"Boom! Rumble! Boom ......"

All 20 127mm high-level dual-purpose guns on the battleship Iowa roared, and expensive radio-proximity fuse anti-aircraft shells were fired into the sky as if they were not paying for money. At the same time www.biquge.info 15 quadruple 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns were also firing hard, and tracer bullets were sprayed into the air in rows and rows, weaving a network of fire to protect the USS Essex aircraft carrier beside him.

Unlike the previous two attack waves, which did not dare to choose the most valuable and best protected Essex-class aircraft carriers, the attack aircraft group sent by the Japanese First Mobile Fleet was very brave and directly chose the Essex aircraft carrier near the Iowa and the other three Essex-class aircraft carriers.

However, the 4 Essex-class are not easy targets to deal with, they are all surrounded by a battleship, the Essex is near Iowa, the Intrepid is near New Jersey, the Hornet is near Washington, and the Franklin is next to the battleship New York.

The four battleships that served as the "artillery escort" had strong anti-aircraft firepower, and even the old New York was modified for the purpose of strengthening air defense, installing a large number of 127mm high-level dual-purpose guns, 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns, and 20mm Erlikon anti-aircraft guns. And the Essex-class aircraft carrier itself also has very strong anti-aircraft firepower.

In addition, around the four Essex-class battleships and the battleships that escorted them, there was a ring of destroyers.

It can be said responsibly that around the four precious aircraft carriers USS Essex is the place where the world's anti-aircraft artillery is concentrated.

However, the Japanese "Comet" dive bombers and bomb-laden "Meteor" torpedo bombers still rushed forward and swooped down on these four large fleet carriers.

The first to launch a decisive assault was the "Comet" dive bomber, an unstoppable aerial killer. The Comet aircraft was fast, with a theoretical maximum speed of 580 km/h. Although it does not reach this speed when carrying bombs, it is still a difficult target to intercept. Once the "Comet" begins to dive, its speed is even more astonishing, and even if a large number of 40mm anti-aircraft guns are installed on surface ships, it is difficult for the proportion of successful interception of "Comet" to exceed 50%.

That is, at least half of the "Comet" dive bombers managed to break through the blocking of 40mm guns and drop terrible bombs!

However, it is precisely because of its high speed that the accuracy of the bomb has also decreased. Compared to the 80% hit rate (under training) of the Type 99 shipburst pervert earlier, the hit rate of the "Comet" dive bomber has dropped by about half, leaving less than 50%. And in real combat, under the interference of intensive anti-aircraft fire, the hit rate will further drop significantly.

At 6:12 p.m., the aft elevator of the USS Franklin, which was "closely protected" by the USS New York, was hit by a 500-kilogram bomb, which penetrated directly into the deck, drilled into the hangar and then exploded, and the violent explosion destroyed the spare aircraft in the hangar, and also triggered a series of explosions and fires, the stern elevator was damaged, all the hangar personnel were killed, and the smoke column was hundreds of meters high.

The Franklin, which had caught fire, quickly turned into a target to attract enemy planes, and all the dive bombers and torpedo planes that had not yet dropped bombs pounced on the Franklin and the nearby New York, and the bombs and torpedoes rained down.

The USS Franklin and the battleship USS New York next to it were shot one after another, and in less than 10 minutes, the bow and amidships of the USS Franklin were each hit by two armor-piercing bombs, and the huge explosion opened two large holes in the flight deck of the Franklin, completely depriving this large fleet aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of more than 30,000 tons of the ability to take off and land aircraft.

But the huge aircraft carrier did not look like it was going to sink at all, it floated steadily on the sea, it did not lose its power, and the anti-aircraft guns on board still sprayed bullets into the sky frantically.

The USS New York was hit by three 500-kilogram bombs, one of which was a 500-kilogram armor-piercing projectile that pierced the roof of the main gun turret (the New York had five turrets) and exploded inside the turret. Fortunately, it was an anti-aircraft operation, there were no shells or propellants inside the turret to detonate, and all the fireproof hatches were firmly closed. So the bomb only scrapped one turret and didn't cause too much fatal damage. Another 500-kilogram bomb pierced the bow deck of the battleship and exploded in the sailor's cabin, causing a fire, but it was again not fatal. Another bomb exploded on the starboard deck of the battleship, directly destroying several anti-aircraft guns and detonating some ammunition, causing a fire.

The heavy cruiser USS Baltimore, which was escorting the other side of the USS Franklin (it was also part of a circular anti-aircraft array), was also the focus of Japanese fighter attacks - this heavy cruiser was huge, with a full load displacement of more than 17,000 tons, and it was also a so-called "anti-aircraft type", with 12 127mm guns, 48 40mm guns, and 24 20mm guns, and its anti-aircraft firepower was almost similar to that of an Iowa-class battleship, so it was also mistaken for a battleship.

For the current Japanese naval aviation, battleships are also extremely valuable targets, so they have attracted many "comets" and "meteors" that dive and drop bombs, but the anti-aircraft guns on the Baltimore heavy cruiser are not vegetarian, and the sprayed bullet rain formed a deadly fire network in the air, allowing the attacking Japanese fighters to dive at a heavy price. In the end, only two 250-kilogram bombs (dropped by a Comet dive bomber) hit the bow of the Baltimore, destroying a 203mm main gun turret and causing mechanical failure to the other.

At 6:30 p.m., an even greater disaster befell the New York and Franklin, as the second attack wave from the Japanese mobile fleet and the third attack wave from Christmas Island arrived on the battlefield almost simultaneously in the twilight sky.

By this time the visibility at sea had dropped to the point where it was not enough to support normal torpedo attacks and dive bombing. Therefore, the USS New York, the USS Franklin, and more than 30 other ships that caught fire became live targets to attract Japanese firepower.

And because of the poor visibility, hundreds of American planes in the sky could not effectively block the Japanese attack aircraft group as before. They had no choice but to choose a "one-type land attack" with a relatively large target and not very flexible to strike, and let go of the fast and dexterous carrier-based aircraft -- such a choice was of course a disaster for the "one-type land attack" that set off from Christmas Island, and in the end, 60 "one-type land attacks" became "one-type lighters," and the "success rate" was as high as 60 percent.

However, the disaster of the "lighter" also brought fruitful results. At 6:40 p.m., the stern of the battleship New York was torpedoed, and the explosion destroyed the rudder of the battleship, making it impossible for the huge battleship to avoid the bomb torpedo with the S-type evasive navigation. In the next five minutes, the New York was hit by two bombs and three torpedoes, and the ship burst into flames and tilted badly to the left. At 6:50 p.m., the captain of the USS New York gave the order to abandon the battleship.

At the same time that the "New York" was abandoned, the "Franklin" was also beaten all over its body, and two more bombs and two torpedoes hit the aircraft carrier one after another, which had lost the ability to take off and land aircraft. One bomb destroyed the ship's amidships, and the other penetrated the carrier's sailor's cabin and exploded, damaging some pipes and wiring by the way, causing the aircraft carrier to temporarily lose most of its power, and its speed suddenly dropped to less than 10 knots. This created conditions for the attack of the torpedo planes, and at 6:55 and 6:58, two aviation torpedoes hit the port side of the aircraft carrier one after another, and the sea water instantly flooded several compartments, and the captain of the Franklin had to order the water injection to restore the balance. At 7:05, the captain of the Franklin gave another order to abandon the ship by non-damage management personnel.

In this round of Japanese plane raids, it was not only the New York and the Franklin that suffered damage, but the three escort aircraft carriers that had been damaged by the Japanese planes but did not sink were also shot again, and all of them were abandoned by the US military at around 7 p.m. -- by the way, in the previous waves of attacks, six escort aircraft carriers were shot, but only three were sunk, and in addition to the three escort aircraft carriers that have now been sunk in battle, the US military has lost a total of six escort aircraft carriers.

In addition, many burning landing ships and transports were sunk by Japanese aircraft!

However, compared to the sheer size of the U.S. Task Force 58, the Japanese did not achieve enough results on the first day of the Battle of Christmas Island to make Spruance admit defeat and retreat.

"Let the shelling formations go!"

At 7:15 p.m., Admiral Spruance, who had already transferred his headquarters to the USS Essex, looked at the USS Franklin, which was blazing, and gave the order to send out an artillery strike formation.

Then he asked the chief of staff, Major General Browning, again: "Are the statistics of the air battle out?" How many Japanese planes were knocked out? And how much do we lose? ”

"According to preliminary statistics, more than 800 Japanese fighters (in fact, only 533) were shot down by our aircraft and surface ships, and our losses amounted to 205 aircraft, of which 89 pilots were killed, seriously injured and missing."

"Well done!" Spruance nodded in satisfaction, "It seems that we have found the right way to deal with Japan!" ”

"Yes!" Major General Browning said, "With a few more battles like this, we can win the Pacific War." ”