After the escape was confirmed, the entire British fleet had fled at top speed without sacrificing fuel, reaching an overall speed of 24 knots - the fastest speed that the Hornet could achieve. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

But 24 knots is still too slow, and the interval between the second and third waves of attacks does not even allow the fleet to run 100 kilometers, and it is only a matter of minutes for aircraft.

At 17:20, the commander of the German troops, Major General Seydritz, who made the second sortie, carefully observed the enemy formation on the sea surface and decided to attack from the left flank.

The German offensive frenzy had previously paralyzed the Hornet's take-off and landing capabilities, and now the British had no anti-aircraft fighters, and even after receiving the radar warning, he did not ask Nimitz for anti-aircraft fighters - he believed that this would reveal the position of the American fleet, and Nimitz had no idea that the Germans had arrived so soon.

Now all German attack aircraft can attack with their hands and feet, but the cautious Seydlitz still decided to push in layer by layer - it is already the day of great victory, and the boys can keep one more one:

At 17:21, the first group of attacks began, 3 Ju-198s whistling and dropping bombs, dragging to the end, the cruiser USS Liverpool, which was already seriously wounded, was hit by 4 bombs in a row and began to sink slowly;

Two minutes later, Seydritz ordered an attack on the George V, the 2nd and 3rd groups of dive attacks hit the rear deck of the opponent, and the 4th and 5th groups of attacks tore open the opponent's seaplane hangar, and the entire superstructure was shot and began to catch fire, and the whole warship became a fire hell, hundreds of dead bodies on the deck, even the barrels of the guns were stained with blood, and the mutilated limbs were hung, and the flames burst out of the curled steel plates, and the whole battleship was shrouded in smoke and flames. However, it was only an ugly scene, and the George V core module was not fundamentally damaged

The surviving British officers and men fought back, and the 40mm and 20mm anti-aircraft guns that could fire continued to fire, and the surrounding Aurora (Lin Xian-class light cruisers, known in Chinese history as the Chongqing in Chinese history) and Orion (Leander-class) desperately pounced on it and tried to lighten the burden of George V with anti-aircraft fire. This style of play played into Seydritz's hands, and he successfully sank two light cruisers with dive bombers in groups 6-9.

Now George V is alone, and it is time for torpedo machines to come into play.

The 1st to 4th group of lightning strikers fired 12 torpedoes at the enemy ship at a distance of 1500 meters, at 17:31, in order to avoid the torpedo, the George V turned to the right, the turbulent waves hit the deck, the hull tilted, the bridge windshield was all shattered, the flying glass scratched the captain's cheeks, he wiped the blood from his face, looked at the smoke rolling up into the air and the very clear torpedo trajectory on the sea, turned on the megaphone: "All attention, wear life jackets!" ”

The George V eventually dodged 9 torpedoes, the remaining 3 mercilessly landed on its port side, and together with the torpedo that hit the first time, the port side had already hit 4 torpedoes. Faced with more and more water ingress and the situation that the damage management has been completely powerless, the captain reluctantly announced that he would abandon the ship. At 17:39, the famous battleship began to sink due to excessive flooding.

Now there were no large warships on the left flank of the Hornet that could be resisted except for a few destroyers, and the few remaining cruisers tried to bypass the right flank to fill the position, but they were all stopped by Cunningham, who was determined to use the flagship as a bait to attract more firepower and win an escape for his companions.

In order to deal with the Essex-class aircraft carrier with the flagship logo as soon as possible, he sent 5 groups of 15 lightning fighters in one go, and also asked more than 20 fighters to besiege the deck, using machine gun shells to desperately strafe the battleship's anti-aircraft fire in order to cover the lightning fighters, who were killed and wounded, but still returned fire with sustained anti-aircraft fire.

At 17:46, after successfully avoiding 3 torpedoes, the 4th torpedo hit the tail of the Hornet, destroying the critical rudder, and then another torpedo was eaten at the front of the amidship, which flooded in large quantities, and the whole warship sailed slower and slower. One minute later, the third torpedo hit the ship's amidships, tearing open a huge gap, and seawater continued to pour in.

The entire warship could only hover forward at a speed of 7 knots, and due to damage to the steering gear, the course was very irregular, first to the northeast, and then to the west due north. Hundreds of officers and men from the bottom cabin climbed onto the sloping and broken main deck, but many more were crushed by broken hatches, fires and seawater, and there was no way to escape.

"Sir, the warship is dead, let's retreat."

"Retreat?" Cunningham shook his head, "You guys go, I can't walk anymore, let me stay." ”

"Sir!" A young staff officer was so anxious that he cried, "I'll carry you out and swim out, my swimming skills are very good." ”

"Let me stay, the biggest mistake of my life is that Africa shouldn't have come back in secret. You're still young, so let's go. Cunningham's face was calm and resolute, "Let me stay with them......"

At 17:49, Seydritz once again passed close from the Hornet, the ship had tilted more than 20 degrees, and the anti-aircraft fire was almost unusable, and he saw groups of sailors in life jackets jumping into the water, but he also saw about a few dozen people huddled in the middle near the bridge, and he wondered who it was - the Germans did not know that Cunningham had broken his leg.

A fighter jet roared down, wanting to tear apart this group of Royal Navy officers and soldiers with machine gun shells, but seeing dozens of people on the other side standing up straight with their hands and blocking the elderly in wheelchairs with their bodies, the pilot sighed, slowly released the fingers on the shooting button, and silently swept over his head, seeing off this group of brave Royal Navy officers and soldiers, and when he was closest, he seemed to hear singing:

“……

Thou art the most holy of all nations,

It is your mission to destroy the dictatorship and expel the tyrant!

Mission, mission, mission,

Sacred mission!

Prosperity is with you,

Greatness and freedom walk with you,

Fear and jealousy are the feelings of the foreigners.

Rule, Britannia!

Britannia rules the seas,

Britons will never be slaves! ”

At 17:52, in the tragic "Rule! Britannia! In the song (British Navy anthem), the entire Hornet capsized and fell upside down on the sea, and then slowly sank, and Royal Admiral Andrew Brown Cunningham, accompanied by more than 40 subordinates who volunteered to follow, chose to sink with the ship! Of the more than 3,600 officers and men on the ship, less than 600 survived.

More than 40 attack planes flew up and down, raining bombs and torpedoes at the Royal Navy's only remaining capital ship.

The Duke of York was torpedoed in the Battle of Newfoundland, and his injuries were not light, and it was expected to take half a year to repair, but in the end, because of the shortage of warships, it took only 3 months to complete under the continuous operation of British and American naval workers in three shifts, but the strength after emergency repair was obviously still a certain gap with the original structure, so soon the ship was faltering and difficult to move. The light cruisers that accompanied them were also killed and wounded by German bombs and torpedoes.

"Our army is bombed by a huge German aircraft group, and the whole army is about to be destroyed, long live the Royal Navy! Long live Great Britain! A staff officer stumbled into the bridge and handed the telegram to Nimitz, and before he could say anything, he cried out "wow".

Nimitz took the telegram and glanced at it a few times, his face changed greatly, and he only felt that the sky was spinning, and the whole person fell, and several staff officers hurriedly supported him.

"Sir! Sir! "There was a lot of chaos on the bridge of the Franklin, although everyone knew that the next battle would be more auspicious after the second attack wave, and all the fighters and even some of the SBD pilots who were still skilled were ready to participate in the air defense operation, but what everyone never expected was that the third attack wave of the German army did not fall on their own side as expected, but all fell on the scarred Cunningham fleet.

The Hornet hadn't actually sunk at the time of the telegram, but it had abandoned the ship after eating torpedoes in a row, so Cunningham sent a farewell telegram on behalf of the fleet.

When Nimitz came to his senses and repeatedly asked the telegraph room to inquire about the enemy's situation, the Duke of York had also come to an end, with 4 torpedoes in the hull, more than 9,000 tons of water, 19 degrees of inclination, the port side railing was flooded, the bow was buried, and it slowly twisted at a speed of 3 knots, throwing the debris on the ship, the damaged life raft and some crew members who were ready to escape into the sea.

At 18:07, after a violent shaking, the Duke of York raised its stern and arched its propeller high out of the water, and with the sound of flying wreckage and water curtain falling back to the surface, the ship sank to a depth of more than 700 meters in the ocean, and the two destroyer ships Scorpion and Incomparable rescued more than 400 sailors. Covered in oil, they clung to the life raft and hummed "God bless my king" in a hairy voice......

At 18:24, Seydritz led a huge group of aircraft to return, in today's last round of attacks, the entire British fleet of warships above the light cruiser level and even 7 destroyers were all sunk, the British Empire also lost an additional 2 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 8 light cruisers, only 9 destroyers survived and rescued officers and men, the whole fleet lost nearly 15,000 people, while the German army only lost 14 aircraft, 8% of the battle loss rate.

As a result of this campaign, the British Empire had no capital ships except for the four unbuilt capital ships on the mainland, and the total active tonnage (excluding the Dominion fleet) was even less than that of the Argentine Navy. The Royal Navy's more than 300-year history of the Royal Navy was finally lost to the aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft that it invented

ps: The monthly pass is declining, begging for quick support........................