CHAPTER 242: CHAPTER 242: SO, WHAT PLANE IS THAT?

German Army controlled Humesen Airport, the sky gradually brightened at seven in the morning.

Major Yin Maiman got up on time, washed up briefly, and then went outside for a jog in his thin military uniform.

This was a long-standing habit of Major Yin Maiman, he believed that to be a qualified pilot, one must have a strong body, otherwise, even the strong wind and low temperature on the plane would be unbearable.

Running on the airport road that had just been cleared of snow, the sounds of new trainees practicing and instructors’ commands could be heard everywhere on both sides.

The trainees at Humesen Airport were different from the pilots organized by Xia Fei in France, all the trainees here had a flight background. Including over 100 official pilots on the roster, there were 358 pilots in total, without exception.

They only needed simple training to adapt to new aircraft models, and they could quickly become qualified pilots.

This was also the main reason why Major Yin Maiman was able to achieve a major victory with 13 planes against France’s 29 planes yesterday.

However, this was because their opponent was Xia Fei, Major Yin Maiman thought, it would be different if they encountered Shire’s pilots.

One thing Major Yin Maiman couldn’t understand was that he heard Shire didn’t know how to fly a plane at all.

How could someone who doesn’t know how to fly a plane form an elite air unit?

How could he grasp training subjects, how could he determine the training direction?

How could he command planes in combat?

But Shire did it and did it well.

Major Yin Maiman had to rely on his own flying experience and repeatedly discuss with his subordinates, and only after rehearsing the deduced tactics could they be applied on the battlefield.

Perhaps this is the difference between talent and hard work!

Shire had talent, while Major Yin Maiman had hard work. Without talent, he could only catch up to Shire by investing more time and effort.

What Major Yin Maiman didn’t know was that he was actually the talented one, and his opponent Shire had no talent at all; what he had was knowledge.

After more than half an hour, Major Yin Maiman ran back to his dormitory.

The orderly was standing at the door to greet him, handing him a towel, with hot milk and freshly baked bread prepared inside the dormitory.

Perhaps it was his sixth sense, before entering the door, Major Yin Maiman turned to look at the sky and saw several very suspicious small black dots in the air.

Major Yin Maiman’s heart tightened. As someone who had been carrying out reconnaissance missions for years, he immediately judged that these were aircraft he had never seen before, even though he couldn’t see anything clearly yet.

(Note: Before becoming a fighter pilot, Major Yin Maiman was a reconnaissance pilot and had once flown over Paris to drop leaflets.)

"Binoculars!" Major Yin Maiman ordered in a deep voice to the orderly.

The orderly understood and immediately ran back into the dormitory and quickly returned, handing the binoculars to Major Yin Maiman.

Major Yin Maiman swiftly adjusted the focus to the farthest distance, and ten large planes appeared in his view.

Major Yin Maiman frowned, they looked like transport planes but couldn’t be. Germany doesn’t have this model, and the French wouldn’t be sending supplies to Germany.

He put down the binoculars and considered for a moment, then picked them up again to observe carefully.

This time, he focused on the underside of the "transport planes", he seemed to have seen something there earlier.

As the target got closer and closer, Major Yin Maiman finally saw clearly, rows of black bombs were densely arranged under the fuselage.

Major Yin Maiman’s eyes widened instantly, "My God, they’ve mounted bombs under the planes for dropping, these aren’t transport planes, but bombers!"

"Get out of the house!" Major Yin Maiman threw the binoculars to the orderly.

Then he turned and sprinted towards the hangar, shouting while running: "Take off, take off immediately! Scatter the planes, enemy bombs..."

But Major Yin Maiman was just a squadron leader, he couldn’t command everyone else.

To be precise, others didn’t understand Major Yin Maiman’s warning, even though some had already seen the incoming "transport planes" following Major Yin Maiman’s direction.

During this period, no one had experienced professional bombers bombing on a large scale, they didn’t know its danger, and naturally didn’t know how to evade.

They even curiously looked at these incoming objects, pointing and discussing, guessing what they were.

Major Yin Maiman hesitated for a moment, then rushed into a nearby phone booth, hoping to inform Colonel Klaus to give orders...

But it was too late.

Major Yin Maiman watched helplessly as these planes lowered altitude and flew over the airport, then dropped one black bomb after another.

"Boom! Boom!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

...

Explosions sounded one after another, the originally peaceful and harmonious airport was instantly filled with fire and smoke, several planes were just about to take off but were destroyed on the runway, inexperienced trainees ran around in panic, being blasted into pieces.

Major Yin Maiman found that most of the bombs were falling in the flight school area, he suddenly realized that the enemy’s main target was the pilots, not the planes.

"Boom!"

At this moment, a loud explosion came from the direction of the fuel depot, flames hundreds of meters high soared into the sky, the heat wave shattered the glass of the phone booth.

Major Yin Maiman quickly dived out and lay on the ground.

When he looked up again, he found the airport was in ruins, flames everywhere, and bodies and plane wreckage scattered all over the ground.

The trainees were very brave, they immediately picked up shovels and started firefighting.

Major Yin Maiman shouted to them: "Leave it alone, get out of there!"

But no one listened to him, both trainees and pilots rushed in teams, they didn’t want the fire to spread to the hangar where more than a hundred planes were neatly lined up.

"Boom! Boom!"

Explosions sounded again, the hangar experienced a chain explosion, flames instantly engulfed the pilots and trainees who came to fight the fire.

...

The bombing situation was reported to the City Defense Headquarters after the bombers returned to the airport, by then it was more than an hour later.

Eric excitedly told Shire over the phone:

"The bombing was very successful, Colonel!"

"Both targets were hit, our bombs turned the enemy into a mess, we destroyed at least over a hundred planes."

"A few of their planes tried to catch up with us, but it was completely useless."

"Our bombers left them far behind, we even shot down two enemy fighters!"

...

"Shooting down enemy fighters" was possible, the Caproni Bomber was equipped with a rear-facing machine gun, if it hadn’t yet reached top speed or intentionally slowed down to let clueless enemy planes catch up, it could surprise them with a burst of bullets and shoot them down.

Of course, the enemy planes didn’t know this large bomber was equipped with machine guns, especially rear-facing ones.

After this, German Army pilots would take note, they only needed to approach from below the Caproni Bomber, and the rear machine gun of the Caproni would be obstructed and unable to deal with them.

The headquarters erupted in cheers, Major Fernan hugged Shire tightly: "You even kept it from us, you bastard!"

Although the words were harsh, the expression didn’t hold any blame because everyone knew the headquarters had security issues, keeping it from them was necessary.

Gallieni nodded slightly and asked, "So, what kind of plane is that?"

"A plane specifically designed to drop bombs," Shire replied calmly, "Each can carry 19 bombs, each bomb weighing about 40 kilograms, a total weight of 760 kilograms!"

As he said this, Shire raised his chin slightly, implying: If you don’t place an order soon, you might face intense competition again!