The first battleship of the mobile fleet was not the "Chicheng" or the aircraft carrier, but the light cruiser "Sandwarf" that accompanied the "Jiahe" all the time.

In fact, this light cruiser can be said to have arrived home unlucky.

After the battle began, those "Typhoon" fighters who took the lead first attacked the "Jiahe", and it seemed that they felt that this aircraft carrier was of the greatest value.

Why?

On the flight deck of the "Jiahe", more than a dozen Zeros were neatly parked, and the damaged parts at the front of the flight deck were covered with canvas.

In addition, all the fighters were parked at the rear end of the flight deck.

From a distance, it looks like they are preparing to release a carrier-based fighter.

As a result, the first dive bombers to kill attacked the "Chicheng" and besieged the "Jiahe", which seemed to be the most threatening.

I have to say, this is really wrong!

At that time, the people who fell on the "Jiahe" were actually wounded Zero, because the hangar was seriously damaged, and it was only parked on the flight deck.

At this time, the cruiser "Three Fears", which guarded the "Jiahe", became a bird.

For the same reason, its powerful anti-aircraft fire posed a serious threat to the dive bombers, and at least two Wasps were shot down by the ship's anti-aircraft guns as they approached.

After the third "Wasp" was hit and exploded in the air, two squadrons of "Wasp" pounced on the "Three Fears".

It's a pity that the "Three Fears" has no capital at all.

Although it was built to the standards of a heavy cruiser, and it was originally planned to return to the shipyard at the end of the year to renovate and upgrade the five triple 155mm turrets with twin 203mm turrets to be upgraded to heavy cruisers, the tense situation caused the Narrow Navy to postpone the modernization work.

For this reason, the four "Most Shang" class remained in the status of light cruisers.

It was this that it was assigned to the mobile fleet, to assist fast battleships, to provide air defense cover for aircraft carriers.

Do not forget that the 155-mm guns of these four light cruisers had an elevation angle of 75 degrees, which was dual-purpose and capable of being used as anti-aircraft guns.

In fact, it is this that makes the "Three Fears" the target of public criticism.

The main gun is an anti-aircraft gun, and the size is so huge, at first glance it is a 10,000-ton giant ship, isn't that the legendary "air defense cruiser"?

Under the repeated bombardment of more than a dozen "Wasps," the "Three Fears" were hit by four bombs in five minutes.

As a result, at 2:14 p.m., about a minute after the "Chicheng" was hit by its first shot, the "Three Fears" broke into two parts in a big explosion and disappeared from the sea in less than a minute. Of the ship's more than 900 officers and men, only four survived.

It's just that the "Three Fears" sank, but they saved the "Jiahe".

It was only when the "Three Fears" were attacked that the officers and men of the "Jiahe" suddenly woke up, and it may have been a coincidence that the canvas covering the damaged parts at the front of the flight deck was blown away by the strong wind, revealing the bombed hangar beyond recognition, which immediately made the dive bombers of the two squadrons lose their appetite.

According to rumors later, more than a dozen officers and men of the "Jiahe" received additional commendations for untying the ropes holding the canvas in time.

Subsequently, the officers and men of the "Jiahe" made persistent efforts to send some scrapped aircraft tires to the flight deck, set them on fire, disguised themselves as if they had been severely damaged, and deceived several waves of attack planes that were killed one after another, and by the end of the battle, they had not been attacked in a decent manner.

According to the battle report of the "Jiahe", during the battle, the ship was only subjected to machine-gun fire, and only a few orderly personnel working on the flight deck were injured.

The officers and men of the "Jiahe" certainly did not expect that their self-preservation measures would send another aircraft carrier to the guillotine.

This is the "Canglong".

At that time, the "Canglong" was actually very far away, about 30 kilometers southeast of the "Jiahe," and there was basically no possibility of being hit first.

Not to mention anything else, after the attack aircraft group of the special task force is killed, it will definitely concentrate on striking two 30,000-ton giant ships, and there is no reason to disperse the precious forces. Besides, before the attack, the reconnaissance planes of the task force did not detect the two aircraft carriers of the 2nd Air Force.

For this reason, when doing air defense deployment, the Second Air Force contributed two-thirds of the zero battles.

At that time, only two Zeros were hovering over the "Canglong".

In addition, there were four 99 shipblowers that took off urgently.

The attack on the "Canglong" was to conclude that the "Jiahe" had already suffered heavy damage and was not worth continuing the attack, so they turned to the dive bombers of the two squadrons that flew away.

One of the squadrons, eight "Wasps", to be exact.

It's just that, it's nothing.

What is terrible is that at this time, two of the three "typhoons" that were not shot down after completing the strafing were flying in this direction, and it was these two fighters who were the first to spot the "Canglong," called the bombers behind, and then rushed forward without hesitation.

These two "Typhoons" not only shot down two 99 ship explosions that rushed over to block the gun holes, but also led away the only two Zero Battles by the way. Before turning and flying away, it also acted as a vacuum cleaner for anti-aircraft shells, so that the fast battleship "Zhenming" covering the "Canglong" wasted a lot of shells.

As a result, the eight dive bombers were not intercepted by fighters or fired at anti-aircraft guns before diving towards the "Canglong."

It's basically a textbook dive-drop bombardment!

The hit rate is also frighteningly high.

Five out of eight!

Of course, this also shows from one side that the quality of the pilots of the Imperial Navy is very good, and the hard training before the war was not in vain.

It was this attack that earned the nickname "Cerberus" because of the whistling sound made during the dive, like the roaring dogs of hell.

The point is that five bombs were taken in just over a minute!

If the interval between the shots was longer, such as taking a few minutes later, the aircraft carrier might still be saved, but after so many bombs in such a short period of time, it would definitely not be saved. If nothing else, it's just a fire caused by an explosion, and it can't be extinguished.

Do not forget that the last thing that is missing on aircraft carriers is a wide variety of flammable and explosive materials.

At 2:24 p.m., the "Canglong" broke into two parts in a big explosion.

The bow of the ship, which was about a quarter of the hull, sank quickly, and the rest was sunk below the surface by three o'clock.

Because the captain did not give the order to abandon the ship, most of the officers and men did not have time to evacuate.

In the end, only more than 100 officers and men of the ship survived.

Whether it is based on the time of the big explosion or the time of sinking, the "Canglong" is the first aircraft carrier sunk by the mobile fleet.

As for the reason for the large explosion of the "Canglong" after being shot, it has always been a mystery.

The "Canglong" sank quickly in a big explosion, saving its sister ship, the "Feilong".

At that time, after observing a large explosion on the "Canglong," the "Feilong," which was more than 10 kilometers away, discovered the rapidly approaching "Wasp" group, which was another of the two squadrons, and then summoned several nearby Zeros to escort it.

Otherwise, the "Feilong" is likely to follow in the footsteps of the "Canglong".