The British planes received new instructions to correct their course, and did not doubt that it was too risky for the pilots to fly into the depths of the ocean at dusk, and to fly along the coastline, at least with coastal lights to navigate, and not easy to get into trouble.

Along the way, the plane could see the lights of Calcutta, as well as the searchlights swept around the Japanese empty positions, these searchlights did not have radar cooperation, and they were completely indiscriminate, and it was impossible to detect the planes in the sky at all, but brought convenience to the pilot's navigation.

The captain of the captain's plane, which was quite experienced, increased his altitude and flew towards the dark delta in front of him, which he knew was the mouth of the Ganges. The message was vague, and he didn't know what would be there. Anyway, try your luck.

Soon the sharp-eyed pilot in the formation, seeing a faint light below, reported to the captain with the radio, and the captain rolled 90 degrees to observe one side, and also found that he judged that it was some kind of unburned exhaust exhaust gas emitted by an air-cooled engine, and it was most likely an observation plane dispatched by the Japanese army, which seemed to be running over too slowly, and it was reasonable that as long as he followed, he would find the seaplane carrier. So the British pilots cheered up and quietly followed.

The Mizuho is light-controlled, but when its own aircraft approaches and prepares to land, it needs a light indication. They made an appointment with their own planes in the sky, and then carried out a short illumination, of course, they did not expect that the enemy planes would arrive with them. Where in the world is there such a coincidence?

The Skua aircraft is a stupid and poorly operated aircraft, it is a little difficult to attack the moving ship with it, it is in the bomb delivery stage, the body is shaking, and it is difficult to make major adjustments, and it can not be too close to the target, so as not to pull up and hit the sea, maintain too high bomb delivery height, which means that there is no accuracy, in fact, the task set at that time is also to attack the ships anchored in the harbor. But today they are a little lucky, unlike regular aircraft carriers, when the seaplane aircraft carrier retracts and releases the plane, it does not move for a while, and by chance, it is hit by them.

Several planes began to climb, using navigation lights to control the distance between them, and for fear of colliding together, they could not form a dense formation, and if the enemy anti-aircraft guns fired easily, they could easily break through each other, but in the night, they were able to approach quietly without being detected.

The Mizuho's lights were turned on to make it clearer than during the day, and the sea was pitch black on all sides, and the pilots adjusted their attitude before entering a pure "instrument bomb" phase (using the altimeter).

The first bomb was dropped by Captain Channing's long plane, he was the most experienced pilot in the formation, with more than 1,000 flight hours, as well as six shootdowns and two suspected shootdowns, but most of the flight hours and all the downs were done on the Spitfire, he just arrived in India last month, and he was stunned for the first time in the air and entered into a struggle with a Falcon fighter, the Falcon fighter is a fighter that is far stronger than the BF109 circling, the captain was wounded and forced to land, The plane hit and killed two cows walking in the grass, and he desperately escaped the dung forks of the Indian villagers before returning to base, but there were no fighter jets assigned to him, only a ska that no one could fly (or wanted to fly).

In fact, his third cruise today in a Skua was also the first to drop a bomb. Before taking off, in addition to not finding the machine gunner, even the 6 steps of dropping bombs should be pasted in the cockpit so as not to forget.

As the Skua clumsily rolled 180° into the dive, the captain was still scrambling to check the release of the pylons and the angle of the bomb, and he glanced at the altimeter and looked everywhere for the bomb handle. The little red joystick on the left-hand side suddenly disappeared and could not be found, and he was forced to use a flashlight from his pocket to find it because there was not enough lighting in the cabin. At this time, the altimeter reversed at a fast speed for I don't know how many laps. His attention returned to the bomb sight. Judging that the dive angle is a bit too much, so that the 500 lbs* has the potential to hit the propeller. So he went down from 85 degrees to 70 degrees and watched as the target gradually crossed his sights. He tugged on the handle, and nothing happened, recalling that the handle still had a safety to prevent accidental triggering that needed to be lifted.

In his careless operation, the altitude dropped another 500 meters, and on the bright side, the bomb was thrown more accurately. * After a smooth landing, he pulled up sharply, this was the worst vertical maneuverable plane he had ever flown in the plane, the rudder surface was so heavy that he could barely pull it, and the whole process made a terrible sound that the plane was about to fall apart.

* At the time of the explosion, he almost grazed the mast of the enemy ship before pulling it up. Glancing back at the spectacular explosion, he hurried to the east to give way to the bomb-dropping planes behind him to avoid colliding. However, it was a bit redundant to continue dropping bombs, and a 500-pound* bomb and the chain explosion it caused seemed to be enough.

Project 419 continued to track the enemy two battleships. The enemy did not go far into the Bay of Bengal and apparently waited to come back tomorrow to show his might. Sonar from 419 detected two British submarines patrolling the sea not far away, but both were on the wrong course. Obviously, if a submarine in this era wants to attack an enemy ship, it has to rely entirely on intelligence or port waiting, and there will not be much chance of hitting a big luck on the vast sea.

Shuping suggested that the attack be changed to dawn tomorrow, so that the strength of the Royal Air Force could be effectively used, so that the 419 would not waste too much ammunition. Attacking now, fearing that the enemy will have a whole night to repair the battleship or come up with countermeasures, does not give them time to make effective decisions. Cheng Dayang felt that it made sense, so he postponed the attack again.

After nightfall, Zhou Youfu retreated to the starting position and was given the order to rest in place and attack tomorrow. At this time, the British army began to move from Ranchi, and of course went straight to the besieged Canadian brigade.

The Battle of Kolkata became almost completely separated by two distinct battlefields that had little to do with each other except for the Royal Air Force, with intense fighting on one side and slow-paced, skirmishes on the other. The Indians and the British, one division and one apprentice, were wasting time in almost identical positional warfare.

Tao Mingzhang was about to usher in the attack of the main force of the Japanese army, and Chu Tingchang demarcated the main blocking area and two secondary blocking areas for him early, so that all his overstretched troops were just used. Commander Chu ordered the most powerful artillery to be deployed in the middle, and from the firing range, it was just enough to directly support all three battlefields, without wasting time on maneuvering and distributing the artillery evenly among the three troops; Of course, Tao Mingzhang cited that such a concentrated use of forces for defense was too targeted and ingenious, and there were no troops to serve as a reserve to prevent the enemy from having a fourth line of advance; Especially when the enemy situation is not very clear, it is necessary to rely on map interpretation and turtle shell throwing copper plate as a supplementary judgment.

Of course, Tao Mingzhang can understand the map, these three defensive directions are indeed the most likely offensive routes for the enemy, if they are in a hurry, other routes are too far away. But what if they did have such a partial division, bypassing all the lines of defense and going straight to their own headquarters?

He had only 2 platoons of defensive strength and some non-combat auxiliaries left, which were only enough to maintain the command and not be eaten by the nearby villagers. Chu Shizuo himself was busy cleaning up the scattered 18th Division, and he didn't give him a single soldier at all; That is, there was nothing left but to give him a tip on how to fortify, and a few wagons of shells that were delivered with the order.

He felt that he had no bottom in his heart, where was the problem? He pondered for a long time, and finally found the essence of the problem. That is, Chu Shizuo used a force of 200 divisions to face two main divisions and a fortified city at the same time. If he had told himself about the enemy's strength and disposition a year ago, and had asked how many troops were needed to solve it, he would not hesitate to name the figure of 500,000 troops, when here they only had 12,000 veterans and 8,000 new recruits who were arriving one after another.

At this moment, the whole world is watching the Red Army mobilize a million troops to fight to the death against hundreds of thousands of fascist bandits, hoping to encircle and annihilate a group army unit, thereby boosting the morale of the anti-fascist camp; Only Chu Tingchang was not convinced, in order to steal the limelight, he insisted on using his 20,000 people to play a world miracle here. Although the scale of the campaign was at least ten times smaller than that of the battle in the upper reaches of the Volga River, there was a Japanese-Indian joint army headquarters in Calcutta, which was also a group army unit, and Chu Tingchang was well versed in politics and believed that once he succeeded, Britain and the United States would unconsciously activate the propaganda machine and exaggerate the facts, after all, about 20,000 British troops and 1,500 American troops (mainly engineers) participated in this battle.

Tao Mingzhang's headquarters was located in a local church hospital, and because the defenses were so weak that the cordon was outside the house, he didn't even dare to light too many candles at the headquarters, nor did he dare to stand in front of the window, for fear of being attacked by enemy gunmen who mixed up nearby.

He could only look at the map in the dim candlelight, while waiting for news, and sat opposite Guo Rugui, who had come to inspect the military.

"Too risky, too risky." He shook his head and sighed, "One more battalion would close all the other possible loopholes." What worries me the most is the artillery position, the alert force is too small, if the enemy has a cavalry or bicycle team around and takes the artillery, I am afraid to think about it. ”

"You Chu Shizuo, is that how you usually command?" Director Guo asked, shaking his fan.

"Not really. Although Chu Shizuo is adventurous, the marching formation is still stable everywhere, and there are few cases where the force is used to the extreme. ”

"Speaking of this 2nd Division, I remember that one of its wings broke through the defenses of our 6 divisions in a row during the Battle of Xuzhou, why did Chu Shizuo care so much?"

"The director doesn't have to worry about this, according to the current configuration of force and firepower, my four battalions here intercept the enemy's vanguard without heavy firepower, and it is not a problem, I am just worried that the enemy will come around from the flank."

"Then send a telegram and ask?"

"The rule of our division, if the password is not updated in January, you can't ask about the deployment in the telegram, and today is exactly January. However, it is clearly written in the order of the division seat that the enemy is in a hurry to approach, and there will be no surprise soldiers. ”

"The last time I was at the headquarters, I saw your unit having a meeting and spoke freely, and I had no ordinary concept of hierarchy and paternalistic style."

"The director doesn't know, we really don't have a strong class concept here, Chu Shizuo was originally a translator at the General Staff of Commander Du, and later went to the armored reconnaissance company as a company deputy. At present, it is too late to mention the corresponding rank, and even more so for the cadres of our battalions, Zhou Youfu, who smirked all day long, was originally the platoon commander of the reconnaissance battalion. ”