Chapter 996: Bloody Air Battle

“Maintain mutual fire support! Do not panic!” The monotonous phrase repeated in the German pilots’ headsets. The battle had only just begun… For these bombers, the real mission was only just beginning.

These bombers had no fighter escort now. Their options for dealing with the enemy were extremely limited. They could only rely on the massive amount of defensive weaponry carried on board, covering almost every angle.

Beyond these weapons, the only other thing they could rely on was a complex but highly effective combat box formation. Entrust your weak spots to your wingmen, and face your enemy with your strongest side!

They were now far from home, over enemy territory. If they were shot down, an endless life as a prisoner of war awaited. No one wanted to be captured, least of all these warriors of the sky, these freest of men who had spent their lives soaring?

“Fire! Fire! Shoot down those damn British planes! They’re too fast! I can’t get a lock! Ventral turret! On your left, he’s yours!” In the dorsal turret, a female gunner, while maneuvering her twin-linked cannons in a fierce barrage, shouted into the intercom, calling for the turret below. The enemy plane was too fast, making it impossible for her to effectively suppress the target.

What was even more terrifying was that this British aircraft’s cannons were all concentrated near the nose. This configuration made it easier for the pilot to aim and to concentrate his firepower. In just a few short minutes, these few British jet fighters, appearing out of nowhere, had indeed inflicted heavy losses on the German bombers.

This was already the fifth German bomber shot down by a jet. Watching their comrades trail long plumes of smoke as they plunged to the ground, a heavy feeling settled in everyone’s heart. The enemy showed no sign of leaving. Clearly, their ammunition and fuel were plentiful, and they could continue to tangle with the German bombers for a long time.

The female gunner in the belly turret looked a little small, but her face still had a certain charm. She was, at least, a pretty girl, and this kind of girl didn’t seem to belong on a battlefield where bullets were flying everywhere. But this was a war, a war where all means were employed. So she had joined the army and had sworn to fight for the Führer to the end.

She frantically spun her turret, aiming the two 30mm cannons to her left. Then she saw a new-model British fighter diving down, its roaring engine a sound that, once heard, was hard to forget. She slammed her triggers, and the two cannons trembled, spitting dazzling tongues of fire.

The shells tore into the enemy plane’s fuselage and wings. The enemy pilot, still focused on flying his plane, seemed not to have expected to be hit. Unfortunately, he quickly discovered the plane was no longer under his basic control. The aircraft he was flying, along with its engine, a section of its wing, and half its tail, had been blown to pieces by the German cannons.

“I hit him! I hit him!” the pretty gunner screamed, beside herself with joy. The unique sound of a woman’s voice echoed in everyone’s headsets. The news gave everyone a jolt of excitement. At least it proved the opponent was not invincible.

James felt that the engineers and designers of the British Empire all deserved a medal. The weapons of war they had developed were shining here, striking a heavy blow against the invading German bomber group. In just ten short minutes of combat, a dozen German bombers had been sunk. Compared to the P-40 unit he had just led, they were countless times stronger.

His men had fought to the death to shoot down two enemy planes, at a cost of 13 of their own. But when these Meteor jet fighters had arrived, they had effortlessly achieved a stunning 10-to-0 kill ratio. James knew just how powerful the enemy was, which was why he held his comrades-in-arms in such high esteem. He even felt a strange sense of pride welling up, thinking that the American equipment was inferior to Britain’s own.

Unfortunately, during this period of combat, the Germans were also slowly adapting to the enemy aircraft’s speed and attack methods. They began to strengthen their coordination, increasing the density of their fire from above to interfere as much as possible with these high-speed British fighters and to disrupt their formation.

And during this time, the Germans were not without their own successes. They had shot down two of the British P-40s, barely managing to maintain the current situation. But everything changed when a Meteor was shot down. The British, at that moment, seemed to have lost all their advantage.

When James led the remaining four fighters back into the fray, he personally witnessed the moment a Meteor was destroyed. First, a shell struck the Meteor’s flimsy wing. Then the poor plane, due to its own excessive speed and the powerful tearing force of its engine, disintegrated in mid-air.

It was as if a piece of paper was being simultaneously ripped to shreds by a dozen people from all directions. The Meteor fighter also scattered in the air, spinning like a firework as it fell to the ground. He flew his plane in a daze, watching the Meteor vanish like a shooting star, not even noticing that his own wingman had been turned into a sieve by the dense German fire.

“Captain! Watch your six! Captain! Captain James!” A desperate cry in his headset pulled James from his dazed state back to reality. He frantically threw his control stick to one side, hastily changing his plane’s flight path.

Then he felt his plane shudder suddenly. This meant the plane he was flying had been hit by a German shell. Startled, he quickly felt his chest, finding that nothing had pierced his own fragile body.

But this was not necessarily good news, because he felt his plane was no longer under his control and was falling from an altitude of over 9,000 meters. This was no laughing matter. He had to find a good opportunity to bail out, or he would die in the high altitude, where humans could not survive, from lack of oxygen and cold.

After a dizzying spin, he finally got his bearings. The German planes were right above him. The poor man, after such a violent ordeal, had not even had time to get out of the German bomber group’s firing range.

Time is sometimes unfair. The happy moments are always short, but when disaster strikes, it seems to last too long. James finally managed to control his plane, getting the damn thing to fly as straight as possible to make it easier for him to bail out later. But after he had completed his efforts, he looked up and saw another Meteor fighter being shot down by the Germans.

The absolute disparity in numbers had finally brought the battle back to the same starting line. These German bombers, after a brief period of confusion, had begun to systematically and in an organized manner, engage in a collective defense to interfere with the Meteor’s diving attacks.

This tactic was very effective, because in their training exercises, these German gunners had trained with even faster German fighters. In terms of speed, the British Meteor was only about the same as the Ta-152, not enough to unduly surprise the seasoned German bomber crews.

At this very moment, another plague had latched onto the Royal Air Force. In the cockpit of the lead Meteor, an earlier production model, the red overheating alarm suddenly began to blare. The plane’s engine had malfunctioned. The shrill sound of the alarm made the RAF colonel, who had test-flown this plane, frown.

He quickly pulled his plane out of the battle, but unfortunately, time did not leave him many opportunities. Suddenly, the engine pod slung under his plane’s wing exploded. Debris swept into his cockpit, riddling his legs and waist with countless holes.

The unreliable technology, which had been rushed into service, had finally, in this high-intensity air battle, exposed its inherent problems. These technical problems were not caused by the engineers and scientists, but were limited by the instability of the production process, and the machine’s own defects or minor faults.

In any case, the Germans had been holding back their own jet engines and their derivative jet fighter projects, while Britain, in order to turn the tide, had prematurely entered this disaster-prone race.

The test pilot colonel finally paid the price for his persistence. He knew he could not possibly return to the ground safely. The plane had already lost partial control. If he held on for a few more seconds, he might lose the rest. And so he adjusted his plane and, braving the hail of bullets, pointed its nose at a German bomber.

To agonizingly control the plane, to crash headlong into the enemy—this was his last conscious thought. The blood loss was making him dizzy, and his hands and feet were beginning to lose control… Unfortunately, heaven did not even give this poor, persistent man the chance to take the enemy with him. His plane veered off course and was then torn to pieces in mid-air by a dense burst of cannon fire.

Watching that Meteor fighter, with its eye-catching red nose and the RAF roundel painted on it, explode into a ball of fire in the sky, James felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He was unwilling to admit that the world dominated by Britain was gone, unwilling to admit that his own motherland had been defeated.

He watched those massive planes open their belly bomb bays, saw the neatly racked bombs, and only when he saw the altimeter on his instrument panel in his shaking plane show 3,000 did he push open his canopy and jump out of his plane.

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