When the sky was slightly bright, Qiu Gengbo's group of planes swept over the British battleships, and when they saw the group of bombers flying away, Chang Jianxin and Gu Zhenyun were surprised, but the two of them quickly thought that this first wave of bombers was definitely not used to deal with the two battleships that were destined to be destroyed, but to pursue the fleeing enemy fleet. The two were no longer surprised, and after determining that the British battleship had lost the ability to return fire, Chang Jianxin ordered the fleet to stop the shelling and prepare to speed up the pursuit of the fleeing British fleet, and on the other hand, he sent a telegram to Tan Renhao, reporting the results of the battle to Tan Renhao.

Qiu Gengbo really didn't pay attention to the two dying battleships, and he had received a clear order when he set out, the bombing target was the main force of the enemy fleet, and even if he couldn't sink them all, he had to paralyze them all so that they couldn't escape, so that he could win a second chance to bomb. In other words, the focus of the operation was not to sink enemy ships, but to disable them, incapacitate them, or at least slow them down. And Qiu Gengbo's own personality also determined that he would not bomb the two British battleships that were already doomed, and the significance of attacking the other battleships was obviously much greater, and he didn't want Yang Qinkai to take advantage of it.

The group continued to fly southward, and Qiu Gengbo was clearly informed at the time of departure that the British fleet was going south at about 30 knots, and it was sailing south about three hours before dawn, that is, by the time Qiu Gengbo reached the sky over the two British warships, the enemy fleet was most likely 100 nautical miles south and was still sailing south. Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that the enemy fleet may change course while fleeing. Therefore. The group will first search 100 nautical miles south, and if it is not found, the group will disperse. Search both sides of the course, if the enemy fleet is not found in the end. Then you can only go back!

"Old Qiu, look below, on the left."

Qiu Gengbo immediately looked at the sea on the left, and on the sea, more than a dozen warships were sailing south at full speed. Judging by visual inspection, its speed is more than 30 knots. Qiu Gengbo didn't think much about it, and immediately dived down with the group, he ignored one point, that is, among the British Navy's ground battleships, the fastest "Lion" could only reach 30 knots. When the altitude of the group was lowered, Qiu Gengbo and the navigator in the back seat immediately judged that it was not an enemy battleship, but a much smaller destroyer and cruiser, and it was also a light cruiser!

". Where did the battleship go to the British? ”

"I don't see it, it doesn't seem to be nearby." The navigator in the back seat was also looking around.

"The group is scattered, don't drop bombs yet. It is more important to strike at enemy battleships, where they are definitely nearby. Qiu Gengbo became anxious, the bomb he brought was not used to deal with shrimp.

"Old Qiu, do you want to contact the fleet?"

Qiu Gengbo hesitated. "Don't worry. Search the surrounding sea first, how much fuel do we have? ”

"Half an hour more than that, and we'll have to go back."

"Then hurry up, take the squad as a unit, search to both sides, the speed of the enemy battleship must be slower, maybe somewhere nearby."

Six squadrons of bombers, as well as the fighter squad that escorted the escort, immediately dispersed and searched the perimeter of the enemy fleet repeatedly, but the remaining fuel for these fighters was very limited.

It found that the sea area of the British cruiser formation was about 29 nautical miles away from the 1st Task Force, which was already very close to the maximum strike radius of the bombers.

Twenty minutes later, none of the aircraft groups found it, and time could not be delayed any longer, and in desperation, Qiu Gengbo had no choice but to recruit bombers to deal with the more than a dozen British light cruisers and destroyers that were fleeing, and the escort fighters had stronger cruising capabilities, so these fighters still continued to expand the search range. Of course, Qiu Gengbo did not forget the most important thing, that is, to send back the situation that the enemy's main battleship was not found. It was seven past five o'clock.

At this time, Tan Renhao was waiting for news from the reconnaissance plane, and the first thing he was waiting for was not the report of the reconnaissance plane, but the report of the Qiu Gengbo group of planes. When he received the news, he was also surprised. Then he came to the chart table, where the staff officer had marked the location of the British cruiser formation on the chart, and the general course of the fleet, and the possible previous course.

The chart intuitively reflects the situation on the battlefield, Tan Renhao is also a little puzzled, the British cruiser formation is farther south than the predicted interception point, about 10 more sails to the south, and the speed of British light cruisers and destroyers is very fast, that is to say, these cruisers and destroyers have separated from the battleships a long time ago, and did not go south with the battleships, then, the battleships in the British fleet must have gone in other directions, and did not go south directly!

Thinking of this, Tan Renhao immediately called the aviation operations staff officer over and asked him to deploy a new reconnaissance plan according to the time of the arrival of the reconnaissance planes and the sea area where the British fleet might appear. At that time, there were no reconnaissance planes left in the fleet, so as a last resort, 12 "waterbirds" that were supposed to carry out bombing missions could only be dispatched to carry out reconnaissance missions.

The 12 "Shooting Birds" took off at about half past seven, and it took time to design a new reconnaissance route and hang up the drop fuel tanks for the bombers.

At this time, the operation on Qiu Gengbo's side had also ended, and under the wanton bombardment of dozens of bombers, the result of the dozen poor British battleships was conceivable. Not to mention just a dozen light cruisers and destroyers, even if it is more than a dozen battleships, they will definitely sink or be damaged under such a fierce blow. Originally, the bombs and torpedoes hung by the bombers were prepared for the British battleships, but when they caught up, they only found some small shrimp. These bombs and torpedoes could not be brought back to the aircraft carrier, and the bombers had to throw all the undropped ammunition into the sea when they landed, and even abandoned the bombers if the bombing system failed. In general. It is strictly forbidden for bombers to land on the ground with bombs, of course, under special circumstances.

While flying over those two British battleships. Several cruisers and destroyers of the newly commanded Task Force 3 were preparing to approach the two battleships. It can be said that the 3rd Task Force has tasted fishy. After the last time they captured two American battleships, this time, they were fighting the idea of these two British battleships. If these two British battleships can be towed back, then the third task force will not be ordinarily great this time! But the question is, did the British let their warships fall into the hands of the Tang Empire so easily?

After those two American battleships were captured at sea. If it weren't for the fact that the United States was in a state of wartime control and that the government blocked the news at the first time, there would certainly have been problems in the United States.

The British government knew about this, and while feeling sorry for the US allies, the British government also gave the navy a precautionary shot, and even if the battleship was blown to pieces, it would never tolerate even a piece of iron on the battleship falling into the hands of the enemy! And the British battleships all used self-sinking explosives, and there were also sea valves. From the beginning of the battle. The officers and men of the two British battleships knew that their end would not be much better, so they had long been prepared to sink themselves.

When the two destroyers slowly approached it. The first was that there was a violent explosion of the "Howe", judging by the explosion at that time, at least tons of explosives were detonated on the battleship, and the place of the explosion should have been in the middle of the battleship's keel. And as long as the keel of the battleship is blown up, then the battleship has no saving value (decades later, divers found the battleship on the bottom of the sea, proving that the ship had broken in two when it sank). This was followed by several small explosions on board the Brave.

"Old Qiu, look down there, fuck it, the British are crazy!"

On the sea, the "Brave" seemed to be setting off fireworks (a large number of small-caliber shells were detonated), and the explosions were one after another, and the scene was extremely spectacular, while the "Howe" to the west of it had disappeared, and only a huge whirlpool remained on the sea, with several lifeboats floating nearby, and a large number of British naval officers and sailors wearing life jackets who had not had time to climb onto the lifeboats.

The "Brave" sank under the surface of the sea in fifteen minutes. Not only were the pilots in the sky surprised, but on the sea, Chang Zhixin on the "Nanning" was also extremely surprised. Fortunately, the destroyers who originally wanted to go up and "snatch" the British battleships were not too close, otherwise they would have to add some casualties outside of the battle.

"Leave two destroyers to salvage the British officers and men who have fallen overboard." Chang Jianxin was also a little unhappy, he also wanted to capture the two British warships, "The fleet continues to move south, and in addition, inform the first task force that we are continuing to pursue south." ”

Those destroyers were not able to capture the British battleships, but they had a new task, that is, to be responsible for salvaging the officers and men of the British Navy, which can be regarded as a credit, after all, the capture of the officers and men of the enemy fleet is also a great gain. According to the battle records at the time, about 1,700 British officers and sailors were taken prisoner in this battle, but the captains of the two battleships were not among them.

Ten minutes after the telegram from Task Force 3 was sent, that is, as five battleships passed near the site where the British battleship had sunk, the telegram from Task Force 1 arrived.

"Let's not go south at full speed?" Gu Zhenyun sent the telegram to Chang Jianxin, "The main force of the enemy fleet is not in the south, let's go and rendezvous with the first task force, why is this?" ”

After reading the message, Chang Jianxin was also very puzzled, but he only thought about it for a while, and then said:

"The fleet is ready to turn, maybe something happened that we didn't expect."

Half an hour later, Tan Renhao's second telegram arrived, which explained in detail what had happened. The fundamental reason why Tan Renhao turned the Third Task Force was that he was worried that the British Expeditionary Fleet had bypassed the Third Task Force and was approaching the First Task Force after turning at night, so he asked the Third Task Force to return to the vicinity of the First Task Force and take care of each other. In addition, the British Expeditionary Fleet apparently did not go directly south, and as time went on, the sea area in which it could appear became wider and wider, and at the speed of Task Force 3, it was clear that there were no aircraft more effective in carrying out search missions. Therefore, there was no need for Task Force 3 to continue southward.

Soon after Tan Renhao sent the second telegram, the first batch of reconnaissance planes returned to the fleet, and these reconnaissance planes did not gain anything, and then the seaplanes sent by the cruiser also returned one after another, and like the carrier-based reconnaissance planes, these seaplanes did not gain anything. In other words, there was no enemy fleet moving within a fan range of 120 degrees from east to west and 250 nautical miles from Task Force 1. Then, the enemy fleet can only appear within a 60-degree sector to the south of the fleet, and shore-based seaplanes are already carrying out search and patrol missions within a 60-degree sector to the north of the fleet.

By 8:20, Tan Renhao was also very restless, where did the British battleship go? The fighting took place at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel. According to the escape speed of the British battleships, at dawn they appeared at most near the island of New Juan in the middle of the strait, and the distance from the 3rd Task Force was within 110 nautical miles. By half-past eight, it was only 170 nautical miles away from the early morning artillery battle, but as time went on, the area where the British expeditionary fleet might appear would become larger and larger. So, where exactly is the British fleet at this time?

After thinking for ten minutes, Tan Renhao gave Zheng Guanhua a new order at half past eight o'clock, reorganizing the reconnaissance force and letting all torpedo bombers that can carry out reconnaissance missions, even those that are not usually used to carry out reconnaissance missions, take off to carry out reconnaissance missions. Then, he turned the fleet to the southwest, and at the same time had the communications staff contact Jiang Zhongmin, and Jiang Zhongmin's seaplane made a comprehensive search of the coastal waters northeast of the island of Madagascar.

The British expeditionary fleet could only flee south along the coastline of the island of Madagascar, or the coastline of Mozambique, otherwise it would have been discovered by reconnaissance planes and bombers, and the longer time passed, the farther the British would run, so it was necessary to dispatch all the forces that could be dispatched to find the British fleet before it ran out of the range of reconnaissance planes!