The British remaining dozens of destroyers and cruisers separated out a few to receive the personnel of the three battle cruisers, and at the same time circulated around to disperse the submarines for their companions. After more than half an hour of rescue,
These nimble and fast little guys dispersed in a crowd, turned the bow of the boat one after another, and swarmed toward the vast sea to the west at a speed of more than 25 knots.
More than 20 minutes later, there was a faint buzz in the sky, and more than 30 federal naval aviation aircraft visited here again. However, what they saw in their eyes was that the tails of three ships had been severely damaged and were burning.
The British battle cruiser, and the federal surveillance submarine that had been in contact with them for dozens of minutes, disappeared. No matter how the communicator on the plane called, these submarines had no answer.
In addition to Earl David Beatty being favored by God, there is also Lieutenant General Kunz, the commander of the U.S. Task Force thousands of kilometers away. His fleet has received more air attacks than David Beatty's main fleet.
Even earlier and more violently, just when he commanded the fleet to start turning, federal planes launched an attack on the American fleet from behind him.
Although the first wave of attack fleets only had more than 60 aircraft, which was fewer than the aircraft that attacked the support fleet of Country Y, the response and air defense capabilities of the Fleet of Country M were worse than those of the British fleet. On these American and American battleships, in addition to the main guns,
Most of them are 127mm secondary guns, and there are not many American destroyers.
When the federal aircraft approached, they could only release smoke and casual fire, which basically posed no threat. However, the few water reconnaissance aircraft carried by the US fleet, due to their slow speed and poor weaponry, not only could not catch up with the federal torpedo attack aircraft, but also
Two of them tried to intercept them, but were shot into pieces by the cannons of the torpedo attack aircraft.
Just like attacking the British battleships, the Federation's aircraft were also divided into 5 teams. They dropped torpedoes on the 5 battleships respectively, then raised the planes, circled, observed the results, and returned.
After the swarms of planes flew away, only six severely damaged US warships and more than 10 US destroyers and cruisers were busy rescuing people on the sea.
Among the five battleships and one cruiser that were hit by torpedoes, the "Tennessee" suffered the most serious damage. It was hit by 12 torpedoes at the same time on the port side. It also caused the explosion of some boilers. High-temperature steam was mixed with oil. From
The jets spurted out from the cracks in the deck and turned into flames. The entire back half of the ship basically became a sea of flames;
The battleships "Nevada" and "Oklahoma" were attacked by 7 and 8 torpedoes respectively. Although there was no gas fire, due to the deformation of the keel and water leakage in many places on the hull, ordinary damage control measures could no longer save these two ships.
A Nevada-class battleship, now, the American sailors on the ship began to jump from the severely tilted deck into the sea water, and then swam to the nearby lifeboats.
The two battleships "New Mexico" and "Mississippi" at the end of the fleet had not completed their turning actions during the air attack, so the federal torpedo planes did not correctly judge their direction of travel.
After launching the torpedoes, the two ships immediately stopped turning left.
, began to turn to the right, thereby avoiding several torpedoes coming from the stern direction, but the sterns and rears of the two ships were still blown up by several magnetic detonation torpedoes. Not only the propellers and rudders failed, but also the transmission
The shaft was also deformed, the sealing device was damaged, and there was a large amount of water leakage at the stern of the ship.
The torpedoes that missed the "New Mexico" and "Mississippi" were not completely ruined. Two of them hit an American cruiser after passing through the battleship formation.
Although one or two torpedoes are not enough to sink a battleship, a cruiser with a displacement of less than 10,000 tons cannot withstand such treatment. The bow of the cruiser was blown off on the spot, and tons of seawater swarmed in.
, most of the sailors in the cabin had no time to escape, and were submerged in the iron coffin by the sea water. After a while, it sank into the Western Pacific Ocean.
In general, although the speed of US warships is generally slow, their defensive capabilities are closely catching up with Germany's and are much more resistant than British warships. After a wave of torpedo attacks, only the "Tennessee" was obviously in danger of being saved.
, but the remaining four battleships were still floating on the sea tenaciously. Although they were a little crooked, they neither exploded nor capsized quickly.
However, before the Americans could finish rescuing the people on the ships under attack, another piece of bad news came from the U.S. Navy reconnaissance planes hovering in the sky. Almost as many planes as the previous wave of attacks appeared in the fleet again.
of the north.
At this time, the U.S. Navy officers and soldiers basically stopped what they were doing and fled away from the four battleships floating on the water. From the wave of attacks just now, any fool could tell that those damned
The small flying insects will attack the huge battleships first, so staying away from the battleships will basically keep you away from danger.
This wave of attack aircraft did not lower their altitude prematurely to select targets. Instead, they slowly circled over the U.S. fleet, causing the U.S. sailors below to curse and use several small-caliber cannons with sufficient elevation angles.
Start shooting into the sky.
However, the fleet of aircraft in the sky was not disturbed by the shells below, and they were still hovering around 2,000 meters, so that the American sailors below began to wonder whether these aircraft had forgotten to bring torpedoes.
In fact, the second wave of attack aircraft was not deliberately circling in the sky to whet the appetite of the Americans, but the leader of the flight wing discovered that the four battleships below were already half disabled, and there was no need for these 60 or so aircraft to attack with all their strength.
He was asking the mothership for instructions if he could allocate some of his aircraft to attack those cruisers or destroyers. In this way, he could earn some money for the dozen or so aircraft that were eventually forced to be discarded.
After asking for instructions and confirmation, the wing leader's request was finally approved by the General Staff Headquarters. After receiving the final order, the second wave of attack aircraft began to slowly lower its altitude, and then began to attack from the southeast of the U.S. fleet.
Approaching their respective goals on the sea surface.
The officers and soldiers of the U.S. fleet were almost driven crazy by this kind of battle where they were beaten without being able to fight back. However, due to the lack of suitable anti-aircraft weapons, these captains, gunners, and fire control officers could only watch this.
The federal plane calmly selected the target, then approached, then dropped the bomb, and then pulled up...
However, this time there was a difference from the last air raid, that is, more than 20 aircraft suddenly separated from the fleet and flew straight towards several cruisers.
These cruisers were startled by this unexpected incident, and they quickly twisted their bodies left and right and drew dragons on the sea in an attempt to increase the difficulty of the upcoming torpedo attack.
However, the cruiser is not a destroyer, and its flexibility is not enough to offset the long-term bomb-dropping skills of the federal navy's carrier-based aircraft pilots. Therefore, several cruisers targeted by these aircraft were all hit by torpedoes and lost their speed.
Then, a torpedo plane will rush towards it and add another torpedo.
The commander of the U.S. Navy task force and several of his senior staff, as well as the battleship captains who had been rescued from several battleships, were on one of the cruisers that was attacked. It was also their bad luck.
After boarding the temporary flagship, as usual, the flagbearer of the cruiser hung up the command flag and commander flag. Who would have thought that it was these flags that ruined the lives of several senior U.S. Navy generals?
life.
After the second wave of air strikes, there were only 10 intact destroyers and one cruiser whose hull was damaged but could still drive on the sea. The remaining warships had all sunk to the bottom of the sea, and there were a large number of wounded.
, drowned people and debris floating in the warm waters of the western Pacific.
The captains of these destroyers could no longer endure this kind of suffering. They hastily rescued some of the drowned men in the fleet. During the submarine's torpedo attack, they scattered like a group of frightened rabbits and fled for their lives. However, they
Their escape directions were all correct, running towards the southeast. (To be continued...)
