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Fletcher did his best to keep the Radiance, so he ordered the remaining formation to be divided into two parts, one to the northwest to distract the enemy and distract from the view, and the other to Puerto Rico, and asked Cohen to send him a cover fighter to escort him.

But this measure did not have much effect, after the cruiser formation in the northwest was eaten by the Axis Group, the plane that completed the bombing automatically became a reconnaissance aircraft, and after 11 minutes of searching, the trace of the Brilliant was found, although the remnants of the fleet of 4 carrier-based fighters and Puerto Rico's 6 F4F and 4 F6F (all original carrier-based aircraft) tried their best to cover, but still could not escape the fate of all being shot down, and finally the Axis Group paid 2 Bf-219, At the cost of 2 He-218 and 1 Ju-98, the formation was completely annihilated in 5 minutes.

At 15:35, Admiral King received a telegram: the aircraft carrier Radiance, the Oakland air defense cruiser and 4 destroyers were sunk, and Vice Admiral Fletcher was martyred...... After receiving such bad news, even if he usually had a big opinion on Fletcher, Admiral King couldn't help but burst into tears, and after being uncomfortable for a long time, he explained to the people around him: "Report the information to the president and ask for mercy." ”

As soon as the words fell, Cohen sent a telegram: In view of the insufficient number of aircraft currently available in Puerto Rico, with a total of only 19 P-47s, 21 SBDs and 18 A20s, it is recommended to strike only at the enemy's light air carrier forces. Admiral Kim hesitated for a moment to agree, and motioned to report the news to the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with it.

These two pieces of news caused a violent shock in the command headquarters, and everyone's mood was very heavy - the battle of Panama was completely lost, and Roosevelt finally made a decision, agreeing to the request of the front commander, and at the same time asking Ingersoll to keep the battleship force as much as possible.

After completing the attack, Mitsuo Fuchida did not stop, but returned to the mothership at maximum speed, and he always remembered Tsukahara's statement before departure: "If there is a chance, I will consider attacking the American battleship formation......"

On the Shozuru, Ryunosuke Kusaka is reporting to Tsukahara 243 about the results ahead, and tells him that Ingersoll's battleship formation is fleeing in the direction of the Cayman Islands, and that the two sides are currently about 850 kilometers away from each other, and are approaching at a speed of 15-20 kilometers per hour.

"Can't catch up with ......"

"I can't catch up before dark today, but it's okay tomorrow!" Kusaka Ryunosuke said unwillingly.

Tsukahara shook his head: "Our results are enough, if we continue to pursue, at least until dawn tomorrow will not be able to bring them into the strike range, but at that time we will re-enter the triple attack of the United States, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico, who knows how many planes the Americans can send." ”

"Sir, the Yukikaze sent a telegram that the U.S. military sank the Falcon."

"What about Yukikaze herself?"

"One was hit by a near-miss, the rest are unscathed, and the survivors are currently being salvaged."

"Let it quickly rush out of the Caribbean Sea after completing the rescue, and wait for the convergence with the large army."

The bombing performance of Yukikaze and Hayabusa is seen as a direct example of the poor technical level of American aircraft: 16 SBDs were not interfered with by any enemy aircraft and the main target could only evade at a speed of 13 knots, 9 planes only hit one bomb of the Hayabusa before sinking it last, while the other 7 SBDs were assigned to attack the Yukikaze, and as a result, when the target maneuvered at a high speed of more than 30 knots, only one of its close misses was hit, and 2 planes were shot down by anti-aircraft fire, and finally after the fighters strafed the sea in a venting manner, The entire formation withdrew in a daze. However, the damage caused by this strafing of the sea was not small, with more than 100 casualties, and the damage caused was greater than that of a bomb.

At a quarter past 16, Mitsuo Fuchida led a group of attack planes back to the mothership, and as soon as he landed on the ship, he anxiously asked Minoru Genda: "Will we go to fight the battleship later!" ”

"No more fighting." The latter shook his head and said, "The chief said that it was too far to fight today, and it was too risky to fight tomorrow, so he gave up the plan." ”

"Ahh Mitsuo Fuchida was full of unwillingness, and begged to propose a plan, "Can I lead the lightning strike plane to attack?" On the return voyage, let some of the destroyers rush to the rescue, and we will just jump into the sea! I don't want planes either. ”

Minoru Genda smiled: Now that there are German tyrants as the foundation, Mitsuo Fuchida has also become extravagant, and the more than 60 Ju-98 planes worth more than 15 million yuan will not be wanted if they say no.

"It doesn't matter if you have a plane, but it's too dangerous to move! When I returned, it was completely dark, and it was not possible to rescue at night. Tsukahara categorically rejected this offensive plan with no return, "Rest well, we'll fight Puerto Rico after dark, those planes are still useful." ”

"Puerto Rico?"

The importance of the attack on Puerto Rico was confirmed at 18:00, when the decoy fleet sent a telegram that the American attack aircraft group had attacked them, and although the escort fighters took cover and shot down a large number of enemy aircraft, the German Commander Tester was sunk after two bombs, and the captured Brazilian oil tanker was also sunk, and the rest were unharmed.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief: this was basically the last wave of attack of the US army today, although two warships were sunk, the losses were completely bearable, and more importantly, the shelling formation and the decoy formation were able to take advantage of the night to completely escape.

At nightfall, Horikichi asked Kusaka Ren, "Where is the mobile fleet now?" Where are you ready to meet us? ”

Grass Deer showed an embarrassed smile: "He is more than 400 kilometers north of Caracas, and he is currently heading 15 degrees, and he said that he will attack Puerto Rico at night and meet us in the Azores at that time." ”

Horikichi looked at the chart and sighed: "I didn't expect him to be more persistent than me, let him go." We go due east and take the northeast course after 3 hours to Martinique. ”

"Where and what?" The grass deer is a little inexplicable.

"Before departure, the Führer's envoy said that if we had the opportunity, they would send us a ship, similar to the Commander Turst, which could serve as a supplementary aircraft carrier, but we would take it ourselves."

"In Martinique? German ships? ”

"No, French ship, 22,000 tons of Béarn."

"So big? When to replenish the aircraft carrier? "Caolu is strange, this tonnage is much larger than the Canglong class, how can it be a supplementary aircraft carrier, after opening Jane's yearbook, he sighed after taking a closer look, although this halfway monk aircraft carrier has a large displacement, but the deck is only 180 meters long, and the speed is only 21 knots.

"The French really don't understand the shipbuilding ideas, the Commander Turst is like this, and the Béarn is still like this. However, it's not bad to have such a supplementary aircraft carrier, maybe it can be used as a falcon after going back to the transformation. (To be continued.) )