Before Tsukahara 243's attack aircraft group took off, the Hornet carrier-based aircraft formation, which was much smaller than the mobile fleet, had taken off to attack the artillery fleet in an attempt to avenge the destroyed TF64 formation. For this attack, Kincaid left 12 F4F fighters behind, and risked the remaining aircraft on the Hornet (excluding the 16 SBDs sent out in the early morning, there were 71 planes left) to form an offensive formation of 59 aircraft, with Major William Widheim as the offensive commander and the SBDs piloted by Welch and Johnson as the lead aircraft. The Hornet's attacking formation quickly climbed to an altitude of 3,600 meters, taking advantage of the rain clouds to advance in search of the Japanese artillery fleet.

The Japanese artillery fleet changed its course slightly according to the report sent back by the reconnaissance planes, but the whole group still galloped in a southwesterly direction, and the combat staff expected that the distance between the two sides would be reduced to 190 nautical miles after half an hour.

The progress of the American army was not all smooth sailing, and the SBD, which served as the guide, arrived at the designated position and did not find the fleet for a while, so he radioed to Wedheim that "the enemy fleet is not here", but Wedheim thought of the experience of McGrasky at Midway, and there was still a possibility of losing enemy ships at an altitude of 1500 meters, and decided to continue the search. Five minutes later, his judgment proved to be correct, and all the ships of the bombardment fleet appeared in the field of view of the second attack wave, and through the clouds, he saw the main force of the Japanese artillery fleet spread 14 nautical miles in front and behind, and the Nagato, Yamato, and Mutsu ships in the center were particularly eye-catching. In particular, the Yamato, which had never been seen in public, made all American pilots gasp. Since the pilot reported the ferocity of the Japanese fleet's anti-aircraft fire during the first wave of attacks, he ordered the aircraft groups not to attack the Yamato, the center of the Japanese fleet, but to attack the periphery by detouring to the left and right flanks. Once the enemy is in disarray, wait for an opportunity to attack the central warship.

At 7:47 a.m., the news of the discovery of the US attack group soon reached the Yamato Command Tower, and the lookout post judged that there were more US planes attacking this time than the first attack wave, but now there are 71 Zero Fighters in the sky over the shelling fleet as cover, and the grass deer is very confident. Nobutake Kondo still instructed the fleet to quickly form a wheeled air defense formation, and at the same time asked the Zero Combat Cover Aircraft Group to take the lead in attacking and do its best to intercept the enemy planes.

Before the attack was launched, Major Wedenheim did not forget to inform Kincaid 200 nautical miles away about the situation on the battlefield: "There are a large number of enemy ships. I'm afraid there will be at least one more round of attacks......"

Almost at the same time that the American fleet was making a detour to the left and right flanks, the Japanese fleet began to fire three bombs, and then all the American pilots encountered what confused them. The Zero Fighters, which outnumbered the attacking fleet, began to pounce on them - but where were the enemy's aircraft carriers hiding?

At 7:53 a.m., as Major Wedheim sent a telegram about the enemy situation and was preparing to attack, the Enterprise and the Hornet were receiving the first wave of returning aircraft, and only 23 aircraft were seen returning from the first attack wave. And 10 more were wounded. Kincaid was taken aback, but he still did everything possible to order the ground crews to take out the stock of aircraft and replace them, and 19 minutes later, the 15 SBDs and 4 SBDs that had failed to attack the "landing fleet" also returned to the mothership, and he calculated that if he launched a third attack with the existing forces, he would still be able to come up with 38 aircraft, the problem was that he had not found the Japanese aircraft carrier so far. To speed up the pace of the attack. On the one hand, he urged the ground crew to speed up the replenishment of fuel bombs for the planes, and then took the risk of adjusting the formation route to the northeast. It was prepared to shorten the distance with the Japanese artillery fleet and save time for a possible third wave of attacks.

Although the number of Kincaid's second-wave offensive aircraft group is less than that of the Zero fighter group that provides cover for the artillery fleet, most of these US carrier-based aircraft pilots are veterans who have participated in the Coral Sea and Midway battles, and their experience is much better than that of Japanese land-based zero combat pilots (Japan's high-level pilots have been transferred to aircraft carriers, coupled with the consumption of experienced pilots in the early operation on Kuah Island, the quality of land-based pilots has declined rapidly, and many of them are rookies who have only been on the battlefield for 3 months), so although many planes have been shot down, But the American attacking aircraft group still managed to get in. Taking the left flank as an example, in the face of the 14 Zero fighters flying over the shelling fleet, the 8 F4Fs that served as escorts were skillfully arranged, entangled with opponents who outnumbered them, and under their desperate cover, 15 SBDs threw off the rest of the blocking Zeros and immediately dived down to the outer fleet from a height of 3500 meters, and a fierce battle that lasted for 20 minutes began.

Since this was the first attack on the outer warships of the Japanese air defense array, the heavy cruisers and destroyers who served as escorts around the three battleships were fiercely attacked, and the heavy cruiser Aoba ate 3 bombs and a torpedo within 2 minutes, the hull was **** 15 degrees, and the speed dropped to only 10 knots; The three heavy cruisers Myoko, Kaohsiung, and Kagu also each ate a bomb, blew up a bunch of anti-aircraft guns, and killed a circle of sailors; The 27th destroyer squadron that served as an escort for the Nagato suffered particularly heavy losses, the destroyer Ariake was hit by 2 torpedoes and sank on the spot, the two ships of Sunset and Shiraro ate a bomb and a torpedo respectively, a small body of less than 2,000 tons, and it was also sunk after struggling for a few minutes, and the destroyer Shiyu of the same team ate a near-miss bomb and a torpedo, but the torpedo turned out to be a dud, and escaped without danger, becoming the only lucky person to survive in this warband.

The sacrifices of the US military were not small, and the first to be sacrificed were the F4F fighter pilots who undertook the grappling mission, and 11 planes, including Lieutenant Grant, Lieutenant Fisher, and Lieutenant White, were shot down one after another. Some of the SBDs who completed the dive bomb drop successfully pulled up and broke away, some were shot down into the sea by anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns, and the engine of the American commander Weldheim's own plane suddenly overheated and caught fire, although he did not flinch and continued to rush, but before he reached the bomb dropping position, the engine completely stopped, and he dropped the bomb at the last moment, and operated the plane to make a forced landing on the sea.

Seeing that their own ships were constantly catching fire and exploding on the sea, the pilots of the Zero Combat who were responsible for intercepting but were not as skilled as others were red-eyed, and the pilots of several planes remembered that they could give up the plane parachute before departure, and gave up their plans to fight with the F4Fs for a long time, and hit the SBD and TBF headlong when they found it, and the pilots parachuted at the moment of impact.

This round of air defense warfare was fought very fiercely, with 32 of the 71 Type Zeros missing due to various factors such as hits and collisions, and the losses of the US carrier-based planes were not light, with 28 planes destroyed or fallen on the spot, and many of the 31 planes struggling to fly back were wounded. Because of their deep hatred for these US planes, even after they withdrew, the unrelenting Zero fighter group still bit their tails and chased them for more than 50 nautical miles, with the result that both sides lost 6 and 4 planes respectively.

There are only 33 of the zero battles in the sky over the bombardment fleet now, but Kusaka is more worried about Yamato's injuries: the three battleships have the best Olympic atmosphere in the middle of the land, and there is nothing wrong with it, Nagato ate a bomb on the front deck, Yamato hit 2 torpedoes on the starboard side, 2 bombs on the foredeck, and a mess near the middle turret, fortunately the turret defense is thick enough and still stands tenaciously, after the starboard mine Yamato slightly tilted to the right by 2 degrees, the captain decisively ordered the balance to be restored after the water injection, and now there are more than 2,900 tons of seawater in the Yamato cabin, The top speed dropped by 2 knots and could only be driven to 25 knots......

Even Kincaid was shocked to hear that the Japanese bombardment fleet was still advancing in a southwesterly direction, and was even more shocked by the dense air defense planes over the bombardment fleet and the pilots' accusations on the radio about the Japanese using ramming techniques.

"Maniac...... It's all a bunch of crazy people! His face contorted to a hideous look, and he gritted his teeth and said, "Since you want to die so much...... I will fulfill you! ”

Considering that the new offensive wave had been prepared, and in view of the large number of escort fighters over the Japanese fleet and their tactical savagery, he gritted his teeth and pulled out 8 more reinforcement attack aircraft from the fleet cover fighters, bringing it to 46 units, and now only 20 defense fighters of his TF16\17 formation remained.

But he did not know that just after the second attack wave had retreated, a total of 32 Zero fighters of the Japanese Third Air reinforcement wave from the Rabaul base had rushed over the shelling fleet, and now the covering fleet of the shelling fleet had reached 65 planes.

Horikichi listened to Kusaka's report with a calm face: "This is the last batch of reinforcement planes, at present, all the fighters of the air force of Munda, Bougainville, and Rabaul have been withdrawn, except for Bougainville, where there are 40 Zero Fighters serving as cover above the head of the mobile fleet, the rest of the airfields are no longer a single fighter of our army, and even some of the pilots who usually open ships and attack have been temporarily transferred to reserve fighters. ”

Horikichi pondered for a moment before giving the order: "Let the destroyer Shiyu cover the Aoba to return to Truk...... The rest of the fleet continued to advance to the southwest, and the whole army was assaulted. ”

"Sir!" The grass deer screamed in surprise.

"Sir!" Kondo Nobutake persuaded with tears in his eyes, "There is no problem with the attack, but I am afraid that the Yamato will not be able to hold it if it continues like this, do you please lead the two expulsion teams to break away first, and I will lead the other troops to break through......"

Mitsumi Shimizu, commander of the First Fleet, who was on the Nagato, also sent a telegram urging Yamato to leave the battlefield and Nagato to take over the follow-up responsibility.

"No, Yamato is the general flagship of the Combined Fleet, how can he be the first to escape? The American planes are coming to Yamato, and if they can't find Yamato, what should they do if they search indiscriminately? What to do if you find a mobile fleet? Horiyoshi said angrily, "I'm the one who acts as a decoy to attract firepower - even if the Yamato sinks here today, I can't change this fact, what responsibility is there, after the war, this commander will bear it!" ”

The two could only tearfully agree. (To be continued.) )