Slow and vulnerable obsolescent Chinese fighter aircraft burning low-grade fuel were still sufficiently dangerous in the hands of capable pilots against the Japanese schnellbomber-terror bombing raiders;Cheung, 2015, p. 72. Imperial Japanese Navy's new supercharged and high-octane fueled engines had almost put the Mitsubishi G3M bombers out of reach of obsolescent Chinese fighter attacks on 4 November 1939 for instance, Capt. Cen Zeliu (Wade-Giles: Shen Tse-Liu) led his 17th Fighter Squadron, 5th Fighter Group of seven cannon-equipped Dewoitine D.510 fighters in a level head-on attack against an incoming coming raid of 72 IJANF G3M bombers (Capt. Cen chose this tactic knowing that the operation of the Hispano-Suiza HS.404 20mm autocannon in his D.510 is likely to fail under the g-loads of a high-deflection diving attack), with Capt. Cen pummeling the lead G3M of the IJN's 13th Kōkūtai's CO Captain Kikushi Okuda with cannon fire, sending the G3M crashing down in flames over Chengdu, along with three other G3M bombers destroyed in the Chengdu raid that day. With the death of Captain Okuda in the air battle over Chengdu, the IJN became the highest-ranking IJN Air officer to be killed-in-action in the War of Resistance/World War II thus far.
