Blue sky, white clouds, blue waves.
The Norwegian Sea in early summer is the best time of the year, and both the sea and the blue sky are exceptionally clear and transparent.
A buzzing sound suddenly came from above the clouds, breaking the silence between the sea and the sky.
Then I saw dozens of SBD and TBD fighters painted with three-color or four-color concentric circle insignia on the fuselage and wings drilling out of the white clouds like oil paintings, and the bombs and torpedoes hanging from the belly could be faintly seen, which made people feel a burst of murderous atmosphere This is a huge attack aircraft group of 50 SBDs and 39 TBDs, one less SBD dive bomber than when it took off from four aircraft carriers an hour and a half ago, the plane had a engine failure 30 minutes ago, stopped turning, and had to make a forced landing at sea, but the forced landing was unsuccessful and plunged directly into the sea However, this accident did not dampen the high morale of the British pilots, and in the past two or three months, they have become accustomed to all kinds of accidents, and they have also heard of the heroic deeds of the carrier-based aircraft unit in the past, which can also be said to be heavy losses, so they have long regarded life and death relatively lightly.
In addition, all of them knew that the survival of the British Empire was directly at stake in today's war, and that they had to do their duty as members of the Royal Navy.
Now all eyes are on the surface of the sea and searching over and over again, all in search of the legendary main force of the German High Seas Fleet These planes had been flying in the sky for an hour and a half, and if you count the time it took them to take off from the aircraft carriers one by one and then form them, most of them flew for more than two hours, and if they did not find the whereabouts of the main forces of the German High Seas Fleet after another 45 minutes and no more than one hour, then they had to drop their bombs and return home.
This is too depressing, these planes already knew the coordinates of the German High Seas Fleet at the time of departure, and received 2 corrected coordinates during the flight, which would not be a laughing stock of naval aviation all over the world if they could not be found again At this moment, Lieutenant Smith, the commander-in-chief of the air raid of the 89 British bombers and torpedo bombers, suddenly saw a black smoke in front of him quickly passing down from the sky Lieutenant Smith, who had repeatedly engaged German planes over the English Channel, immediately recognized that it was a plane crashing in its towing of black smoke "It must have been the planes that took off from the Faroe Islands, they arrived first," Captain Smith thought to himself, and quickly turned the joystick in his hand to accelerate the plane in the direction of the crash.
Within a few minutes of flying, a picture of air combat that he would never forget was displayed in front of his eyes.
Explosions, smoke, flames, and countless planes hovered around something.
Captain Smith looked down at the sea and saw that about 20 German ships of various sizes had already formed an anti-aircraft formation on the sea.
On the periphery was a ring of light cruisers and destroyers, with 2 aircraft carriers and 2 heavy cruisers in the middle.
The anti-aircraft guns of all German ships were firing, the fire was so dense that it was woven into a protective net almost in the air.
From time to time, Bristol "Beaufort" torpedo bombers, which broke through the German aircraft blockade and forcibly penetrated from a low altitude, were smashed to pieces At high altitude, many "Wellington" heavy bombers were being chased by the Fokker Zero, and some of them even dropped a string of bombs indiscriminately, but unfortunately these bombs were all very biased, let alone hit, and there was not even a single miss.
On the contrary, one "Wellington" was beaten into a "turkey" by the Fokker Zero in front of Captain Smith's eyes, and fell headlong into the sea.
"Lieutenant General, there are dozens of enemy planes, all single-engine planes" On board the aircraft carrier "Seydlitz," Helmut Heyer, who was calmly directing the fleet to fight an air defense battle, had just received intelligence from the lookout post, and the radar had actually detected another wave of enemy planes approaching, but they did not know how many engines these planes had.
"A single-engine plane is a fighter," Helmutheyer walked briskly to the side of the bridge, raising his binoculars to look into the sky.
The captain of the "Seydlitz", Colonel Fritz Hinze, put down the telephone receiver and shouted to Heyer: "The lookout post reports, it's not a fighter, it's an SBD dreadnought dive bomber and a TBD destroyer torpedo attack aircraft" "It's an American plane," Lieutenant General Haye was taken aback by the news.
These two aircraft have not been in the lineup of the British Air Force and Naval Aviation in the past, and the British introduced them in strict secrecy.
Although German intelligence has received some information, they are not sure.
"I don't know this yet," said Colonel Fritzhintze, shaking his head, "the enemy plane is still 20 kilometers away, and the lookout post cannot see the insignia clearly." ” Heyer gritted his teeth, "No matter how much, immediately transfer 1, no, transfer 2 squadrons to go up and intercept, and don't let the dreadnought plane enter the dive position" After almost a year of war, now both the Luftwaffe and the Navy already knew that the threat of dive bombers to surface ships was fatal.
Because the bombing accuracy of this aircraft is extremely high, the German Fokker 99 theoretically has a bomb hit rate of more than 85, and the Ju88 has a lower bomb hit rate, but it is not difficult to reach 50 in training.
If dozens of SBDs succeed in penetrating the defense, it will be a big deal.
"Squadron 1, Squadron 2 follow me and stop those damn Yankees" Hersman Jr., who was flying planes in the air, received an order from Major Max, the flight control officer of the "Seydlitz," and hurriedly shook off a 51 that was fighting with him, and while raising the altitude, he gave orders to the 1st and 2nd squadrons of the 1st Carrier-based Aircraft Group through the airborne radio.
"Kill the Yankees" "Kill the Yankees" There are 30 pilots in the two squadrons, including the 31 people in the small Hersmann, and one plane was shot down in the battle just now, and it has long been provoked by the "Katerina" seaplane with "freedom of navigation".
At this time, when they got the order, everyone was red-eyed, and they rushed up in the plane to find the Americans desperately.
"Captain, Fokker Zero" Captain Smith, the British Navy commander of these "American planes", was pondering how to arrange the SBD and TBD to split and attack, when the machine gunner sitting behind him suddenly shouted and shouted a name that scared everyone to hear, Fokker Zero "They're coming," the heavy's voice sounded panicked.
At this time, Captain Smith also spotted the Fokker Zero that was rapidly gaining altitude and rushing towards him.
He hurriedly shouted: "Spread out and take the detachment as a unit, each for the battle rush."
As soon as he saw the number of opponents, he knew that it was impossible to maintain the formation anymore, so he immediately ordered to spread out the formation and fight separately, with a simple intention.
With the large number of people and planes, there will always be a few that can successfully break through, as long as a few bombs hit the aircraft carrier, the next thing will be easy to do.
With this mentality, the 89 SBDs and TBDs did not care about the formation or cover each other, and they did not hide when they saw the terrible Zero, and all of them rushed towards the anti-aircraft artillery fire net of the German fleet.
Not to mention, such a deadly shock is still useful.
In the end, there were only 31 Fokker Zeros carried by Little Hersman, how could they block the 89 oncoming planes Although these German carrier-based aircraft pilots were all elites, they were also a little stunned when they encountered this kind of aircraft fighting bayonets. bd。
BD falls.
"Hell, hurry up and keep up" Little Hersman was also anxious, he had already "lost" an aircraft carrier, but it was an Italian aircraft carrier, not very distressed, but this time it was two German aircraft carriers, and he was also the acting captain of the carrier-based fleet of one of the aircraft carriers, so he couldn't make any more mistakes The 31 ace pilots reacted quickly, and at the moment when Hirschman Jr. gave the order, everyone had already piloted the plane to roll in the sky, adjusted the direction of the nose, and then accelerated away after the SBD and TBD in front of them.
Most of the pilots turned on the injection combustion system, and by "drugged" the engine, the power and speed were temporarily increased, and soon more than 20 SBDs and TBDs were bitten, and then a string of flames rolled over.
The difference between the ace and the rookie is quickly apparent, the ace is highly skilled in driving and very accurate in shooting.
And the rookies will only rush in the plane, and the machine gunner in the back seat will not be able to shoot accurately, only know how to fight randomly.
Fifteen British planes were shot in an instant, dragging smoke and falling down.
Hersman Jr. also shot down one this time, increasing his shot down count to 23, and with two more planes, he would be able to take the blue Max.
However, the rest of the SBDs and TBDs were not ambiguous, and they all plunged headlong into the fire network composed of anti-aircraft artillery fire, and suddenly seven or eight planes were beaten into "turkeys" by the dense rain of bullets.
This time it was the turn of little Hersman to be dumbfounded, now the anti-aircraft firepower of German surface ships is very powerful, after the Scapa Bay air raid on September 3, 39, the anti-aircraft artillery of German surface ships was upgraded to a second level, and after the sea battle in the Eastern Mediterranean, it was upgraded to a second level, equipped with a large number of Bofors twin 40 water-cooled anti-aircraft guns, which can hit a dense fire net.
Therefore, according to the regulations, carrier-based planes cannot rush into their own air defense fire circle to pursue enemy planes without permission t1706231537: