The Rise of the Third Reich

"How many?" Kuroshima Kameto and Mikawa Gunichi looked at each other and didn't take it seriously. At most, a few American night planes took advantage of the Japanese Air Force's lack of night fighters to harass Oahu. This was expected in the "Operation Z-1" plan. In addition, several squadrons of moonlight night fighters were deployed in the Hawaiian Islands in a targeted manner. "Go and notify Commander Takasu and the Hawaiian Army Headquarters." Kuroshima Kameto ordered. Takasu Shiro has been ill recently, and the Military General Staff has decided to withdraw him and replace him with Tsukahara Jishizo. However, Tsukahara is now the head of the Naval Aviation Headquarters, and he has a lot of things to hand over to his successor, so he can't take up the new post immediately, so he can only let the sick man Takasu continue to be the commander on Oahu. However, Takasu, the sick man, managed the Central Pacific Fleet in an orderly manner and did not delay anything. The main reason for this is that the Central Pacific Fleet is not the protagonist. The island defense forces on the Hawaiian Islands, including the air force, mainly belong to the army commanded by Yamashita Tomoyuki. The naval forces are not under the jurisdiction of Takasu, but are divided between the commander of the 8th Fleet, Mikawa Gunichi, and the commander of the 6th Fleet, Takagi Takeo (in charge of submarines).

The so-called Central Pacific Fleet only governs the naval artillery, shore-based aircraft and radio reconnaissance stations on the shore.

Among the shore-based aircraft, in addition to various special attack teams prepared for suicide aircraft, there are Moonlight night fighters, Zero fighters, Shiden Kai fighters, Galaxy land bombers, Type 1 land attack aircraft, East China Sea anti-submarine patrol aircraft and some seaplanes.

Although there are hundreds of them in common use, they cannot be compared with the more than 2,000 common aircraft of the army. In addition to less than 200 Shiden Kai and Galaxy, other aircraft are not the main force and can only help the army's aircraft. However, because the Japanese Army has no night fighters, the night operations in the Hawaiian Islands are all handled by the Navy's Moonlight twin-engine fighters.

"Mr. Mikawa, let's go and see how our navy's Moonlights deal with American planes." After Kuroshima Kameto gave the Navy's 251st Air Force an order to send out Moonlight fighters, he invited Mikawa Junyi to go out and watch the battle together. Mikawa did not refuse, and the two of them took their 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 in the sky, the visibility was still very low. It was pitch black and nothing could be seen clearly. All you could see were huge beams of light sweeping across the night sky. These were searchlights on the ground searching for targets - because Japan's ground anti-aircraft guns were not guided by fire control radars, so they could only use this primitive method to search for targets. However, the beams of light swayed in the night sky for a long time, and no American planes were 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 Kameto narrowed his eyes and said to Mikawa beside him: "It's a flare! It was dropped by the Americans... Now the Moonlight can finally make a contribution!"

As a night fighter, the Moonlight is really a bit crude. It has no airborne radar and no night vision telescope. It can only rely on "Cat's Eye Warrior" and searchlight to fight. Therefore, only when the searchlight on the ground finds the target, or the target in the air exposes itself, the Moonlight will have a chance to show its skills.

The searchlights quickly focused on the top of the flare that was slowly falling, and a plane that seemed to be an F4U fighter was suddenly swept by the searchlight.

"Found it, it seems to be an F4U," Kuroshima Kameto smiled, "The Moonlight can deal with it."

In fact, what he saw was the F4U-2 night fighter, a carrier-based night fighter and Halsey's trump card, which flew from an aircraft carrier more than 500 kilometers away from Oahu. There were not many, only 24 of them came - there were not many F4U-2s to begin with, and there were even fewer aces who could fly this type of aircraft from an aircraft carrier at night. However, 24 F4U-2s with radar were enough to deal with the Japanese moonlight night fighters without radar.

So the first tonight were the F4U-2 night fighters, whose mission was to find Pearl Harbor, drop flares, and engage in combat with Japanese night fighters.

The flares dropped by the F-4U-2s were to guide the direction of the four BQ-7 suicide planes that followed closely behind and the four B-17 control planes responsible for remote control of the BQ-7s.

The so-called BQ-7 suicide planes sounded quite intimidating, as if they were the same as Japan's kamikaze special attack planes, but in fact, this was not the case at all. The BQ-7 was actually modified from a B-17 bomber - this type of plane was operated and taken off by two pilots. During the flight, the pilots handed over the control of the plane to the control plane and parachuted out of the plane.

The BQ-7's control aircraft controlled the aircraft through the "Double-Asong" radio remote control flight system - that is, a TV camera was installed in front of the cockpit instrument panel to transmit the image of the instrument panel back to the control aircraft, and another TV camera was installed in the nose of the aircraft to capture the view ahead. The control aircraft then remotely controlled the BQ-7 to crash into the target based on the images sent back by the two cameras.

This is actually a very primitive and luxurious "missile". Because the B-17 is too large 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 huge bomb load of the B-17 to load 9-10 tons of explosives or solidify the gun for impact.

The target of the four BQ-7 suicide planes that launched today was one of Pearl Harbor's Hickam Airport or Wheeler Airport.

Because the U.S. Navy discovered through aerial reconnaissance that Japan's largest airports in the Hawaiian Islands were these two large airports that originally belonged to the U.S. 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, it will at least be a bad breath for the Americans who are suffering from bacterial attacks on the West Coast.

In addition, the use of "suicide planes" to attack is also a means of scaring people-the purpose is to make the Japanese mistakenly think that the US military will capture Oahu at all costs!

The 24 F4U-2 night fighters in the air quickly found Hickam Airport, which was renamed "Navy Oahu First Airport". This was actually a target exposed by the Japanese themselves. Their Moonlight aircraft took off from there and was discovered by the radar on the F4U-2. Not only was the approximate location of the airport exposed, but several Moonlight aircraft themselves were shot down.

In addition, the Japanese Navy also deployed a large number of anti-aircraft guns around the "First Naval Airport on Oahu". Because they found the American F4U-2 flying above their heads, they opened fire one after another. Because there was no radar fire control or radio proximity fuze, all the shells fired were empty, and the target was further exposed.

The F4U-2s in the air dropped flares over the airport one after another, and the pale light enveloped the long runway and empty apron.

"Found the target!"

Captain Joseph Kennedy, who was in charge of commanding a B-17 control aircraft, heard the voice of the navigator Jack in his earphones. This navigator turned out to be the navigator of the Army Air Corps reconnaissance aircraft stationed on Oahu. The situation on Hu Island is very familiar.

"Okay." Captain Joseph Kennedy carefully drove his plane and kept the altitude above 4,000 meters. At this height, the Japanese 20mm anti-aircraft guns, 25mm anti-aircraft guns and 37mm anti-aircraft guns are powerless.

"Drop flares." Captain Kennedy ordered the B-17 he was driving to drop flares to confirm the target.

"I am Joseph Kennedy," then he pressed the throat communicator, "Commander of the impact operation. Now I give the order: The impact begins, the target is the airport below!"

"A plane! Mr. Kuroshima, look there, in the direction of the first airport, a plane is rushing down from the sky!"

The Kuroshima Kameto who was watching the battle suddenly heard Mikawa Junichi's shout, and quickly turned his head to look over. He saw a huge B-17 bomber falling head-first toward the ground in the light of the flares.

Shot down? Just as the Black Island Turtle was thinking of this, the plane suddenly crashed into the end of the runway of "Airport No. 1", and then an unimaginably huge fireball rose up, followed by a deafening roar. Look at this momentum as if an ammunition depot has been blown up!

Kuroshima and Mikawa felt that the ground beneath their feet was shaking. Before they understood what was going on, the staff officer's shout rang in their buzzing ears: "Another enemy plane, it crashed down." "

"Rumble..."

The explosion this time was different from before. The explosion was not that loud, but it ignited a fire that was so violent that it was unimaginable. I don't know if it ignited the airport's oil depot, but it was a fire that shot into the sky.

"Another one, another one..."

When the Black Island Turtle Man saw the third and fourth American B-17 planes roaring into the ground, his whole body suddenly trembled, and an extremely terrifying thought suddenly appeared in his mind - this It's a suicide attack! The American samurai flew the plane towards the Japanese target on the ground!

The Americans have also begun to engage in "kamikaze attacks", and the Americans are also going to play "one machine, one ship"... How can this be done? Japan does not have that many warships to replace aircraft! How will the Battle of the Hawaiian Islands be fought?