As soon as Ri's battleship left, Ron immediately took his people to count the losses. After getting on a jeep, they quickly arrived at the airport.

Although it is still night, the airport is now as bright as day. The fire caused by the Japanese army's shelling illuminates the airport brightly. The bombs used by the Japanese army in this shelling include high-explosive bombs and explosive incendiary bombs. Some wooden buildings in the airport were all burned.

The air was filled with thick smoke and the smell of burnt things. Some bushes around the airport were also set on fire. The scalding heat wave made it impossible to get close. The tower was also directly hit by a huge bomb during the shelling and exploded.

It was broken into pieces. The runway was bombed horribly. Fortunately, there were no combustibles on the runway, so Ron and the others could still observe closely. Guadalcanal Airport originally had three runways, and one of the main runways was built by the Japanese to accommodate bombers.

Takeoff and landing. After the U.S. military occupied the airport, it expanded it and added two shorter auxiliary runways for fighter jets to take off and land. Ron and Vandergrift recently started working farther away.

Build a new bomber runway. However, the runway has not yet been fully repaired.

When Ron saw Guadalcanal's main runway for the first time, he couldn't help but sigh: "Oh my god, haven't we traveled to the moon again!"

The main runway is full of huge craters. The diameter of these craters is close to 20 meters, and the depth reaches 4-5 meters. In other words, if you build a small house under this big crater, the roof has just barely emerged from the ground. Obviously.

, even if the US military has engineering machinery that the Japanese army does not have, it will not be possible to fill these big holes overnight. What's more, this kind of hole cannot be counted by just filling it up, it must be compacted to ensure that it can withstand the pressure of aircraft taking off and landing.

.

Now, Ron's hope lies in other runways. One of the two fighter runways was also blown to pieces and will definitely not be usable in the short term. The other one also had a few shells dropped, but fortunately the shells fell next to it.

, although one of the shots was a little bit off, chewing up half of the runway, but as long as you are careful, you should still be able to take off and land the fighter jet.

In addition to this runway, there is also an unfinished bomber runway. Although it is not completed and cannot take off and land things like B-17, it is still possible to take off and land fighter jets and Avenger dive bombers. There were two hits in the shelling just now.

The deflected giant bomb landed here, but it couldn't be such a coincidence that it just destroyed the runway?

Unfortunately, the weather didn't go as planned. Ron rushed to take a look and found that a huge bomb landed right in the middle of the runway. Obviously, the runway was temporarily disabled.

"When will this runway be repaired?" Ron asked.

"This runway can be repaired in two days to a state where it can take off and land fighter jets." The answer was Major Rice, who was in charge of the engineering corps.

"Then it all depends on you. Whether Guadalcanal can persist depends on this runway."

By daybreak, the losses had been tallied. Five fighter jets and three bombers (all B-17s) were completely destroyed, and another 12 aircraft were damaged to varying degrees. In addition, various vehicles also suffered a lot of damage.

loss.

But now Ron has no time to dwell on these losses. He must take off immediately. He knows that the Japanese will definitely use the opportunity of the airport being attacked to send more supplies to the island. Once the Japanese army on the island gets enough

heavy weapons, the situation on Guadalcanal may be completely out of control...

Ron's P-38 took off from the runway with a 250-pound incendiary bomb attached, followed closely by Captain Foss, the fighter unit's second ace. Then came their wingmen, Billy and Will.

As soon as the four planes took off, they headed straight for the beachhead, which was most commonly used by the Japanese army to receive supplies. Just as they expected, the beachhead was full of all kinds of supplies, piled up there without any obstruction. Ron took the lead in swooping down and dropping

After dropping the incendiary bombs, other aircraft also dropped incendiary bombs on their respective targets. After dropping the bombs, Ron began to sweep the supplies. Now the Vulcan cannon is equipped with armor-piercing incendiary bombs, although it is not as powerful as the 250-pound incendiary bomb.

Compared with bombs, it can still ignite those materials.

However, there are too many things on the beach, which cannot be solved by four planes at once. This shows that the fleet that docked last night was huge. Ron originally planned to call for more planes, but from the radio, he got

received a message: a group of Japanese planes are approaching and will arrive over Guadalcanal in two hours. It seems that these targets can only be let go.

"It's really raining all night when the house leaks," Ron shook his head and thought with a wry smile: "Even the Japanese airmen who were frightened by the attack a few days ago dared to come and take advantage of the situation."

Time is the key to victory. After Ron fired the last shot at a pile of food, he quickly led the fleet back to the airport.

It has to be said that the timing chosen by Japan was also very appropriate. After being hit by naval guns, although the airport was not completely destroyed, its operational efficiency was greatly reduced. Due to the serious damage to the runway, refueling, hanging bombs, etc.

The logistics system has also been greatly damaged, and the number of aircraft that can be dispatched from the airport at one time has been greatly reduced. If there are a few more precise bombings during the day, the airport will be completely destroyed.

In the temporary command center, Ron learned about the specific enemy situation: there were 52 enemy aircraft in total, including 30 Zero fighters and 12 Type 1 land attack aircraft. And with the current airport's capabilities, Ron could take off more than 100 fighters.

There may only be 10 of them. And these planes must take off one after another. Unlike before, not only can the main runway allow two fighter jets to take off at the same time, but each secondary runway can also allow two planes to take off at the same time. In this way, one xing can

Six planes took off. But now the remaining fighter runway can only take off one plane at a time. And due to the damage of supporting facilities, the take-off time between each plane has also been extended by a terrifying ten minutes.

Every second is precious now. The P-38 fighter jets began to take off one after another. Ron and Captain Foss because the plane had just completed its mission, their take-off sequence was arranged last.

Originally, in the past, when only carrying out such a mission, the P-38 only needed to load about 40% of the fuel. This could greatly improve the maneuverability of the aircraft, especially climbing and circling. But now, due to the dispatch rate

The fighter that takes off at the beginning must be filled with 75% of the fuel so that it can wait for its teammates over the seven fields for a long time. The later the plane takes off, the less fuel it needs to be filled.

.When Ron was the last to take off, his tank was only 40 percent full.

When Ron and his wingman climbed to an altitude of 5,500 meters, a group of Japanese military aircraft appeared. It still had an unoriginal double-layer structure. The fighter jets were in front and above the bomber group. They were about 500 meters higher than the bombers. But their

The position is still much lower than that of the P-38. The ceiling of the Zero War is 10,000 meters, but because there is no secondary pressurization, once the altitude exceeds 6,000 meters, the engine performance will drop rapidly. (In fact, it is already at 5,000 meters.

No more) So in the air battle over Guadalcanal, they would always be seized by American planes to gain advantageous heights.

If that's all it is, it's not the most fatal thing. The Zero War is very flexible, and the enemy's dive may not necessarily be able to hit it. If you pull up the dive a few times, the energy gap between the two sides will gradually narrow. But another weakness of the Zero War is that it is too

Deadly: its dive performance is abysmal. All American pilots now know: the Zero Fighter is super sensitive at low speeds, but once the speed exceeds 550 kilometers, the efficiency of its ailerons will seriously decrease. At this time, the Zero

It is as stupid as a stone slab flying in the sky. At this speed, a slight dive will exceed it. Therefore, the response of the zero-fighter in the dive is surprisingly slow. There are even zero-fighters following the dive of the Dauntless dive bomber, and finally it is approaching

On the sea surface, the Fearless pulled up, but the Zero War fell headlong. In addition, its dive top speed was very low, and its dive acceleration was also very slow. This made it face an unsolvable problem when performing escort missions.

An embarrassing situation. Once the enemy aircraft does not fight with it and directly launches a dive attack on the bomber, Zero Fighter will be helpless. Because even if it follows others' six points, it will not pose a threat to the enemy. The enemy is much faster than him.

, he could only watch the enemy plane become smaller and smaller in his own windshield, and had no choice. And when it was about to attack the enemy's bomber, it absolutely did not dare to put the enemy's fighter jet in his own windshield.

Six o'clock direction - looking for death! As a result, the Zero Fighter has now become a very embarrassing aircraft. On the one hand, in the hands of experienced pilots, it is very powerful when fighting enemy fighter jets. In real history, there are even

A pervert who shot down hundreds of enemy planes without ever taking a single shot. But on the other hand, it was powerless whether it was used to protect its own bombers or attack the enemy's bombers.

Of course, Ron knew this weakness. He immediately ordered: "Don't get entangled with the enemy fighter jets, attack the opponent's bombers!"

10 P-38s roared down from high altitude, and the 30 escorting Zero Fighters tried to intercept them, but the speed gap between the two sides was too big. Before the Zero Fighters reached the corresponding position, the P-38s had already roared past.

"Baga!" Nishizawa Hiroshi roared angrily. At the same time, this terrible ace also sadly realized that the universal fighter Zero War has fallen behind.

Caesar did not blindly dive to chase the enemy fighters, which was useless. Instead, he pulled the plane a little higher, preparing to wait for the enemy planes to climb up before giving them a blow. As for the bombers, there was really nothing he could do.

.

A Type 1 Land Attack appeared in Ron's front windshield. Since it was attacking head on, Ron opened fire from a long distance. Although the Type 1 Land Attack is famous for its flexibility among similar bombers, the bomber is still a Type 1 Land Attacker.

The reaction speed of the bomber was still not comparable to that of the fighter jet. Faced with the attack of the Vulcan cannon, it could not escape at all. Then a spectacular scene appeared, a huge peony flower composed of orange-red flames suddenly appeared in the air

In full bloom. Huge flowers crowded Ron's front windshield.

Ron pulled the lever suddenly, and the plane quickly jumped up to avoid the danger of colliding with the wreckage of the Type 1 Land Attack. If his fighter plane still had the old weapon configuration, this blow would probably only set the enemy plane on fire, and then if

When you have free time, you can see how the enemy planes slowly lose control and how the enemies parachute one after another. You don't have to worry about such problems - it seems that sometimes too much firepower is not necessarily a good thing.

As Ron opened fire, other fighter planes also opened fire one after another. Under the waving of the intensive flame whips of the Vulcan cannon, one after another flame peonies bloomed in the sky. In just one attack, twelve aircraft in one type

Seven of them were shot down during the land attack, and another one was injured and caught fire - basically there was no way to save it. Of course, Ron's fleet also suffered unexpected losses - a P-38 was hit by the wreckage of an enemy aircraft.

, the pilot was definitely lost in the volley explosion; another one was injured by the wreckage and could only leave the battlefield at high speed.

Ron climbed up with the remaining 8 P-38s, then turned back with a semi-somersault, and dived from the six o'clock direction of the Type 1 Land Attack. The tail gunner of the Type 1 Land Attack tried his best to fire at Ron and the others, but Ron

Well, they did not approach directly from above 6 o'clock, but continued to dive under the belly of the Type 1 Land Attack aircraft - which was the blind spot for self-defense firepower. Then they pulled up at a large angle and began to sweep the target with the Vulcan cannon.

Ron was much more careful this time. He only fired a short shot, and when he saw orange flames coming out of the enemy plane's right engine, he stopped firing. Anyway, with a land attack body, this was enough.

It was a fatal blow.

But just when Ron was about to pass by the enemy plane, another string of shells hit the plane. As a result, the plane immediately exploded into a fireball. Before Ron could react, he got into the plane.

Fireball.

There was a crackling sound in Ron's ears, which was the sound of fragments of the enemy plane hitting his plane. When he rushed out of the fireball, he found that his left engine was making

There was a strange clicking sound - obviously, the engine was injured and it might not last long.

At this time, Ron suddenly felt a huge sense of fear. It was like a mouse being stared at by an owl. At the same time, his wingman's call came to his ears: "Pay attention to the 10 o'clock direction!"

With a deliberate push, a series of 20mm shells whizzed past Ron's plane. Then Ron saw a Zero Fighter coming towards him.

The one who opened fire was Japanese pilot Hiro Nishizawa. He had been silently enduring the pain of witnessing the massacre of bombers but could do nothing, waiting for an opportunity. Now after two dives and pull-ups, Ron's plane had lost speed.

He made a lot of moves, giving Caesar, who had already occupied a higher position, a long-awaited opportunity. Unfortunately, he still missed.

As soon as Caesar pulled the lever, he did a half-somersault and bit Ron's six points. Ron began to roll to the left, trying to turn into a dive. If his engine was still good, he could climb directly, and Zero War couldn't keep up with him.

But now that the engine is injured, continuing to climb is seeking death. Dive is the most reasonable way for him to get rid of the pursuit now. However, the low-speed roll of the P-38 is really tragic. Ron has just completed the roll.

Before he could pull the lever and dive, Caesar had him firmly in the scope.

"You're dead!" Nishizawa thought silently and prepared to start shooting. But out of instinct, he still looked in all other directions.

Billy was now a full seven or eight hundred meters away from Caesar, but he also saw Ron's danger. So, Billy started to fire at Caesar.

"When rescuing your comrades, you don't need to come close to fire. On the contrary, you should fire in advance from as far away as possible. Your goal is not to shoot down the enemy plane, but to interfere with the enemy so that he can't concentrate on shooting at your comrades.

"This is what Ron taught Billy before.

Billy's shooting still disturbed Caesar. In observing the massacre just now, Caesar had already noticed the enemy's artillery with an astonishing range. If he continued to fire, he would definitely be able to shoot down Ron.

But it was also possible to be shot down by Billy. So he stepped on the rudder and dodged for a while.

With this little time, Ron turned into a dive. Due to Zero War's poor diving ability, Caesar now had no chance to catch him.

Caesar pulled up the plane, and he saw that all the bombers were now lost, and the enemy planes had begun to retreat at high speed. It was impossible for the Zero Fighter, with a maximum speed of only 530 kilometers, to catch up with these enemy planes, which were obviously much faster. And he

There was not much fuel left, and he had to return. "What a big failure!" Nishizawa thought.

What Nishizawa didn't know was that their "big failure" was not meaningless. They bought time for the army on the island, allowing them to move the supplies exposed on the beach to a safe place. Not only did these supplies
Chapter completed!