Endo Kiichi, who suffered a torpedo and lost a destroyer, commanded the fleet to set up an anti-submarine formation and sail towards Fuzhou Fou at a speed of fifteen knots.
Facts have proved that Endo Kiichi's caution is indeed effective. At 15:43 pm, when they were one hundred nautical miles away from the mainland, they were attacked by a second wave of submarines. However, this wave of attacks is not as simple as at noon. This wave of attacks was launched by five submarines on both sides of the Japanese fleet at the same time. Even though the Japanese fleet was well prepared, they were faced with simultaneous attacks from all sides. The Japanese fleet was still in a hurry when the torpedoes emerged. In the chaos, a destroyer and two troop carriers were sunk, and a light cruiser was seriously injured. Fortunately, the surface anti-submarine aircraft on the Japanese aircraft carrier scrambled to take off and fired desperately towards the suspicious sea area. The surrounding destroyers also frantically dropped depth bombs all around, turning the surrounding sea area upside down.
In this chaotic ambush, one of the four lurking submarines was exposed and was rushed by Japanese destroyers and sunk with depth charges, while the remaining three took advantage of the chaos to escape.
News of the loss of a submarine soon reached the ears of Su Rui, who was far away in Guangzhou. Su Rui, who looked gloomy, clutched the telegram in his hand and looked very ugly.
Liang Zhi on the side knew how Su Rui was feeling at the moment, and he comforted softly: "Sir, you don't have to be too sad. Although the U-27 submarine has all died for the country, they also sunk a Japanese destroyer, which can be regarded as A well-deserved death.¡±
Su Rui sighed softly, "Ziran, you have to know that those submarine sailors are all highly educated talents that we have worked hard to select. Even if one of them dies, I will be heartbroken. Now more than fifty sailors from the entire submarine have returned." Dahai, this loss is really too great, do you think I can help but feel sad?"
Liang Zhi remained silent. Although he did not intervene in the formation of the submarine force, he still knew some things. The selection of submarine officers and soldiers was simply more stringent than the selection of pilots selected from a hundred. They were all top-notch in terms of academic qualifications, mental quality, and physical fitness. Even if there were If you are not qualified at all, you will be dismissed. In the words of Navy Commander Cheng Sheng, it is simply more stringent than choosing a son-in-law.
For example, the selection of general ground troops such as infantry is the simplest. Anyone with sound limbs and no acute infectious diseases can join the army. For armored troops, artillery or observers with higher education requirements, they require junior high school students. (Junior high school students) or even high school education is enough. Even the pilot who is known as the proud son of heaven only wants to start as a junior high school student.
But this submarine soldier is different. The standard minimum educational level for submarine soldiers is to graduate from high school. As for physical or mental quality, the requirements are even higher. For example, submariners have a requirement that other arms do not have. All submariners must have straight teeth. This is because submariners need to rely on diving respirators when they need to work underwater or are in distress. This determines Boaters must have straight teeth in order to bite the mouthpiece of the respirator. Therefore, submariners require that the distance between the upper and lower canines should not exceed 0.3 centimeters after the inner teeth bite. As for other requirements for various organs of the body such as ears, eyes, etc., they are not listed one by one.
Strict and demanding requirements make the selection of submariners very difficult. Especially these days, there are really too few educated young people, and it is even more difficult to select qualified submariners from such a small number. Coupled with the competition between the air force and surface ship forces, it can be said that the submarine force is Soldier selection has always been a problem. In the past two years, the submarine force has only formed an underwater force of 22 submarines, which shows the difficulty of building a submarine force.
After a while of silence, Su Rui asked Liang Zhi, "Zi Ran, is there any plan on the submarine to ambush the Japanese ship?"
Liang Zhi quickly replied: "Sir, the submarine force still has a final ambush plan. Seven submarines are conducting a final ambush eighty nautical miles away from the shore. They are expected to contact the Japanese army at 18 o'clock tonight. But According to aerial reconnaissance reports, the Japanese fleet became more cautious after the second ambush. They dispatched more than a dozen seaplanes to conduct continuous reconnaissance around the aircraft carrier fleet. Once traces of submarines were discovered, they would immediately drop depth charges. Our If the submarine takes the risk of launching an attack, we don¡¯t know what the outcome will be, but the losses will definitely be huge.¡±
Su Rui pondered for a long time and then said slowly: "Let's do this, order the submarine force to suspend operations and cruise around the Japanese fleet first. Order the navy division to dispatch immediately to attack the Japanese fleet!"
"What? Let the navy be dispatched?"
Liang Zhi was shocked after hearing this. In fact, the Naval Aviation Division is a shore-based aviation force adapted from the 3rd Air Force Division that was originally planned to be formed but had not yet been completed.
The so-called shore-based aviation is the naval aviation based on land and water airports. Their mission is to assist or help the navy.Seize control of the air and sea along the coast. Moreover, there are certain differences between the shore-based aviation fighters and the air force. For example, the fighters currently equipped by the shore-based aviation force and responsible for seizing air supremacy are not the main P-51 Mustang fighters equipped by the 1st Air Division and the 2nd Air Division. But the F6-F Vixen fighter and the F-4U Corsair fighter.
The F-4F Corsair fighter is also a very excellent fighter. The biggest difference between it and the F6-F fighter is that in addition to its excellent acceleration performance, durability and long range, it can also carry some ground attack weapons. Ground attack mission.
And in addition to these, the Navy Division has also formed two bombing groups, equipped with SBD-5 needless dive bombers and TBF Avenger torpedo attack aircraft. In order to strengthen the combat effectiveness of the Marine Navigation Division, Su Rui specifically ordered the Logistics Department to tilt materials and personnel to the Marine Navigation Division in order to allow them to quickly form combat effectiveness. But as of today, the naval division has only been established for less than three months. According to the plan, it will take another three months to formally form an army. But now Suri wants the unformed naval division to carry out the task of attacking the Japanese fleet. This has to worry Liang Zhi.
"Sir, the Marine Navigation Division has only been established for less than three months. The pilots are still seizing the time to train, especially those pilots of bombers and torpedo planes. They have not completed the training of attacking ships. Should we send them out now? Too hasty? If so, I'm afraid the casualties will be huge. How about we let the 2nd Air Division take over for the Marine Division? Didn't they sink a Japanese battleship and several destroyers last time? ?".
"You're confused!" Su Rui glared at Liang Zhi, "Those are just destroyers, but the 1st Air Division and the 2nd Air Division are equipped with Stuka dive bombers, and they all perform ground attack missions. The second time was that the Japanese did not expect that we would attack their fleet with anti-aircraft fire rifles, so the Stuka could also make a guest appearance on the ship attack mission. But this time the Japanese have obviously strengthened their air defense forces, under the protection of more than 20 destroyers If you let a bomber as heavy as the Stuka carry out a ship attack mission, wouldn't it mean that they would die?"
Liang Zhi's face turned red and his tone was choked. He paused for a while and then said: "Sir, why don't we let them pick up the 2nd and 3rd Division? We'll keep the green hills and don't have to worry about running out of firewood." , it won¡¯t be too late for us to settle accounts with them after our naval division is established.¡±
Su Rui smiled bitterly: "No, Ziran, why don't I want to train the navy more vigorously, but time waits for no one. The war is already in full swing in Europe, and the Germans have beaten the British and French to pieces. , Americans are waiting to find a time to take advantage. But what about us? We are still overwhelmed by a small Japan. If this continues, we will not be able to benefit from this war!"
"Get benefits?" Liang Zhi was dumbfounded after listening to Su Rui's words. He really didn't know what he, Commander Su, was like. Now that they themselves are in danger, he still wants to get benefits from this war. This This kind of thinking is really too powerful.
Liang Zhi let out a long breath, "Okay, now that the commander has made up his mind, it's hard for the department to stop it, but I still suggest that one or two squadrons of fighters from the Second Air Division can be deployed to protect the Hainan Division to avoid The losses suffered by the inexperienced naval divisions were too great.¡±
"Well, that's okay." Su Rui nodded, "I will do it even if you don't say it, but the young eagle always has to spread its wings and fly high, so I have no choice but to do this. As the saying goes, It would be better to cut off one of his ten fingers. If the Second and Third Divisions were allowed to escape back to Japan, with their complete reserve system, they would be able to raise two more elite divisions within a few months, so this I must keep these two divisions!" After saying that, Suri hit the table hard with his hand.
Following Su Rui's order, the Marine Division Air Force Base stationed in Shantou immediately sounded a series of shrill alarms. Pilots who were either training, attending class, or resting came from their respective positions towards The runway was rushed out, and the ground crew were busy refueling or loading the aircraft on the runway.
On the control tower to the west of the runway, Cheng Sheng, who was wearing the rank of rear admiral on the ship, looked at the numerous fighter planes wearing the orange-red flight survival suits unique to the naval aviation and rushing towards the runway. A trace of worry flashed in his eyes.
"Well, it would be nice if we could give these young men a few more months. It's too early to let them go through the baptism of war now."
A colonel on the side comforted: "Sir, we want to give them a little more time, but the Japanese don't give us this time. We can only hope that God can bless them and come back safely."
Cheng Sheng ignored the officer's words and just murmured one sentence: "Shame on the snow"
In Cheng Sheng¡¯s soft words, planes took off one after another.Get up, spread its wings and fly towards the northwest (To be continued)
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