The expeditionary force began to dominate Southeast Asia by recruiting defeated soldiers

Chapter 352: Battle for Chittagong (4) The mosquito glued together has come apart

The number of John's aircraft is rapidly decreasing.

Under the sky, the once densely packed groups of bombers have now collapsed and scattered.

Some of John's pilots had already lost their nerve. After discovering that the P-47s of the People's Army destroyed more than 20 escorting handsome fighters almost as easily as cutting melons and vegetables, they quickly opened the bomb bays, discarded the 6 500-pound bombs and 4 250-pound bombs inside, and then turned around and returned without looking back.

The Indian farmers on the ground were in trouble. They were looking up to see the excitement, but suddenly saw countless black spots falling down, densely descending towards their farmland.

What followed was a series of violent explosions, and countless rice and soil were blown into the sky under their dull gaze.

The sky was filled with the broken wings and fractured tails of fighter planes, flying skins and fuel tanks that burned rapidly after being hit.

The broken fuselage continued to fall, and pilots kept jumping out of the plane, with white parachutes floating slowly in the air.

The P-47 fighter planes were like a group of bloodthirsty birds of prey, constantly diving, strafing, climbing, diving again, and reaping again - the almost crushing massacre completely defeated John's bomber force.

The radio channel was filled with excited shouts:

"Black Hawk 3 shot down the target!"

"Black Hawk 15 took one down!"

"Did you see that guy's explosion? Beautiful!"

"Hahaha, you blew its tail off!"

However, battles are always full of surprises.

"Another one! This is your third victory today, right?"

Just as the deputy commander had just destroyed a Mosquito bomber and was about to look for the next target, a sharp whistling sound suddenly rang in his ears.

"Ta-ta-ta-ta!"

A fierce rain of bullets swept over, and a string of 7.7mm armor-piercing bullets directly hit his right engine cylinder, and black smoke immediately billowed out of the nose of the aircraft.

At the same time, the fuel tank of his plane was also hit and instantly caught fire!

"Oh shit!"

The deputy commander pushed the stick to the right suddenly, making the plane roll, and then pulled up hard in an attempt to shake off the enemy plane behind him.

But at this time, he could clearly feel that the plane was underpowered.

He saw the needle of the speedometer on the instrument panel drop rapidly back to the left, and as the speed decreased, the P-47 shuddered and lost some of its lift.

"Damn it, you're in trouble today."

The deputy commander quickly looked up and scanned the sky through the teardrop-shaped canopy. Then he saw a Hawk Hurricane fighter that had climbed up at some point was hit by a hail of bullets fired by another P-47 and caught fire.

On the radio, the wingman shouted anxiously: "Boss, you're on fire! Jump out!"

"Bullshit! If you parachute now, you will be captured." The deputy commander cursed. This place is still some distance away from Chittagong. It is the area controlled by the John people. He has no confidence that he can pass through the blockade and return to Chittagong after parachuting.

Ignoring the sweat on his face, he gritted his teeth, straightened the nose of the plane, and began to dive. "I can still fly. Don't worry about me, keep chasing!"

He knew that the most important thing now was to destroy the remaining bombers.

The Mosquito bombers had already begun to flee to low altitude, attempting to rendezvous with their Spitfire escort formation.

The good news was that the liquid rubber compound in the self-sealing tank quickly blocked the bullet hole, and the fuel leak stopped.

As the plane dived, the fire died out without fuel to fuel it.

He glanced down at the dashboard and found that the self-sealing function of the fuel tank had taken effect and the pointer of the fuel gauge was no longer moving rapidly.

Although a lot of fuel had leaked just now, the remaining fuel was still enough for him to return.

Although the engine was severely damaged, it appeared that it could still maintain flight with the remaining cylinders.

"Black Hawk 1, Black Hawk 1," the deputy commander said calmly, panting. "Black Hawk 2 is seriously damaged. I'm afraid it won't last long. Requesting to return."

There was a moment of silence on the radio, and then Cang Xingzhou's voice came: "Return approved, wish you good luck!"

The deputy commander took a deep breath, suppressed the anger and unwillingness in his heart, and waved his wings to his wingman, indicating that he would start returning.

The P-47's nose engine dragged a long trail of black smoke as it slowly turned and flew towards Chittagong.

-----

At the same time, other P-47s were chasing the remaining Mosquito bombers to low altitude.

The remaining twenty or so Mosquito bombers, under the cover of Spitfire fighters, desperately moved towards Chittagong.

Obviously, there are quite a few tough guys among the John pilots who are not cowards. Even in such an unfavorable situation, they are still trying desperately to complete the mission.

"Hurry! Hurry! They're catching up!"

A Mosquito bomber pilot shouted nervously. He kept trying to change the direction of flight, but to no avail.

The P-47 behind him easily caught up with him, suddenly closed the distance, and opened fire with 8 12.7mm machine guns at the same time!

"Ta-ta-ta-ta!"

The bullet tore through the Mosquito's wing and blew up the inboard fuel tank.

The next second, the wooden fuselage, which had long been unable to bear the weight, began to disintegrate, and the entire plane turned into balls of orange-red flames, scattering flowers like a fairy and rolling towards the ground.

To the Spitfire pilots in the distance, the scene was horrifying.

"Damn, our little mosquito behaved a little poorly today."

What he didn't know was that the Mosquito, as a wooden miracle, used a lot of glue to stick the wooden fuselage frames together. The phenolic resin glue used in this Mosquito was fine in the dry climate of Europe, but would gradually hydrolyze when the humidity exceeded 85%.

In the hot and humid Southeast Asia (humidity is often 95% to 100%), it is naturally quite easy for the glue to come apart.

In addition, termites, which are quite common in South Asia, are very fond of wood. The strength of the fuselage of these Mosquito aircraft has already dropped significantly. Coupled with the 12.7mm machine gun fire from the P-47, they are likely to disintegrate as soon as they make large maneuvers.

He pushed the joystick hard and quickly moved forward with his wingman to meet up with the remaining Mosquito formation.

"Hold the formation and cover the bomber attack."

With the addition of the Spitfire formation, the air battle situation began to become chaotic.

Although the P-47 was powerful, the Spitfire was extremely flexible, giving it a certain advantage in a dogfight.

Fighter planes from both sides fought at low altitude, artillery fire crossed each other, and tracer bullets drew deadly light tracks.

Suddenly, a Spitfire pilot discovered that the P-47 fighters of the People's Army began to rise sharply and evacuate to high altitude.

"Are they retreating?"

He frowned as he watched the P-47s, which had been so violent just a moment ago, suddenly rise higher and fly into the clouds, leaving behind a chaotic battlefield.

"What the hell?" he asked puzzledly.

At this moment, his peripheral vision glanced at the ground, and his pupils suddenly shrank...