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14 September 1938, Balikpapan, East Borneo.

Second Lieutenant Sasaki got into the cabin of the Type 94 biplane reconnaissance plane, and as soon as he sandwiched the aerial photos of his hometown of Osaka in the gap in the speedometer, the aviation major on the deck ordered the catapult arm to be rotated. The swaying force at the moment when the robotic arm was unhooked made the photo fall. "Baga." Second Lieutenant Sasaki secretly cursed, he was a very superstitious person, and every time he fled, he had to put this photo of his hometown in front of it before taking off.

When he leaned over to pick up the photo and re-clip it, the two comrades-in-arms also got into the cabin. The motor was activated, and the propeller was spinning rapidly, and the fighter under the butt was like being kicked by someone, and with the help of a spring-loaded mechanical catapult, it rushed into the void with great speed. Catapult take-off on a warship is more dangerous than that of an aircraft carrier, but fortunately, Sasaki is an experienced pilot, and he has had this experience dozens of times, so he pulled the control stick sharply at the moment of ejection, and the lift provided by the wings made the 94 ship scout almost fly off the sea.

As soon as he got to the sky, he temporarily forgot about the photo slipping down because he liked the feeling of flying. Of course, he didn't like this slow two-wing, three-seat water reconnaissance plane, but unfortunately, if he hadn't been kicked in by a narrow margin to drive a reconnaissance plane at the Etajima Navigation Academy, he would have become a member of the aircraft carrier elite club now. Fortunately, with the rapid expansion of the Japanese Air Force, the Third Air Force has included him in the list of backup pilots.

After the reconnaissance plane slowly climbed to an altitude of 1,000 meters, its vision suddenly opened up. The heavy cruiser Kaohsiung, the mother ship, was cruising seven nautical miles from the harbor, and at the black spot twenty nautical miles to the west of it was the heavy cruiser Atago, which was cruising the flank of the Makassar Strait to protect the oil fields, and in the middle of the two heavy cruisers, several destroyers were accompanied.

A fleet sailing out of Balikpapan Port made Second Lieutenant Sasaki laugh and talk loudly with the two companions behind him. It was three Anglo-Dutch Shell tankers and two British merchant ships captured by the marines disguised as Indonesian guerrillas after raiding Balikpapan, which had been stuffed with oil and cargo a few days ago, but because the British and Dutch crews refused to cooperate, they were not repatriated from passing Japanese merchant ships until today. Sasaki and his companions were excited because these five ships and the rest of the 220,000-ton captured ships of various types would soon be incorporated into the ocean-going fleet of the Great Japanese Empire, and they would be loyal to His Majesty the Emperor.

After seeing the fleet leave, Sasaki flew about forty-five kilometers west along Balikpapan Bay. The oil storage tanks in the harbor, the long oil pipelines, and the refineries along the way all kept him talking, waiting for dozens of nodding pumps to appear. He descended immediately, excitedly opened the hatch with his companions, and waved to the Marines and Indonesian guerrillas stationed on the ground.

After three turns in a row, Sasaki pulled up the plane without getting enough of it. But when the plane jumped back into the air, a blue figure did burst into the sea of green like an elephant.

"It's a large water reconnaissance plane in China!"

The lookout behind him, who had just been transferred from Hokkaido, was a little nervous, shouting and reminding the Heavy that he was infected and immediately turned his gun away. Sasaki also quickly drove the plane towards the other party. As the distance got closer and closer, the lookout, who had seen the Chinese sea plane for the first time, took out his camera and took pictures of this large twin-engine water reconnaissance plane with a single wing and a beautiful streamlined appearance, and prepared to take it back to the Naval Intelligence Department for analysis.

But this time he must have been useless. Because Sasaki has already met with such a large reconnaissance plane many times, and the photos taken are even more numerous. The Admiralty has also long investigated and made it clear that this is a Feilian-1 water reconnaissance aircraft (which can be regarded as a 1,600-horsepower PBY) installed by the Chinese Navy and the National Guard at the same time, nicknamed "Blue Swan". Built by Chengdu Sikorsky Aircraft Company. Upper monoplane, two star engines. It is 22 meters long, the wing width is 33 meters, the ship-shaped fuselage, the speed is about 340 kilometers per hour, four machine guns are installed, the crew is unknown, the ceiling is unknown, the load is unknown, but the range is very large, according to analysis, it is likely to exceed 4,000 kilometers.

Without looking at the insignia, Sasaki also knew that this "Blue Swan" came from the Natuna base, because in the whole of Southeast Asia, only Natuna had 16 of these "Blue Swans" that were the envy of all Japanese pilots, and it was said that the elites of the aircraft carrier air force had already begun to bet on who would shoot down one first. However, Sasaki has not thought about shooting down his opponent, because Japan and China are not at war, and this is not Japanese airspace, let alone Baga! The maximum speed of the 94 ship reconnaissance is only 270 km/h, and the opponent is at least 340 km/h, and it can't catch up if you want to shoot it down! It seemed that he was deliberately angry with him, and the "Blue Swan" on the opposite side suddenly turned around and flew towards this side after seeing the 94 ship reconnaissance, and the huge fuselage approached as quickly as a hill.

"Baga! Damn the designer, he actually designed the reconnaissance aircraft slower than the big seaplanes! Sasaki hurriedly leaned the lever to the left, trying to distance himself to avoid impact, knowing that he and the other party would definitely be finished first. Seeing Sasaki evading, the blue swan was obviously even more proud, shaking his big belly and wiping the 94 ship reconnaissance and flying south. This kind of provocation made Sasaki grit his teeth with hatred, if he had done before, he would definitely not want to chase, because he couldn't catch up at all. But now, in order to protect the oil field and find out the motives of the other party, even if the speed is slow, they have to follow the past.

The "Blue Swan" in front seems to be deliberately playing tricks, and every time he uses his speed to shake off a section, he will slow down and circle around, pretending to break through Sasaki's interception and go to Balikpaban to reconnoitre, but when Second Lieutenant Sasaki is desperate to block, he accelerates south. In this way, Sasaki's 94 ship reconnaissance had unknowingly left Balikpaban for 70 kilometers.

This distance would have accelerated for more than ten minutes for the 94 Ship Scout, but it made Sasaki unable to see the huge group of undead bird bombers hiding in the high white clouds.

The 116 H-7s crossed West Borneo in a straight line along the rainforest belt north of the West Borneo Pass, and in order to ensure that they were not exposed as much as possible, the aircraft group was kept at an altitude of 6,500 meters, and the white clouds provided good cover for the group. But even the best cover could not cancel out the noise of the propellers, and when the group was about to reach Balikpapan, the rainforest around the oil field was full of birds scurrying, and the whole sky was buzzing into my head.

"Fleet!"

"Baga! Anti-aircraft guns. ”

The Kaohsiung, which had been cruising in the open sea, was the first to discover the aircraft group, and the terrible flowing metal cloud made the Kaohsiung extremely nervous, and the captain Takahashi Kazumatsu Daisa immediately gave the order to approach the harbor and prepare for air defense warfare. It has to be said that the quality and reaction speed of the Japanese Navy are indeed very fast, but no matter how fast they are, they are not as fast as the H-7, which has begun to dive at a small angle.

A five-minute kilometer descent into a dive. Let the Immortal Bird Brigade soon come to the first bombing target, over the harbor oil depot. At this time, even the stupidest people know the purpose of these bombers! "Fire!" Captain Takahashi did not hesitate, even though he had seen the Chinese Air Force logo on these new bombers, but for the sake of the Balikpapan oil field, every Imperial Navy officer was willing to give his life.

Four 120-mm anti-aircraft guns (on one side) were the first to fire, and black smoke immediately appeared in the sky. However, the Kaohsiung has always believed that even if there is a sneak attack, it should come from the sea, so the destroyers are scattered 20 nautical miles away to guard, and it is also 7 nautical miles from the harbor. This distance is already the maximum range of 120-mm anti-aircraft guns, so the dispersion of shells after firing is very large. There are not enough of them, so the momentum is scary but the actual effect is not at all.

As soon as the cannon sounded, the six destroyers accelerated and rushed back, and even Sasaki, who was attracted and entangled by the "blue swan" in the distance, saw the black smoke, and suddenly his eyes were bloodshot and rushed back like crazy! "Oilfield! That's the oil fields of the Empire! It's the oil field of the Navy! Baga. Sasaki shouted hysterically. But the 94 ship reconnaissance under him was only so fast, and he could only watch as the first batch of eight H-7s opened their magazines and threw strings of black bombs from under the belly.

The H-7 is a four-engine heavy bomber that was only finalized last year, with a maximum range of 4,860 kilometers with no load, a cruising speed of 280 kilometers per hour, a maximum speed of 473 kilometers, and a flight range of 2,300 kilometers with a maximum bomb load of 10 tons. Armed with 10 12.7 mm heavy machine guns. This kind of heavy bombardment, which is comparable to the American B17 bomber that has been installed, is destined to be shocking when it first appears!

With the help of a mechanical computer and a bombing fire control sight nicknamed "Demon Mirror" by the soldiers, a string of bombs began to fall on the unsuspecting Balikpapan Harbor. In order to ensure the destruction of the target, each H-7 was filled with 38 250-kilogram bombs (less than 10 tons because there was a gap between the bomb pylons, and the more about the tonnage). And all of them were a mix of high-explosive and incendiary bombs.

Even with advanced sights, the accuracy of high-altitude bombing is still low and frightening. Half of the bombs dropped by the first eight bombers fell into the sea, and the rest did not hit the oil depot. But the bombs that exploded on the shore caused terrible damage, with large swaths of buildings near the oil depot collapsing and the pipeline leading to the refinery being bombed and then ignited by incendiary bombs.

Fortunately, heavy bombers did not eat by precision in the first place, not to mention that there was no need for luck at all in carpet bombing, so when Ensign Sasaki approached, all six oil depots had been hit by the raining bombs. In particular, the No. 4 oil depot, because it was not full, the high-pressure oil tank was full of oil and gas mixture, and it exploded violently after being pierced through the top by two incendiary bombs! In the loud bang, the outer wall of the oil depot was brittle than an eggshell, and the mushroom cloud rolled up to a height of more than 700 meters, and the air wave generated overturned everything within three kilometers.

After the oil depot was destroyed, a large amount of oil burst into the sea, forcing Captain Takahashi to stop his advance. Without the threat of heavy anti-aircraft artillery, the remaining bombers began to bombard the refinery and oil field area indiscriminately. The 250-kilometer high-explosive bomb charge is 60 kilograms of TNT, and the killing radius of unprotected personnel reaches 550 meters. What is even more infuriating is that because the oil refinery and oil fields are deep in the bay, the Kaohsiung with a deep draft cannot rush into the shallow bay, and even the destroyer may be swallowed up by the oil fire on the sea surface if it rushes in.

"Baga." Second Lieutenant Sasaki finally rushed back and bravely rushed towards the enemy who had destroyed the Empire's property in the 94 Ship Scout. The two 7.7mm aviation machine guns in the nose of the aircraft fired fiercely at a bomber that had finished dropping bombs, but the annoying thing was that the bullets clearly hit the wings, but there was only a chance of black smoke coming out, and they couldn't see the appearance of falling at all, but the bullets fired by the opponent almost hit themselves.

Second Lieutenant Sasaki gritted his teeth and flew up and down in an attempt to rush into the group, but he was quickly disappointed. The bombers had formed a dense box formation to protect the flanks of their comrades who continued to drop bombs, and when Sasaki tried to charge again, dozens of 12.7mm heavy machine guns fired at him at the same time.

More than ten seconds, thousands of semi-armor-piercing incendiary bombs! directly let the 94 ship detective fall headlong.

The expected air threat did not appear, the Japanese heavy patrol with the greatest threat could not enter far outside the bay, and the Japanese marines on the ground who were in a hurry did not even capture the fighters with anti-aircraft guns, and Huang Guangrui, who quickly ordered the last 46 bombers to drop bombs to 1,500 meters.

This height also means that Balikpapan is completely finished! The 46 bombers that lowered the altitude dropped bombs one by one, and from a high altitude the entire surface was covered with orange-red fireballs and columns of smoke, and the most terrifying thing was the incendiary bombs, the oil rushed out of the damaged pumping pump port, and then was ignited, like a dozen fire dragons drilled out of the ground, and the flames were sprayed up to 100 meters.

The Japanese marines were completely unable to rescue the Japanese marines in the terrible flames and smoke, and the Indonesian troops shivered and fled into the rainforest. By the time the last bomber pulled up the formation and prepared to return home, Balikpapan Bay under the wing had become a sea of fire, the flames and oil ignited the sea, and burned a Japanese destroyer that bravely broke in but did not have time to escape, and the heavy cruiser Kaohsiung had to retreat to 20 nautical miles.

The Japanese sailors on the deck were dumbfounded, no one expected that a few hours ago they were still cheering for the big oil field, rejoicing in the temporary weakness of the British and Dutch, shouting Long live the emperor, but a few hours later the whole Balikpapan was in flames.

Cheeks, hot pain!