But the failure of the artillery battle did not make Maruyama Masao die of the heart to blockade the airport.

Maruyama then sent a telegram to Hyakutake Haruyoshi, asking Hyakutake Haruyoshi to send a navy to bomb the airfield.

To be honest, Hyakutake Haruyoshi was a little reluctant, because he always thought that the Japanese army would soon be able to take Kuah Island and regain the airfield.

From this point of view, Hyakutake Haruyoshi is not the kind of commander who eats a trench and grows wise...... At first, he thought that the 1,000-strong Special Marine Corps could recover Kuah Island, but after the fiasco, he thought that he would succeed by sending 5,000 troops up to it, and after another fiasco, he once again dreamed that he could successfully recover Kuah Island by sending the 2nd Division up.

At this point, Hyakutake Harukichi's confidence in retaking Kuah Island is unimaginable to outsiders...... Hyakutake Haruyoshi had even drawn up a surrender plan, in which Hyakutake Haruyoshi asked the American general and his staff officers and interpreters to carry two large flags, an American flag and a white flag representing surrender, along the northern coast in front of the Japanese warships, in this ornamental ceremony.

Once the ceremony was over, Hyakutake Haruyoshi would send a telegram codenamed "Banzai" to Tokyo to announce the good news to the emperor.

It is precisely because of this arrogance of the Japanese that they have always been reluctant to bomb the Kuah airport...... This part is to make the airport put into use faster, and more importantly, the Japanese Navy hopes to wash away the shame, that is, the airport was robbed by the enemy when it was almost completed, so it should also be returned to the Japanese Navy intact.

This is the paranoid side of the Japanese personality, they will always strive for perfection in certain details without regard for the big picture.

Just imagine, if the Japanese Navy had bombed the Kuah Island airfield from the very beginning and made the airfield unusable, then Zhang Chi's plan to hide fighters and bombers on Kuah Island would not have been carried out at all.

In contrast, Maruyama Masao is more sensible, after all, he is a lieutenant general. With a wealth of combat experience, especially since he had directly fought the New 1st Division in Burma and even in Yangon, he knew that the Chinese army in front of him was not simple, so he hoped to cut off the supply of Kuah Island as much as possible from the beginning.

In the end, Hyakutake Haruyoshi couldn't stop Maruyama Masao's request...... Because Maruyama Masao even said in a telegram: "Bombing the airfield is just to make the airfield a few more pits, and after recovering it, I will have the troops fill in these pits and hand them over to the navy in good condition within an hour!" ”

After sending this telegram. Maruyama Masao couldn't help but scold: "These bastards in the navy, they didn't think at all about how many more people the army would lose because of this, they just thought about their face!" ”

So in desperation, Hyakutake Haruyoshi ordered the navy to bomb the airport.

First, bombers flew over the airfield one after another, and the bombs swept in like a raging storm, and soon the airfield was blown into potholes.

Fortunately, the Japanese pilots dropped their bombs very accurately, and almost all of those bombs fell into the airfield...... If one guy shoots into the nearby jungle with a machine gun, I'm afraid a dozen fighters hiding in it will be ruined.

Then it was dark and dark. The Japanese naval guns, under the direction of the seaplanes, launched a bombardment of the airfield.

It's just that the Japanese Navy's artillery is not very accurate...... However, they were not to blame, the warship was moving, and they all looked at the direction indicated by the flares fired by the seaplanes, so the indiscriminate shells caused five fighters and one bomber to "hit the pond fish".

Luckily, the fighters were very far from each other, so there was not much damage.

"How many planes do we have?" Zhang Chi asked Clifton.

Clifton looked at the documents and said, "Minus these planes that just lost...... We have 39 fighters, 30 bombers and 15 torpedoes! ”

After a pause, Clifton continued, "Fourteen of the thirty-nine fighters are P400s...... These damn Japanese, why didn't they blow up the P400! ”

Zhang Chi understood what Clifton meant. The P400 is more suitable for fighting with ground forces, so it is reduced. There are only twenty-five fighters left that are really suitable for air combat.

Zhang Chi couldn't help but turn his gaze to Smith, who was commanding the fighter jet.

Smith sighed and stepped forward and replied, "Sir, we'll do our best!" ”

It was Manrum, who was in charge of the bomber formation, who interjected: "Sir, I have to say...... Even according to the original plan, the escort of the bomber formation with thirty-six Wildcat fighters was slightly insufficient, and now there are only twenty-five ......"

Zhang Chi turned his gaze to Smith and asked, "Is that so?" ”

"Yes sir!" Smith replied: "Our Wildcat fighters are inferior to the Japanese Zero fighters in all aspects. So we need numerical superiority. Under normal circumstances, the Wildcat fighter would have to fight two planes in formation against one Zero fighter to have a chance of winning, and now we have no advantage in numbers......"

"But that's all we can do!" "The Japanese blocked the airfield with artillery fire, the airfield is already paralyzed, and for the foreseeable future," Clifton said. They will also carry out such bombing. ”

"Wait!" At this time, Zhang Chi suddenly thought of something, he paused and asked Smith: "You mean...... Can you two fighters barely deal with one Zero? ”

"Yes!"

"You don't know the weakness of the Zero?" Zhang Chi asked.

"The weakness of the Zero?" Smith shook his head blankly.

Zhang Chi vaguely remembered that such a thing happened in history:

In the early days of the war, the Japanese easily controlled the air supremacy of the battlefield with the excellent performance of the Zero fighters, and the Allied fighters had almost no power to fight back under the attack of the Zero, so there was once a myth of "invincible in zero war" on the battlefield. (Note: At the beginning of the war, the exchange ratio between the Zero fighter and the US fighter was 1:6)

However, a fortuitous event changed all this: a Japanese pilot made a forced landing on Allied territory due to a plane failure...... The Japanese pilot was unlucky, the plane successfully forced landing, but his neck was broken and he died, so the U.S. military got an almost complete Zero fighter, and the U.S. side quickly shipped the Zero back home and repaired it, and then studied its weaknesses in test flights and designed a new fighter for these weaknesses. This is also one of the reasons why almost all air supremacy in the middle and late stages of the war was in the hands of the US military.

And now, American pilots don't even know about the weakness of the Zero fighter ?! Hasn't this happened yet?

What Zhang Chi didn't know was that this incident had actually happened, that is, the Battle of Midway two months ago, but at this time, the U.S. military was still busy repairing the Zero fighter and conducting research.

(To be continued.) )