Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 695 Codename: "Ascending Dragon"

Li Shijia's speech was like dropping a stone on the calm water, causing a series of ripples.Immediately, people started talking about it, and the two opinions in favor and against were diametrically opposed.Sa Zhenbing, who had been listening carefully to everyone's discussions, took a while to speak: "I have heard all of your opinions on the battle of Mannar. My opinion is that Mannar must be fought no matter what."

Sa Zhenbing's decision was beyond the expectations of many people, and the audience fell silent.Sa Zhenbing paused and continued: "Everyone, please remember that as long as I am still the commander of the Singapore Fleet, this battle must be fought. I hope you will study all possible measures to ensure the success of the sneak attack. The code name of this operation is Designated as 'Thang Long'!"

Sa Zhenbing's determination is so great that many people can't imagine.From the very beginning of proposing the sneak attack plan, he clearly knew that it would be extremely risky and difficult to implement it, but he insisted on implementing the sneak attack plan unswervingly.He used various methods to persuade the officials of the Admiralty who opposed his idea, and even threatened to resign.

In his letter to Chief of General Staff Lin Jianzhang, Sa Zhenbing, in addition to repeatedly emphasizing his thoughts, also resolutely stated to Lin Jianzhang that if the aviation fleet lacked enough courage to fight, he wanted to stand up and personally serve as the commander of the 39th Air Force. Commander, directly command this battle.

Under Sa Zhenbing's repeated insistence, Lin Jianzhang finally officially approved Sa Zhenbing's plan after repeated weighing.

The Gulf of Mannar is a bay on the Indian Ocean, between southeastern India and western Sri Lanka, 130275 kilometers wide and 160 kilometers long, bounded by Rameshwaram Island, Adam Bridge and Mannar Island in the northeast, and Sri Lanka The nearby pearl farms are famous.

At this time, the Mannar Bay was calm and calm, and the guards were sitting in the house chatting. On the radar behind them, a jumping cursor was flashing slowly, and it was quickly moving towards the center of the radar. move.Faced with an abnormal image displayed on the oscilloscope, a French second lieutenant thought that it must be a malfunction of the instrument, but after a quick inspection, no problem was found, and he was finally convinced that it was a fleet of aircraft flying.

Five minutes later, the two sergeants saw a fleet of aircraft appearing northeast of Adam Bridge. The fleet was huge, with more than 5 aircraft.They immediately suggested that the intelligence center be informed by telegram of this discovery.Seven to eight minutes later, the visual signal on the oscilloscope showed that the fleet was about 50 to 8 kilometers away from Adam's Bridge.The intelligence center is located 30 kilometers east of the Gulf of Mannar and more than 40 kilometers south of the radar station.The man on duty at this time was Private Macdonald, the switchboard operator.MacDonald thought that the rest of the Intelligence Center staff had been laid off, so he recorded the information.When he turned his head to check the time, he saw Lieutenant Kermit Taylor, a destroyer officer who had been aide to the watch chief that morning.Neither the duty officer nor the aircraft identification officer were present on this fateful morning.Only Taylor and Macdonald were left in the huge intelligence center.

Macdonald considered the situation reported by the radar station to be important, so he let Taylor read the telegram.The telegram reported all the information available, including the direction, distance, and size of the visible signal.It never occurred to Taylor that the approaching fleet might be an enemy plane. He thought it was a reconnaissance fleet returning from a patrol mission by the coalition forces.Suddenly, he remembered that he had heard a piece of Indian dance music on the way from the dormitory to the information center early in the morning.Taylor remembers one of his pilot friends saying that whenever the reconnaissance plane was out on a mission, the base played this music all night, serving as a navigation signal for the pilot.From this, Taylor was confident that what the radar station had captured was one of the New Crusader's own fleet.

Just 1 minute after the unidentified air formation appeared on the ground radar display, the sonar of the coalition destroyer discovered another submarine of unknown nationality, and then the destroyer dropped many depth charges.Soon, black oil bubbles were found 300 meters from the stern of the destroyer, which indicated that the depth charge was really a submarine.However, this important event did not attract the full attention of the coalition forces.Seeing through the opportunity of Sa Zhenbing's sneak attack plan, he just passed by the British again and again. The god of fate seems to want to bring this disaster to the British in Mannar.

Over the Indian Ocean, the commander of the plan, Shen Debian, used a high-power telescope to observe intently, looking out through a gap in the clouds, and shouted excitedly: "Attention all, we are about to enter the sky over the Bay of Mannar!"

Looking from a distance, the Bay of Mannar is surrounded by white foam from the waves, the land is lush and green, and the mountains are shrouded in a layer of mist.In the morning light, a refreshing scene.The air strike on the Gulf of Mannar included two plans, a strong attack and a surprise attack, and the two plans stipulated two different attack sequences.If it is a surprise attack, the torpedo fleet will lead the charge and attack first before the enemy's anti-aircraft guns fire, so as to obtain the greatest surprise effect.Then, the level bomber fleet and the dive bomber fleet attacked after the torpedo fleet attack.If it is a strong attack, the dive bombers will attack first to contain and suppress the enemy air fire, causing confusion in the enemy's formation, and the torpedo fleet will then take the opportunity to carry out torpedo attacks.Whether it is a surprise attack or a strong attack, it is up to the commander Shen Debian to make a judgment when he orders the deployment.In order to preserve the secrecy, instead of giving orders by radio, it was stipulated that the method of firing signal flares should be used to distinguish surprise attacks from storm attacks: one shot for a surprise attack and two shots for a storm.Only the fighter teams vying for air supremacy, regardless of surprise attack or storm attack, immediately enter the sky over the Gulf of Mannar after the commander gives the order to deploy, and first annihilate the enemy fighter jets in the air.

When approaching Mannar Bay, Shen Debian saw that there was no enemy fighter jet in the sky, and confirmed that a surprise attack plan could be adopted, so he raised the signal gun and fired a signal flare outside the aircraft.After seeing the commander fired a signal flare, the attacking teams immediately began to deploy, increasing their speed and flying towards the target airspace.

The cloud cover gradually became smaller, and the cloud cover was disconnected in many places.When the formation approached the sky over the Bay of Mannar, the sky was clear, and the entire military port could be clearly seen from the northwest valley at the mouth of the bay.

"Reporting captain, we saw the Mannar military port!" Air Force Captain Lin Weicheng shouted excitedly.

Shen Debian also saw the obvious signs of the battleships in the military port, the cage masts, and he counted them with the help of high-powered binoculars. There were 7 battleships moored by the water, and 1 moored in the dock of the Indian Navy Shipyard.

"Communication soldier, issue an attack order now!" Shen Debian shouted to the wingman communications soldier while observing through the binoculars.

The communications soldier pressed the key and repeatedly sent out the password command: "Sudden, Sudden, Sudden" This is the order to start an attack, taking the first word "Du" from "Assault".

Gao Zhihang, who was in charge of the forward assault, immediately commanded the Lanxiang dive-bomber team to enter the preparatory attack position after receiving the attack order. The 53 Lanxiang dive bombers were divided into two groups, one of which was led by him personally to Adam Bridge and Hickam Airport, and the other was commanded by Lieutenant Lin Weicheng to fly to Gurid Airport.

Gao Zhihang saw that at the Hickam Airport not far from the mouth of the bay, there were huge hangars next to each other. Heavy bombers had just been pulled out of the hangars and lined up on the apron.Gao Zhihang quickly swooped over with the plane, and the second plane followed suit.Then, the third, and the fourth.

"Boom! Boom! Boom"

Suddenly, thick smoke rose from Hickam Airport.Almost at the same time, tall plumes of smoke also rose from Adam's Bridge Airport and Gurid Airport.At the same time, the 1st Squadron of the Torpedo Fleet led by Lieutenant Liu Muqun of the Air Force had already detoured to the mouth of the bay and was entering the attack course from Hickam Airport.He clearly knew that this operation was a surprise attack, and the torpedo fleet should start the attack first.So he was taken aback when the smoke suddenly rose over Hickam Field.Because the huge smoke column at the airport covered the attack target of the torpedo fleet, Liu Muqun had no choice but to command the fleet to change the direction of entry and rush towards the enemy fleet staying in the port.

The attack was originally planned to start at 8:5 pm, when the torpedo fleet launched the first torpedo of the war.Now, with the dive bombers attacking first [-] minutes earlier, everything is messed up.Fortunately, the enemy is not on guard at all, so they can let go and attack.Just when the bomb dropped by the Chinese Flying Eagle was about to land in Mannar, Shen Debian issued an order to the communications soldier: "Send a report to the fleet headquarters with a type A radio wave, and the content is: 'My surprise attack is successful!'" The surprise attack was successful The password is "Longwei". With the release of the password, both Sa Zhenbing and the Intelligence Agency of the Navy received this huge news.

When the Chinese fleet began to attack, Binash, the chief of the aviation ground command station stationed in Mannar, was standing in front of a window of the Adam Bridge command center watching the flag-raising team raise the flag. His heart was full of enthusiasm. After the flag-raising ceremony, the coalition The fleet will implement the largest attack plan since World War II, launching a dawn attack on the Chinese navy on the line from the Andaman Islands to Sumatra.But what I never dreamed of was that history played a huge joke today. The interval between China's air strike plan and the New Crusade's attack plan was less than an hour, and the war was about to undergo earth-shaking changes!

At around 7:55, he suddenly heard the scream of the plane diving over the base, and he turned to the messenger and said, "Write down that guy's aircraft number, he violated the 16th Airline Safety Regulations, wait for him I will be severely punished."

"I can't see the number. But I think it may be the plane of an aviation squadron leader, because I see a red line on the plane." The signalman replied.

"Check and see which squadron leader's plane is in the sky." Binash ordered angrily. At the critical moment when the fleet is about to set off across the board, he will never allow any abnormal situation.

At this moment, the communications soldier suddenly reported in a sharp voice: "The plane swooped down and dropped a black object!"

(End of this chapter)