Something short to tide y'all over while I do work on other sections of the story, including a horror/mystery angle I'm working in Wisconsin. I also wanna see how many of you can identify the units in question here. I wrote all of this within the last few hours because I had a sudden overdose of motivation. That said, I will go ahead and list off the planes in question here to give you guys a hint of who did this.
P-40 Warhawk
A-20 Havoc
Lockheed Hudson
B-25 Mitchell
Curtiss Hawk II and III
P-26 Peashooter
Fiat CR.32
Martin B-10
Douglas O-2
Northrop Gamma
Heinkel HE-111
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Tokyo, Empire of Japan
September 17th, 1941
17 Days After The Event
11:02 Local Time
As the men inside the Imperial Palace were ushered outside to an assortment of armored cars and trucks, they were met with a sight that disturbed them to the very core of their being. The skies above Tokyo, the skies of the Japanese Empire, and The Emperor's Domain, were filled with planes. The only time in history that the skies of Japan had ever seen foreign war planes was in 1938, when two outdated American bombers flown by the Chinese had dropped millions of leaflets over several different cities. And those bombers didn't dare fly over Tokyo.
But this wasn't a small two bomber raid that was dropping propaganda leaflets. There were dozens,fighters and bombers both, flying over Tokyo. They watched in horror and fury as planes with the insignia of the Republic of China and the United States Army Air Forces dove and strafed all over the city. Anti aircraft guns blazed away at the invaders, scoring hits, and sending several of the planes tumbling to the ground trailing smoke and flame.
Others had been shot down by the few Imperial Japanese Air and Naval Air Service fighters that rose to challenge them. Those brave pilots gave a good accounting of themselves, but there were just too many of them. It was also at this point that many of those watching had realized something.
"Those are not carrier planes," Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said softly. He was right. None of the fighters in the sky over Tokyo could have been launched from a carrier, to say nothing of the bombers. Well, a few did seem to be carrier planes, but they were ancient biplanes used by the Chinese. The P-26 and P-40 fighters, and Heinkel He 111, Douglas A-20's and Martin B-10 bombers, certainly weren't carrier planes.
"Where could they have come from?!" Prime Minister Konoe said, astonished and horrified at the sight happening before his very eyes.
"It seems as though the Navy's promise of keeping the Home Islands safe from enemy attack has been nothing but empty blustering!" General Sugiyama's face contorted into a mask of disgust as he glared over at the Navy men present. Both Admiral Nagano and Yamamoto returned the glare.
"Perhaps, General Sugiyama, you have forgotten those bombers need landing strips to take off from! And who controls the land around Japan that would allow those bombers and fighters to take off!" Admiral Nagano replied angrily. "I suggest you remember that in a hurry!"
"Gentlemen, please!" An Army Sergeant broke in between the men. "This is no time for arguing, we must get you all to safety now!"
"The Sergeant is right, gentlemen!" Emperor Hirohito said, much to the shock of the lower enlisted who were within earshot. None of them dared argue with the Emperor, despite how much they may have despised their counterpart in the opposing branch.
The men did as suggested, following the soldiers to waiting vehicles. But their initial surprise and shock at seeing the fighters and bombers over the skies of Tokyo had cost them valuable time.
The sounds of aircraft engines grew louder and louder, and soldiers began to shout and point up towards the sky. Flying low towards them were two warplanes, a P-40 and a Curtiss Hawk II naval biplane. Both opened up on the large convoy parked outside the Imperial Palace, their bullets kicking up dirt and sending men tumbling to the ground in screaming, bloody heaps. Or more often than not, just bloody heaps.
Machine guns from infantry and armored cars opened up on the incoming planes, throwing up a wall of bullets at the attackers. The Hawk began to smoke, catch fire, and tumble towards the ground in short order. The P-40, with shark teeth painted on the fuselage, ignored the gunfire, and dropped a single 500lb bomb directly in the middle of the convoy, directly atop the armored car meant for the Emperor.
"YOUR MAJESTY!" The same Army Sergeant from before screamed out as he grabbed his sovereign and threw them both to the ground right as the deafening sound of the explosion temporarily deafened those around.
"THE EMPEROR!" A soldier called out from somewhere not far. In seconds, dozens of men converged on Hirohito and the Sergeant who saved him.
"Quick work Sergeant, you-" General Sugiyama began, but stopped as he noticed a jagged piece of metal that had ripped through his back, and had exited out his chest. When he was fully pulled off the Emperor, there was a tear in his suit from the piece of shrapnel, which hadn't gone through the Emperor's flesh, but had soaked him in the Sergeant's blood.
It was at this point Konoe and Yamamoto realized a few things. At the angle and size of the shell fragment, if that Sergeant hadn't dove and tackled Hirohito, that fragment would have killed him. This blatant act of war by the United States, however they accomplished it, had nearly killed the Emperor of Japan. There would be a reckoning when this attack was finally defeated.
The Empire of Japan would get its revenge on the United States and would show no mercy. The price they would exact on the United States for this barbarous attack, would make the terms the Germans got after The Great War, seem like a mercy.
But that was for later. First things first, all those present had to survive this attack.
"Where are our planes?" Konoe groaned as another plane flew overhead in a strafing one, only this one was Douglas O-2 in Chinese markings. While it only had .30 caliber machine guns, they were still machine guns. They tore through infantry out in the open, but the rounds bounced off the armored cars and newly arrived tanks. "We will be torn apart if they don't get here quickly!"
And just when they thought things couldn't get any worse, a B-25 Mitchell bomber from the northwest started to bear down on the Palace right as they loaded the Emperor into an armored car, which took off the moment the side door closed. Then from the south, a strange roaring sound got louder and louder, followed by a strange silver shaped aircraft screaming overhead.
A strange aircraft without a propeller, orange tipped wings, and a Rising Sun on the rear fuselage. It flew far faster and was, at a glance, far more maneuverable than anything Japan had. Its guns spoke and sheared off the wing of the B-25, sending it spiraling into the ground below. Once the bomber was down, it continued towards the rest of the American fighters, as a few formations of Army Nakajima Ki-27's and Ki-43's and Navy A5M's followed closely behind, and began to exact their bloody price on the invaders.
Unlike the first wave of disparate fighters who were badly outnumbered and quickly shot out of the sky, the Japanese pilots now outnumbered their foes. The ancient biplanes, slow bombers, and P-26's proved no match for the Japanese fighters. The only ones who put up a decent fight were the P-40's, who despite being outnumbered, put up an impressive fight. In fact, the P-40's seemed to be piloted by experienced airmen, and more began to arrive from the north, mixing it up with the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy pilots.
But another strange, and much louder roar from the south was heard. More strange aircraft, again without a propeller, but of a different design, flew towards the massive dogfight over Tokyo. Men on the ground watched in amazement as the planes seemed to knock any propeller plane out of the sky by flying too close to it. And their guns were just as lethal, if not more so than the others.
But the strange rockets that sat underneath the wings and somehow followed their targets no matter how they tried to dodge, was most intriguing.
"How is that possible?" One soldier muttered as he stared wide eyed at what he witnessed those strange fighters do. There were at least half a dozen of them, and they tore a bloody swath through the remaining American and Chinese planes. Before they knew it, the skies over Tokyo were clear of the invaders, and the fighters above either performed CAP over the capital, or flew off in all directions, apparently in response to other attacks in other cities.
I don't know who those pilots are, but if I ever meet them, I'll buy them as much sake as they can drink. And when they can't drink anymore, I'll keep buying!" Another soldier commented.
Chants of "Banzai" followed as the new fighters flew back over the Imperial Palace, waggling their wings down below at the men, before flying off in different directions like the others.
For men like Konoe and Yamamoto, they understood that what they had just witnessed was a game changer. Both of them had already surmised that those planes, whatever they were called, were from the future. They both wondered just how many more might have appeared across Japan. They also wondered what other weapons might also have appeared. Weapons that would help them against their inevitable war with the Americans.
They just hoped they would have enough to give them a chance.
en.m.wikipedia.org
