At 8:29, just over ten minutes after the TF16\17 second attack wave disengaged from the Japanese artillery fleet, the third attack wave was ready to take off, this time led by Captain James Foss, although this wave had only 46 aircraft, not only was the number small and many pilots were exhausted, but they were still motivated by the encounter between the TF64 formation and the first two attack waves, and their morale reached a peak, and they were ready to continue the attack in the style of hyenas against lions - although the force of each attack was limited, But it continues, leaving the opponent to lose blood. It was now blowing northeasterly, but the wind speed was less than 5 knots, and the fleet would have to move at least 16 knots or more if it wanted to fly its planes, which meant that the distance from the Japanese bombardment fleet was further reduced. However, Kincaid had already fired a real fire at this time, not only ordering the fleet to move quickly to the northeast to shorten the attack distance, but also preparing to risk reducing the fleet's escort fighters again to strengthen the offensive force. At the time of the departure of the third attack wave, the two aircraft carriers were ready to receive the return of the second attack wave and intended to use this as an opportunity to launch a fourth attack.

At the same moment, the mobile fleet, which had already released all the attack planes, was heading west, and the chief of staff of the fleet, Ryunosuke Kusaka, who was sitting in the command tower of the Shozuru and had been anxiously awaiting the results of the battle ahead, suddenly received an urgent telegram from the flying eagle, and he was shocked when he saw it.

"Flying Eagle ......," he gasped and told Tsukahara 243, "Flying Eagle's engine has a problem again." ”

"What?" Tsukahara 243 was also taken aback, before the battle in front of him started, an aircraft carrier had a problem first. This was not a good omen, and he anxiously asked, "Why?" Can it be fixed? ”

"Maybe it's because when I released the carrier-based aircraft in the wind with all my might just now, I destroyed the engine again." Ryunosuke Kusaka guessed why. "There was a problem before he came out, I thought he even put the carrier-based aircraft, at least he could barely deal with it back, but I didn't expect it to be so unlucky, now the speed of the whole ship is only 6 knots, there is no hope of repair, I am afraid that it will be a big trouble to recover the aircraft group."

"His plane was recovered by the remaining four carriers." Tsukahara looked at the chart. "Let the Flying Eagle return to Truk immediately and send a destroyer to accompany him."

"Yes."

"Let's go now, turn straight north. Drive as fast as you can. Tsukahara 243 explained, "The fleet is still hiding in the direction of Rabaul as planned......"

"But......" Ryunosuke Kusaka instantly understood the other party's thoughts: this was to use the Flying Eagle as a bait to mislead the possible incoming American aircraft, although reason told him that this way of dealing with it was right, but it was still difficult for him to accept this order reasonably.

"Poisonous snakes devour wrists, strong men break arms......" Tsukahara 243 smiled bitterly and patted the empty sleeve tube on his left. The Eagle may be this arm. In the end, Ryunosuke Kusaka had no choice but to reluctantly agree. Send a telegram for the Eagle to evacuate, and arrange for the nearest destroyer, the Yukikaze, to escort him all the way.

At 8:49, due to the fact that TF16\17 adjusted its course in order to receive the second attack wave during the flight of the carrier-based aircraft formation of the mobile fleet, the entire fleet has not yet found the Americans, but at this time other changes have happened.

"Oh God...... What is that? "Captain Locke was part of a group of B-17 bombers who had been ordered by Halsey this morning to take off from Vanuatu to bomb the Japanese "landing fleet" and the "Japanese landing ground" on Kuah Island. I am not familiar with the topography of Kuah Island, just now due to the air flow and cumulonimbus clouds. He broke away from the group and flew a long way off the normal course, until he realized that he had missed the target position long ago, flying more than 100 nautical miles more than the intended target location. Just as he was trying to correct the course back, because the B-17 had a large turning radius and was not fast, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a target on the sea in the distance - it was a large ship, and there was a small boat next to it, it was very slow, but there was no sign of fire or injury, and more importantly, the size and characteristics were exactly in line with what the American reconnaissance plane had been looking for - an aircraft carrier!

"Aircraft carrier...... That's an aircraft carrier...... Japanese aircraft carriers! "The co-pilot of the same plane has seen clearly the huge sunburst pill on the deck through the telescope.

"How did they end up here? Didn't General Halsey tell us to deal with the landing fleet, how could there be aircraft carriers? I don't remember that in the briefing......" Locke asked curiously.

"This ......," the co-pilot spread his hands, "who knows?" ”

"I don't know, or should we ask first?" Locke adjusted course and stared at the aircraft carrier below as he asked the communications officer to send a telegram to the captain of the team. The result of the inquiry startled him, not only did he take the lead of the captain very seriously, but even Halsey, who was far behind, was also alarmed.

At this moment, Mikawa Gunichi and Hyakutake Harumichi, who were leading the retreat of the 8th Fleet and the Army west of Kuah Island, were all as pale as dirt, and because of the drag of a slow transport ship, they ran for most of the morning before running westward for more than 50 nautical miles, and for the first time the American dive bombers came, and the Fuso and Yamashiro each ate a few bombs, although they were not fatal, but the situation was very bad. This time the situation was even worse, more than 20 B-17s appeared in the air, in the attack just now, even if the fleet tried its best to resist, but the bombs dropped by 7 B-17s still ruthlessly hit the Fuso, this old ship built for almost 30 years finally came to the end of its life, first tilted to the left, and then slowly sank. Looking at the B-17s, they meant that they were ready to wipe out all this fleet before they stopped, and the Mikawa Army did not dare to disband the formation and run separately, which would mean that the transport ships carried by the army were completely finished -- although the army and navy often had great contradictions, this matter could not be joked, and it was possible that the position of commander of the fleet could not be kept if it was too big to make trouble.

But to their surprise, something more bizarre than the novel actually happened: the remaining B-17s who had not dropped bombs did not know what evil they had hit, and suddenly they all hurried north, and the two were puzzled by this, and finally agreed that it was the "Amaterasu" apparition, and while ordering the destroyer to quickly rescue the Fuso crew who had fallen into the water, while taking advantage of the confusion of the Americans, they slipped away.

The B-17s, of course, were not stupid, and they received an order from the captain to search for and destroy the Japanese carriers, and then deal with the so-called landing fleet. They quickly found the Eagle according to the direction indicated by Locke, and because they did not believe that the Japanese only had such an aircraft carrier, they continued to search around, but found nothing, so they had to turn back and continue to deal with the Flying Eagle. The poor Flying Eagle power system was damaged, the top speed was only 6 knots, and he couldn't even do a decent dodge move, and it was completely meat on the board for others to slaughter. Under the ravages of more than 20 B-17s, 3 bombs were quickly eaten, and the flight deck of the Flying Eagle, which was hit, was blown open by 3 large holes, revealing the hangar below. Due to the high efficiency of the fire-fighting facilities and the desperate rescue of the damage management personnel, and the fact that the Flying Eagle has released all the carrier-based aircraft, it did not follow in the footsteps of the predecessors of Midway and had any explosions, and was still floating on the sea, and was almost tenaciously advancing at a speed of 5 knots, but at this time it had completely lost the ability to take off and land the aircraft, and the radio communication was almost paralyzed, which was basically equivalent to the "living dead".

The snow wind next to it jumped around in the rain of bullets, only to eat a near miss, even the oil skin did not scratch a piece, this kind of situation in the face of the violent and beautiful B-17 is of course an excellent irony, they originally wanted to leave some bombs to deal with which landing fleet just now, now they can only throw them all, the next 5 minutes Flying Eagle has eaten 5 bombs, under such a degree of destruction, itself is only a mail ship rebuilt light aircraft carrier Flying Eagle finally can't stand it, from the middle of the break into two sections and began to sink, The Yukikaze, who was destined for his life, remained unscathed, and rescued the crew members who had fallen into the water after the B-17s had withdrawn, and then returned to Truk first on the orders of Tsukahara 243.

When Kincaid received the news that the B-17s had discovered the Japanese aircraft carrier in the northwest waters of Kuah Island, he finally reacted to the whole battle, the Japanese aircraft carrier was not behind the shelling fleet at all, and the reconnaissance planes he sent out to search for it were all useless, and the reason why the shelling fleet advanced so frantically was entirely to attract his own attention and lure himself to put all his forces on them to create opportunities for the Japanese aircraft carriers, as for the Zero fighters covering the battleships, it is estimated that they are all land-based aircraft from nearby islands, This is also the reason why the Japanese fleet is desperately trying to blow up the airfield on Kuah Island -- that is, to deny the Americans land-based aircraft. He took all the factors before and after and came to an astonishing conclusion: the goal of the Japanese was not Kuah Island, but their own aircraft carrier force. This conclusion is basically close to the truth, but unfortunately - it is too late!

At 9 o'clock and 3 minutes, the 264 Japanese mobile fleet carrier-based planes that had found the target fiercely pounced on the American aircraft carrier force, and Rear Admiral George Murray commanded the TF17 to form an anti-aircraft wheel formation with the Hornet as the core, surrounded by 2 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 6 destroyers, TF16 was 10 nautical miles northwest of TF17, and Kincaid, under the protection of the battleship South Dakota, commanded the Enterprise to enter the rain area to avoid air raids. Although the 20 frigates over the fleet tried their best to block it, and although the fleet put on the most blazing anti-aircraft fire, this was obviously not enough to change the 1:13 aircraft number disadvantage.

Since the Enterprise was hiding in the rain area, the preferred target of the Japanese carrier-based aircraft was TF16, where the Hornet was located, and at 9 o'clock, Shigeharu Murata, the commander of the Japanese 1st Attack Team, gave an order on the radio - "Assault with all the troops!" (To be continued.) )