At the same time as Cunningham made the final decision, the Massachusetts, which had persisted for a long time and had eaten a total of 7 bombs and 3 torpedoes, finally came to the end.

After Takashi Ekusa eliminated the heavy cruiser on the outer escort of the Massachusetts, the other ships could not fill the gap for a while, and the Japanese attack aircraft immediately swarmed in, 8 ships exploded bombs to attract anti-aircraft fire, and 6 97 ships seized the opportunity to launch the Type 91 aviation torpedoes under its belly, although the Massachusetts dodged 4 of them with its clever steering skills, but 2 still hit the starboard side that had been damaged and flooded. With the huge explosion gap, the sea water continued to pour in, a large number of boilers stopped, the speed suddenly decreased to 7 knots, the inclination increased to 14 degrees, and 3 minutes later, the starboard side ate another torpedo, and the water ingot to make matters worse, and the 37,000-ton cutting-edge battleship finally could not support it and capsized.

The Malaya also came to the end of its life, the old ship funded by the Dominion of Malaya of the British Commonwealth, which participated in the Battle of Jutland, was defeated in the face of the power of 4 bombs and 3 torpedoes, first the bow tilted downward, and then slowly entered the water, when the stern was raised high, the tail propeller was still spinning hard, and finally the giant ship equipped with 381mm caliber guns and a displacement of 31,000 tons was also sunk 5 minutes after the capsizing of the Massachusetts.

At the same time as the sinking of Malaya, the Warweary, which was located in the center of the formation and hung with the admiral and flagship flags, was besieged by all planes, and the two light cruisers Brooklyn and Savannah (both of the Brooklyn class) on the left and right flanks followed the Philadelphia and blocked a total of 5 torpedoes for the flagship. Desperately struggling to sink; The heavy cruiser Wichita (the only ship of its class) continued to pounce on the city, but such desperate behavior could not save the fate of the Warweary, and instead put itself in first. Because there were so many enemy planes in the air, the ship was hit by torpedoes and bombs one at a time, because one bomb had already been hit in the first round of air strikes, and finally it sank due to too much water.

This is a completely conceivable result: after the fleet formation was disrupted and the group of F4F fighters covering it was completely wiped out, the entire fast column was almost undefended, and it was a miracle that the fleet was able to survive the attack of more than 200 carrier-based aircraft. At this time, they were still 103 nautical miles away from the oncoming Takagi Takeo 1st Guerrilla Detachment.

9:53 min. Cunningham and Peters scrambled to climb into a lifeboat to escape, and three minutes earlier they had witnessed the sinking of the warweariness, the last battleship of the fleet and also the flagship. At this point, the capital ships of the fast fleet led by Admiral Cunningham, including 1 light air carrier, 5 battleships, 3 heavy cruisers, and 3 light cruisers, were all sunk. The Combined Fleet inflicted more than 200,000 tons of ship losses on the British and American navies at once, and the price they paid was negligible: counting the loss of 21 aircraft in the first attack wave, Japan paid a total of 33 planes before and after, plus 1 aircraft lost in the fleet escort operation. The overall battle loss rate was only 12%.

Although among these battleships, except for the Massachusetts, it can be considered a new one. The rest of the battleships were either second-tier or old, but after witnessing the casualties of thousands of sailors, Cunningham could not contain his emotions and cried bitterly. The staff officers of the command, who were in the same lifeboat with him, did not know how to persuade him, and in short, the future was now bleak:

The fast fleet is ruined!

The slow fleet is stopped!

The army units ran away - they would be frantically pursued by the Japanese army!

In the end, after the loss of this group of troops, Egypt and Egypt's troops were all finished!

Lost Egypt and the fleet. Is there a future for the British Empire?

When the plane had dumped all the ammunition, Egusa Takashi left with satisfaction. In addition to the transport echelon that was still rushing towards the coast, there were only three destroyers left on the sea that were desperately gathering personnel.

After the news was transmitted back to the ships of the Combined Fleet, everyone was boiling, and the sound of onboard was incessant.

"Sir, we need to hurry, or these transports will soon be running away......

"Where are they going? How far is the 1st partisan detachment from them? ”

"The course is about 275 degrees, the speed is about 19 knots, and the guerrilla detachment has raised the speed to 28 knots, but at present there are at least 170 nautical miles away, and I am afraid that we will not be able to catch up in the short term, so we must rely on aviation."

Horikichi nodded, thought for a moment and asked, "Heading west?" Is there a port nearby? ”

"Nope."

"Then why flee west?"

"This ......," Kusaka reacted after a moment's thought, "you mean they're going to land?" ”

"No matter how fast the transport ship runs, it can't get rid of the plane, and only by landing can it get rid of the pursuit of our army." Horikichi looked at the charts, "East Africa is now the territory of the British, and the Americans probably want to find a shoal and pounce on it to land, and if they continue to escape in the sea, they will only be sunk by us." ”

"Oh...... Then we have to speed up the time, otherwise the enemy will be able to seize the beach in another 2 hours, and the bombing effect will be greatly reduced. ”

Horikichi shook his head slightly, showed a strange smile, and gave a strange order: "The second round of attacks is allowed, but only the battleships are allowed to be hit, and the transports are not allowed to be bombed, and it is still useful for me to keep them." ”

"What?" Grass Deer couldn't believe his ears, and he stammered, "Sir...... Sir...... Why are you doing this? ”

"How about putting them in one yard?"

"Sir, this is no joke, just now I ordered all of them to be sent to the bottom of the sea, leaving no prisoners." Kusaka was not sure what Horiyoshi meant, and anxiously persuaded, "Although we have destroyed the enemy fleet, we must not be merciful to the enemy...... Besides, if you do this, what will the German side think if they find out? ”

"Give the order to Tsukahara first, and he will understand."

After receiving the telegram, Kusaka Ryunosuke said to Tsukahara 243 with a strange face: "Chief Horikichi has sent us a strange order, and the chief of staff thinks it is inappropriate and does not dare to persuade him, I hope you will persuade him." ”

Tsukahara watched it a few times, and after thinking silently for a while, he said slowly: "Inform Mitsuo Fuchida that the second round of strikes will be carried out according to this order." ”

"Sir, do you see something?"

"Caolu Jun, would you rather take the equipment or send the enemy to the bottom of the sea with your own hands?"

"What's the difference? …… Oh...... No! Kusaka Ryunosuke reacted, "The chief has taken a fancy to the enemy's equipment and supplies?" ”

Tsukahara two-four-three nodded: "It's a hundred times to sink them, but the things on them will sink to the bottom of the sea." Only put them one yard...... Those are all transport ships that don't have a port yet, and the enemy wants to land again, what if you change them? ”

Kusaka Ryunosuke came back to his senses: "They can only forcibly grab the beach, and they can't unload the bulk of supplies. ”

"To be exact, in addition to equipment and supplies, there are also those ships, and now the bombing is actually our own trophies." Horikichi sighed to Kusaka, "Europe and the United States value personnel more than materials - this material is not a problem for the United States, but the empire is really poor......

"But......" Cao Lu didn't know what to say: of course, sinking the transport ship was a hundred, but after sinking, the contents of the transport ship would also sink to the bottom of the sea; If they were to be given a yard for supplies, there would certainly be a large number of British and American officers and soldiers left. What the chief said also makes sense, the empire is really short of equipment and supplies. In the end, the desire for supplies overrode the desire to destroy all American soldiers, and agreed to this opinion.

"The U.S. soldiers are not all released, and they can continue to bomb them with planes after they go ashore, but the destroyers must be destroyed so that they don't make trouble."

"Sir, wise."

"There is no wisdom in it, at best it is shrewdness." Horikichi said mockingly, "I've been in business for a few more years......

As soon as this sentence came out, not only Caolu, but also the other command staff officers laughed.

Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida were also stunned by this order at first, and after figuring it out, they thought that the commander was far-sighted and reasonable, and finally Mitsuo Fuchida added: "It's always okay for fighters to strafe, right?" This won't sink the transport ship anyway. ”

"Of course, that's fine, and they have to be beaten hard, lest they have time to think about blowing up or sinking ships."

"In this case, there is no need to send ships to attack in the second round of attacks, but it is necessary to put in as many fighters as possible and assemble spare fighters."

"The commander has also instructed the ship to bomb the island of Socotra, especially to destroy the airfield, although there are no planes on it, but to prevent the British from using this airfield to make trouble for us tomorrow and the day after tomorrow."

"Leave this task to Jiang Caojun." Mitsuo Fuchida smiled, "I continue to fight the Americans, and I also want to let the American officers taste the taste of broken legs." ”

At 10:38, Mitsuo Fuchida abandoned his often flying 97 ship attack, climbed into the back seat of the 99 type shipburst, and commanded 39 Zero Battles and 37 99 shipbursts to start the second round of attacks.

At 11:07, Takashi Egusa, who returned to the mothership, also heard about such an interesting thing as only fighting battleships and not transports, and immediately became interested, and strongly requested to attack the US army as well, and threw the task of leading the team to attack Socotra Island to Murata Shigeji Shaosa, and after hurriedly using the plum rice balls, he took 34 Zero Battles and 31 ships to the US landing site.

Murata Shigeji really couldn't push it anymore, so he had to take the remaining zero battles, ship explosions, and all the ship attacks to deal with Socotra Island, but Kusaka Ryunosuke's next words made him dumbfounded: "The commander ordered that the ship attack should not be full of bombs, and leave a squadron to hang torpedoes." ”

"Torpedo?" Shigeharu Murata was stunned and stammered, "Use torpedoes against Kojima?" ”

"Maybe there's a ship?" Ryunosuke Kusaka smiled slightly, "It's a dense gathering area of merchant shipping routes, and it's easy to handle torpedoes, but if you find an oil tanker...... You know what to do. ”

Shigeji Murata, known as the "King of Lightning Strikes", nodded again and again, showed a knowing smile, and left happily. (To be continued.) )