afterglow

Chapter 693: Pumpkin! Battle of the Gulf of Alaska

When the American pilot flying the Corsair saw the Ming army's heavy fighter formation flying in an orderly manner, he approached them without hesitation.

Twin-engine heavy tanks generally have strong firepower but poor mobility. It is not difficult to deal with them as long as you are careful.

The Ming army fighter formation undoubtedly wanted to engage in a head-on confrontation and win with firepower. The US military naturally would not use the weak to defeat the strong, so it immediately rolled to avoid them and then tried to get close and engage in a fight.

Normally, twin-engine heavy fighters would use their large weight and fast dive speed to dodge, so as to avoid getting into a fight at a disadvantage. However, unexpectedly, these dozen Type 38 heavy fighters played to their weaknesses and avoided their strengths, and engaged in a fight with the pirates.

"This is so bizarre! They're like rookies!"

The American pilots felt surprised and puzzled, but in this tense situation they had no time to think about it.

Under the guidance of the aviation guidance officer, the two-plane formation climbed to medium and high altitude to intercept the unknown target above.

The two F4U-4 Corsairs quickly climbed to an altitude of 6300 meters. After looking around, Lieutenant Bacock and his rookie partner saw their target - a four-plane formation of heavy bombers not far away.

Lieutenant Bacock's heart skipped a beat. He instantly remembered the description in the war report not long ago:

"Based on the known information, we roughly speculate that the special bombs of mass destruction used by the enemy are very heavy, perhaps thousands of pounds, and can only be carried by heavy bombers. All fighters and air defense units must pay close attention to suspicious Chinese four-engine bombers and use all means to stop them if necessary."

"Viking 6 reports, we found four heavy bombers approaching the fleet at an altitude of 4 feet. I suspect they may be carrying special bombs." Lieutenant Bacock reported.

However, at this time the radio frequency band was filled with the shouts of other pilots, and his report was drowned out by the constant hawking sounds like conversations in a vegetable market.

The United States certainly had a sufficient base of amateur pilots, but the wartime expansion of the Army and Navy Air Forces was too rapid, and the losses were extremely huge, with more than 10,000 people dying in training alone. Today, the quality of the US Navy Air Force pilots is not much better than that of the Ming Navy Air Force. The wartime flight training subjects received by the Navy Air Forces of both sides have been castrated, which has greatly reduced the training time for intercepting bombers.

Even Lieutenant Bacock, who had been in service for more than half a year, only knew a rough idea, not to mention his rookie wingman.

The two Corsairs bravely climbed to a higher altitude, dived diagonally from the right side of the formation, and fired a series of .50 machine gun bullets. The four Type 12.8s (Z) were not to be outdone, and the machine gun turret on the back of the fuselage fired back fiercely with twin mm aviation machine guns.

"Lieutenant! I was hit, but I'm still in control. Our attacks seem to be ineffective."

"Keep calm! Be careful to attack their engines or wing roots."

There was no way. Even large-caliber machine gun bullets would be of no use when hitting the huge heavy bomber.

Anxious Lieutenant Bacock finally heard the reply from the Wasp's aviation guidance officer: "Viking 6, the others have done well and have shot down five enemy planes. How are you doing?"

The lieutenant eagerly repeated the previous report, but the guidance officer obviously misunderstood - he thought the heavy bomber was a heavy seaplane, and he thought the special bomb was a remote-controlled glide bomb.

So, the Wasp's aviation guidance officer, who was a stock analyst, said calmly: "It looks like the Chinese are using radio-controlled flying bombs. Quick, turn on the jammer."

Since both the German and Ming armies were equipped with remote-controlled glide bombs, the US military, which had suffered heavy losses in the Mediterranean, developed the TDY electronic jamming device, which could interfere with the 350~800MHz frequency band, forcing the German army to switch to a wired remote-controlled version of the glide bomb.

The two pirates launched three attacks in total, with little success, and both of them were injured.

A formation of four Ming army bombers gradually approached the fleet. Three of them turned around one after another, and the other flew forward alone.

At this moment, Lieutenant Bacock was certain that it was the plane carrying the atomic bomb.

At this time, three more pirates came to support from below. They had just killed several heavy fighters of the Ming army when the dual-purpose guns of several destroyers began to fire continuously at the blue sky and white clouds.

However, it was too late. A small orange dot was seen falling out of the plane. The light blue parachute opened and the small orange dot was rapidly falling down.

"I saw the target drop a bomb with a parachute." Lieutenant Bacock hurriedly reported to the radio: "Wasp, I think we are in trouble."

Meanwhile, on the sea...

A white parachute slowly descended and quickly unfolded after hitting the water. Second Lieutenant pilot Yu Caikai flipped a switch and the compressed gas cylinder immediately filled the life raft with air.

All wet and swearing, he climbed up and looked at the American fleet in the distance.

If the tactics were correct, the Type 38 twin-engine heavy fighter could protect itself even if it failed to kill the pirates. But this time, since it had to act as bait, it had no choice but to choose the wrong engagement.

Yu Caikai knew the consequences of looking directly at a nuclear explosion, so he put on the pilot's dark goggles and looked into the distance. The orange life raft was swaying up and down and left and right with the waves.

Suddenly, a flash of light beyond imagination appeared in the distant sky.

Apparently Yu Caikai was too optimistic. Ordinary dark goggles were not enough to withstand the extremely bright flash of a nuclear explosion. His pupils rapidly expanded to their maximum and he became temporarily blind on the spot.

At this moment, he even felt that his wet clothes were dried in an instant.

Because it was coated with orange anti-rust paint, the 350th Meteorological Monitoring Team nicknamed the third atomic bomb the Pumpkin, and its official number was Special Illumination Flare No. 3.

Since the US fleet is constantly moving while sailing, the dropped atomic bombs will also be displaced due to inertia and wind, which is much more difficult than attacking a stationary city.

7月2日下午16：46，远道而来的QZ-350-2号机向第58特遣舰队第2特混大队成功投放强化改装的原子弹——加装一个充了氘氚混合气体的夹层，并在最外边又包裹了一层U-238壳体。

At the moment the internal fission chain reaction occurred, the extremely high temperature and extremely high pressure caused the deuterium-tritium (DT) mixed gas to undergo a fusion reaction. U-238 is normally not a nuclear material because it requires extremely high neutron energy to undergo a fission reaction. However, now a large number of high-energy free neutrons have been successfully recycled, making U-238 partially effective.

The Pumpkin exploded in the air at an altitude of 388m to the southwest of the fleet. The sky was filled with scarlet and colorful light. Its equivalent reached 3.1 tons of TNT.

[Picture] The USS Ross destroyer directly below was swallowed up by the nuclear explosion fireball on the spot. The extremely high temperature, which was higher than the surface of the sun, was enough to vaporize steel. Her superstructure and most of the hull melted and evaporated within tens of milliseconds, and the underwater part was torn into countless steel fragments.

The task force's flagship, the Essex-class ship No. 10, the second-generation Wasp, was more than a thousand meters away from the epicenter of the explosion and within the killing range of light and heat radiation. Her wooden flight deck made of Douglas fir wood instantly caught fire!

Legend has it that more than two thousand years ago Archimedes figured out how to use mirrors to reflect sunlight to ignite invading Roman warships. Now, an artificial uncontrollable sun has been released over the fleet, albeit for only a moment.

There were several Corsair fighters ready to go at the rear of the Wasp's flight deck. Their blue paint was immediately singed, and their internal fuel tanks exploded and turned into fireballs.

The armored flight decks that the Glorious and Indomitable were proud of were heated into red-hot steel plates in the extreme period of time, and anyone who fell on them was like meat being grilled on an iron plate.

Immediately afterwards, the nuclear explosion shock wave swept through the surroundings at eleven times the speed of sound!
The burning flight deck of the Wasp was blown away in the blink of an eye, revealing the supporting steel frame underneath. The bridge collapsed due to the huge instantaneous overpressure, and the entire ship broke and fell into the sea. Hundreds of people inside, including the task force commander Major General Arthur Rayford, died on the spot.

The Independence-class light aircraft carrier USS Tuscaloosa suffered similar damage to that of the Wasp and immediately lost its combat effectiveness.

The superstructure of the USS San Juan anti-aircraft cruiser collapsed in an instant. Two chimneys were broken off by the shock wave and thrown into the sea. The main mast, radar firing director, etc. were blown hundreds of meters away.

The destroyer Renshaw suffered an even worse fate. While its superstructure was torn apart, the depth charges at the stern were induced by the shock wave overpressure, causing a chain explosion. The violent explosion directly shattered the stern.

On the middle flight deck of the Glorious, a Hellcat fighter was lifted up and slammed into the bridge at an extremely fast speed, causing dozens of casualties on the spot. The splashing aviation gasoline directly turned the broken bridge into a blazing fire.

The Enterprise was the farthest from the epicenter, approximately five kilometers away, and the shock wave of the nuclear explosion decayed quickly, so the damage it suffered was the lightest among the four aircraft carriers. Except for more than a dozen people on the deck and several carrier-based aircraft being blown into the sea, there was no major damage.

The flagship was severely damaged, the commander was killed, and half of the ships in the task force lost their combat effectiveness in the blink of an eye under the nuclear attack.

A light gray mushroom cloud gradually rose higher and its upper end penetrated into the cloud layer, indicating that a terrible explosion of new heights had occurred here.

The fleet that was originally retreating southward in a wheel formation suddenly became scattered, with some gradually stagnating, some deviating, and some speeding up to escape.

The planes in the sky were also affected, and one pirate after another rolled down like toy planes.

The QZ-350-2 aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb could not withstand the shock wave. After all, the power of the pumpkin with an equivalent of 3.1 tons was more than half that of the watermelon that destroyed Canberra not long ago. The speed of the propeller plane was still a bit slow.

The out-of-control bomber fell rapidly in a rollover posture. All crew members were killed except for the navigator, mechanic, and four others who successfully parachuted out.

When Cheng Jian learned that his special attack formation was approaching the combat area, he issued instructions, requiring the four air attack squadrons to immediately attack with all their strength, but they still needed to prepare some fighter jets to ensure their own safety.

From dusk to sunset, hundreds of carrier-based aircraft from four squadrons launched attacks one after another on a dozen US warships floating on the sea, like a group of hornets besieging a helpless mouse.

The Wasp, which had lost its bridge, was hit by eight or nine bombs and a similar number of torpedoes within half an hour. One-third of the torpedoes were dropped even though she capsized.

The USS Tuscaloosa, a light aircraft carrier already badly damaged, quickly sank after being hit by five shells and three torpedoes, and the slower Ming pilots could not catch up.

Compared with the Indomitable which escaped with injuries, the Glorious faced more serious problems. First, the fire on the bridge caused chaos. Secondly, the ionizing radiation caused many officers and soldiers to suffer from acute radiation sickness. Fatigue and vomiting seriously affected the normal operation of the battleship.

In dire circumstances, the Glorious struggled to flee southward for dozens of nautical miles, during which time it was attacked successively by hundreds of Ming army planes. Finally, after being hit by more than a dozen heavy bombs and six or seven torpedoes, it lost power and capsized and sank.

In addition, there were still a few unrecognizable destroyers floating on the sea in the nuclear explosion area. The Ming army pilots, who had no time to take any action, threw bombs and torpedoes at these small shrimps.

The 58th Task Force did not know what was happening at first, until 17:15 in the evening, when a patrol fighter reported that "a huge mushroom-shaped white smoke cloud was spotted in the direction of the 2nd Task Force."

Everyone immediately realized what had happened. No wonder they had lost contact with them. For a moment, a bleak atmosphere lingered among everyone.

Faced with such a situation, William Halsey, with a frown on his face, hardened his heart and no longer cared about any orders from his superiors!

He glanced at the nautical chart and made an impromptu decision to order the submarines in the nearby waters to attack on their own. In addition, the Princeton and Franklin launched carrier-based aircraft to conduct night search and attack. After the mission was completed, they did not return but headed eastward to land.

As the sun sets, dozens of carrier-based aircraft take off one after another. They are divided into two formations and fly towards the unknown dark distance in confusion.

One of the formations gained nothing and finally flew east to the Queen Charlotte Islands and made an emergency landing; the second formation discovered a transport fleet that was supplying the A-120 Special Fleet. The attack was rough and sloppy under the cover of night, and only one oil tanker was sunk.

After daybreak, the Ming fleet continued to chase southward for a long time, but the American fleet had no intention of fighting back and was focused on retreating southward as quickly as possible.

Taking into account the increasing threat from submarines and anti-ship missiles - the Xihu submarine carrier was hit by a torpedo, the Neijie aircraft carrier was hit by a bat missile, and if they continued to pursue them, they would enter the combat radius of the US medium bombers. Cheng Jian issued a retreat order.

At this point, the Battle of the Gulf of Alaska came to an end.

在三天两夜之内，明美两军一共投入舰艇部队总吨位接近300万吨，计约29艘航空母舰、17艘战列（巡洋）舰、34艘巡洋舰、127艘驱逐舰、2200架舰载机和岸基飞机参战。

太平洋舰队的损失无疑是巨大的，两场海战一共战沉2艘战列舰、3艘航母、1艘轻型航母、1艘英军租借的装甲航母、11艘驱逐舰、2艘潜艇，总伤亡约合9200人。

Both sides had their trump cards and backup plans, but although the active radar-guided glide bomb was a cutting-edge engineering achievement that other countries of the era could not even dream of, it still could not play the role of an atomic bomb.

The proposal to gradually lift the rationing system had already been discussed by the cabinet and had been on the imperial desk for several days before being submitted to the emperor.

After learning that the nuclear attack was successfully carried out during the naval battle, Zhu Lingjing signed and stamped the document with confidence.

"The weather is nice today, the sun is shining brightly." She said, looking out the window.

(End of this chapter)