The Osprey reconnaissance plane, which was now part of the US Task Force 16, lingered within its maximum search radius for 18 minutes, using up almost all the remaining fuel (deducting the fuel for the return voyage), and after 20 minutes of flying back, the reconnaissance plane appeared in the fleet hiding under the clouds, and it was 11:30 a.m. Three minutes later, the pilot and navigator of the reconnaissance plane determined that this was the US aircraft carrier fleet, and that there were at least two aircraft carriers, and that they were both large fleet carriers of the "Yorktown" class. Then the telegram went out.

This radio wave was immediately intercepted by the radio detection device on the US ship, and if it was Fletcher, he would definitely consider whether the fleet was exposed, and at most send fighter jets to strengthen patrols, but the commander of the 16th task force was Halsey. When the staff officer reported the situation, Halsey immediately ordered the radar on the battleship to be turned on, and then the reconnaissance plane over the clouds appeared, and the F4F, which was in charge of air defense, was also immediately killed.

Now, the puzzle is in Halsey's hands. The first wave of bombers reported at 11:50 that two aircraft carriers of the Tang Empire had been heavily damaged, one of which was on fire (another erroneous report, the "Huaihe" could still be released from the bomber group, and the damaged flight deck could be temporarily repaired in a matter of hours. The fire on the "Pearl River" was also brought under control after two hours, but it was no longer possible to continue the operation) There was still one aircraft carrier that was not attacked, and the air defense over the Tang Imperial fleet was increasing......

Halsey is in a dilemma with these messages, what to do? Now that the fleet has been exposed, the remaining aircraft carriers of the Tang Empire will definitely strike back immediately. Although Halsey doesn't know how powerful the pilots of the Tang Imperial Navy are (he doesn't directly experience it), this must be a Jedi counterattack, and one aircraft carrier can send at least 4o bombers (based on the sortie rate of US aircraft carriers, and in fact, the sortie rate of Tang Imperial Navy aircraft carriers is much higher), which is also a big threat. What made Halsey even more troublesome was that Task Force 16 was just over 2oo nautical miles from the Ogasawara Islands and hundreds of nautical miles from Iwo Jima. This distance was all within the strike range of the heavy bombers of the Tang Empire. The Tang Empire deployed thousands of bombers in the vicinity, and if these bombers were killed, they would be able to bury the 16th Task Force with bombs alone.

There are also very few options left for Halsey in reality, either flee or stay. In the end, Halsey chose the former, and the fleet immediately headed south, allowing the first wave of returning bombers (only nine of them in all) to escape. Two of them crashed before reaching the fleet) to modify the return course, while allowing the second wave of bombers to also fly directly to the fleet's southbound course after completing the attack.

Halsey was not running away, but he knew very well that now that Task Force 16 had played all the cards, and without a trump card in his hand, there was no guarantee of a greater victory, and the wisest decision was to preserve his strength rather than carry it to death. At this point, Halsey is still very sensible that the combat power of an aircraft carrier lies in carrier-based aircraft. If the first wave of bombers came back a few dozen. Halsey will definitely have to fight for it. But now only a few have returned, and they don't have much effect at all. Retreat was the only way to preserve the strength of the fleet, after replenishing the lost bombers. The 16th Task Force will be restored to combat effectiveness, and it will not be too late to fight again. Moreover, the second wave of bombers has not yet attacked, and maybe the surviving aircraft carrier of the Tang Empire will also be killed!

At this time, the second task force was also facing a test of life and death. As soon as the bomber group left on the front foot, the air defense siren sounded again, and the second wave of bombers of the American army arrived. At this time, Lei Shaoqing reacted that the US fleet had dispatched two waves of bombers in a row, and there was almost no interval in between! The only thing to be thankful for is that at that time dozens of air defense fighters were gathered over the fleet, and all of them were in the north-east direction of the fleet. Immediately after receiving the order, the fighters rushed towards the American bomber group. The second wave of American bombers arrived at 12:18, fifty minutes later than the first.

The "Pearl River" aircraft carrier formation has sailed 24 nautical miles to the west, basically out of the strike range of the US bombers (the ground power system of the aircraft carrier has not been damaged, so it can maintain maximum navigation, but this has caused great difficulties in extinguishing fires) The fleet is turning, the "Huai River" is located in the northwest of the fleet, and the "Yellow River" is in the southeast of the fleet, just in the direction of the US bombers' ground attack.

The frenzied interception of the "Falcon" fighter played an extremely crucial role. At least 3o bombers were shot down before the American bomber group came into visual attack range. The 12 escorted F4Fs were also quickly dispersed by the "Falcon". But in the end, there were still about 2o bombers who took advantage of the chaos to break through the interception of fighters (more than half of the interception ratio, which is already very good) and attacked the aircraft carriers in the fleet. This time, the "Yellow River" became the target of attack by US bombers (at that time, Chang Zhixin made an extremely low-level mistake. If the fleet had turned to the right, the "Yellow River" would have been on the inside of the "Huai River", but he had turned to the left, and as a result, the "Yellow River" had been pushed into a dangerous situation. But he can't be blamed for this, no one at that time realized that the second wave of bombing opportunities of the US army was coming so quickly) 7 of the 12 sBc were shot down before they flew over the aircraft carrier, and only 5 had a chance to enter the dive course, and all 5 bombs dropped were avoided by the "Yellow River". The captain of the "Yellow River" was Commodore Li Wenlong, the former epaulette of the "Taizu" aircraft carrier, who served as the captain of the "Yellow River" and the commander of the "Yellow River" aircraft carrier battle group when he followed Lei Shaoqing to the Second Fleet, and was promoted to commodore of the Navy. When he was the captain of the "Taizu," Li Wenlong once commanded an aircraft carrier to avoid more than a dozen bomb attacks during the battle, and his ability to command the aircraft carrier was very powerful. However, when he commanded the "Yellow River" to evade the dive bombers, he could no longer avoid the torpedo bombers approaching at low altitudes.

5 of the 9 TBd were shot down when passing through the guns of the escort battleships, and only 4 of them finally succeeded in throwing torpedoes, and all of the 4 TBd were shot down by anti-aircraft guns when they were pulled up, and none of them escaped (the air defense warships of the 2nd Task Force were all newly served, but the main anti-aircraft artillery officers were veterans, and their air defense combat effectiveness was much stronger than that of the 1st Task Force) The "Yellow River" avoided only 8 torpedoes, and the fourth torpedo hit the starboard side of the aircraft carrier, although it did not hit the vital point, but it damaged three compartments, in less than five minutes, the aircraft carrier took in water to 55o tons, and at the same time began to tilt to the right. At 12:37 a.m., the U.S. bombers immediately returned home, and this time only four U.S. fighters were able to escape.

At this point, all three aircraft carriers of Task Force 2 were wounded, although in the end the flood intake of the "Yellow River" was controlled, its right tilt was leveled, and the ability to receive returning bombers was restored. But it is no longer possible to continue to fight. The problem also lies here, when the escaped American bombers reported back, they announced that they had severely damaged one more aircraft carrier, and this news made Halsey finally believe that the second task force had been defeated and lost its combat effectiveness. Although the Second Task Force was not annihilated, combined with the two battle reports, the United States finally judged that one of the aircraft carriers of the Second Task Force had been sunk (the pilots of the second wave of bombers did not appear on the "Pearl River" and even thought that it had sunk) and the two ships were severely damaged, and the Second Task Force lost its combat effectiveness! It is precisely this judgment. In the end, it affected the next battle plan of the US military.

The vengeful group of bombers of the Don Empire left the fleet at eleven fifty. Ten minutes after the fleet was bombed by the second round of bombing by American bombers, the group of planes arrived at the sea area where the reconnaissance planes reported, but there was no trace of the current US fleet. Apparently. The American fleet fled. But in which direction did the American fleet flee?

Deng Zi (who led the bomber group on the "Yellow River") immediately judged whether the American fleet was retreating to the south, or to the southeast. He immediately called the escort fighters in front and scattered the search in a southeasterly direction, while the bomber group followed closely and attacked immediately after the current American fleet.

Zhang Naiding, who arrived one step later (led the bomber group on the "Huaihe"), immediately let the group move eastward when he knew that Deng Zi was chasing him in the southeast direction, because it was very likely that the American fleet would retreat eastward rather than south (return to Pearl Harbor, not Guam) In fact, neither of them chose the right direction. Task Force 16 was indeed heading south. Because Halsey was going to rendezvous with Fletcher. By the time Deng Zi and the others arrived, the fleet had already gone south for about 25 nautical miles (Halsey ordered the fleet to go south at 11:55, and at this time it sailed for nearly 50 minutes, that is, about 25 nautical miles) If this distance was further stretched, maybe Deng Zi and Zhang Naiding could only return with bombs, but the problem was that this distance was too close. As soon as the fighters dispersed to search for the American fleet for the bombers, the two fighters in the southernmost part immediately appeared on the surface of the sea. It's 12:55!

After receiving the news of the fighter jet, Deng Zi asked people to contact Zhang Naiding behind the butt (in fact, Zhang Naiding had already flown more than 3o nautical miles to the east) and ordered the aircraft group to assemble, let the fighters open the way, and immediately killed the 16th task force. Deng Zi had 22 "Ospreys" and 14 "Kingfishers" (these were all the bombers that the "Yellow River" could send out in an extremely hasty situation), and among the pilots of these bombers, all the squadron leaders and squad leaders were transferred with Deng Zi, and they were all the best pilots in the Imperial Navy, and their abilities were far better than those pilots of the First Air Wing.

The bombing began at one o'clock in the afternoon. The 12 F4Fs were immediately chased by the first batch of "Falcons" to flee in all directions, and they were simply powerless to threaten the approaching bombers. Deng Zi did not relent, either: he was privately rated as "the craziest bomber pilot of the Imperial HNA and immediately called for the "Osprey" and "Kingfisher" groups to be killed, and it was the most standard coordinated attack of the Tang Imperial HNA . Deng Zi's chosen target was the aircraft carrier "Hornet", located to the northeast (the closest) of the fleet.

Ten minutes later, Zhang Naiding's group (18 "Kingfishers" and 16 "Ospreys" also rushed over. At this time, the "Hornet" had already eaten 3 bombs, the 8 torpedoes (all hit the port side) the aircraft carrier had seriously tilted to the left, and the last 4 "Kingfishers" in the Deng Zi group that had not dropped their bombs were entering the dive channel. Zhang Naiding did not like to eat other people's leftovers, and he immediately led the group of planes to kill the "Enterprise" aircraft carrier. At the same time, the "Falcon" aircraft group, which had successfully cleared the sky over the US fleet, also rushed over and rushed to the front to clear the way for the bombers.

Relatively speaking, the second task force counterattack was not large, and if there was enough time, at least hundreds of bombers could be organized to attack at the same time. But the quality of this counterattack was very high, and this was largely due to the high quality of this group of pilots. Deng Zi and Zhang Naiding were the best of the Tang Empire's naval aviation bomber pilots, and they were veritable bombing aces, and the two participated in almost all aircraft carrier battles after the war, and their subordinates also had a lot of experience, even the new pilots were also edified.

In this round of bombing of less than 20 minutes, the bombing rate of the Tang Empire's bombers exceeded 30% (in World War II, this was definitely a very high success rate) When the bomber group left the sky over the 16th task force, the "Hornet" received 4 bombs and 4 torpedoes, and the "Enterprise" received 5 bombs and 2 torpedoes, and both aircraft carriers were severely damaged. In addition, three cruisers were sunk, and four destroyers were sunk. If Lei Shaoqing could organize another attack at that time, I am afraid that the 16th Task Force would be buried here.

Of these results, I am afraid that the wounding of Major General Halsey was the most important. At that time, Halsey was in the bridge of the "Enterprise", a bomb exploded in the left front of the island, and the flying shrapnel killed a large number of officers on the bridge, and Halsey was also seriously injured (three shrapnel were hit, if it was an ordinary officer and soldier, he would definitely be finished) After being sent back, he recuperated from his injuries for half a year!

Of course, that's not the only problem. The shore-based bomber unit of the Hainan Airlines that received the call was not able to dispatch in time (after it was dispatched, the 16th task force had already run away) The third task force was not able to go out in time to intercept (Yan Shiqi's task was not to deal with the 16th task force, but to prepare for at least four days of artillery fire for the 6th team to land on the 6th Agripan Island) and the two sides were no longer able to fight, so they both rationally chose to retreat and wait for the next decisive opportunity!