Admiral Chen Shiying is now in a dilemma, he has been discovered by the European Combined Fleet, but he does not know where the enemy is. He ordered the fleet to change course and head towards New Borneo, which saved him from another blow from the air.

The weather on the sea was not very good, there were large clouds floating in the sky, and the planes of the second attack wave of the Europeans flew behind their flanks, but did not find the Don fleet on the sea.

At 12:25 p.m., Chen Shiying was discussing the trouble they were encountering with his staff when the air raid sirens sounded. A gray-painted West Francian reconnaissance plane emerged from the clouds, and the destroyer on the flanks spewed clouds of black smoke to alert the fleet. I saw an enemy plane flying very low, its fuselage skimming the waves, and in the binoculars, you could even see the black eagle emblem sprayed on the wings.

The main warships of the Tang Empire are equipped with radars, and the performance of the new radars on the modified battleships has improved a lot, and if the weather conditions are good, they can even detect aircraft groups up to 80 nautical miles away.

This fighter of the Kingdom of West Francia kept hovering on the flanks of the fleet, up and down, and the anti-aircraft artillery fire of the Tang fleet was spewing fire at it, but it could not hit the target because of the distance.

Chen Shiying's mood suddenly became tense, and the aircraft carrier immediately took off the fighter jets on the ship. Sure enough, after a while, a large group of black-pressed enemy planes flew over, more than 20 in total, and then more and more enemy planes gathered over. The enemy's planes did not rush to attack, but first circled over the fleet, appearing and disappearing in the clouds.

The first wave of the enemy's attack began, a total of 12 planes emerged from the gaps in the clouds that let in sunlight, divided into three groups, and dived headlong down from the air from three directions at a distance of more than 1,000 meters. Their target was the already wounded aircraft carrier "North Island" in the fleet, and more than a dozen "Sea Harrier" bombers were parked on the back deck of this Tang aircraft carrier, which did not take off because no trace of the European Combined Fleet had been found.

The combined European planes kept hovering in the cloud-covered sky, like a flock of falcons surrounding several vicious wolves, and were not in a hurry to pounce.

The antiaircraft guns on the warships of the Tang State immediately opened fire into the air, but it was difficult for the enemy planes that were diving down at high speed to be hit, and the enemy planes began to drop bombs, and columns of water were stirred up on the sea, and just as the first batch of enemy planes were about to complete their attacks, another bomb fell on the deck of the "North Island." A fireball rose from the deck of the aircraft carrier, and several planes were blown up and fell into the sea. Subsequently, another bomb penetrated the flight deck of the aircraft and exploded in the hangar below.

In just one round, the Tang aircraft carrier with a displacement of more than 42,000 tons suffered heavy losses.

Dozens of "Petrel" fighters that took off urgently quickly killed in the direction of the enemy bomber group, dispersing their formation. Naval aviation in Europe still adopts the method of escorting fighters in close proximity, escorting fighters in front of the bombers, about 5 minutes ahead of the flight, and the shortcomings of this escort tactic are extremely obvious when facing a large fleet of air defense fighters.

In the sky, more than 40 enemy bombers were immediately hit and hurriedly dropped aerial bombs or torpedoes, and then scattered and fled. The air battle entered a white-hot stage, and more than 20 Fokker 190 fighters escorting the escort immediately got rid of the "swifts" that were entangled with them, turned back to the sky over the bomber formation, and met the Tang fighters who were attacking the bombers.

The fighter pilots of the Tang State did not care about the enemy's attack at all, and still pursued the fleeing enemy bombers with all their might. Everyone is well aware that these bombers can also threaten their own mothership.

Several West Francian bombers in gray paint with torpedoes attached to the sea broke through the anti-aircraft fire net of the Tang fleet, firing torpedoes at a distance of several hundred meters. In order to avoid the flying torpedoes, the warships of the Tang State were all out of sorts and scurried everywhere on the sea. The destroyer "Xiashan" and the cruiser "Liuzhou" were torpedoed one after another, and the destroyer sank in a matter of minutes, while the "Liuzhou" was still floating on the sea, but it was already a serious stall.

In just a few minutes, the Tang fleet suffered huge losses, and the aircraft carrier "North Island" was hit by two bombs in a row, and the hull was seriously tilted. The defense of this aircraft carrier, which was converted from a merchant ship, was so weak that the captain had no choice but to give the order to abandon the ship after consulting the fleet commander on the "Yunling." In addition, two destroyers were sunk one after another, and two cruisers were heavily damaged one after another.

However, the Tang fleet only shot down 17 enemy planes in this wave of attacks, and such a huge loss exchange ratio made Chen Shiying's eyes show a look of shock.

"Sail due west and retreat in the direction of Port-au-Prince!" After suffering such a severe blow, Admiral Chen Shiying decisively gave the order to retreat.

The battered Tang fleet began to turn on the surface of the sea and staggered in the direction of the island of West Borneo.

However, perhaps the prayers of the Tang sailors did their part, and after half an hour, the fleet took refuge in a rainy area, fortunately avoiding the air attack from the third batch of the European United Air Fleet. The European joint fleet lost the trace of the Tang fleet, and searched in this sea area to no avail, so it had no choice but to return.

The Battle of the Eastern Caribbean Sea set a precedent for the first large-scale use of aircraft carriers in human history, and aircraft carriers made a stunning appearance in this naval battle, showing far superior striking capabilities to battleships. This naval battle occupies a very important position in the history of the development of the world's navy, and it marks that aircraft carriers have replaced battleships and become a new generation of maritime supremacy.

Using more than 160 aircraft, the European United Aircraft Carrier inflicted heavy damage on two battleships and two cruisers of the Tang State and sank one Tang aircraft carrier and two destroyers in a sea battle of about two hours.

The Tang task force, which had found the wrong target, inflicted heavy losses on the Spanish fleet, sinking one enemy aircraft carrier and two light cruisers, and severely damaging the enemy's one light aircraft carrier, one battleship and two cruisers. Its own losses were 17 downed bombers, another 31 aircraft were damaged, a total of 37 pilots were killed or missing, and another 5 were captured.

In terms of results, the gains and losses of both sides were roughly equal, so they both claimed to have won the naval battle.

The Battle of the Eastern Caribbean Sea showed that future naval contests depended on the balance of air power between the two sides, and that without the support of strong air forces, a naval fleet was doomed.

Admiral Chen Shiying's summary report on the naval battle made this conclusion very clear, and he also pointed out that if it did not obtain more and more powerful aircraft carriers and lack the support of air power, Tang would lose its naval supremacy in this region. In future naval operations, there will be fewer and fewer direct exchanges of fire between ships, and more naval engagements will be embodied in the confrontation between aircraft and ships, and between planes and aircraft, and in the confrontation with aircraft, surface ships will be in an absolute inferior position.

In other words, only aircraft carriers are the kings in future naval wars, but it is a pity that the Tang Navy only agreed with this conclusion after a painful lesson.

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