The sinking of the "Hood" undoubtedly left a very terrible shadow in the hearts of the British officers and men who participated in the war, and in the face of the successive German aircraft groups, the British fleet, which had newly arrived on the battlefield, did not pursue the German fleet that was calmly retreating, but covered the evacuation of the "Rodney" to the northeast. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

German pilots from the aircraft carrier "Emperor Karl" and the Flores Island airbase did not intend to let these British ships go uneasy. In the absence of interference from enemy fighters, their bombing hit rate is only slightly lower than the level of drill, and the price paid is not greater than expected, since the risks are disproportionate to the benefits, how many people will give up the opportunity to become famous in the first war?

The two battle formations converged, the British fleet's air defense circle became more compact, and the low-altitude penetration of German torpedo planes encountered strong resistance, and the pilots had to try torpedo projection at a slightly longer distance, with the result that more than a dozen torpedoes did not hit. By contrast, the German dive bombers were much less affected, and they continued to attack wounded retreating enemy patrols with their best "osprey" tactics. After several rounds of air raids, the ineffective British battle cruiser "Rodney" suffered another heavy blow, and the fire in the stern of the ship could not be extinguished for a long time, and the black smoke produced by the burning formed a huge column of smoke, which was particularly conspicuous on the empty and open sea.

In the process, the German aviation lost 1 fighter, 3 dive bombers, 3 torpedo aircraft. In order to give the British fleet as many blows as possible before they slipped out of the bombing range, the Fokker G-51 and Fokker-XI that took off from the Flores Island Air Base began to carry aerial bombs.

At this time, the German fleet, which had been retreating at full speed in the direction of Flores Island, quietly slowed down, and the reason why William August changed his original intention was that the British fleet that arrived in the battlefield later did not follow him, and second, he received a false alarm from his own air force - the pilots who lacked actual combat experience mistakenly believed that their own torpedo had hit an undamaged enemy battle cruiser. If two of the three British Battlecruisers had lost most of their mobility due to torpedo damage, it was debatable whether the German fleet, with two Battlecruisers and the support of the air force, should resolutely withdraw.

So, William Auguste the victor decided to observe the situation again to see if there would be a chance to extend the victory, so that his fleet could not be withdrawn too far at once, and the brave and skilled soldiers under his command were also preparing to fight the enemy, and no one expected that the beautiful vision would become the beginning of disaster.

Since the appearance of the German Atlantic fleet, the top commanders of the American and British fleets have paid great attention to its whereabouts. After that, the Germans attacked the "Sovereign", then engaged the battle formation under the command of Dudley Pound, and finally sank the British Navy's capital ship "Hood", all of which made the American and British generals who wanted to seize the Azores deeply anxious. They knew very well in their hearts that the German Atlantic Detachment, with the Count Tirpitz class battlecruisers as its core strength, was a more difficult nail than those German coastal defense fortresses, and if it was allowed to attack left and right in the waters of the Azores and carry out naval guerrilla warfare with ease, then the strategic intention of the US and British fleets to capture Texel Island before the arrival of the main force of the German Navy would not be able to be successfully implemented. Therefore, in the early morning of the crucial battle of Texel Island, Stendley gritted his teeth and dispatched a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier to follow a support fleet of four Lexington-class battlecruisers to the waters of Flores Island.

When the "Hood" was tragically sunk, the four Lexington-class battlecruisers under the command of Vice Admiral Thomas Hart were still hundreds of kilometers away, and even though these behemoths could not intercept the German fleet from withdrawing from the battlefield by overloading the main engine to achieve extreme speed, the aircraft carriers were able to complete such a task.

The Yorktown-class with a standard displacement of 30,660 tons was the main aircraft carrier of the US Navy at the outbreak of war, and was in the same order of magnitude as Germany's Zeppelin-class and Britain's Tejas class. As a fleet aircraft carrier, the Yorktown-class has given priority to speed and aircraft capacity, with a speed of up to 32 knots enough to follow the activities of the Lexington-class battlecruisers, and the standard aircraft carrying capacity of 96 aircraft is 1 of the German aircraft carrier of the same class. 4 times, 1 of the British aircraft carrier of the same class. 3 times. However, the fierce air battle on the previous day had caused considerable consumption of carrier-based aircraft of the US and British fleets, and the three Yorktown-class ships participating in the battle lost 35 to 40 percent of their air strength, and the "Wasp" assigned to pursue the German fleet had only 61 carrier-based aircraft left.

Upon learning that the British battle cruiser "Hood" had been sunk by the combined forces of the German Navy and Air Force, the captain of the "Wasp", Colonel Godfrey Cheffrye, was determined to deal a fatal blow to his opponent by surprise. In order not to be alarmed, he risked being blamed by friendly forces by not sending fighter planes to cover the British fleet in the area of engagement in front of him before he had gathered enough fighters, so when the first wave of US attack planes, consisting of 14 F3F "Flying Barrel" fighters, 6 SB2U "Guardian" dive bombers, and 14 TBD "Destroyer" torpedo bombers, suddenly appeared, the Germans were very surprised, and they hurriedly ordered their fighters to drop bombs to intercept them. The German fighters who rushed to cover their fleet were quickly entangled by the American fighters, and most of the "Guardians" and "Destroyers" were able to approach the German fleet without any problems.

From the air, the two Earl Tirpitz battlecruisers were striking and tempting targets, and the American pilots unceremoniously launched the attack, and their way of fighting was a-for-tat for the Germans - the few "Guardians" swooped down from a high altitude under the anti-aircraft fire of German battleships, and each bombshell could cause the deadliest damage; A large number of "destroyers" in groups tried to penetrate the defense at low altitudes from different directions, and in the blink of an eye, the sea was full of torpedo tracks, and the Germans were terrified to evade them, but in the end they could not escape.

This time, like a thunderbolt from the sky, a loud sound came from the "Count Tirpitz", an American-made aviation torpedo hit the front of its port side, located directly below the second main turret, the violent explosion made this giant battleship with a hull load of more than 50,000 tons produced a very violent tremor, the double anti-mine compartment that the designer had high hopes for did not play the desired effect, but the traditional subdivision watertight compartment saved this extremely expensive German capital ship.

Like the "Rodney" in the opposing camp, the "Count Tirpitz" was deflected due to a large amount of water ingress into the port side bilge, and the damage management department had to fill the other side bilge with water to maintain the balance of the hull, but in this way, the No. 2 ammunition depot was completely flooded, the ammunition inside was almost reimbursed at one time, and the speed of the battleship was sharply reduced to 5 knots - after the leakage was initially controlled, the speed was barely increased to 8 knots.

William August and his men and men had no ambition to turn back and kill the British fleet, and it would be best to bring the Count Tirpitz back to the naval base on Flores Island. After the U.S. fleet returned, German aviation continued to attack the British fleet, but the intensity of the air attack was significantly weaker than before, and most of the fighters were transferred to cover their own fleet.

After the damage to the "Count Tirpitz", the voyage that originally took only two hours became unusually long, and about an hour later, the second wave of carrier-based aircraft of the US military followed. The German fighters that took off from Flores Island waited here for a long time, and the Fokker G-51, which had a numerical advantage, did not let the opponent take advantage of it this time, and most of the American fighters were blocked outside the fleet's air defense circle. Taking advantage of the situation of the melee, a small group of "Destroyer" torpedo planes found a good opportunity to attack, and the four torpedoes formed a perfect fan on the starboard side of the "Count Tirpitz", seeing that their flagship was unable to dodge, the destroyer T-707 bravely rushed forward and blocked two torpedoes with its own body, and the hull of more than 1,000 tons and more than 200 crew members were reduced to pieces in the violent explosion......

Thanks to the fierce performance of their fighter pilots, the officers and men of the German ships became spectators for most of the time of the enemy's second wave of air raids, but the dangerous battlefield could not allow for a moment of relaxation, and two "Guardian" dive bombers suddenly came out of the clouds, rushed straight down like diving, passed through the terrifying fire net formed by anti-aircraft shells, and dropped two aerial bombs weighing 1,000 pounds, or 450 kilograms, on the "Count Tirpitz", which was moving slowly on the sea surface, and one was slightly off. The other hit the stern with unerring accuracy. William August's flagship, with its superior protection, could not withstand the onslaught of large-caliber shells, aerial torpedoes, and heavy aerial bombs in the middle of the night, and the blow quickly stopped its movement completely, and it floated silently on the surface of the sea like a dead whale.

Despite the damage to the Count Tirpitz, the crew could still regain some power and carry out major repairs after returning to port, but to the despair of the Germans, their reconnaissance planes soon spotted the American fleet approaching from the east. Although the Earl Tirpitz class is regarded as the nemesis of the Lexington class, in the current state of the "Count Tirpitz" and "Prince Heinrich", there is no chance of victory against the four intact Lexingtons, and the only hope is that their naval and air aviation can inflict heavy damage on the American fleet before it approaches, forcing them to retreat.

With this in mind, William August ordered the air force on Flores Island and the carrier-based aircraft of the "Emperor Carl" to stop the incoming American fleet at all costs. Although there was still a glimmer of hope in this battle, under the persuasion of the staff officers, he still left the ship in a huff and transferred to the light cruiser "Vulture" to continue to command his fleet.

(End of chapter)