A full 28 dive bombers began to drop bombs on the Hornet, and violent explosions continued to occur on the deck of the aircraft carrier, one bomb almost blew off the ship's captain, Colonel Gache, and the light cruiser San Juan, which was escorting the ship, was also hit by the pond fish, hitting four consecutive bombs in three minutes, and the ammunition depot was hit and caused a large explosion and then sank. A 99 ship explosion that was hit by a bullet caused the pilot to lose control and directly crashed into the chimney of the Hornet, causing a violent fire. Another 97 ship, which caught fire, rammed into the high platform in front of the port side, but the pilot barely managed to parachute before impact.

Subsequently, the 97 ship attack began to drop torpedoes under the cover of zero battles, and the fighting spirit of the Japanese pilots was not inferior to that of the American pilots. Commander Shigeharu Murata, a veteran of Pearl Harbor and Midway, commanded the 97 attackers to attack from both sides of the Hornet by taking advantage of the gap between the U.S. F4F and the 99 bombing, and fired torpedoes at the same time. The Hornet was hit in a row by 7 250-kilogram bombs and 4 torpedoes in a short time, and the whole ship burst into flames and began to tilt to the right. Behind the flank, the light cruiser Juno blocked two torpedoes for the flagship, but it sank quickly, leaving only 10 survivors, including the famous Sullivan brothers, who never had the same family member serve on a warship.

A few minutes later, Guan Wei Shaozuo's second attack team arrived over the battlefield, and he first spotted the burning Hornet, but he judged that the number of planes attacking the Hornet formation was enough, and judging from the frequency and speed of the US army's attack on the artillery fleet today, the other side must have another aircraft carrier. Follow this line of thought. The assault team quickly located the Enterprise and the South Dakota, 10 nautical miles away.

The second strike team was greeted by the ferocious anti-aircraft fire of the battleship South Dakota, which was armed with hundreds of 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns, and the anti-aircraft fire was as terrifying as hell. A 99 ship exploded in the right flank and caught fire before diving. The pilot failed to parachute and crashed into the foredeck of the South Dakota. The rest of the Japanese planes continued to attack fiercely, and the main fire was concentrated on greeting the Enterprise, and South Dakota struggled to block the gun, hitting four bombs one after another, and the middle turret was damaged and unusable. Immediately, the 97 ship attackers began to drop mines, and the South Dakota hit 2 mines. However, only more than 4,000 tons of water were controlled, and the overall tilt was slightly 5 degrees, and the Enterprise was hit by a thunderstorm. The speed was reduced to only 13 knots, and the other torpedo was bound for the Enterprise, but the destroyer Smith next to him struggled to block it, and used its own sinking to fight off the Enterprise.

From 9:19 a.m. The Enterprise was directly hit by five bombs in 2 minutes, one hit the flight deck behind the forward elevator, the forward elevator got stuck at half the height due to a power outage, the other 2 bombs hit the starboard side, blowing up a large hole with a diameter of 2 meters, and 2 exploded in the stern, the aft operation room was blown open a hole, and the secondary rudder was also blown up. 9:27。 The Enterprise was hit by three more bombs in quick succession, the first of which landed on the bomber's ammunition bay through the flight deck. Detonated the hangar on the spot. The second hit the very front of the bow flight deck, falling into the water through the flight deck and hull, while the third blasted a hole in the right anchor chain bay. At this point, the Enterprise had tilted quite a bit, but it was still able to maneuver left and right nimbly, avoiding other bombs. The damage management personnel seized the time to repair and tried their best to maintain their basic take-off and landing capabilities.

At this time, the 3rd Strike Team arrived at the battlefield, changed its strategy in the face of the two aircraft carriers that had caught fire, and fired torpedoes to weaken the surviving warships. The Hornet was hit by two torpedoes again, struggling to sink slowly, the Enterprise was surrounded by gunblockers, the heavy cruiser Portland hit 5 mines, plus the 2 bombs eaten in front, it sank in less than half a minute, and only 27 people escaped from the ship, the destroyer Porter approached the Enterprise, suffered 2 aerial bombs, and could only accept the fate of sinking, but he also shot down a 99 ship explosion before sinking. The heavy cruisers USS Pensacola and USS Santiago went to the ground one after another to block their guns, each with three bombs and a torpedo, and sank within four minutes.

South Dakota was worthy of being thick and hard, and continued to eat 1 torpedo and 2 bombs, the inclination trend intensified further, and he barely regained his balance after the water injection, but by this time he had swallowed more than 6,000 tons of seawater, and his speed had been reduced to 11 knots, while the speed of the Enterprise was only 9 knots. Now the whole TF16\17 relatively intact big ship is still the heavy cruiser Northampton, I saw him speed up, once again with South Dakota left and right to protect the enterprise, the entire TF16\17 has a total of 14 destroyers, in addition to the sunken warships, the rest including Mahan, Cushing, Preston, Murray and Patton and other 5 destroyer ships in the periphery, they are injured to varying degrees, but still stubbornly build the last circular defensive array, against more than 200 aircraft in the air.

Originally, there were 20 escort fighters in the sky, and they fought hard with the Zero, but the last few planes looked at the wrong momentum, seized the gap and used the collision method to deal with the Japanese planes that were about to drop bombs or mines, and three ship explosions and two ship attacks fell into the sea. Ten minutes later, there were only Japanese planes in the air and no American planes

More than 80% of the mobile fleet's attack planes have finished their ammunition and are ready to return home, and there are 17 ship bombs and 13 ship attack planes that have not dropped bombs, they spontaneously gathered together, under the cover of more than 40 zero battles (in fact, it doesn't matter whether they are covered or not) to form a last temporary attack wave to attack the remnants of the American fleet, the Northampton was sunk with 3 mines, the South Dakota was hit with 2 bombs, the front and rear turrets were all damaged, and the Enterprise was hit by 2 bombs, but after all, it was a regular large air carrier, The vitality is stronger than that of the Flying Eagle, although the take-off and landing ability is completely lost, and the overall inclination is as high as 15 degrees, it is still staggering, and 4 of the 5 destroyers have been sunk.

By 9:48, this sea and air battle was finally coming to an end, and the once majestic twin aircraft carrier TF16\17 formation was left with only 3 warships with heavy casualties, and the maximum speed was 9 knots of the USS Patton destroyer, only 6 knots in South Dakota, and 7 knots in the Enterprise, except for the last 46 offensive aircraft groups released, the entire formation of carrier-based aircraft was almost completely wiped out.

Kincaid consulted Halsey on the use of the last 46 planes - it was obviously unrealistic to attack the Japanese aircraft carrier force, and they had only two choices, one was to turn back and fly in the direction of the island of New Guinea, fly as close as they could, and then parachute to let people rescue, and the other option was to continue to attack the Japanese artillery fleet, Halsey thought bitterly for three minutes and decided to delegate authority to the commander who led the group.

Hearing that the fleet behind him was almost completely annihilated, all the pilots of the third attack wave were silent, and finally unanimously decided to continue to attack the Japanese fleet, and they would die on the way to the charge, at 10:27, the artillery fleet ushered in the last wave of American attack, they were almost attacking in a life-threatening way, and the Yamato ate 2 bombs and a torpedo, and the water intake reached 4800 tons. The Haguro was hit by a torpedo, Nagato and Mutsu each received two bombs, and the destroyers Haruyu and Mayrain were sunk. The Zero fighters that served as cover lost 23 aircraft, plus the 7 that basically ran out of fuel after the battle and the pilots could only parachute, and in the end there were only 35 Zero fighters left on the covering mission. The 46 U.S. planes were also nearly wiped out, leaving only 14 planes that left the scene and flew to New Guinea.

Although the battle was nearing its end, Hori's fighting spirit was getting higher and higher, he already knew the current situation of TF16\17, and also knew that there were still three warships struggling on the water, so he issued a new combat order: "All high-speed heavy cruisers in good condition rushed to the scene at full speed to rescue the people who had fallen into the water (whether they were friend or foe) and sank the enemy ships as much as possible, the main force arrived later, the mobile fleet did not have to attack again, and the battlefield sweeping work was completed by the artillery fleet." ”

At this time, the U.S. fleet tried its best to retreat, and the scarred South Dakota said that the destroyer would protect the Enterprise and retreat, and he would cut off the rear cover, Kincaid knew that time was pressing, and he could not continue to explain, so he could only say goodbye to the South Dakota with tears and retreat in a hurry with staggering steps. By 2 o'clock in the afternoon, when the Japanese heavy cruisers arrived at the scene, they saw only the South Dakota, which had been badly damaged, with its foredeck nearly level at sea level, and all three turrets out of order. The Kaohsiung raised the flag for its surrender, but the Americans resolutely refused. Under the organization of the Myoko, four destroyers approached and launched powerful 93 oxygen torpedoes, and in a few moments, the cutting-edge warship with a displacement of 35,000 tons and less than half a year of service was sent to the bottom of the sea.

At 3:15 p.m., the Japanese Rapid Combat Group found the Enterprise, but it was in a state of rollover due to too much water ingress and weak damage management, and slowly sank to the bottom of the sea without waiting for the Japanese warship to move, and the last person left on the ship was Rear Admiral Kincaid, who sank with the ship. The pursuit of the last destroyer was abandoned due to the fact that the fast battle group wanted to salvage the overboard, missing people. The destroyer USS Patton, along with the USS Atlanta, which escaped in the morning, became a survivor of the entire South Pacific war on the American side.

On the evening of November 5, 1942, in the "March of Warships", the Tokyo base camp issued a report on the naval battle in the South Pacific: "The Imperial Navy engaged the enemy's powerful fleet in the waters off the Solomon Sea from dawn to afternoon on November 5, sinking 2 aircraft carriers, 2 new battleships, 8 cruisers, 17 destroyers, and more than 200 enemy planes were lost due to downfall or other reasons. Our side lost 1 light aircraft carrier and 1 old battleship, 4 destroyers, 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers, all of which were unhindered to combat navigation, and more than 50 planes did not return. ”

In fact, Japan lost nearly 50 aircraft carriers alone, and the navy's land-based air force lost more than 100 fighters used to cover the shelling fleet, and the South Pacific fighter group was swept away...... (To be continued.) )