Great time travel

Chapter 40, Return of the Combined Fleet
Tokyo Bay, Yokosuka tutelary fort, temporary anchorage of the US Halsey Expeditionary Fleet
This naval fortress, which once guarded the imperial capital, has been planted with the Stars and Stripes since the end of last year, and has become a forward base for foreign invaders, but the piercing air raid sirens continue to sound as always: only incoming enemies From American aircraft to Japanese aircraft.

Uh, but, in fact, the enemy planes that came to Yokosuka to bomb the US fleet were also pure American...

"...Attention! Attention! Azimuth 020, defense area 143, distance [-] miles, [-] mainframes!"

On the hill outside the Yokosuka tutelary mansion, in the ground radar station that has just been completed, David Clinton, a rookie radar soldier who just completed training a month ago, stared very carefully at the light spots and sawtooth ripples on the two radar screens, loudly reported to the observer.

"... an altitude of [-] feet." The relatively skilled altimeter immediately reported the altitude.

"...Command post, position 020, zone 143, distance [-] miles, altitude [-] feet, [-] mainframes, please confirm your identity."

The observer held the Bakelite microphone on his chin and repeated the data again, while the cartographer marked the data on the map board on the wall.

——The radar of this era can only mark the relative position of the aircraft in the air, that is, the light spot on the circular display panel, and has no ability to identify friend or foe.Accurate identification can only rely on the naked eye. If it is foggy or at night with poor visibility, it is almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe only by echoes.

However, before the cartographer could finish marking the data, a heart-piercing alarm sounded outside the door—obviously, it was the enemy who came this time!Next, Captain Johnson, the duty commander of the radar station, grabbed a submachine gun, opened the curtain and rushed into the room: "... Get out, get out of here, boys, the Japanese plane is coming right at us! Take Good reports and maps, don't forget to put on your helmet and go!"

All of a sudden, all the radar officers and civilian staff rushed out of their simple wooden house with their notebooks and maps in their hands, following Captain Johnson.Outside the door, there were more soldiers carrying heavy ammunition boxes, panting and rushing to the anti-aircraft artillery positions with camouflage nets.

However, these things have nothing to do with the radar operators. They just hurriedly fastened their helmets and rushed to the air-raid shelter left by the Japanese tens of meters away. Desperately waved to them.

"...Hide inside and don't come out. Be careful to protect yourself and your documents. Don't be a hero! That will only add chaos to the anti-aircraft artillery!"

After Captain Johnson finished speaking, he turned his head and ran towards another air-raid shelter, "...good luck, lads!"

Just as the radar officers rolled and crawled into the air-raid shelter, the US anti-aircraft guns on the ground opened fire one after another.Not far away, rows of anti-aircraft balloons have already been raised in the port area of ​​the tutelary government.However, all of this is basically useless work, it's just to make a noise to embolden yourself.

Just as most of the anti-aircraft guns currently equipped by the Japanese army cannot reach the B-29 "Super Sky Fortress" flying at an altitude of 20 meters, the 40mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and the 29mm imitation "Bofors" anti-aircraft guns of the US Army are similarly There is nothing to do with the high-altitude B-90 "Super Sky Fortress". Even the range of the 1mm M120 anti-aircraft gun is not enough. Only the 1mm M29 anti-aircraft gun can pose a certain threat to the B-[-].It's a pity that such a large-caliber anti-aircraft gun is equipped with very few even in the US Army, and it is even more useless on the frontline battlefield...

etc?Was the incoming Japanese bomber a B-29 "Super Fortress"?Did something go wrong?
That's right!The incoming enemy plane is the B-29 "Super Fortress" bomber!Pure blood American goods!
Therefore, the ripples of these enemy planes on the radar screen are exactly the same as those of the US military's own planes, and a misfire accident will occur if one is not careful.

——After dispatching aircraft carrier formations to attack Japan many times, but always being hit head-on by the Japanese navy, the US Pacific Fleet, which was almost driven crazy by the pressure of public opinion, simply began to act recklessly from the beginning of 29, playing "the Japanese archipelago" One-way bombing", that is, let the B-[-] "Super Sky Fortress" four-engine heavy bomber take off from Midway Island or Pearl Harbor, and fly to the Soviet Vladivostok military port to land after bombing Japan.

Because the Soviet Union did not declare war on Japan, the Soviets would not return the planes and pilots to the United States, but would treat them as "illegal immigrants". The B-29 planes were kept for their own use on the Western Front, and the pilots were stuffed into them. Detention centers wait until after the war to release them.But even with such a tactics of meat buns beating dogs with no return, in order to slap the face of the Japanese Empire, the Americans with deep pockets are desperate to fight.

Because such a never-ending bombing is also extremely painful for the U.S. military to cut flesh and blood, it can only be done occasionally and dare not do too much.The number of bombers that attack every time is only a dozen to twenty, and there are even single-plane sneak attacks. For the huge war machine of the Japanese Empire, it is probably similar to mosquito bites, as long as the actual significance of propaganda and mobilization... But over time, the Soviet Union gradually accumulated more than 300 B-29 "Super Sky Fortresses". After deducting the loss on the Western Front, there were about [-] left by the end of [-].

Therefore, after the establishment of the Soviet Republic of Hokkaido, the Soviet Union sent the remaining 29 B-[-] "Super Sky Fortress" bombers as "military aid materials" to the "Japanese Red Army" in Hokkaido to disgust the United States guy.In order to allow the Japanese army to get started as soon as possible, the Soviet Union also thoughtfully provided instructors and a full set of ground crews, plus a large number of sarin gas bombs, cloud bombs and incendiary bombs...

Relying on the very advanced Norton sight at that time, the B-29 "Super Sky Fortress" can accurately drop unguided ordinary bombs into a circle with a diameter of 50 meters at an altitude of [-] to [-] meters. Weather conditions are the prerequisite for such accuracy.

Unfortunately, it's broad daylight, and the weather in Tokyo Bay today can be described as sunny... So, the Yankees are out of luck.

——Before the F6F "Hellcat" and P-51 "Mustang" fighters ordered to intercept took off from the ground and climbed to a sufficient height, the Japanese bomber formation had already turned several peripheral radar stations and barracks strongholds into a sea of ​​flames.All of a sudden, the "hissing" and "hissing" of incendiary bombs sounded terrifyingly in the sky, a large piece of dazzling fireworks fell from the sky, and American soldiers covered in fire screamed and rolled all over the ground.

Next, the bomber group approached the water surface of the port area, and the intercepting "Hellcat" and "Mustang" also fought with the escorting Zidian fighter jets.The tracer bombs from aircraft guns and the smoke from the explosion of anti-aircraft shells filled the sky for a while, and the sky was also stained with the cruel color of war.

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Tokyo Bay, Yokosuka Anchorage, Admiral Halsey held up binoculars on the flagship USS Enterprise aircraft carrier of the US Pacific Fleet, watching one after another aircraft carrier-based aircraft being ejected into the air, facing the incoming aircraft carrier. Attacking Japanese bombers.

——The carrier-based aircraft in the late World War II has been difficult to take off from a stationary aircraft carrier, but it is still possible to eject the aircraft with a catapult.

The sky above the entire harbor is full of smoke clouds and flames, and a huge column of smoke has risen from the airport on the ground in the distance.

Above the pier on the shore not far away, there are many silver-white balloons floating, tied to the ground with wire ropes.This is an air defense balloon used to defend against low-altitude bombing by enemy planes. If the plane accidentally hits it, the plane will be destroyed. It was a relatively common air defense facility in the early days of World War II.

However, this kind of tethered anti-aircraft balloon can only deal with the low-altitude raids of dive bombers and the strafing of fighter jets at best, and is of little use to the B-29 "Super Sky Fortress" bombed at high altitudes.Therefore, both the warships on the surface and the officers and soldiers of the U.S. Navy and Army on the shore are desperately dragging out smoke canisters one after another, releasing clouds of smoke, hoping that this can somewhat interfere with the sight of some enemies.

All the U.S. soldiers on the shore without air defense missions were rushing to the air-raid shelter at the fastest speed. Around them, whether it was the Japanese houses requisitioned as barracks or the simple wooden houses built by the U.S. military, they were all painted with yellow and green camouflage. Paint, and tapes in the shape of a Pozi were pasted on each glass window.In addition, all ship-based and shore-based anti-aircraft guns are firing bang bang regardless of their caliber. Even if they can't hit the plane, it's good to scare the enemy or make a loud noise to embolden themselves. Experienced countermeasures developed after training.

——No way, for the US Pacific Fleet stationed in Tokyo Bay, such heavy bombing is already commonplace.

Since landing in Japan and stationed in Tokyo Bay, the Halsey Fleet and the follow-up U.S. Air Force and Army Aviation have indeed owned several forward airfields that can cover the entire territory of the Japanese archipelago. They can send bombers to destroy any of Japan at any time City.But on the other hand, Japanese aircraft from all walks of life can also bomb the anchorages, oil depots and warehouses of the Halsey fleet in Tokyo Bay and Sendai Port at any time. As far as Halsey knows, the nearest advance airport of the Japanese army is set in the north. The famous Utsunomiya is only more than 100 kilometers away from the Yokosuka tutelary fort in Tokyo Bay!

With such a short straight-line distance, not to mention today's cutting-edge bombers, even old-fashioned biplanes from the last world war can be used for air strikes.

When the Halsey Fleet entered Tokyo Bay for the first time last year, the entire command system was paralyzed because the capital, the wartime base camp, and the emperor had just been bombed into the sky, and the Japanese troops everywhere were still in a state of ignorance, so At that time the American fleet was not disturbed by much.When the Halsey Fleet went to the Chinese mainland and the Korean Peninsula for a long time, and when it entered Tokyo Bay again this year, the Japanese Red Army had already appeared... As a result, the Halsey Fleet, which was originally planning to rest in Tokyo Bay, suddenly fell to the ground. Driven mad by endless air raids.

—— Various "land attack" and "ship attack" bombers independently developed by the Japanese Empire, as well as the B-29 "Super Sky Fortress" and "Il" series aircraft aided by the Soviet Union rushed to the battlefield almost day and night. Yokosuka came to report.Even some old-fashioned canvas-skinned biplanes from more than 20 years ago were rolled out by the crazy Japanese and painted with gray and black camouflage, so that a group of grandpas could drive them to play night raids.Because this kind of biplane with a canvas wooden frame structure flies slowly and low, and has few metal components, it is often not detected by radar, and the Japanese actually succeeded several times...

Although most of Japan's elite pilots are on the front lines in Nanyang, the pilots who stay in the country are relatively unskilled. If they are allowed to attack the American warships with strong anti-aircraft firepower under the hail of bullets like the attack on Pearl Harbor, then it is simply sent to their door. The broiler is gone.But the commanders of the Japanese army obviously understood this, and did not force their rookie pilots to storm the warships, but instead changed the main bombing targets to radar stations, merchant ships, barracks, airports and docks with relatively weak defenses. Materials, especially oil depots, made the US military hard to defend.

What's more terrible is that the military supplies aided by the Soviet Union to the "Japanese Red Army" are not only various aircraft and fuel bombs, but also a large number of V1 and V2 missiles produced using technology captured from Nazi Germany... Among them, V1 missiles It is a cruise missile with a range of 240 kilometers. It looks like a small plane. Due to its slow speed, it can also be intercepted by fighter jets and anti-aircraft guns.The V2 missile is a real ballistic missile, which can fly at four times the speed of sound, and it cannot be intercepted with the technology of World War II—and the Japanese army has been using them to attack the anchorage of the Yokosuka tutelary fortress!
As a result, the Yokosuka tutelary fortress where the US Pacific Fleet is stationed has not sounded the air raid siren on any night since February this year, disturbing the peace of all officers and soldiers.Although the accuracy of these two missiles is very low and the failure rate is very high, if there are too many missiles, even blind cats can encounter dead mice.The day before yesterday, a V2 missile accurately hit the deck of an escort aircraft carrier full of planes because of its poor character, and it exploded into popcorn on the spot...

In order to get rid of this bad situation of being passively beaten, whether it is Admiral Halsey, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, or Admiral Patton, who was ordered to replace MacArthur and was urgently transferred to the Japanese battlefield to command the army, has been trying to organize the bomber fleet to launch an air counterattack, trying to Weaken your opponent's air attack capabilities by bombing enemy airfields.But the problem is that this is the motherland of the Japanese, and field airports can be built everywhere from south to north.Even if the U.S. military invested tens of thousands of various military aircraft on the Japanese battlefield, it was still unable to seize air supremacy, let alone completely eliminate the threat of Japanese aircraft.

In short, today's Japanese army is fighting on the ground, and the Soviet Union is behind it with a strong blood transfusion, from fuel to aircraft to ammunition. Can go on endlessly.

However, the U.S. military is on an expedition. Every plane, every round of ammunition, and every barrel of gasoline must be transported across the entire Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the gap in national strength between the two sides has been greatly evened out.If you insist on fighting consumption with the Japanese here, with the strong industrial capacity of the United States of America, you may not be able to afford it, but it will definitely be very, very painful, even to the point where it overdraws the national power and is unbearable...

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Just as Admiral Halsey was thinking so wildly and wildly, the incoming enemy planes began to drop bombs on the port area at high altitude!I saw the wide belly hatch of the B-29 "Super Fortress" opened wide, and a series of aerial bombs were thrown down neatly like dumplings.After a while, groups of orange and red fireballs began to rise from the smoky ground. They were small at first, but soon became larger and faster, and finally exploded in midair. Then, it turned into countless small sparks, and scattered down one after another, igniting a large area of ​​houses and trees around.

The anti-aircraft balloons tied by the U.S. military on the ground also became combustion accelerants that caused larger fires during the air strikes—the airbags of this anti-aircraft arresting balloons were sewn from nylon cloth coated with a layer of rubber. The interior is filled with flammable hydrogen gas.Under the influence of the embers of the incendiary bombs, one after another air defense and arresting balloons were turned into burning fireballs, carrying heavy steel cables and crashing down from the sky, causing more fires on the ground.

Although the bombers of the Japanese army did not pay the price, there were unlucky bombers who rolled and stalled and crashed in the tracer barrage crazily sprayed out by the "Hellcat" and "Mustang" fighter jets, but compared to the impact on the ground, Huge damage is not worth mentioning at all.

Indeed, the U.S. ground air defense force has advanced early warning radars, combat experience that has been repeatedly summarized and drilled, and has a new type of radio proximity fuze-it makes anti-aircraft shells explode at a distance of [-] feet from enemy aircraft, which is faster than instant fire. The power of fuze and fixed-distance fuze shells is several times greater, but the range is insufficient. The shells basically cannot reach the enemy aircraft at an altitude of [-] meters. No matter how advanced the fuze is, it will be useless.

After bombing the port facilities, the warships moored in the port area have also become the targets of bombing. Although the B-29 "Super Sky Fortress" is not suitable for bombing mobile targets such as warships, large aircraft carriers and battleships such as aircraft carriers and battleships moored at the docks Warships, it takes more than an hour just to heat up the boiler, and they can't make any maneuvers without power. They are basically fixed targets for Japanese bombers.For a moment, the aircraft carrier Enterprise shook violently in the water column raised by the bomb, and even threw off a carrier-based aircraft on the deck that was too late to fly, and crashed into the sea amidst the screams of a certain ground crew.

As for those relatively small destroyers, torpedo boats, and traffic boats, they quickly started their engines and drove out of the berths. Unfortunately, due to the haste of the incident and the lack of coordination and command, several collision accidents occurred in succession amidst the chaos.Admiral Halsey stood on the bridge of the USS Enterprise and saw two destroyers collide head-on, and a torpedo boat was overturned by the water column of the near-missing bomb...

Immediately afterwards, a bigger disaster happened: a heavy aerial bomb accurately hit the escort aircraft carrier "Coregidore" moored on the pier, hitting the ammunition depot or gasoline tank from the flight deck.In an instant, there was only a loud bang, and the entire aircraft carrier was bathed in a sea of ​​flames!Before the sailors on the anti-aircraft gun positions on the deck of the aircraft carrier could figure out what was going on, they were blown into the sea by the shock wave. Then, the bombs and torpedoes carried by the aircraft carrier were ignited one after another, and violent explosions sounded rapidly one after another, quickly killing all of them. The poor aircraft carrier was smashed to pieces.The planes on the ship were thrown into the air like toys in this violent explosion. The skins, wheels, and fuselage fragments were twisted and torn by the shock wave. The sailors and pilots who were caught off guard were blown away like rag dolls. Fuel, cloth, Fragments of the human body were all burning and flying outside.

Even the Enterprise, where Admiral Halsey was stationed, was unfortunately hit by two aerial bombs during the bombing, an elevator was blown up, and a fire was caused along the oil road.Fortunately, the well-trained U.S. damage control team members on the Enterprise aircraft carrier dispatched urgently, risking their skin being scalded by the fire and being smashed to pieces by the air wave, they risked their lives to control the fire, and finally Halsey was not allowed to go aboard Will lose his beloved flagship...

However, large-scale air strikes of this level are nothing but a daily situation that the US Pacific Fleet has to endure at least once a week recently.

In fact, during the "rest" period of the Yokosuka tutelary fort in Tokyo Bay, the number of casualties of the Halsey fleet was much higher than during the previous three months of continuous combat. Instead of being properly repaired, the damage has worsened.And all the sailors were also subjected to endless air raids, making them startled three times a day, unable to sleep at night, and physically and mentally on the verge of collapse... Of course, no matter how miserable it is, it is not as miserable as the army on the shore, at least on the warships. Tian prepared a gas mask, worried about the nerve gas bombs dropped by Japanese planes.

So, looking at the telegram sent by the Chief of the US Navy, Admiral Ernest Joseph King, ordering the Pacific Fleet, which has an "overwhelming advantage", to complete the rest as soon as possible, and then wait for an opportunity to fight the decisive battle with the Japanese Combined Fleet returning north, haha Apart from a wry smile, the expression on Admiral Ercy's face was annoyed.

"...Damn it! Shit rest! What an overwhelming advantage? I've been bombed every day from Monday to Sunday, and I can't survive this day! I want my fleet to go to a decisive battle with the Japanese Combined Fleet in this state , is the Pentagon dreaming or courting death?"

Admiral Halsey resentfully crumpled the telegram into a ball of paper, threw it far over the ship's side, then turned around and looked out the porthole, and found that the Japanese bombers and escort fighters had gone away, while the flagship Everywhere on the Enterprise aircraft carrier was devastated, and a large number of sailors who were blown up by the bomb blast were still lying motionless on the deck, and it was unknown whether they were knocked out or killed...

And in the harbor a little farther away, there are more ships smoking crookedly, or they have turned over like dead fish, exposing the bottom of the ship covered with various algae and shells. There was a thick layer of heavy oil floating, and groups of soldiers who fell into the water were shouting and struggling.

Facing this tragic scene that seemed to be another attack on Pearl Harbor, Halsey gritted his teeth and pondered for a moment, and finally made a difficult decision.

"...No, this place can't stay any longer, we must withdraw to Hawaii as soon as possible, otherwise the entire fleet will collapse!"

——Thus, amidst Admiral Jin's jumping feet and cursing, the Halsey fleet resolutely lifted anchor and returned on March [-], withdrew from the Japanese archipelago, and returned to Pearl Harbor to rest and prepare for the war... The American public opinion was in an uproar for a while, and they denounced Kazakhstan. Elsie's condemnation of the "war-avoiding general" became louder and louder. They all said that this brute only dared to play a sneak attack when the United Fleet was away, but he didn't have the bravery to fight against the enemy at all.And Japan is also full of joy, thinking that once the invincible combined fleet returns, the American, British and white animals who bully the weak and fear the hard will flee in embarrassment.