913 Air Battle over Bishan(Date: 13th September 1940)
The War in Europe (European theater of World War II) took place in 1940. On the Chinese mainland, Japanese forces took advantage of fair weather in the summer and autumn of the year, especially in Sichuan, to assign elite air units to raid on the ROC Armed Forces stationed there. They inflicted attacks on Chungking, second capital of the Republic, air bases in the city as well as important lines of communications so as to cut off our supplies and devastate our will of combat. Till the middle of August 1940, the latest Japanese naval pursuers, namely Mitsubishi A6M “Zero,” were shipped to Hankow to escort their bombers to raid on Sichuan. Zeros were far more superior to ROCAF’s I-15s and I-16s. The ROCAF suffered a great loss of planes and casualties during the engagements with Zeros. The following contents are merely used to describe ROCAF’s first encounter with Zeros during the air battle over Bishan, and express the utmost respect to those fallen heroes in the battle.
Photo: Japanese Type 97 heavy bomber / AHS of ROC
At 1045 hours 13th September 1940, four ROCAF formations took off and flew from Suining to Chungking to engage incoming hostile aircraft: the first formation of 10 I-15s led by Cmdr. Zheng Shao-yu, 4th PG; the second formation of 9 I-15s led by Cmdr. Wang Yu-kun, 23rd SQ, 4th PG; the third formation of 6 I-15s led by Cmdr. Lei Yan-jun, 28th SQ, 3rd PG; the fourth formation of 9 I-16s led by Cmdr. Yang Meng-ching, 24th SQ, 4th PG. Japanese bombers released bombs at Chungking, and evaded to the eastern direction beyond the reach of ROCAF planes. Then, the headquarters of the 1st Route Command ordered them to fly back to Suining for refueling. At 1201 hours, while ROCAF planes were at Bishan, about 10 km from Baishiyi, en route to Suining, about 30 hostile aircraft were closing in from the left, and ROCAF I-16s were the first ones to encounter. Cmdr. Yang Meng-ching was hit, and died while bailing out. After being surprise attacked, Pilot Tsai Ming-yong, lead of the 2nd Flight, dived and pulled up suddenly to open fire, and then made a half barrel roll to evade hostile pursuit. Pilot Tong Ming-bo spotted multiple bogies from behind higher up, and he turned around and took shots. Then, he passed across bogies overhead, and did an inverted turn to break away. Jap Zeros could obtain vantage position quiet easily because they could ascend with high speed. They used one flight to attack while another to cover. Afterwards, Pilot Tong Ming-bo joined up with I-15s to engage Zeros, and after 10 more minutes he broke away again when he was only 500 feet AGL. Pilot Wu Guo-pei did an evasive maneuver after seeing Zeros coming hot from above. He tried very hard to get a vantage position, managed to shoot one round head-on, and did a half barrel roll to break away underneath a Zero. Pilot Gong Ye-ti, lead of the 3rd Flight, was wounded on his legs, and his plane took 5 bullets during the dogfight. He later landed at Baishiyi airfield. Flight Leader Zhou Ting-xiong was attacked by surprise, and lost control of his plane after being shot multiple times. But he landed safely without power at Baishiyi airfield. Pilot Tsai Ming-yong, Pilot Zhu Rui-yu, Pilot Yu Xue-chi, Pilot Liu Meng-jin, Pilot Tong Ming-bo, and Pilot Wu Guo-pei didn’t leave the dogfight till having only about 50 kg of fuel left, and then they all returned to Suining airfield safely.
Photo: A corner of bombarded Chungking by Japanese forces
Cmdr. Zheng Shao-yu, as the flight-lead-in-charge of ROCAF formations, was attacked by Zeros from behind upper left, and his limbs were all wounded by enemy gun shots. But he managed to engage, and rescued multiple wingmen during the dogfight. Pilot Gao You-xin noticed that Zeros were attacking from behind upper left to take advantage of piercing sun rays. He made turns drastically, and both sides began to shoot at one another. Zeros then climbed, and Pilot Gao broke away to the left below them. Pilot Gao saw a Zero on its way to attack a wingman from his flank, and Gao then flew toward the Zero from below. However, because of making improper maneuvers, he didn’t shoot down the Zero. Out of a sudden, another Zero was chasing behind, and he had to make drastic turns on both sides to evade. Afterwards, he saw the signal from ROCAF’s flight lead by swinging his wings, and flew in to regroup and return to Suining. Pilot Lee Zhi, after seeing his wingmen having been attacked, banked left to fire at Zeros twice. But he didn’t maintain adequate airspeed, and began to stall because his angle of attack was too steep. Then he broke away, and returned to Suining. Pilot Wen Yan saw Zeros coming from behind high, and turned around to engage once. The Zero broke away, and climbed to evade. Pilot Wen Yan banked left, but was shot at three times by Zeros. He then went into a tailspin, and rejoined the fight again after getting out of the spin. Because his plane was inferior to Zeros, he opened fire five times, but was shot at more than a dozen times during the engagement. After 20 minutes of combat, he returned to Baishiyi airfield. FL Zeng Pei-fu saw Zeros coming to attack our first formation from above, and banked upper left drastically. But his oil tank was hit while his guns were jammed, he broke away in due course of time, and landed safely at Baishiyi airfield. Pilot Lee Liang spotted Zeros attacking our first formation from behind higher up, raised the nose of his plane to upper left to open fire at incoming Zeros, which climbed instantly to disengage. After engaging over 10 minutes, Pilot Lee joined up with three wingmen to return to Suining. As the flight lead of the 3rd ROCAF formation, Cmdr. Lei Yan-jun, 28th SQ, 3th PG, spotted Zeros, and led the formation to engage them from their lower flank. Zeros climbed immediately. Cmdr. Lei banked left to break away, but was hurt after having been fired upon. Pilot Han Wen-hu was being shot at from behind upper left while following Cmdr. Lei’s plane to turn. He saw one Zero was climbing to the right, and pulled back the nose of his plane to open fire at the Zero about 250 feet away. Because of getting low at altitude during this fight, he broke away, and followed the flight lead to return to Suining. FL Lee Ting-kai didn’t have any external fuel tank on his plane. He flew with the formation from Suining, and began to lower his altitude for 1,000 feet over Chungking. Zeros engaged FL Lee twice because they had a higher vantage position. Being cautious of enemy’s numerical superiority, he sped up to evade and return to Suining. Cmdr. Chen Sheng-xin, 21st SQ, 4th PG, was hurt on his limbs, and his plane was also damaged by multiple bullets from Zeros. He later landed in Baishiyi airfield. FL Wang Te-qian and Pilot Wang Guang-yin were wounded in action, and bailed out to safety. FL Wu Zheng-hua was also wounded in action, and crash-landed at a location by Bishan. Pilot Hsu Hua-jiang’s plane was heavily damaged during combat, and he crash-landed at a location by Tongliang of Sichuan. The plane was written off, but he was lightly wounded.
Photo: A wreckage of Pilot Hsu Hua-jiang’s I-15 downed by Japanese forces
Result:
Japanese forces had put Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” pursuers in real operations for the first time during the air battle over Bishan. Several Zeros were hurt by the ROCAF, which on the other hand suffered from 11 planes damaged, and 13 written off. Cmdr. Yang Meng-ching, FL Cao Fei, FL He Jue-min, Pilot Huang Dong-quan, Pilot Yu Ba-fong, Pilot Lei Ting-ji, Pilot Liu Yin-yi, Pilot Kang Bao-zhong, Pilot Chang Hong-zao, Pilot Si’tu Jian were killed in action. Cmdr. Zheng Shao-yu, Cmdr. Chen Sheng-xin, Pilot Wang Te-qian, Pilot Wang Guang-yin, Pilot Wu Zheng-hua, Pilot Gong Ye-ti, Pilot Han Wen-hu, Pilot Hsu Hua-jiang were wounded in action.
Photo: A wreckage of Pilot Hsu Hua-jiang’s I-15 downed by Japanese forces