army's aircraft. However, because the Japanese Army did not have night fighters, the Navy's Moonlight twin-engine fighter aircraft were responsible for night operations in the Hawaiian Islands.
"Mikawa-kun, let's go and see how our navy's moonlights deal with American aircraft."
After the Kuroshima Turtles gave the order to the Navy's 251st Air Force to dispatch moonlight fighters, they invited the Mikawa Army to go out to watch the battle together. Sanchuan did not shirk, and the two men took the adjutant to a large observation post on the top floor of the headquarters bunker.
It was already late at night on March 3. Although there was a bright moon hanging in the sky, the visibility was still very low, and it was so dark that nothing could be seen clearly. Only huge beams of light can be seen sweeping back and forth in the night sky. These are searchlights on the ground searching for targets. Because Japanese ground anti-aircraft guns do not have fire control radar guidance, they can only use this primitive method to search. Target.
However, the light beam swayed in the night sky for a while, and no US military aircraft was found. Just when Kuroshima and Mikawa were feeling a little bored, suddenly several white "little suns" emitting dazzling light suddenly appeared in the night sky.
Kuroshima Turtle narrowed his eyes and said to Mikawa next to him: "It's a flare! The Americans dropped it... Now the moonlight plane can finally make a contribution!"
As a night fighter, the Moonlight Fighter is a bit crude. It has no airborne radar or night vision telescope, and can only rely on "cat-eye fighters" and searchlights to fight. Therefore, only when the searchlight on the ground finds the target, or the target in the air is exposed by itself, can the Moonlight fighter have a chance to show off its skills.
The searchlights soon focused on the slowly falling flares, and an aircraft that seemed to be an F4U fighter jet was suddenly swept over by the searchlights.
"I found it, it seems to be an F4U," Kuroshima Turtle Man smiled, "The moonlight plane can handle it."
In fact, what he saw was an F4U-2 night fighter. This is a carrier-based night fighter and Halsey's trump card. It flew from an aircraft carrier more than 500 kilometers away from Oahu. The number was not large, only 24 came - the number of F4U-2s was not large to begin with, and there were even fewer aces who could fly such aircraft from aircraft carriers at night. However, 24 F4U-2s with radars are still enough to deal with Japanese moonlight night fighters without radars.
So the first one tonight is the F4U-2 night fighter. Their mission is to find Pearl Harbor, drop illumination bombs, and engage Japanese night fighters at the same time.
The flares dropped by the F-4U-2 guided the four BQ-7 suicide aircraft that followed and the four B-17 control aircraft responsible for remote control of the BQ-7.
The so-called BQ-7 suicide plane sounds quite scary, as if it is the same as the Japanese kamikaze aircraft, but in fact it is not the case at all. The BQ-7 is actually a modified B-17 bomber - this kind of aircraft is controlled by two pilots to take off. During the flight, the pilot hands over the control of the aircraft to the controller and parachutes out of the aircraft.
The BQ-7's control machine controls the aircraft through the "Double-Asong" radio remote control flight system - a TV camera is installed in front of the cockpit instrument panel to transmit the image of the instrument panel back to the control aircraft, and at the same time, a TV camera is installed on the nose of the aircraft. Another TV camera is installed inside to capture the forward view, and then the control aircraft remotely controls the BQ-7 to crash into the target based on the images returned by the two cameras.
This is actually a very primitive and extravagant "missile". Because the B-17 is too big and flies slowly, it cannot be used to attack surface ships and moving targets. It can only be used to deal with fixed targets, relying on the B-17's huge bomb load to load 9-10 tons of explosives or solidified explosives to hit.
The target of the four BQ-7 suicide planes that attacked today is one of the Hickam Airport or Wheeler Airport in Pearl Harbor.
Because the US Navy discovered through aerial reconnaissance that the largest airports in Japan on the Hawaiian Islands are these two large airports that originally belonged to the US Army Air Force - most of the Me264s that bombed the west coast of the United States used these two airports as their departure points.
If four BQ-7s loaded with bombs can be used to hit the runways of these two large airports, at least it can be regarded as a vent for the Americans who suffered bacterial attacks on the west coast.
In addition, using "suicide planes" to attack is also a means of scaring people - the purpose is to make the Japanese mistakenly believe that the US military wants to capture Oahu at all costs!
The 24 F4U-2 night fighters in the air quickly found the Hickam Airport, which was renamed "Navy Oahu First Airport". This was actually a target exposed by the Japanese themselves. Their Moonlight planes took off from there and were discovered by the radar on the F4U-2. Not only was the approximate location of the airport exposed, but several "Moonlight" planes themselves were shot down.
In addition, the Japanese Navy also deployed a large number of anti-aircraft guns around the "Oahu Naval First Airport". Because they found the American F4U-2 flying over their heads, they opened fire. Because there was no radar fire control and radio proximity fuse, all the shells fired were empty, and the target was further exposed.
The F4U-2s in the air dropped flares over the airport, and the pale light enveloped the long runway and the empty apron.
"We found the target!"
Captain Joseph Kennedy, who was in charge of commanding a B-17 control plane, heard the voice of navigator Jack through his headset. This navigator was originally the navigator of the Army Air Force reconnaissance plane stationed on Oahu Island, and was very familiar with the situation of the Hawaiian Islands and Oahu Island.
"Okay." Captain Joseph Kennedy carefully drove his plane, keeping the altitude above 4,000 meters. At this altitude, the Japanese 20mm anti-aircraft guns, 25mm anti-aircraft guns and 37mm anti-aircraft guns were powerless.
"Drop flares." Captain Kennedy ordered the B-17 he was driving to drop flares to confirm the target.
"I'm Joseph Kennedy," he then pressed the throat communicator, "Commander of the assault operation. Now I order: start the assault, target the airport below!"
"A plane! Kuroshima-kun, look over there, in the direction of the first airport, a plane is rushing down from the sky!"
Kuroshima Kame, who was watching the battle, suddenly heard Mikawa Gunichi's shout, and quickly turned his head to look over, only to see a huge B-17 bomber falling headfirst to the ground in the light of the flare.
Shot down? Kuroshima Kame was thinking about this when the plane suddenly crashed into the end of the runway of "Airport No. 1", and then a huge and unimaginable fireball rose up, followed by a deafening roar. It looked like an ammunition depot had been blown up!
Kuroshima and Mikawa felt the ground beneath their feet tremble. Before they could figure out what was going on, the staff officer's shout rang in their buzzing ears: "Another enemy plane, it crashed down!"
"Boom boom..."
This time the explosion was different from the previous one. The explosion was not so loud, but it ignited an unimaginably fierce fire. I don't know if it ignited the airport's oil depot, anyway, the flames were soaring into the sky.
"Another one, another one..."
When Kuroshima Kame saw the third and fourth American B-17 planes roaring and crashing into the ground, the whole person suddenly trembled, and a terrifying idea suddenly appeared in his mind-this is a suicide attack! American warriors drove planes towards Japanese targets on the ground!
The Americans also started to engage in "Kamikaze Special Attacks", and the Americans also wanted to play "one plane and one ship"... What should I do? Japan doesn't have so many warships to exchange planes! How should the Battle of the Hawaiian Islands be fought?