"Die, you damned Germans!"
Aboard a B-17 heavy bomber, the gunner manned his defensive 12.7 mm aircraft machine gun and fired madly. Dense bullets chased a carrier-based FW-190 fighter, but the carrier-based FW-190 easily dodged them.
The FW-190 fighter climbed to high altitude and launched its counterattack. The two 30 mm cannons mounted in its wings began firing.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The shells struck the B-17 heavy bomber, blasting bowl-sized holes across the upper fuselage. The aircraft burst into flames, and before long, driven by the fierce wind, the fire spread throughout the entire plane.
Trailing thick smoke, the whole aircraft plunged toward the sea.
"God! The Germans are simply slaughtering us! We have no way to stand against them!"
"The cannons mounted on German aircraft are far too powerful! We simply can't fight them!"
Although cannons had an obvious disadvantage in air combat due to their limited ammunition supply, if pilots were careless and held down the firing button, they could empty all their shells in a dozen seconds—or even just a few seconds. Thus, pilots often disliked cannons and preferred aircraft machine guns with ample ammunition. Even so, German military fighters had been equipped with powerful cannons from the very beginning of their design. Their pilots had also been trained to grow familiar with cannon use through battle after battle. All of this had been preparation for dealing with enemy heavy bombers. The reason German military pilots could now slaughter these enemy heavy bombers on the battlefield was inseparable from their earlier training.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Rat-a-tat-tat!
The air battle was exceedingly fierce, with aircraft constantly being shot down. Yet most of those shot down were US B-17 heavy bombers.
Only when the US P-51 fighters charged back and entangled the German carrier-based aircraft group were the losses