Chapter 245 Bomber Squadron

Major Immelmann hid in the clouds and never took action. He looked at the battlefield below with satisfaction. His First Flying Squadron was slaughtering the defenseless French aircraft.

He knew that these French planes were organized by Joffre.

Charles's fighter planes are "Avro" and they are the enemies that need to be "treated with caution", while those in front of him are just targets for training.

However, Major Immelmann discovered that one of the fighter planes was able to launch a counterattack while being ambushed and successfully shot down a German fighter plane!

Yin Meiman said "hmm" with interest, then lowered the nose of the plane and dived towards the "Newport 10".

(Note: The tactic of using clouds to conceal oneself and dive on the enemy during World War I was invented by Immelmann, but in the end Immelmann was shot down by a British fighter plane because of this tactic.)

Soon, Immelmann discovered that there was something different about this "Newport 10". Its flying movements were very agile, sometimes left, sometimes right, with no regularity at all. A series of false moves could almost fool him.

This is an elite pilot, Major Immelman thought, I should do my best to keep him here, otherwise he will become a potential danger.

Major Yinmelman didn't know that Major Goldfer, who was being bitten by him, was so scared that his hands and feet were weak. He had tried his best but couldn't get rid of the tail behind him.

Suddenly, the fighter planes behind opened fire.

The bullets flew almost close to Major Goldfer's scalp, and several bullets hit the fuselage and tail of the plane. The flying wood chips even hit his face, causing him severe pain.

Fortunately, the bullets did not hit the vital parts and Major Goldfer was still able to control the plane.

This is the experience that Godfer has accumulated over the years. As long as the wing vibrates slightly, he can sensitively detect what's wrong with it and know whether it is still under his control.

At this time, Major Goldfer knew that the plane was fine, so he planned to continue flying the plane to escape.

But he changed his mind and realized that the person following him would never let him go. If he continued like this, there would be only one result: death.

Unless the "tail" has run out of bullets and is still alive.

But this is impossible.

Suddenly, Major Goldfer had an idea. He slowed down slightly and controlled the plane to "fall" to the ground.

This is a trick often used by Goldfer in flying performances. The purpose is to cause the audience below to exclaim, and then suddenly pull up when the plane is about to "fall".

This move won Major Goldfer a lot of applause and francs, and many people came just to watch this thrilling and exciting scene.

Major Goldfer resorted to this move in a desperate situation.

He was also taking a risk because doing so required him to slow down. If the "tail" behind him did not take the bait and continued to attack, Godfer would be dead.

Fortunately, the "tail" did not catch up, and it instead chased other fighter planes.

Godfer breathed a sigh of relief, and after the "tail" flew away, he suddenly sped up, restored his normal posture and left the battlefield.

Major Yin Meiman on the other side also noticed this. When he realized that he had been fooled, he couldn't help but mutter, "Coward, you actually used this method to evade, what's the difference between this and deserting the battlefield!"

Major Immelman believed that this opponent was unworthy of being a fighter.

But Godfer didn't think so much. He just wanted to survive and escape from this terrible place and never come back.

In the end, only 3 out of 29 fighter planes returned to the airport alive, and all of them had bullet holes. One of the pilots was shot in the shoulder and was bleeding. Even if he could be rescued, he would have to say goodbye to his life as a pilot.

But Colonel Eagle still asked Goldfer innocently: "Where are the others? Have they been separated from you?"

…

Once the German Air Force showed its fangs, it pursued the French Air Force relentlessly.

They seemed to be very familiar with the situation of the French Air Force and launched surprise attacks on three French airports close to the front line within one day.

As Charles said, these airports are too close to the front line. Most of them are 10 kilometers away from the front line, and some are only 7 kilometers or even closer.

This made them unable to guard against sneak attacks by the German Air Force, and batches of fighter planes were destroyed at airports or runways before they could even take off.

One of the airports was even hit and the oil depot caught fire.

The fire burned all night long, and many planes that did not have time to take off were destroyed in the flames.

This also ignited the anger of the French people, who angrily criticized Joffre:

"We should hand over the planes to people who know how to command them."

"This is what happens when the Army owns aircraft. This practice is a waste of aircraft and the lives of pilots!"

"It turns out that Joffre was wrong. Now, should Joffre be held responsible for his mistake?"

…

But at this time, the media controlled by capitalists continued to speak out for Joffre:

"It could be that the Germans out-trained us in terms of pilots, and they found a way to fight that worked."

"There may be another reason for this situation. The performance of the Germans' newly deployed 'Albatross B' fighter jets is superior to our fighter jets in all aspects."

"It is very likely that their performance will surpass the 'Afro' used by Ciel!"

…

The underlying meaning of these remarks is: Joffre did lose the battle, but facing the Germans' new fighter planes and new tactics, Charles's 1st Flying Squadron would not necessarily win, so it was not Joffre's fault.

Gallieni saw these reports in the newspaper and thought the time was ripe. He smiled and nodded to Charles: "Are you ready?"

"Prepare for what?" Charles asked back: "Deploy the First Flying Squadron to fight these German pilots? No, I won't do that!"

Gallieni looked at Charles in confusion. Wasn't this something that had been planned beforehand?

"I have a better way to defeat them, General," Ciel explained. "They are also planes."

…

Early the next morning, Charles' Caproni bomber squadron took off from Paris.

The bomber group had a total of twenty aircraft, divided into two squadrons, each with ten aircraft, flying to the German Humesson Airport and Elkle Airport respectively.

These two airports were exposed when the German army was fighting with Joffre's army aircraft. Most of the German aircraft and pilots were concentrated here. There was also a newly opened flight school at Humeson Airport, which had more than 200 new and old students as well as instructors and teachers.

Charles ordered the bombers to fly towards the target openly, during the day, without any concealment.

He knew that people of that era were not prepared for bombers. They thought that bombers were just some small shells that pilots manually threw to the ground. These shells had a low hit rate and low power and could hardly cause any damage to the target.

The Germans saw ten Capronis flying towards them from a distance and thought they were transport planes delivered to their doorstep.

What they didn't expect was that Caproni could indeed be regarded as a transport plane, just a "transport plane" that "delivered" bombs to them!

(End of this chapter)