In the command in Washington, Roosevelt and all the senior members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff heard the alarming news: "The main force of the enemy fleet has been discovered, and there are 9 large warships, suspected battleships, 6 medium warships, suspected heavy cruisers, and a number of small warships, estimated to be destroyers, and the center of the enemy fleet is currently located 160 kilometers northeast of Panama, and is advancing southwest at a speed of about 40 kilometers per hour, and it is expected to launch an artillery bombardment of the canal zone at 4 p.m. today, and our army has only 14 existing planes, which are unable to undertake the attack mission. Request reinforcements. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info"

The staff officers immediately put on the position of the Axis fleet on a large electric sand table, and then reported the distance of the air strikes: "From Nicaragua, the distance is about 650 km, from Florida, the distance is about 1750 km......"

The only way to strike the fleet from home is to use the B-24, but the staff officer added in a whisper: "The Panamanian airfield is still paralyzed, and small planes can barely take off and land, not the B-24." ”

"Where is the enemy aircraft carrier formation?" Admiral Kim asked with a frown.

"It has not been found yet, it is still searching, and the number of reconnaissance aircraft is insufficient at present."

"The Nicaraguan bomber group is all dispatched, and the local bomber group is transferred to the Nicaraguan airport to replenish the field, preparing to strike the next day...... "Although the priority target of the air attack is the aircraft carrier, the threat of the shelling fleet is close at hand, Marshall weighed and made a difficult decision, which was supported by Admiral King, and the reason is clear: even if the heavy bombers from the mainland are far enough, the time is too late, it is better to save the strength until the next day, now the enemy gunboats are more threatening than the aircraft carriers, and the priority must be adjusted.

Admiral King then added: "Inform the Atlantic Fleet of the latest news, and we will fight to eradicate these scourges in the Caribbean." ”

At 13:35, the U.S. Army Air Force deployed in Nicaragua dispatched an air attack formation, including 24 B-25 horizontal bombers, 12 torpedo-mounted TBF attack planes and 12 SBD dive bombers, and 48 bombers, and under the cover of 24 P-47s, they rushed violently towards the Axis artillery formation. When carrying out air raids, the Nicaraguan side also called on the Panamanian defenders to attack together to increase the effect of air strikes. Lieutenant General Ross gritted his teeth and threw all the remaining 14 planes - 6 F4U and 8 SBD into the attack.

At 15:15, the radar crew on the Tirpitz, which rushed to the front, warned: "A group of enemy aircraft has been found 125 kilometers away, and the number is expected to exceed 80." A few minutes later, the rest of the warships also gave the alarm.

"German TV scouts are good...... "Horikichi didn't know that the British and American radars were slightly stronger than the German radars, and the reason for this exclamation was that the Japanese goods were so poor. Still, the figure of 80 scared him.

"The US military should have a large air base outside of Panama, probably a little far away from Panama, otherwise it is impossible to wait for the afternoon to attack us." Horiyoshi frowned and explained, "After the air raid, send two reconnaissance planes to follow up to see the situation, be careful, don't let the Americans find out......"

However, even if there was a warning time of 125 kilometers, it was enough, and the fleet's forward momentum did not change, and it continued to advance towards the Panama Canal Zone, and the air defense formation had become relatively tight, and a few minutes later, the US aircraft group appeared in the fleet's field of vision, and the anti-aircraft guns opened fire one after another in an attempt to break up the enemy formation, and the 36 BF-219 fighters used for cover overhead dropped their auxiliary fuel tanks and rushed forward to intercept the enemy.

"Discover the Strasbourg."

"Discover the Richelieu."

"Discover the Tirpitts."

"Found 2 Nagato-class ships."

From the air, the oddly shaped French battleship with its main guns in front is the easiest to identify, followed by the Tirpitts and the Nagato, with its flagship logo. In the face of so many battleships, the American pilots also made a difficulty, not knowing which one to bomb first, and finally reached a unified agreement to give priority to dealing with the Tirpitz and Nagato, because these two warships not only have the flagship logo, but also hang the flag of the admiral, and their position is also located in the core of the entire formation, which shows their most important position.

There are more than 80 US planes in the fleet, but the Japanese and German naval pilots who have experienced a hundred battles are not intimidated by this posture, although the B-25 bombers are the largest and the most numerous, but they can only carry out horizontal bombing, and the threat is really not great, but the TBF and SBD should not be underestimated. In particular, the 12 TBFs, taking advantage of the opportunity of the SBD, B-25, P-47 and F4U to attract anti-aircraft fire, quietly lagged behind and circled to lower their altitude, ready to launch a sneak attack.

This little trick did not hide from Nishizawa Hiroshi's eyes, he beckoned, the sweeping trio and the other two German pilots immediately dived down from the formation, focusing on dealing with these sneaky TBFs, the American long plane leading the team did not react, he was shot down with a beautiful cross incision, and the two German pilots dived directly into the American formation at a large angle of about 70 degrees, and fired fiercely at the two TBFs below that could not be evaded, The 20mm aerial shell instantly penetrated the cockpit and the back of the aircraft from diagonally above, killing the pilot on the spot, and the poor rear-seat machine gunner fell down with the plane before he could react - the BF-219, which was famous for its horizontal grappling, was forced to play BZ tactics by the ace pilot.

In just one shot, 5 of the 12 TBFs were shot down, which frightened the formation of US mine-strike planes to disperse, but how could the slow and stupid torpedo planes escape the pursuit of light and dexterous fighters? The five men became more and more courageous, and in less than three minutes they sent all the torpedo planes into the sea, except for one torpedo plane that dropped a torpedo in a panic and was eager to flee for its life, the rest of the planes could not even throw a torpedo successfully. After shooting down these enemy planes, the five aces did not dare to stop, and quickly climbed up to deal with other enemy planes.

The leader of the US military aircraft group is Lieutenant Colonel Pfister, who is in command from the back seat of an SBD, just now this new SBD-5 dive bomber accurately dropped a 1000-pound high-explosive bomb onto the back deck of a Kongo-class battle cruiser, he couldn't help but feel proud of himself, when the pilot struggled to pull the plane out of it, he subconsciously glanced at the sea, and found that there was not even a torpedo plane in the air, and after a careful search, he still did not see the figure of the torpedo plane.

He called the radio several times, and there was only a bunch of noisy exclamations:

"Hell, he hit me, hit me......"

"Ahh......h I fell, I fell......"

"Jimmy, Jimmy, there's a Japanese plane biting your tail!"

"Skydive, skydive."

But there was no echo from none of the torpedo pilots, and he couldn't help but exclaim: "They were all shot down?" When he called the SBD squadron again, he received very little response.

This is not his delusion, in the round of air strikes just now, 12 TBFs were wiped out, 9 of the 12 SBDs from Nicaragua were lost, 5 of the 8 SBDs that took off from Panama, 3 of the 6 F4U were shot down, 11 of the 24 P-47s were shot down, and only 3 of the heavy and least talked about B-25s were shot down.

The U.S. forces that paid such a heavy price had very few results: one bomb was hit on the rear deck of the Kirishima, one bomb was hit in the main turret of the Tirpits, and two near-misses were hit by the king of near-misses, and the rest of the warships were unscathed, especially the Nagato, which was besieged by the B-24, circled left and right and maneuvered in all directions under the control of the captain Nagasune Yonejiro Osa, and was so flexible that it did not look like a 43,000-ton battleship, and finally came out unharmed. Of the 36 Axis fighters, only 7 were lost, and the ratio of losses between the two sides reached an astonishing 43:7.

After the bombing was completed, the U.S. fighters covered the remnants of the bombers and fought and retreated, and the Axis fighters continued to pounce on the attack, and shot down 3 P-47s, 1 F4U and 3 SBDs at the cost of 1 downed, and finally fixed the overall result at 8:50.

Looking at the smoke and fire on the rear deck of the Kirishima, Horikichi asked with concern, "How are the Kirishima and Tirpitz injured?" ”

"It looks ugly, it's not a big deal, 1,000-pound high-explosive shells can't penetrate the main armor belt, and both ships just now replied that it will not affect the follow-up artillery battle."

"That's good!" Horikichi nodded, "The destroyer will get the pilot up as soon as possible......"

The US air raid delayed the fleet for 15 minutes, and by 4 o'clock sharp, the lookout post at the top of the mast cheered, and the Panama Canal Zone was already in sight, and the distance was about 50 kilometers at this time, and the fighters covering the fleet were rotated again, reaching the scale of 36 again.

"Prepare for shelling! General Machar is invited to take unified command. ”

After the news of the failure of the first attack wave came back, there was a deathly silence in the command in Washington: the enemy seemed to be very experienced, and the B-25, although it had a large bomb load, was obviously not enough to deal with the fleet with high maneuverability, so the enemy aircraft did not bother to deal with it, and the losses were not large; However, the SBD and TBF, which can really destroy the fleet, are the key targets of enemy aircraft, and they suffer heavy casualties, especially the lightning strike planes that can cause fatal damage to battleships. Although the morale of the officers and men of the army aviation is high and their spirits are high, they really lack experience in dealing with the fleet. Although more than 100 support planes were transferred from Florida to Nicaragua in the afternoon, if this exchange ratio is repeated tomorrow, I am afraid that the Axis fleet will not be stopped, and the enemy ships will be bombarded at hand, and even if we continue to attack, it will be useless.

At that moment, Marshall almost faltered, but Admiral King insisted: "Today we hit at least 3 enemy ships and shot down more than 10 enemy planes, I don't believe they are unscathed, no matter what, tomorrow's air raid must be insisted on, the United States has tens of thousands of planes and pilots, but the enemy's capital ships and planes are all that, whoever can grit his teeth and persevere, will be able to achieve the final victory." ”

Roosevelt agreed with Admiral King that this is a world war, and there can be no mercy for women! (To be continued.) )