The Milky Way is Also a Grain of Sand
Chapter 211 Battle in the Sky
This was the order given at dinner last night:
Today, they also needed to escort a transport plane to Jurong, carrying four officers with two radio stations.
These four were the liaison officers prepared by the Wuhan headquarters for the 66th Army and the Special Operations Company:
Bu Heshun, telegraph operator for the Special Operations Company; Leng Hongzhe, cipher clerk;
Mu Yingyao, telegraph operator for the 66th Army; Lü Hongmao, cipher clerk.
These four officers were all reliable personnel from the Nanjing Telecommunications Section.
After being selected, they were personally summoned by Chiang Kai-shek.
Having heard the President's instructions, they came to the airport.
The four of them were to parachute down when they reached Jurong, depending on the situation.
The situation was whether the troops below were still organized.
If they were still organized, they needed to go down immediately
to establish contact between these two units and Wuhan.
Judging from the reports of the hidden personnel left in Nanjing yesterday, the retreat of the National Revolutionary Army from Nanjing this time
was far more chaotic than the retreat from Shanghai.
This made Chiang Kai-shek both gratified and heartbroken.
He was gratified that the retreat of a defeated army would be a complete rout, with no one able to command it properly.
The retreat from Shanghai, which he commanded, had already been done very well.
Looking at this retreat from Nanjing, the losses were truly enormous.
After flying to Jurong, Bu Heshun and the others needed to find out about the situation of the ground forces first.
If these two units had already dispersed, the four of them would return with the transport plane.
This was a dangerous journey, and the four officers knew it without being reminded.
Andrei and the other five knew it, and the pilots on the transport plane behind them knew it too.
At this time, the airspace around Nanjing was controlled by the Japanese devils.
These fighter planes and reconnaissance planes were taking every opportunity to slip through.
If they were not discovered by the Japanese devils, all would be well!
If they were discovered, they would need to find a way to escape.
But the transport plane was different; it was large and flew slowly.
Once discovered by Japanese fighter planes, it was basically a near-death experience.
The pilot of the transport plane, Captain Hang Xingde, was already prepared to sacrifice himself.
When they departed from Wuhan, they flew along the towering mountains south of the Yangtze River.
When they were about to reach Nanjing, in order to find Jurong,
the entire squadron had to find Nanjing first, and then fly towards Jurong.
Just as they arrived over Nanjing, Japanese planes were also in the air.
It was as if they knew they were coming and had set an ambush.
Andrei's squadron, realizing that something was wrong, had already identified the direction
and immediately flew towards Jurong.
As the commander of the first flight squadron to enter Nanjing, Captain Tomonao Tomoya was very excited.
They had just transferred to Dajiaochang Airport yesterday afternoon when they received orders: a squadron from Wuhan would come to Nanjing on the morning of the 14th to carry out a secret mission.
It was clearly known that this squadron was the Andrei squadron sent by the Soviet Union to help the National Revolutionary Army.
Captain Tomonao Tomoya's mission was to shoot down this squadron.
This was a very important task: shooting down the squadron could further put pressure on the Wuhan headquarters
to accept the peace talks sooner.
On the other hand, it could also teach the Soviets a lesson, so that they would not dare to send planes to help the National Revolutionary Army in the future.
Having just arrived in Nanjing and receiving such an important mission, Captain Tomonao Tomoya was very excited.
There was one flaw in the intelligence: it did not specify when the Andrei squadron would depart and when it would arrive.
This required Captain Tomonao Tomoya's squadron to prepare for battle from dawn.
After thinking about it, Captain Tomonao Tomoya
immediately assigned the tasks: his squadron had a total of thirteen planes: nine fighters and four bombers.
He ordered that, starting at seven o'clock on the 14th, there should be four planes patrolling in the sky at all times.
Once National Revolutionary Army planes were discovered entering, they should report immediately.
The remaining fighter planes, ready at Dajiaochang, would immediately take off and join the battle.
This was the best way to wait for the rabbit to come to the tree.
At seven o'clock in the morning, the sky over Nanjing was not friendly to Captain Tomonao Tomoya's squadron at all.
The entire sky was misty and rainy.
The light rain continued to fall, and visibility in the sky was very low.
And there were many clouds at low altitude, which made it impossible for Captain Tomonao Tomoya's planes to see far in the sky.
Captain Tomonao Tomoya took the lead in patrolling the sky for an hour.
Having found nothing, he replaced it with the Touno Kouda squadron to patrol the sky.
Now it was past eight o'clock, the sky over Nanjing was gloomy and the visibility was extremely low.
The Touno Kouda squadron, flying in the sky, was constantly traveling through the clouds.
They flew like this for an hour, finding nothing.
After the third patrol team took to the sky, Captain Takano Souta and his team of three fighters and one bomber circled over Nanjing City.
Although it was past nine o'clock in the morning, the sky was still covered with dark clouds.
"The weather is terrible," complained pilot Minamizaki Yu in his headset.
"Yes! The visibility is too low! Everyone, be careful.
Don't crash!" joked pilot Futakawa Ryota.
These four planes were patrolling in the sky, and it was already 9:37. In another half an hour,
if they didn't discover any enemy planes, they would go back, and Captain Tomonao Tomoya and his men would patrol for the second time.
At this moment, Futakawa Ryota caught a glimpse of a large bird passing by in the clouds on his left.
He paid attention to it, but found nothing.
But he still said nervously, "I saw a shadow fly past.
I don't know what it was, but it was flying from the south."
After reporting, pilot Futakawa Ryota's plane had already flown above the cloud.
This cloud was too big, and he couldn't see the edge of it at all.
Futakawa Ryota hesitated: as a senior fighter pilot, he certainly knew that if there were enemy planes ahead in the clouds,
he would be a target if he drilled into it at this time.
But if he didn't go in, the enemy would run away.
A difficult choice!
Just then, pilot Minamizaki Daisuke, who was patrolling in a transport plane, reported, "I'm in the south.
I've already found a shadow, it's a big eagle! It's a big eagle!"
This relaxed everyone's tense mood at once.
The remaining six fighter planes, which had just been resting at Dajiaochang Airport, were ready and just about to take off.
The alert was lifted.
At this moment, Futakawa Ryota reported again: "Enemy planes found! Enemy planes found! Six enemy planes, 15 degrees southeast."
Just now, a cloud had been blown away by the wind, revealing a clear sky.
Futakawa Ryota could clearly see: six planes were flying from the south towards this direction.
After reporting, pilot Futakawa Ryota had seen it clearly.
Among the enemy planes on the opposite side were five fighters and one transport plane.
He now wanted to take advantage of the cover of the clouds in the sky to quietly approach those planes
and secretly shoot down the transport plane.
With this plan, pilot Futakawa Ryota immediately hid in the clouds
and flew towards the squadron.
Captain Andrei was flying at the front of the squadron when a gust of wind passed by.
He suddenly spotted a Japanese fighter plane flying over, shuttling through the clouds and rushing towards him.
He immediately ordered, "Yevgeny, take them to Jurong.
I'll fight this plane and shoot it down."
He turned the nose of his plane and immediately met Futakawa Ryota.
Yevgeny immediately said, "Grigory, fly to high altitude to be on guard.
Yekaterina, you go to the rear of the transport plane to protect it from a high position.
Leonid, you protect the right wing of the transport plane. I'll lead the way."
For these fighter planes, running away was relatively easy.
Only this transport plane had almost no weapons.
As long as it was bitten by a fighter plane, it would only be beaten.
Fortunately, they discovered it early, and there was only one enemy plane.
Just as the squadron turned towards Jurong, Minamizaki Yu was already flying in front in a Mitsubishi A5.
Grigory had just side-slipped, wanting to intercept the incoming Japanese fighter plane,
when he heard Andrei's warning in his headset: "Don't turn back! Don't turn back! Mission canceled, fly straight ahead.
There are seven Japanese fighter planes behind you."
At this time, if the transport plane slowed down to drop off the personnel,
it would never be able to return today.
Hang Xingde suddenly said in his headset, "My mission is to send them here.
I'm going to make a forced landing and seek protection from them.
When these Japanese planes are gone, I'll fly again."
He did this for several reasons: his mission was to deliver people.
Now that he had arrived, taking them back would definitely affect the battle situation.
In addition, his transport plane could never outrun the Japanese fighter planes.
Rather than being shot down by the Japanese devils in the middle of the escape, it was better to be shot down after completing the mission.
The last reason was: if he continued to escape, Andrei and his five fighter planes would have to protect him.
The five of them were also very dangerous.
It was with these considerations that he decided to make a forced landing. If he succeeded,
the troops on the ground would definitely not be able to protect the plane, but protecting him should not be a problem!
At least he could stay alive.
To stay alive, Hang Xingde decided to take a gamble.
He was already working hard to lower the altitude of the plane, looking for a suitable landing site.
He had known about the two roads on the ground for a long time.
Now he had to choose to make a forced landing on the road.
Captain Andrei thought for a moment: "Go ahead! We're going back.
Good friend! We'll miss you."
This was his choice, and even if the transport plane didn't send the personnel down, the possibility of escaping from the Japanese fighter planes was very small.
Andrei certainly knew that after the transport plane made a forced landing, the mobility of his squadron would be greatly increased.
All five people in the squadron knew this.
Lin Fan looked at the Japanese plane trailing the transport plane, which had entered his attack range.
Without hesitation, he immediately opened fire.
A shell flew from the ground, rushing out at a speed of eight hundred and twenty meters per second.
Captain Takano Souta watched as he got closer and closer to the transport plane in front.
The plane was already panicking and was rapidly decreasing in altitude.
Was it trying to make a forced landing?
Was it trying to make his death less ugly?
The smile in Captain Takano Souta's eyes grew thicker.
Until now, he hadn't fired a single shot. If he could force the plane to crash and self-destruct without firing a single shot,
he would have something to brag about in the future.
Just as he was thinking this, a flash of fire appeared in front of him.
Captain Takano Souta felt the aircraft under him shake violently,
as if it wanted to fall apart.
The plane he was flying in really did fall apart.
"Oh my God!" Captain Andrei, who was watching this scene from afar, exclaimed.
"What did I see? A miracle!" Captain Andrei shouted loudly.
The pilots flying in front didn't know what was happening.
They all asked, "Captain! What happened?"
"What happened?"
"The enemy plane that was chasing up was blown up!" Captain Andrei roared.
Captain Takano Souta had originally been flying at the front of the entire Japanese squadron.
The six fighter planes of Captain Tomonao Tomoya's squadron saw it clearly from behind.
Captain Tomonao Tomoya couldn't believe his eyes and angrily ordered:
"The remaining planes of the Takano Souta squadron will destroy the anti-aircraft gun positions over there.
Captain Touno Kouda, chase those planes for me.
Don't let them escape."
In fact, without Captain Tomonao Tomoya's order, the Touno Kouda squadron in front was already only a little over a thousand meters away from the transport plane.
Hang Xingde heard in his headset that the enemy plane chasing him had been shot down.
He felt a little more at ease.
His hands operated more steadily, and the plane flew more smoothly.
This finally made the four pieces of cargo in the plane feel a little more stable.
Just now, in order to avoid the Japanese fighter plane chasing up behind him, the transport plane had made several tactical maneuvers.
This had caused the four pieces of cargo in the plane to suffer a lot.
Lin Fan shot down the closest Japanese devil with one shot.
All the pilots in the air were shocked.
On the ground, Commander Deng Longguang and his 88th Army saw a Japanese plane shot down with one shot.
Commander Deng Longguang confirmed one more thing: what the Special Operations Company said about being able to shoot down Japanese planes was actually true!
Captain Touno Kouda led his squadron of three planes
and closely chased after the transport plane in front.
The fighter planes in front had obviously given up on the transport plane.
They had accelerated and flown in front of the transport plane.
Looking at the transport plane not far in front, Captain Touno Kouda smiled grimly:
"You can't escape."
He was not alone in the battle. There were planes on both the left and right sides of Captain Touno Kouda to escort him.
This allowed him to complete the mission of shooting down the transport plane even if he encountered an enemy plane ambushing in the air.
As the distance closed to eight hundred meters, in another ten seconds, the transport plane would enter the range of his machine guns.
Captain Touno Kouda's mood began to become excited.
After just blowing up a Japanese plane,
Lin Fan didn't stop. He adjusted the angle and direction of the anti-aircraft gun.
This time, he aimed at the three planes that were closer and fired again.
The three enemy planes were flying side by side in a triangular formation.
Lin Fan first shot at the plane in the middle. Judging from the flight paths of these three planes,
they were heading straight for the transport plane.
Lin Fan didn't understand in his heart: the National Revolutionary Army was sending a transport plane to Nanjing at this time.
Were they sending supplies to that unit?
In Lin Fan's current mind, he believed that nothing was more important than the problem of eating for those National Revolutionary Army troops who had escaped the encirclement of the Japanese devils.
Seeing that the transport plane was flying lower and lower, it didn't seem like it was avoiding the Japanese fighter planes.
It looked like it was going to make a forced landing here.
In any case, he would first shoot down the tails chasing the transport plane.
When Captain Touno Kouda saw the sudden burst of light in front of him,
the plane he was piloting had already exploded in the air.
He was not the first to explode, nor was he the last.
The other two planes in his squadron exploded no more than five seconds after him.
In the air, the second plane, the third plane, and the fourth plane exploded in succession,
like fireworks blooming in the sky over Jurong.
Andrei's plane was at high altitude, and he could still see the brilliant plane explosions like fireworks in front of him.
When the fireworks flashed,
Andrei didn't know what to say.
He could only make meaningless exclamations in the communicator: "Ah! Oh! Ah!..."
This situation confused the other pilots in the squadron.
They all asked with concern, "Captain! What's wrong with you?"
"Captain! You're flying a plane! Not driving a car!"
After reacting for a while, Andrei loudly ordered, "Yevgeny, move closer to the original direction.
The anti-aircraft fire on the ground is very strong!
Very powerful!
They can cooperate with us to shoot down Japanese planes.
We don't need to escape."
He then ordered the other pilots under his command, "Turn around! Lure the Japanese planes into this airspace.
Let the ground forces shoot down the Japanese planes."
"Received!" pilot Yevgeny replied loudly.
Pilot Futakawa Ryota finally flew out from the middle of the cloud.
He also flew towards Jurong.
Now there were only five Japanese fighter planes in the air.
Captain Tomonao Tomoya had already discovered that today's opponent was a bit powerful.
He immediately reported to the Dajiaochang tower, requesting reinforcements.
They belonged to the Third Fleet of the Navy, and his request for assistance was immediately sent up urgently.
The support of the Third Fleet was temporarily far away and could not solve the urgent problem.
Captain Tomonao Tomoya and his three fighter planes had originally wanted to overtake and intercept the transport plane in front.
Unexpectedly, just as they entered the Jurong airspace from the flank, Lin Fan aimed the anti-aircraft gun at them again.
When Captain Tomonao Tomoya saw the Touno Kouda squadron being blown up,
he had already changed his mind, he wanted to escape.
But this was something he could do, but not say.
So he pretended to have suddenly discovered an enemy plane and rolled his entire plane to the side.
In front of him was a cloud, and as long as he flew into this cloud, he could spread his wings and fly away.
He could also stay away from the magical cannon on the ground and be safe.
What he didn't expect was that Lin Fan fired three more shells.
The first shell hit Captain Tomonao Tomoya's fighter plane, which was performing in the air.
Lin Fan also saw that he was about to escape his grasp, so he prioritized sending him a shell.
Immediately afterwards, the other two fighter planes in Captain Tomonao Tomoya's squadron followed in his footsteps
and disintegrated in the air.
The Tomonao Tomoya squadron, which originally had nine fighter planes and held an absolute advantage in the air battle with the Andrei squadron,
only had two fighter planes left after flying to Jurong for less than five minutes.
Pilot Minamizaki Yu became the last two fighter planes in the entire squadron.
The order they had just received was to attack the anti-aircraft gun positions on the ground.
Now he had already turned around and was no longer going to carry out this mission.
A ground anti-aircraft team that could shoot down seven fighter planes would certainly not mind shooting them down as well.
The five fighter planes of the Andrei squadron were no longer running away at this time, they had turned around.
The roles of hunter and prey had now been reversed.
Pilot Minamizaki Yu made a decisive decision, no longer attacking the artillery positions, and not even going to pursue the transport plane that was about to make a forced landing.
They maneuvered their planes in a beautiful U-turn in the air and turned their heads to fly towards the Yangtze River.
Now there were five planes chasing him behind him, so of course they could only fly to the airspace of the Third Fleet parked on the Yangtze River.
This was the only way to seek their protection.
Pilot Futakawa Ryota was not yet aware of what had happened in Jurong.
He crashed into them head-on.
Like a blinded rhinoceros, he rushed straight towards the five fighter planes of Andrei and the others.
When he flew his plane out of the clouds, less than a thousand meters in front of him were the five planes that he had initiated the attack on today.
All five planes were there!
This was not good news. One against five, Futakawa Ryota was not so sure.
Feeling that he couldn't handle the situation, pilot Futakawa Ryota activated the emergency escape mode.
However, the two sides were heading towards each other, and the distance was only a thousand meters. Just as he began to move, the distance between the two sides closed by two hundred meters.
Andrei was now steady and ordered, "Shoot down this enemy plane that's flying over first."
As an ace pilot, he hadn't shot down a single plane in today's battle.
The enemy had lost seven planes, but none of it had anything to do with these pilots.
This made Captain Andrei feel a little flustered!
Captain Andrei directly used the same method that Futakawa Ryota had just used.
He directly drove his plane over.
On his left was Yevgeny, on his right was Grigory.
Above him was Leonid, and below him was Yekaterina.
These five planes blocked all the positions that Futakawa Ryota could escape.
Futakawa Ryota was already turning to the left at this time, he wanted to fly back.
Because flying straight over, whether it was up, down, left, or right, there would be a fighter plane waiting for him.
Although the ending was doomed, he still wanted to save himself.
As the enemy plane turned, the planes of the entire Andrei squadron also turned at the same time.
Futakawa Ryota had just turned around when he plunged into a cloud.
Now these clouds had become his best protection.
Captain Andrei shouted loudly, "Be careful! There are clouds ahead."
His warning came a little late, and the entire squadron rushed in.
Flying in the clouds was not easy to maneuver.
Captain Andrei ordered, "Let's all turn to the right and fly back. We're not going to chase the Japanese devils' escaping planes anymore."
Just as they turned, the clouds in front seemed to open a window.
There was a blank spot with high visibility.
As the entire Andrei squadron flew past here, Futakawa Ryota suddenly burst out from the side, and the machine guns under the belly of the plane fired fiercely.
He hit Yekaterina's plane all at once.
Andrei rolled to the side, corrected his direction, and fired at the suddenly appearing enemy plane.
Futakawa Ryota ignored the plane that was firing at him.
He set his sights on Grigory's fighter plane again.
The tongues of the machine guns swept across the fighter plane piloted by Grigory.
Grigory and Yekaterina's planes were trailing black smoke and plunging towards the ground.
Andrei had already locked onto this enemy plane at this time and also shot off the tail of Futakawa Ryota's plane.
He chased after the plane that was flying crookedly in the air.
He continued to attack until Futakawa Ryota parachuted out of the fighter plane.
Only then did he chase after the snow-white parachute and, looking at Futakawa Ryota's horrified face, pressed the launch button.
After shooting down this enemy plane, he had the energy to ask, "Yekaterina, what's wrong with you?"
"My plane needs to be repaired, I'm making an emergency landing.
I found a runway to land on.
On the runway where the transport plane landed earlier."
"Grigory, how are you?" Andrei asked.
"I'm following behind Yekaterina, no problem for now.
I'm also preparing to make a forced landing to check the tail."
A total of six planes came out this time, and three had made forced landings below.
Andrei only thought for five seconds before ordering, "Let's all make forced landings here.
Help them repair the planes and go back together."
While the Andrei squadron was still chasing the Japanese planes,
Hang Xingde had already aimed the plane at the highway.
This road had always been the main route from Nanjing to Hangzhou, and the road conditions were not very good.
The Special Operations Company was a semi-mechanized unit that relied more on roads.
The requirements for road conditions were relatively high, so this section of road controlled by Lin Fan
had been roughly repaired.
It was just right for Hang Xingde to land.
Watching this not-so-large plane dive down from the air, crash heavily on the ground, and then rush forward for hundreds of meters,
it finally stopped.
Just as the plane touched the ground, there were more than a dozen warhorses running alongside him.
When the plane came to a stop, the warhorses also stopped.
Hang Xingde was relieved: he had finally saved his life again today.
From the communication, he already knew that the enemy plane that had been chasing him had been shot down.
Now he also wanted to know what was different about this 66th Army.
That they dared to stay still in this place when the entire Nanjing Garrison District had collapsed.
At this moment, the news that the entire fighter squadron was going to make a forced landing here came over the headset.
He quickly taxied the transport plane forward three hundred meters
to make way for the fighter planes that were landing behind.