After noon, on the Atlantic Sea east of the Azores, the main fleets of the United States and Britain, which had been proudly attacking, had to retreat westward in disgrace after being hit by a series of heavy attacks by enemy aircraft groups. www.biquge.info The aircraft carrier group commanded by U.S. Navy Admiral Claude Bullock originally had seven aircraft carriers, but now only two Radiance-class aircraft carriers remain, and the rest have either been sunk or abandoned due to serious injuries.

Walking down the gangway to the bridge of the "Victory", the face of the slightly fat captain Colonel Hawksley was full of despair and confusion at this time, just a few hours ago, he was still confidently expecting a victory, but two waves of air raids in succession, the US and British fleets dispatched hundreds of warplanes, and they were helpless against an enemy surface fleet the size of a subfleet, which made him both surprised and worried, and the hidden worries in his heart soon became a reality. At a time when the US and British aircraft carriers were busy receiving the returning planes, the Allied planes suddenly attacked, and the brave and capable Allied pilots firmly grasped this golden opportunity, sinking the USS Richard, severely damaging the USS Princeton, and damaging the "Victory," "Fearful," and "Parker," thus reducing the combat strength of the US-British aircraft carrier formation by half in just 20 minutes. Rather than recalling the departing third wave of attack aircraft and sending them to search for enemy carriers, Admiral Bullock left them on their intended mission, and in Hawksley's view, the battle had been completely out of suspense from that point on.

Not surprisingly, the second round of air raids by the enemy's carrier-based aircraft group continued to exert its might, and the "Parker," "Lynch," and "Randolph" were sunk one after another, and the shocking battle scenes were deeply engraved in the hearts of every combatant.

In this round of air raids, the "Victory" almost ate two torpedoes, and although it escaped a fatal disaster, it still suffered heavy damage from two direct hits and several near-misses. There are still two huge bullet holes left on the flight deck, one of which is a 250-kilogram high-explosive armor-piercing bomb that runs through two hangars in a row, exploding in the upper part of the steam chamber, the steam chamber was once filled with high-heat and high-pressure steam, and the speed of the whole ship has dropped to less than 12 knots for this reason, and it has barely recovered to the current 18 knots after emergency repairs, and the other exploded in the lower hangar, cutting off the fuel line and causing a fire, the terrifying flames swallowed everything in the hangar, and 43 crew members died in the process of extinguishing the fire. More than 100 people were burned......

Before he knew it, Hawksley was in the starboard secondary gun position, and although the fire threatened the ammunition depot for a while, the crew managed to save the guns and ammunition, and they have now become the best confidence for the "Victory" to continue fighting.

"Enemy planes! Enemy aircraft spotted in the starboard direction! ”

The lookout post suddenly let out a heart-rending shout, and at the sound of the officers' orders, the crew ran back to their respective positions, manipulating the remaining anti-aircraft weapons on the ship to prepare for the attack of enemy aircraft.

The reason for the fact that the Glorious class aircraft carrier, which is known for its protection, is nominally equipped with nearly 100 guns, large and small, but its anti-aircraft firepower is far less powerful than it seems on the surface, and the reason for this is not that the designers are lazy and lax or the arms dealers cut corners, but that it has a lot to do with the abnormal development of Britain in the post-war period and the awkward mentality of the British top brass. Moreover, many admirals believe that air supremacy is the best means of air defense, and psychologically despise the importance of air defense weapons and air defense training. As a result, the Azores suffered from a number of air and sea battles, and those improvised measures had little effect.

Recognizing this shortcoming, the colonel could not help but look at the surrounding escort ships. In order to cover the smooth retreat of the remnants of the aircraft carriers, the main fleet of the United States and Britain dispatched three cruisers and five destroyers to the main fleet, plus two cruisers and two destroyers accompanying them, a total of 12 light ships specialized in protecting the "Victory" and "Dreadsome". Even so, Hawksley didn't feel at all sure. Let's talk about the two British destroyers on the starboard side, one of them belongs to the C-class launched in 1920, and the other is the E-class launched in 1927. The C-class ships are equipped with two twin 40 mm caliber ping pong guns and two quadruple 12 guns. 7 mm machine guns, and they are equipped with 120 mm single-barreled naval guns with low rate of fire, limited anti-aircraft capabilities, powerful quadruple torpedo tubes in the face of enemy aircraft attack can not play any role, and the tonnage of the E class is one-third larger than that of the C class, and the installation of eight 40 mm ping-pong guns, known as air defense weapons, but from the perspective of actual combat results, they are far from reaching the level expected by designers and users.

In the telescope, the British sailors saw groups of black spots, roughly estimated to be as many as fifty or sixty, which made them very frightened, because their carrier group did not even have a single fighter - the flight decks of the two aircraft carriers that survived were severely damaged, and in order to protect themselves, they had taken emergency measures to fill the ammunition depots with water when they were damaged, and even if they could receive the aircraft, they could not refuel them.

Perhaps due to their restless state of mind, several cruisers began firing early, and the thumping sound sounded very lively, and the smoke of shell explosions appeared on the flight path of the enemy planes, but it did not stop them from advancing.

As usual, Ju-17 was the first to roar and attack from above. These German naval pilots were in no way inferior to the Air Force in terms of skill and were even more experienced in dive bombing of surface targets. At the same time, they were the bravest group of men in the German Navy, and even in the face of dense enemy fire, they still did not hesitate to carry out dive attacks at large angles.

In the blink of an eye, a number of aerial bombs smashed into the retreating "Victory" and "Fearful". Several deafening explosions rang out, and the "Fearful" was shrouded in shrapnel, flames, and a fog of death from the splash of water from near-miss shells from the bow to the stern.

Taking advantage of the fact that their own dive bombers had created great pressure on the other side, the Allied torpedo planes were divided into multiple groups to launch attacks, and they used torpedoes first to force enemy ships to evade, so as to open up the originally relatively complete anti-aircraft fire network, cover the low-altitude breakthrough of the follow-up aircraft group, and then launch a saturation torpedo attack on the real target. Their aerial torpedoes are slightly less powerful than those used by surface ships and most submarines, but they pose a formidable threat to any warship.

Spotting the attack of torpedoes, the British sailors hurriedly fired into the water with the ship's large and small guns, and the two destroyers on the starboard side also showed their fearlessness at this moment - they used their bodies to block the side of the "Victory", trying to sacrifice themselves in exchange for the safety of the capital ship, and at the same time desperately fired at the incoming torpedoes with the ship's firepower.

With a loud bang, a tall column of water rose on the sea hundreds of meters away, and the threat to the "Victory" was partially eliminated, but this was the limit of the gunners on the British ship. Just twenty seconds later, the destroyer, which was located in front of the right of the "Victory", was shot. In an instant, a white column of water rose from the outside of the ship's side, and it was lifted upwards violently, and the bottom of the ship almost left the water, and the fracture marks on the hull were clearly visible. A moment later, a large cloud of smoke erupted from the breach, and the fire on the ship was like a small blowout, and the parts quickly fell and sank straight down to the surface of the sea, and the bow and stern of the ship were raised high. At this time, the sailors on the ship began to desperately jump into the icy water, fluttering and fluttering like a pot of dumplings falling into the water. The destroyer behind them continued to sink, and there were explosions one after another, and before the main body of the destroyer sank into the water, the number of people who managed to escape was not 40, only one-fifth of the crew, and the rest were not killed in the explosion and sank into the icy bottom with the ship.

The sinking of the wingman plunged the officers and men of the "Victory" into despair, but no one was willing to give up. Returning to the bridge, Colonel Hawksley struggled to steer his ship from destruction.

In the era before the development of electronic computers, when enemy planes dropped torpedoes nearby, officers did not have enough time to accurately calculate how to avoid the opposing party, and the commander's personal experience and intuitive judgment were particularly important. Looking at the torpedo track on the sea, the colonel commanded loudly: "Left full rudder!" ”

"Left full rudder!" The first mate immediately repeated, and the alarm bell sounded in the ship, and in a short time, the huge hull leaned to one side at high speed, and a deep hole was cut in the sharp overlapping sea surface to show its good maneuverability.

"A torpedo was found on the port side! 800 yards away! ”

The shouts of the lookouts drew people's attention from the starboard side of the battleship to the port side, and it turned out that while the battleship was busy evading the attack of the first group of torpedo planes, another group of torpedo planes quietly fired their torpedoes from the opposite direction, and the white wave marks produced by the torpedoes at high speed were clearly visible on the sea surface, and they all attacked the turning British aircraft carrier at great speed.

At this moment, a torpedo plane on the starboard side, which had just finished throwing a torpedo and was turning, was suddenly hit by the ship's anti-aircraft artillery fire, and the attacker in the air suddenly lost control, and its engine did not have time to stop. The fuselage tumbled into the sea at a small angle, smashing up a wave much larger than when the torpedo entered the water, but the British crew had no time to celebrate. The massive battleship had just recovered from turning to one side at full speed, and then fell back into a state of tilting to the other side. If you stand high in the air, you will notice that its wake is a large and irregular S, and it is this curve that allows it to successfully avoid all the incoming torpedoes, even the closest one to it, gliding over the sea more than ten meters away......

(End of chapter)