John on the other end of the phone looked through the photos and felt something was wrong with Zhang Chi. The smoke was indeed a bit suspicious, but he quickly denied it: "Col. I don't think it's an airport, nor do I think the Japanese have any plans... In fact, they have been blown away by us and they have no power to fight back. They cast smoke just to save their lives! Isn't this very normal?"

This makes sense, but the battlefield is different from a peaceful society. A peaceful society emphasizes the suspicion of no crime, while a battlefield emphasizes the suspicion of no crime... Even if there is only a little worry and doubt, you must make plans according to the worst conditions.

So Zhang Chi insisted: "General! At least... we shouldn't continue to move forward now, but we should see the situation clearly or reconnaissance clearly!"

"I don't think you need to worry too much, Colonel!" John replied: "You should have confidence in our US Navy. If the Japanese planes dare to appear in front of us, the 'Hellcat' will give them a hard lesson!"

When John said this, he particularly highlighted the "U.S. Navy" and "Hellcat". Although he didn't say anything, his tone showed a strong sense of superiority.

Finally, John stopped only when he was only 80 kilometers away from Tinian Island, and also gave an order that made Zhang Chi very embarrassed... The escort aircraft carrier was divided into two parts to bomb Tinian Island.

In terms of improving bombing efficiency, it is certainly correct to divide the fleet into two parts. Five escort aircraft carriers are clustered together and fighter aircraft take-off and landing are prone to interfere with each other. It is difficult for pilots to distinguish which one is their own formation when taking off, and it is not easy to distinguish which aircraft carrier is the aircraft carrier they should land when landing, so chaos or even accidents are more likely to occur.

But in terms of defense, dividing it into two parts will disperse the forces of the destroyers and fighter jets that were not many in their hands, making it impossible for Zhang Chi to organize effective defense.

"Teacher!" Zhang Junhua asked Zhang Chi: "What should I do?"

After thinking about it, Zhang Chi replied: "Organize the Defense Group A!"

"Yes!" Zhang Junhua responded.

Group A has three escort aircraft carriers, and Zhang Chi can only choose one more group of aircraft carriers.

Then Zhang Chi ordered: "Send reconnaissance planes to several directions north, and you will get it back immediately if you find it!"

"yes!"

However, the reconnaissance of US reconnaissance aircraft generally does not have any effect, especially the squadrons use the "Wild Cat" fighter jet... The combat radius of the Wild Cat fighter jet is only 500 kilometers, which is clear to the Japanese. In addition, the Japanese army is very clear about the location of the US fleet, so they parked the fleet at a distance of 500 kilometers.

The combat radius of Japanese fighter jets such as Zero Warfare is far more than 500 kilometers, and they can also use island airports as transit, so they don’t have to worry about fuel issues at all.

It was 8:30 in the morning, and Jisaburo Ozawa calculated the time. When the fighter plane arrived over the enemy fleet, it was 10 o'clock. At this time, it was the US military's bombing in the morning and was exhausted and had not had lunch break. This was the right time.

So at the order of Ozawa Jisaburo, Japanese fighter planes flew into the air one by one and flew towards the target.

The first wave of attack aircraft group was 69. As usual, most of these fighters were Zero fighters, and only more than twenty were comet bombers and Tianshan aircraft... From this we can also tell how hard the Japanese army fought in this battle. Comet bombers were the bombers that were nicknamed "aircraft carrier killers". This "aircraft carrier killer" did not kill the enemy's aircraft carrier, but its own aircraft carrier. The reason was that the quality of Japanese pilots at this time decreased in stages, and Comet bombers were also high-speed bombers, and their landing speed was very fast. With the existing qualities of Japanese pilots, it was difficult to land them safely on the aircraft carrier, so accidents occurred almost every day when using this bomber.

Therefore, comet bombers were once moved to island airports as shore-based bombers.

The reason why it is now brought to the aircraft carrier is, on the one hand, because the Type 99 bomber has suffered a large number of combat losses, and it is no longer full of aircraft carriers at this time.

On the other hand, the US military was equipped with near-explosive fuze shells at this time, and there were new fighter jets. If the slow-speed Type 99 bomber was still used, it would not be able to break through the US military's air defense firepower network, which would be no different from killing.

Although equipment is similar to death, the chance of breaking through the air defense fire network is higher, that is, at least it can also give the enemy some damage and not die worthless.

However, this will give rise to another problem... Even if the novice flying the comet bomber survived the battle and returned, they had no confidence in successfully landing on the aircraft carrier. So they thought: Instead of hitting and dying on their own aircraft carrier, it would be better to hit and dying on the enemy's aircraft carrier... So they turned the nose and simply hit the enemy's warship and aircraft carrier.

This practice was later followed by the Japanese aviation forces, and it developed into a shocking suicide attack by the Kamikaze Special Attack Team.

In less than half an hour, at 8:56, Ozawa sent out the largest wave, which was mainly composed of the 97 ship attack, the 99 ship explosion, the Tianshan ship attack, and the Comet ship explosion, with a total of 128 aircraft.

From the formations of the Japanese bombers of 97, 99, Tianshan, and Comet, it can also be seen that the Japanese fighter jets were seriously insufficient at this time to piece together... Otherwise, no one would like to put together so many types of bombers. The flight speeds of these bombers are very different, which will cause great variables to perform tasks. Not to mention, there will be great troubles in maintenance, such as the problem of non-universal parts, the problem of multiplying maintenance personnel, etc.

This wave is obviously the main force of the Japanese attack. Their mission is to make every effort to severely damage the Xianghe formation, especially to sink the Xianghe.

After thinking about it, Ozawa Jisaburo felt a little worried again, so ten minutes later, at 9:06, Ozawa sent another third wave of 47 fighter jets as a supplement to the second team.

If this was in the past, there was no need to worry like this... The Japanese army clearly knew the location and strength of the enemy aircraft carrier at this time. More than 100 fighter jets were sent out to deal with the target even if they could not sink the target. However, at this time, Jisaburo Ozawa was a little worried. Jisaburo Ozawa had carefully studied the squadron and even studied the training and actual combat of the Chinese navy. He knew that the training of the Chinese navy was not worse than that of the US military, or even better than the US military. In terms of actual combat, the last defensive battle in the Marshall Islands was quite good, so Jisaburo Ozawa was not as confident as his bosses, Toyota Associate Takeshi and Ryunosuke Kusata.

(To be continued.)
Chapter completed!