"Be careful! The enemy plane appears! Be prepared for combat!"

When the urgent voice of the pilot, Lieutenant Kane, came from the headphones, Sergeant John Para, the machine gunner of the TBD2 torpedo bomber, felt a sudden slight in his heart, and his uneasiness finally turned into a harsh reality. Under nervousness, he couldn't help but hold the handle of the machine gun in front of him, but the dual-equipped 7.62mm aircraft machine gun did not bring him much comfort.

Wherever the sight was within reach, the carrier-based bombers on our side were still lined up in neat formations, with torpedoes weighing hundreds of kilograms of torpedoes or aviation bombs under the belly of the planes. The enemy situation appeared, and the escorted US fighters moved forward one after another. Fighters on both sides, which had been 750 kilometers, quickly rushed to each other's range, and a fierce air battle began.

Although the enemy plane had not approached, Pala loaded the machine gun in front of him early. Through the simple visual sight in the front of the machine gun, he was extremely careful to let the sight move between the gaps of the friendly plane. Fortunately, the enemy plane opened fire in the shortest time when it appeared.

The nervous waiting did not last long. Para suddenly saw a Japanese fighter jet appearing in sight. There was no US fighter jet following, nor did US fighter jets to fight. It was flying alone near the US bomber formation, but no one dared to ignore its threat. After a while, Para vaguely heard the sound of fried bean-like machine guns coming from the group of aircraft in front. The Japanese fighter jet flexibly turned in the air, locking the target on the group of aircraft in the front.

Seeing this, Pala secretly breathed a sigh of relief. After a moment, a rain of bullets with tracer bombs burst out from the American aircraft group in front of them. They were so dense. The Japanese fighter jet trying to approach and attack almost couldn't find a chance to start. Soon, it foolishly hit one of the rows of bullets. The wings on one side were interrupted on the spot, and then it turned and fell to the sea.

Under the leadership of the first formation, the torpedo bomber group 6 continued to lower the altitude, and the dive bomber group climbed to a height of three or four kilometers as usual. The slow decline of the aircraft would not give people a severe visual impact. However, when Pala looked up and watched, the scene in his sight surprised him: two Japanese fighters sneaked out from somewhere, and at this moment they reached a place only two or three kilometers away from the aircraft group.

Palaxun started the machine gun, but he soon found that the other party was still under his gun. Before he pulled the plate, the other party slipped into the dead corner of the machine gun. The US Navy sergeant was suddenly panicked. The biggest disadvantage of the V-shaped formation was that it was difficult for the aircraft to use firepower to cover each other. Although the entire squadron had 14 aircraft, Pala did not intend to place his hope on the enemy attacking the friend aircraft first, because over the unblocked sea surface, with the huge differences in degree and firepower between the two sides, such order was meaningless.

Through the windshield, Pala watched in pain as the two Japanese fighters with plaster logos on the wings disappeared from their own field of view. After only a while, they reappeared. At this time, the plane was heading towards them, and the machine gun had already aimed at these torpedo planes that lacked defense capabilities.

As the enemy planes became closer and closer, the shooters of several planes next to them had no fire angle to fire. Such shooting might only relieve their tense mood a little. Pala did not do such a meaningless thing. However, about half a minute later, he watched the Japanese fighter plane fire calmly, and a bunch of bullets ruthlessly penetrated the weak fuselage of a friend plane not far away. With almost no signs, its motive suddenly exploded and burned, and the entire plane suddenly lost its balance, and then fell to the sea.

After the attack, Japanese fighters continued to whistle at a much faster rate than US carrier-based bombers.

In an instant, Pala found one of the figures from his shooting sights. He pulled down the plate machine like crazy, and the machine gun roared, and the bullet ran into the distance with a falling arc. But when he felt extremely painful, until the entire belt was exhausted, his bullet could not get close to the flying object with the rising sun logo from beginning to end.

It quickly turned a dexterously, and slipped out of its shooting world in almost the blink of an eye.

While replacing the belt of his machine gun with the fastest speed, Pala blamed himself in his heart for not being able to seize such an opportunity. He seemed to forget that he was a weapon that was quite "powerful" in front of the fighter plane, and the Japanese pilot was obviously happy about it.

Seeing that these slow torpedo machines were about to suffer one by one, the savior emerged. Two "hawks" dived from a high altitude. While the Japanese pilots were still immersed in the pleasure of slaughter and were unprepared, they poured a series of bullets on them. A whole row of bullet holes appeared on the metal skin of one of the Japanese Type 926-based fighter jets. When these bullet holes finally extended to the pilot's cockpit and motive position, another life ended his own war journey.

After his companions encountered bad luck, another Japanese fighter immediately gave up his delicious prey and escaped the pursuit of the "Hawk Falcon" through dazzling air maneuvers.

After surviving this disaster, the torpedo group where Lieutenant Kane and Sergeant Pala were located had already flown to the predetermined airspace, and the Truk Islands and reefs and Japanese ships appeared on the sea surface under the fuselage. The formation leader then issued a battle order via radio: each looking for targets to attack, and the torpedo projection height must not exceed 10 feet!

The military orders were as high as a mountain, and the terrifying US pilots had to force themselves to raise their spirits. Considering that carrying torpedoes affects flight and maneuverability, prioritizing attacks on ships outside the islands and reefs has become the same choice for all crews.

It is worth mentioning that among the two crews of the US-made TBD torpedo aircraft, the torpedo is not the task of the machine gunner and the bomb dropper, but the pilot's responsibilities. The pilot must first visually measure the size, degree and distance of the target, input the observations into the torpedo dropping controller below the sight, and then put the target into the sight, keep flying in a straight line until the torpedo dropping controller drops the torpedo through the dropping point given by the feedback data. This sounds a bit unreasonable.

It is amazing that people always feel that it is too complicated and it seems unlikely that the pilot will complete it independently by himself. However, this is indeed a complete set of fixed actions by TBD torpedo attacks, and only a pilot who has received a lot of training can complete it all in an orderly manner. If the situation is forced and the bomber needs to operate the bombing sight, he must climb from the seat in the middle of the cockpit to directly under the front driver, and only by lying prone to the belly of the aircraft can the sight be operated correctly.

"The target is here, prepare to launch a torpedo attack. John, please help me stare behind me. Don't let the Japanese kick our ass!" Second Lieutenant Kane ordered Sergeant Para.

Pala kept staring vigilantly at the sight, and he responded decisively: "I understand, sir!"

The torpedo plane quickly entered a dangerous low-altitude flat flight state, and worries followed. A camouflaged 95 ship battle suddenly dived from the air. Pala quickly pulled the trigger, but the guy swung the wing lightly and then fired from a high point. The four machine guns instantly ejected a fatal tongue of flame!

"Sir, pull the plane up!" Pala exclaimed, but it was too late, and the bullets fired from the Japanese plane swept across the tail and the left wing.

"Oh, damn, we were shot, the plane was out of control." After only a while, Lieutenant Kane shouted loudly: "Sit firmly! We are going to land on the sea!"

Fortunately, their flight altitude was very low and the degree was very slow. Before the plane landed, Second Ensign Kane threw away the torpedo very quickly. When the plane's fuselage touched the water surface, the whole plane trembled violently, and it seemed that it could have a major disintegration at any time. However, after jumping and gliding on the relatively calm sea surface for a period of time, it finally stopped. The fuselage was almost divided into two from the middle, and the nose position had been immersed in the water, but the raised tail was still close to the water surface.

"Hey, John, are you okay?"

While asking about the situation of the deputy, Second Lieutenant Kane tried to inflate the buoyancy bag under the wings as an auxiliary means of escape. A rubber inflatable buoyancy bag was installed under the wings on both sides of the tbd torpedo. When the plane landed at sea, they could be operated by the pilot or automatically inflated and opened, so that the aircraft could float on the sea for a long enough time so that the aircraft crew could complete the series of escape actions. However, next to the two buoyancy bags were two equipped with nearly 1 ooo liters of aviation fuel in total, and the fuel tank did not adopt a self-sealed design, which is a huge safety hazard.

"I'm fine, but I just heard that the Japanese were very unfriendly to prisoners of war!" Pala muttered, pushing away the sliding cabin glass. However, when he poked his head out to look around, the fierce battle scene left him speechless. In an area not very large in sight, dozens of dark-painted American Navy bombers were running tired of chasing Japanese fighters with relatively small bodies but extremely fierce firepower, and the American fighter jets they had previously escorted were hard to find. Almost every one or two minutes, an injured American bomber was sobbing and falling down, and the tragic scene of explosions in the air was also frequent.

The islands and reefs were surrounded by the sea not far away, and the flames of gunfires were filled with smoke. The outlines of warships were vaguely visible. In fact, the painful sacrifice of the US torpedo bomber troops was not worthless. When Japanese fighter pilots hunted these slow-degree stupid birds at low altitude, SBD and Ju17t dive bombers that took off from the US aircraft carrier launched a fierce bombing on the Japanese ships and six facilities on Truk Island, severely damaging two Japanese main ships on the spot, sinking and injuring one auxiliary aircraft carrier. The oil depot ignited by the bombs soared into the sky, and thick smoke rolled.
Chapter completed!