Hirohito stared at Tojo Hideki with cold eyes. It was obvious in his eyes that if you don't give me a suitable reason today, I will make you look good.
The Japanese army chief, whom Ishihara Wanji nicknamed Private Tojo, completely lost his former majesty. He took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead and whispered: "Your Majesty... the empire's fighter production is limited.
So far, the empire's monthly production of fighter planes is only more than four to five hundred, and our losses in the Pacific battlefield alone have reached more than five hundred, so the empire currently does not have any spare fighter planes to support China.
battlefield."
"This is just your excuse." Hirohito pointed out unceremoniously: "I don't believe it. Such a huge empire can't even squeeze out the production of hundreds of aircraft."
Hideki Tojo took a deep breath: "Your Majesty is right. Although the empire suffered a lot of losses in the Pacific, one or two hundred planes can still be squeezed out, but now it is no longer a problem with the planes."
"What's the problem?"
"It's the pilot."
Tojo said bluntly: "The shortage of pilots in the empire is too big. The number of pilots who graduate every year to supplement the air force can no longer keep up with the rate of losses."
Konoe Fumimaro on the side also smiled bitterly and explained: "Your Majesty, it takes at least two years for a pilot to graduate from an aviation school. But now we have lost at least 400 pilots each, and we no longer have enough.
The pilot is here to fly the plane."
"Yes, Your Majesty. We can work hard to increase the production of aircraft, but we can't fill the gap in pilots. And according to the current level of losses, the empire will lose all its existing pilots in two years.
At that time, the empire will no longer have anyone who can fly a plane into the sky."
Hirohito was speechless for a moment, he did not expect that the matter had become so serious.
The Japanese pursue an elite training policy. For example, in 1937, more than 70 pilot cadets were selected from more than 1,500 naval officers. By the time they graduated two years later, only 25 were left.
The reason it does this is that Japan cannot afford the expensive training expenses for pilots, so it can only repeatedly and harshly eliminate students with good overall qualities to ensure that limited resources are concentrated on a small number of elites.
Relying on careful selection before the war and actual combat experience in the Chinese battlefield, Japan's HNA finally pieced together an air force with more than 3,500 pilots before the outbreak of the Pacific War, among which the carrier-based aircraft pilots with the highest technical content were
Many have more than 700 hours of flight experience.
Of course, there is no problem when dealing with a weak country like China, because at this time, China is far behind Japan in terms of economy and industry.
But when the Pacific War broke out, the weaknesses of Japan's "elite troops" policy were exposed.
Not to mention anything else, Japan lost more than 300 pilots in the Battle of Midway alone.
You must know that this is Japan's most elite naval aviation force. Many of them have more than 700 hours of flying experience, and most of them have experienced actual combat.
Not to mention, in the next few months, as the United States and Japan continued to fight in the Pacific, the losses of Japanese pilots continued to increase, and the Japanese were somewhat unable to hold on. For this reason, the Japanese base camp even changed the pilot's academic system
It was changed from two years to ten months.
But even so, faced with a steady stream of pilot vacancies, Tojo Hideki was so worried that most of his hair turned gray. This was the main reason why he ignored Okamura Neji's telegram asking for help.
And some people say that if Japan's losses are so great, shouldn't the Americans' losses not be great?
Of course, the damage done to Americans is also great, but unlike Japan, Americans believe in the policy of only skilled workers, not elites.
The assembly line training model was adopted, which also allowed a large number of pilots to quickly emerge in the United States after the war. There was a scene of more and more pilots fighting. At its peak, the number of pilots even reached more than 200,000.
"Your Majesty, due to limited resources, the problem we are facing now is whether to go to Shanxi or Guadalcanal. We can only choose one of the two. If we choose Shanxi, the consequence is that the Battle of Guadalcanal will probably end in
It ended in failure.”
Konoe Fumimaro also advised: "Yes, Your Majesty, the Chinese people also said that you can't have your cake and eat it too, we can only choose between Guadalcanal and Shanxi."
"Can I only choose one?" Hirohito asked a little disappointed.
"Yes, Your Majesty." They both replied hard-heartedly.
Hirohito sighed. In fact, he no longer had to choose this issue.
He shook his head helplessly, stood up and walked towards the door. After reaching the door, he said lightly: "In this case, you two dear ladies, please do it according to your method, but I hope to give you as much as possible."
Okamura-kun, please help me and don’t embarrass him too much.”
After Hirohito's figure disappeared from the door, the two of them stood up. After looking at each other, a helpless smile appeared on their faces. It seemed that they still needed to dispatch some aircraft to support the Shanxi battlefield.
Although Hirohito just said to do it according to their method, they are not newbies in officialdom. Of course, they know that when the leader speaks, no matter how high-sounding the previous words are, they are all just foreshadowing. The last sentence is often the most important. People who don’t understand this
People who don't know how to do it can't go far in their career.
"Buzz buzz..."
Along with a huge roar, a group of huge black shadows appeared in the northwest.
This is a huge fleet, consisting of more than two hundred C47 transport aircraft and more than a hundred fighter jets. Now this fleet is passing over the US 17th Fleet, and on the other side of this fleet, a fleet of 28 Hells
A U.S. military flight formation composed of cats is accompanying this group of aircraft.
The reason why the Americans did this is because a large part of the aircraft in this huge fleet are painted with a blue sky and white sun badge that is unfamiliar to many American pilots.
"God, if I hadn't seen the paint on those planes, I would have thought they were our own planes." A pilot flying a fighter plane opened the father-in-law channel and said with emotion.
"Who says it's not, but what I can't figure out is when did we start sending large transport aircraft to the Chinese government on a large scale, and what models are the dozens of aircraft around them? Why have I never seen them before?
But it still feels familiar."
"Okay, let's leave these things for later." A majestic voice sounded in the public channel, "Now, what we have to do is to guide them to land immediately. If even one of these transport planes is damaged due to our negligence,
There was an accident on landing.
Believe me, General Flake will make you feel that life is worse than death."
Amidst the discussion among the pilots, the fleet has arrived at Henderson Airport, and the first plane has already aimed at the runway and rushed down...