Witnessing the Ar-272 passing past his own convoy and even escaping from the guns of the European Swallow, Hamilton felt a sense of unease, the presence of an enemy reconnaissance plane meant that the enemy fleet was not far from his side, but the problem was that his reconnaissance plane had not yet discovered the enemy. He could only order the ships to take off quickly, but the fact that the fighters were actually teased by the water reconnaissance planes still annoyed him.

At 7:31, the first batch of fighters on the four escort aircraft carriers took off and formed a group of 24 cover planes, with these planes as the base, Hamilton's mood relaxed a little, he anxiously waited for the exact news of the enemy situation, and on the other hand, he ordered the escort aircraft carriers to take off the attack planes as soon as possible, preparing to quickly form an attack team. Two minutes later, the exact information came, and after reading the enemy briefing from Iceland, he was shocked, and his hands could not help shaking: not surprised that the enemy had been discovered so quickly, but that the enemy and us were so close - "The enemy fleet is 250 kilometers to the northwest!" ”

Surprised to be surprised, his movements were not slow, and immediately let all the attack aircraft rise into the air and go on the attack. When he was serving in the Mediterranean Fleet, he participated in aircraft carrier battles many times, and he deeply agreed with the principle of "the enemy discovers first, attacks first, and attacks on all decks." Ten minutes later, the walrus reconnaissance plane also confirmed that the enemy situation was true, and even witnessed the German fleet retreating westward. But the cable came to an abrupt halt halfway through, and Hamilton speculated that it had been shot down – the most direct piece of evidence.

As he anxiously waited for the TBF or Swordfish to take off, a terrifying warning sounded and the lookout post reported that more than 30 enemy planes were coming, and they were fast, with a visual inspection of more than 300 knots.

"Let the European swallows entangle them, and the aircraft carrier must be given enough time to release the attack aircraft."

In order to smoothly take off the attack planes, the four aircraft carriers are now leaving their positions and heading towards the northwest to face the wind, and there are few escort warships around, and it is difficult to maneuver in a hurry. The European Swallow, who was responsible for the cover of the fleet, quickly greeted the mothership and prepared to intercept the German aircraft from a safe distance.

Ozawa's experience and understanding of aircraft carrier operations made him better control of tactical details: after the German fleet took off two groups of attack planes, he suggested that the eight Bf-219s in the second attack wave should also be reinforced to the first attack wave, so that they could use their speed advantage to quickly join the first attack wave, and after the first attack wave completed the attack, these covering fighters would continue to provide cover for the second attack wave - the speed difference between the two attack waves made the time difference objectively exist. The Bf-219's long air time allowed people not to worry about running out of fuel, and the recommendation was quickly implemented.

Through tactical fine-tuning, the total number of German aircraft of the first attack wave reached 38, including 20 Bf-219 and 18 He-218. Faced with the interception of 24 European Swallows, the escort fighters immediately pounced and entangled with each other. Hamilton's tactical idea of letting the European Swallow entangle the enemy was correct, but the objective performance gap between the two planes made this arrangement immediately a luxury: not to mention the Bf-219 with a speed of 620 km/h, that is, the He-218 flew faster than the European Swallow, and 14 of the 20 Bf-219s took the initiative to entangle the European Swallow, and then the other 6 covered the He-218 as much as possible to break through and attack, although some of the He-218s were intercepted, but most of the dive bombers arrived over the fleet.

In the face of blazing anti-aircraft fire, Major Lindemann, who led the attack, did not hesitate to use 3 aircraft as a formation to find the escort aircraft carrier to dive and attack, 14 of the 18 He-218 successfully broke through the air over the fleet, 2 broke through and were shot down by European swallow or anti-aircraft fire, and the remaining 12 successfully completed the bomb dropping. Due to the fact that the aircraft carriers were releasing aircraft groups in the wind, coupled with the slow speed of the aircraft itself, there was no parry at all, and Hamilton could only watch the bombs fall from the sky:

At 7:49, the escort aircraft carrier Kopaxi was hit by a 500-kilogram aerial bomb and began to sink, and half a minute later, the escort carrier of the Strider followed in the footsteps of the Kopahi, and an aerial bomb fell in the middle of the deck, not only blowing up the plane that had not yet taken off above, but also detonating all the fuel and ammunition below, and the aircraft carrier converted from a cargo ship sank rapidly; Almost at the same time, the Collider ate a bomb on the foredeck of the escort carrier, the boiler was paralyzed, the power was lost, the entire ship was blacked out, and the deck was on fire, although it had not yet sunk, but it could only float on the surface of the sea like a dead fish; Only the escort carrier Nassau had the best luck, miraculously avoiding all 3 bombs, only to miss a near bullet, and smashing the 2 TBF attack planes that did not take off to pieces.

In another place, the battle between the Bf-219 and the European Yan gradually divided the winner, the Bf-219 lost 2, the European Yan lost a total of 9, the free Bf-219 immediately helped other dive bombers to attack, the 4 He-218 that were intercepted just now were shot down by the European Yan in the crossfire, and the other 3 successfully broke through and prepared to bomb, the target was found to find the Nassau that had just escaped, this time luck was still with this escort aircraft carrier, it was destroyed by destroyers, The air defense cruiser was heavily protected, surrounded by dense firepower, looking at the hair-numbing fire network below, the three planes did not stupidly pounce down to die, but made a detour under the leadership of the long plane, and threw all the bombs on the periphery of the Bermuda (Fiji-class) light cruiser, and the isolated Bermuda became the most unlucky warship today - 3 bombs were hit in one breath, and the interval between the landing points was less than 20 meters, and the continuous explosions caused extremely appalling damage, The 10,000-ton light cruiser could not withstand such a dense offensive and began to sink slowly.

At 8:03, the Bf-219 covered the He-218 that had finished dropping the bomb and exited, although this round of attack killed 3 escort carriers, but the first wave of attack wave losses were not small, He-218 was shot down 3, 20 Bf-219 lost 3, the battle loss rate was as high as 16%, but the results were considerable: sank 3 escort aircraft carriers and 1 10,000-ton cruiser, by the way, also killed 12 European swallows and 7 Swordfish or TBF that could not be evaded, As for the remaining aircraft on the 3 escort carriers, the opportunity to take off was permanently lost.

Faced with this result, Hamilton was so angry that the air power of the entire E fleet was mixed up: only 12 of the 24 European Swallows remained, the assault team that had taken off and was ready to attack was destroyed, and only 17 of the 24 Swordfish or TBFs remained, but fortunately he still saved the Nassau, otherwise there would have been no place for the planes to land. After the German fleet withdrew, the Nassau flew the remaining aircraft again, and another five Euroswallows and three TBFs took off, bringing Hamilton's air power to 37.

He immediately sent all 20 attack planes into the attack without hesitation, but hesitated when dispatching the covering planes, and finally ruthlessly took out 8 European Swallows to undertake the covering task, and only 9 covering planes remained over the fleet, and the sea attack aircraft group composed of the remaining 28 planes flew to the northwest at the fastest speed.

But after 10 minutes, he knew that his adventurous strategy had failed, and the lookout post reported that a group of more than 30 enemy planes had arrived. He angrily pounded the wall of the command tower: "This is not scientific! The Germans have a total of 2 aircraft carriers, nearly 40 planes just came, and now more than 30, how many planes are in their hands? ”

He never imagined that the Bf-219 that was covering the Ju-98 attack formation was the group of fighters he had seen just now, and after escorting the He-218 back, they turned around again over the sea area and pounced on the E fleet again.

"Oh my God...... How many planes did the Germans really have? They're not going to use the water reconnaissance planes to make up the numbers, are they? Seeing that more than 30 planes were rushing towards his side, the captain of the Nassau couldn't help but sigh with emotion, and when he saw the group of planes clearly with the help of the telescope, he was shocked and shouted, "Lightning strikers!" It's a lightning striker! ”

Hamilton was almost desperate, this round of attack fleet faced much greater difficulties, he could only take out 9 European Swallows to intercept, only to see 17 Bf-219s swarmed up, after losing 1 of the enemy all of them - the entire E fleet was already in the sky with no planes, and the time had finally come for the Ju-98 to make a big move.

The commander of the formation, Major Koenig, saw the two most conspicuous battleships, and also saw the escort carrier of the Nassau on the other side, which was heavily protected by several warships, and he did not rush to attack these two targets first, but aimed at the outermost two air defense cruisers. Six Ju-98s dropped sharply in altitude, approached the surface of the sea and projected torpedoes in the abdomen from two directions, the British warships tried to avoid it, but it was obviously not enough to compete with the torpedo attack at close range, and two minutes later, the luna air defense cruiser (Dedot class) and the destroyer Ashanti (Horde class) were successively sunk by mines.

After the sinking of the two warships, a gap was opened in the defensive formation of the Nassau, and Major Koenig seized the opportunity to lead the remaining 10 Ju-98s to pounce on them and launch an intensive torpedo attack, and the destroyer Eskimo desperately blocked the guns of the Nassau and sank immediately. With the sinking of the Eskimo, combined with the losses of the Tatars and Nubians in the previous two days and the rest of the battle, the Royal Navy's own Horde-class destroyers were wiped out. The anti-aircraft cruiser Cleopatra (Dedot-class), named after Cleopatra, shot down a Ju-98 flying at close range, but was itself torpedoed and sunk.

In the case of the death of two layers of guards, the Nassau, which had repeatedly avoided the deadly threat, was finally in a catastrophe this time, and three torpedoes hit the bow, stern, and amidships, and the engineer maneuvered the modified aircraft carrier to turn 15 degrees to the right to avoid the torpedoes in the bow and stern, but the amidships could not escape in any case, and they could only watch the torpedoes sink the warship under their feet. (To be continued.) )