Because the whereabouts of the oxygen torpedo were too secretive, the darkness of the night exacerbated the difficulty of identification, forcing the British warships to turn on their searchlights and frantically scan the sea, but fortunately, the German warships were far away, and although there was a danger of exposure, the enemy artillery obviously could not hit so far.

However, the attempt to intercept the torpedoes undoubtedly failed, and the officers and men of the navy have adjusted the rate of fire of all the secondary guns and machine guns of Gaoping to the fastest possible level, built a dense network of fire on the side of the warship, and indeed some torpedoes were detonated in advance after being hit, but this is obviously not up to the arduous task of intercepting more than 100 torpedoes.

After the sinking of the Newcastle mine, the terrifying fate finally came to the battleship Idaho, the ship was first hit by a torpedo in the aside, a large amount of seawater poured into the engine room, so that the ship's speed plummeted to 15 knots, but the torpedoes behind were still overwhelming, the chief engineer struggled to maneuver the warship with great speed to turn, and was able to avoid three torpedoes, but the two on the port side could not be avoided in any way, and in the sharp and desperate sound of "anti-impact preparation", the port side was hit by two torpedoes in a row. All this happened in only 4 minutes, and the nearly 20-year-old New Mexico-class battleship finally couldn't resist it, first a large number of water entered and then rolled over, and then the whole ship capsized due to the rapid speed of water ingress, and the whole time added up to less than 8 minutes.

Tonight, the W fleet was not alone, not only lost the Newcastle and the Idaho, but then the Mississippi, which was already wounded, collided with the Express (E-class destroyer) in a panic because of the rush to avoid torpedoes, the bow part was deeply embedded in the middle of the latter, almost knocking the other side into two sections, the captain hurriedly commanded the reverse car to retreat, after a tooth-souring sound of steel rubbing, the battleship of more than 30,000 tons gave the destroyer, which was only one-twentieth of its own tonnage, a lesson that will never be forgotten - sinking; Before the guilty American officers and men could react, another torpedo arrived, this time another E-class destroyer - the Echo desperately blocked the flagship, and Rear Admiral Lewis's eyes turned red as he looked at the rapidly sinking destroyer.

But this was obviously not all of today's misfortune, and two minutes later, the Mississippi, which had not yet recovered its speed, was suddenly attacked by shells from behind.

"Enemy ship attack!" Before he could figure out what kind of warship it was, another batch of shells whistled in. What is even more frightening is that, judging from the water column of the shells falling into the water, the water column stirred up by the second round of shells is thicker and higher.

"Tirpitts!" Experienced gunners judged that this was at least a 14-inch shell, considering that the Germans did not have warships with 14-inch guns, and the German-class heavy cruisers were only equipped with 283mm guns, so it could only be the Tirpitz, and the earlier shells that fell overboard might have been Admiral Schell or Lützov.

"Lights out! Turn off the searchlights! It was only then that the captain woke up from a dream and ordered the searchlights to be turned off - they made the warship look like a shining torch in the dark night, completely attracting the attention of the enemy.

"24,000 meters!"

"Keep attacking!" Rear Admiral Pei said viciously, "The destroyers and S-boats fired a large number of torpedoes, and the losses of the British will not be small, they are estimated to be rescuing people who have fallen into the water just now, and the speed is not fast, so they must seize the time to attack." ”

After the German artillery fleet fired 5 salvos, the panicked British gunners finally began to return fire at 2:04 and fired a salvo at the Tirpitts, but because they had been relying on the guidance of the Newcastle radar just now, they were not at all suitable for visual attacks, and even the rangefinder had not yet captured the muzzle flame at the moment when the Germans opened fire. So they could only fire indiscriminately, and not a single shell hit the target at all. The muzzle flame generated by the Mississippi's blind fire in turn indicated a clear target for the Germans, and by the time of the seventh salvo, not only did the Tirpitz form a straddle fire, but the faster and more volleyed the Lutzov had hit the rear deck of the enemy ship directly. The 283mm shells did not cause fatal damage, but ignited flammable materials in lifeboats, seaplanes, etc., causing a raging fire.

Because the sailors did not extinguish the fire for a while, the fire on the Mississippi kept burning, and the figure of the warship became more and more obvious, which attracted more and more intensive artillery fire.

"Retreat! It is necessary to retreat immediately! Seeing that nothing could be done, the Mississippi, after firing just over 20 shells, headed northwest under the cover of a smoke screen released by its own destroyers, hoping to withdraw from the battle as soon as possible.

The bombardment formation had approached a distance of less than 22,000 meters, and the Admiral Schell spotted the destroyer USS Duncan (a D-class destroyer) that was casting a smoke screen, and immediately attacked it, because it had to cover the waddling action of the USS Mississippi - the already damaged bow of the ship had been damaged again in the collision just now, and the speed had dropped to only 16 knots, and the speed of the Duncan could only be maintained at about 17 knots, and after 7 salvos, the 283mm shells tore the brave destroyer to pieces.

The last warship that could cover the Mississippi sank, and now the night sky around it was as bright as day, and the three German capital ships fired one flare after another into the night sky, and when the light of the first flare faded, two more flares were raised at the same time, leaving him completely exposed and with nowhere to hide. Half a minute later, the Tirpitts' 380mm shells whizzed in and hit the deck in front of the Mississippi bridge, blowing everything it encountered to pieces, and the horizontal deck broke a large gap, fortunately not extending into the engine room.

The Mississippi had fallen into the encirclement of German warships, and the only countermeasure that Rear Admiral Lewis could think of was to rely on the advantage of a decent level of defense, fight and retreat, and wait until dawn for the air to rescue him.

"Full throttle, full speed ahead!" He shouted involuntarily.

From the flash of the enemy's guns, the navigator plotted the coordinates of its movement, and Rear Admiral Bey, finding that the W fleet had completed its turn and was now heading northwest, thought about it and agreed with Captain Topp: catch up and destroy the enemy ship at close range! The Tirpitts' boilers boiled, its spindles spun, and its speed increased to a top speed of 29 knots, getting closer and closer to the Mississippi.

"22,000 meters...... 21000 m...... 20,000 ......" Although the Mississippi had extinguished the fire on the rear deck by this time, it had not escaped the coverage of the flares fired by the Tirpitts.

At 2:21, with a loud bang, a bright light burst out from the front of the bridge of the USS Mississippi, the No. 2 main gun was hit, and then quickly caught fire, and within half a minute, the fire spread to another turret, in order to prevent the ammunition from detonating, the captain of the ship had to order the ammunition compartment under the turret to be flooded, and the bomb carrier drilled into the icy cabin to rush to dry ammunition. Thanks to the effective water injection, the fire was quickly contained, but both turrets also lost their chance to fire.

Mississippi fought and retreated, sometimes turning a few angles to the right and bombarding the Tirpitts with two triple 356mm guns in the tail. With each turn, the 127mm secondary guns on the port side fired together, and the accuracy was much higher than at the beginning. But the Tirpitts was unmoved, and resolutely closed the distance, and the Lützov behind him became more and more courageous, pouring 283mm shells on the rear deck of the Mississippi continuously, and finally in a salvo at 2:25, the explosion caused by an armor-piercing shell stuck the third turret of the Mississippi, and only the main gun at the very tail of the ship could still be used.

At 2:28, taking advantage of the great reduction in the firepower of the enemy ship, with the 29-knots Tirpitz approaching to a distance of only 17,500 meters, a 380mm shell tore open the deck near the tail of the Mississippi, and the flames from the explosion burned the superstructure, making the enemy ship a very conspicuous target, and after another minute, a 380mm shell pierced the main deck and drilled into the No. 1 boiler room, and the violent explosion penetrated several steam pipes. Despite the bitter cold wind on the sea, the boiler compartment was still extremely hot, and the boiling steam rushed into the cabin, burning some of the shirtless and sweaty boiler soldiers. The boiler pressure plummeted, and the Mississippi slowed down further to 12 and 10 knots.

Captain John Daniel rushed into the heat-churning cabin and joined the others in blocking the shrapnel-torn steam pipes, and the ship's speed began to pick up again, but it was short-lived, and two minutes later another volley hit the warship and penetrated the ship's side armor belt, and after the sea water poured in, several more boilers were flooded, and most of the remaining secondary guns on the Mississippi were forced to shut down as the Admiral Scheer also joined the ranks of accurate hits.

At 2:34, the Tirpitts continued to fire a salvo, this time hitting the bow of the Mississippi that had been damaged many times, the entire bow was completely blown up, the sea water rushed in, and the bow began to sink due to too much seawater, and the foredeck was almost flush with the sea after sinking. Although the watertight bunkers remained mostly intact, the warship was getting more and more resistant, and the power compartment was getting less and less power, and the Mississippi could only continue at a speed of 3 knots.

Now Tirpitz no longer tried to close the distance, but let the destroyer come forward and prepare to use a torpedo against the dead fish. The destroyers Z4 and Z25 quickly stepped forward, sailed past the fully exposed side of the USS Mississippi at a distance of 2,500 meters, and fired eight G9 oxygen torpedoes together.

"Right full rudder!" The captain of the USS Mississippi roared, and two minutes passed, and the warship, which had only a speed of 3 knots, roared and only turned a few angles, and in the desperate eyes of all the officers and men of the ship, the amidships and stern were hit by three torpedoes in succession. Rear Admiral Pei could see clearly: a bright light flashed under the waterline of the enemy ship's hull, white columns of water rose into the sky, and splashing sea water rolled up to the deck, rushing against the destroyed main gun turret.

At 2:41, Major General Bay, who was watching the slow sinking of the USS Mississippi, led the artillery formation to quickly leave the battlefield, preparing to find his own aircraft carrier formation. (To be continued.) )