In fact, before the landing battle began, the US military had a chance to avoid a catastrophe. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

When the first batch of 30 Japanese fighters appeared near Kwajalein Island, the US military had already spotted these Japanese fighters on the radar...... But just as the Japanese had hoped, the U.S. radar crew easily ignored them.

The first reason is that there are too few Japanese fighters in this batch, only 30 of them, and at this time, there are hundreds of US fighters near Kwajalein, and the radar soldiers of the US military do not believe that the Japanese army will have 30 fighters to challenge the US military's air supremacy.

Another reason is that at this time, the bombing of Kwajalein Island by US fighter planes has already begun, and the aircraft group is flying everywhere in the air, including the main aircraft carrier and the escort aircraft carrier, and these aircraft carriers are flying in different directions, so the fighter planes are flying in different directions. So the Japanese thought that this should be a friendly fighter on which aircraft carrier.

The Japanese were also worried about this matter, but for a while there were no US fighters coming to intercept them, so they slowly relaxed their minds.

As soon as it was dark, Squadron Leader Koike Ryano noticed three red flares rising in the direction of Kwajalein Island, and he knew that this was the landing battle launched by the Americans on Kwajalein Island.

To be on the safe side, he still asked Nakajima Juncao to take a fighter plane and fly in the direction of Kwajalein Island to confirm.

This was planned beforehand, and there was no need to worry about revealing the Japanese army's combat intentions...... There are only two fighters, and even if the US military finds these two fighters, they will think that they are just fish that slipped through the net from Kwajalein airport, so they will not take it seriously.

Soon Koike Lingno received a message from Nakajima Juncao: "The fox has come out of the hole!" Repeat, the fox is already out of the hole! ”

Xiao Chi didn't dare to slack off, and immediately forwarded this information to the main group in the rear, so the main group sped up and went straight to the direction of Kwajalein Island.

Ten minutes later, the main Japanese fleet flew over Kwajalein Island and began to climb before diving down.

At this time, the US military over Kwajalein Island had only a few fighters, and most of them were bombers on bombing missions.

It was only then that the US radar crews realized that something was wrong, because the US bombers did not have such a large formation of 60 sorties, so they issued an air defense alarm after a little hesitation, but it was too late...... The battle began at the moment when the alarm went out.

Just as the soldiers of the US landing force were looking at Kwajalein, which had been blown up by shells and bombs in front of them, and nervously thinking about how to break through the Japanese defense line, a piercing whistling sound suddenly sounded in the sky...... Many U.S. soldiers thought it was a U.S. fighter plane, but didn't realize it was wrong until the screech of aerial bombs sounded overhead.

Of course, at this time, there were still US military pilots who thought that some US pilots had not woken up and dropped bombs indiscriminately, but when they watched in amazement as the Zero fighters with the sun logo swooped down and fired rows of bullets at the landing craft, they realized that they were being attacked by Japanese fighters!

"How is this possible?" Colonel Walter, the commander of the 1st Regiment of the 3rd Marine Division, who was responsible for directing the landing, looked at these locust-like Japanese fighters in front of him in disbelief.

"Where did they come from?" Colonel Walter exclaimed: "The aviation unit of our radar did not even give any warning!" ”

"Colonel!" The staff officer reminded from the side: "Now is not the time to say this, what should we do?" ”

"What else can I do?!" Colonel Walter replied angrily, "Do whatever you can to save your life!" ”

Before Colonel Wought could finish speaking, a bomb fell nearby, but the bomb did not directly hit Colonel Walter's landing craft, but the waves set off overturned the landing craft entirely.

Colonel Walter was right, the landing force did not have any anti-aircraft equipment, not even landing gunboats and landing vehicles...... Although the landing vehicle is equipped with twin 12.7mm machine guns, it is designed to be completely aimed at landing and land, and the elevation angle is simply not enough to attack fighters flying in the sky.

As a result, the US landing force was as helpless as a target.

Johnson's first reaction was to order the surrounding warplanes in charge of guarding to stop the Japanese fighters, and at the same time, the aircraft carrier's fighters immediately took off to respond.

This is a correct command, but at the same time it is an outdated one.

Due to the convenience of bombing, the US military has only made more than 10 sorties of fighter planes responsible for guarding, and only two of these fighters are "Hellcats" that can effectively restrain the Zero fighters, and only two are "Hellcats...... It takes time, especially when the bombers are frequently taking off and landing and hanging bombs, and it is even more difficult for the fighters to take off.

As a result, the US military formed a vacuum in the defense of the Japanese fighters, and the Japanese fighters bombed and strafed the US landing ships almost unscrupulously, especially the tank landing ships, the position of the tank landing ships was after the landing vehicles and before the landing ships, and the reason for placing it in this position was to let it land and play its role as quickly as possible under the cover of the landing vehicles.

This put the tank landing ship in the center of the easiest to detect, and the huge hull of the landing ship made it possible for the Japanese pilots who had long remembered what it looked like to detect them and attack them in the first place.

To make matters worse, tank landing ships are designed to conduct landing operations after gaining air supremacy, rather than sea and air operations, so they do not have much resistance to sinking and strikes, and their sailing speed is very slow, with a maximum speed of only 11 knots...... Therefore, the US soldiers gave the tank landing ship a nickname, "large slow target".

In the bombardment of these "large slow-speed targets" by Japanese fighters, three of them were blown up and ignited in a few minutes, and the hulls of the ships were also staggered and seriously tilted.

Several of the other landing ships looked bad...... At this time, they had realized that the main target of the Japanese fighters was them, so they turned the bow of the ship and fled in the direction of the destroyer, hoping to get the fire cover of the destroyer as soon as possible, but where would the Japanese let them go so easily, and the fighters quickly caught up and dropped bombs one after another......

One tank after another tank landing ships were blown up, lost their ability to sail on the road, unable to move, the most serious one was ignited with fuel tanks, and the entire ship was blown into a ball of fire.

Only one of the landing ships was lucky enough to escape into the destroyer's cover area, and the destroyer's anti-aircraft guns and machine guns opened fire at full speed and fired a barrage of bullets to shoot down several Japanese fighters following behind.

However, just as the Japanese officers and men on the landing ship were breathing a sigh of relief, they suddenly spotted a fighter plane swooping down on them with flames and black smoke...... (To be continued.) )