218 Air Battle over Wuhan

218 Air Battle over Wuhan(Date: 18^th February 1938)

Starting from 1938, the battleground of the Second Sino-Japanese War (or the War against Japanese Aggression) began to expand, and Japanese air forces were also increasing their scale. In addition, their tactics and combat skills were transforming into ones that focused on fielding a pursuer-bomber formation and deploying their major offensives to a forward base nearest to the targeted area so as to conduct incessant bombing runs on a specific city or target in the area till the ROCAF was totally exhausted. At the time, the ROCAF had only a few planes in its inventory because of combat attrition. Fortuitously, the ROCAF acquired Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 fighters from the Soviet Union. However, the conversion training for new fighters was time-consuming, and the ROCAF couldn’t help but conduct operations and training in tandem so as to field them sequentially. This arrangement did impact the application of airpower. Even though the morale of ROCAF personnel was high, they did suffer much greater casualties when combat situations were getting worse.

At 1240 hours on 18^th February 1938, 26 Japanese pursuers and 12 bombers were heading toward Wuhan. Cmdr. Dong Ming-de, 21^st SQ, 4^th PG, leading 10 I-16s stationed in Wuhan, took off from Hankou airfield at 1310 hours, and encountered a dozen of Japanese pursuers over the northwest direction of the airfield. They engaged instantly, and reaped 4 kills: Pilot Liu Zhe-sheng knocked down one; Cmdr. Dong, Pilot Yang Gu-fan, Pilot Liu Zhe-sheng, and Deputy Cmdr. Liu Zong-wu, 23^rd SQ jointly killed one; Pilot Lee Wen-xiang, Pilot Yang Gu-fan, Pilot Wang Te-qian, and Pilot Han Can jointly knocked down one; Pilot Wang Yuan-po, Pilot Gong Ye-ti, and Pilot Wang Te-qian jointly killed one. Cmdr. Lee Gui-dan, 4^th PG, leading 11 I-15s, took off from Hankou airfield at 1300 hours, and they encountered 12 Japanese pursuers at the southwest corner of the airfield. After the first dogfight in formation, they spread out, and engaged individually. Cmdr. Liu Zhi-han, 22^nd SQ, 4^th PG, killed one Japanese pursuer, but his Deputy Cmdr. Zheng Shao-yu was wounded and crash-landed in the airfield. Pilot Feng Ru-he killed two Japanese pursuers while Pilot Zhang Ming-sheng shot down one Japanese light bomber. Pilot Wu Ding-chen, after knocking down a Japanese pursuer, flew to rescue one fellow plane, which was entangled with Japanese pursuers. At the moment, a plane in his front made a drastic turn, he accidentally collided with it, and bailed out safely.

Cmdr. Lu Ji-chun, 23^rd SQ, 4^th PG, leading 8 I-15s, took off from Xiaogan of Hubei Province, and they saw 5 or 6 Japanese pursuers flying in the north of Hankou airfield. In an instant, they flew in to engage. Deputy Cmdr. Liu Zong-wu, 23^rd SQ, 4^th PG and Pilot Xin Shou-xun knocked down one Japanese pursuer respectively. Flight Leader, Wang Yu-kun shot down two Japanese pursuers. However, his rudder and flight control cables were damaged while engaging 3 Japanese pursuers that followed. He then lost control, and crash-landed in fields at the northeast corner of Hankou. His plane tipped over while touching the ground, and he was in a coma and having his right leg wounded because of the impact. All airborne ROCAF planes returned to base around 1330 hours.

Result:
Twelve Japanese pursuers and 1 bomber were killed. But the ROCAF also suffered greatly with 5 warplanes destroyed and 2 damaged. Cmdr. Lee Gui-dan, 4^th PG, Cmdr. Lu Ji-chun, 23^rd SQ, 4^th PG, Pilot Ba Chin-zheng, Pilot Wang Yi, and Pilot Lee Peng-xiang were killed in action, and FL Wang Yu-kun was wounded.

Photo: ROCAF heroes of the air battle over Wuhan