After receiving the report sent back by Yang Qinkai and the news that the three large fleet aircraft carriers and three large cruisers of the 31st Task Force had been destroyed, the officers of the First Task Force Command all screamed with excitement.

Tan Renhao glanced at the staff officers who were so excited that they were about to explode, and then shook his head with a smile, he didn't stop the staff officers, after all, this victory was not easy to come by, and it was not a bad thing to make everyone happy.

"There are still more than a dozen warships that have not been killed, and we still need to continue to send bombers"

"Let's turn the fleet first, maybe the shore-based bombers of the US military have already departed." Tan Renhao called Hao Dongjue outside the command cabin, "When will they be able to come back?" ”

"They can get there in 20 minutes, but the problem is that it takes at least 40 or 50 minutes to prepare for their departure."

Tan Renhao nodded. "Where is Task Force 3 now? Can you let Task Force 3 pass? ”

"Old? He was still busy returning home, and he must have received orders from the marshal to escort the two battleships back to the Empire. In addition", Hao Dongjue shook his head with a smile, "No matter how fast the Third Task Force is, it can't be faster than our bombers, right?" ”

Tan Renhao also laughed. "Then, let Qiu Gengbo and them complete the preparations for departure as soon as possible, Halsey will definitely not be able to escape this time, since we can still send bombers, then we can't let those American warships slip away."

Hao Dongjue nodded, then took out a cigarette, and that's all he could do.

At this time, the communications staff officer ran out. A telegram was delivered, from Task Force IV.

"Damn, Huang Xiaotian, bastard. I even want to take advantage of the fire to rob! After Hao Dongjue read the telegram, he immediately gave it to Tan Renhao. And complained loudly.

Tan Renhao quickly scanned the contents of the telegram, the bombers of the Fourth Task Force had already hit the road, and Huang Xiaotian organized all the bombers in the two groups of returning places, about 40 "water birds" and 30 "sea eagles".

In addition, more than 20 "Falcons" with bombs were flying towards Task Force 31, ready to deliver the final blow to Task Force 31.

Tan Renhao smiled and shook his head. "Let the Fourth Task Force do it, in addition, telegraphed Huang Xiaotian, the Fourth Task Force is ready to retreat north, and after leaving the basic ground air defense fighters, send all the surplus fighters to the air over the Third Task Force, and the fighters who carry out the bombing mission will also be withdrawn. Perhaps, now that MacArthur is trying to blow up those two American battleships, we can't let MacArthur succeed. ”

"General. Immediately send a telegram to Task Force IV? ”

"yes, let's go." Tan Renhao nodded at the communications staff officer, and then asked Hao Dongjue, who was still a little unhappy. "When will our fighters come back?"

"At least in 40 minutes, do you need to send the current air defense fighters?"

Tan Renhao hesitated for a moment, and then said: "Don't use it for the time being, let Yao Boyan and An Shile fly back as soon as possible." After refueling, immediately go to Task Force 3 and cover Task Force 3. In addition, tell them to extend the patrol time as long as possible, and when they run out of fuel, they will go to Task Force 4 to refuel and do not need to return to Task Force 1. Remember to contact Huang Xiaotian and ask him to prepare to provide support for this batch of fighters. ”

Hao Dongjue threw away the cigarette butt and then ran to deploy these fighters. What he didn't expect was that Huang Xiaotian still had dozens of bombers in his hands, and he knew very well what kind of choice Huang Xiaotian would make at this time, if he had the opportunity to send bombers, even if it was to deal with a US destroyer, he would let all the bombers hang up the bombs and set off.

Tan Renhao stood outside the command cabin for a few minutes, and then went in and gave the order for the fleet to turn to the northeast and maintain the fastest speed to sail. He had a hunch that after all three task forces of the U.S. Army were finished, Halsey, or more precisely, MacArthur was likely to act insanely. The U.S. military has deployed hundreds of heavy red bombers in Australia and New Caledonia, as well as hundreds of medium bombers, although these bombers have limited ability to strike warships, and it is impossible to get the cover of fighters, but in extreme circumstances, MacArthur will definitely let these bombers set off with bombs! In this case, Tan Renhao must think about himself, and it is the wisest choice to escape as soon as possible!

Prior to this, Huang Xiaotian had been paying close attention to the battle against the 31st Task Force. When the bombers of the First Task Force attacked the 31st Task Force, Huang Xiaotian specially arranged a communication channel to "listen" to the reports of the pilots of the First Task Force, and after he learned that Yang Qinkai's group had not completely annihilated the 31st Task Force, he immediately ordered the bombers who had already taken off on the flight deck to complete the final round of attacks.

It can be said that Hao Dongjue's understanding of Huang Xiaotian is not wrong at all. The Fourth Task Force withstood two rounds of attacks by the US forces in a row, and if it were another commander in Huang Xiaotian's position, he would definitely think of saving his life first and withdraw from the battle first. But Huang Xiaotian did not do this, after the second batch of US bombers left, Huang Xiaotian immediately ordered the fleet to turn due west, and also asked the two groups of bombers that had returned to the previous voyage, as well as a group of fighters who had participated in the fleet's air defense operations and were now replenishing fuel on the aircraft carrier, immediately hung up bombs and torpedoes, and prepared to attack the 31st Task Force. And before this batch of bombers set off, the only thing Huang Xiaotian needed to know was whether there was a target for him to bomb!

It was precisely because of this that when Yang Qinkai's report was "intercepted" (at that time, the Fourth Task Force was within 300 nautical miles of the 31st Task Force and could receive the report of the bomber group), Huang Xiaotian was able to immediately let the bomber group go. And when he sent a telegram to Tan Renhao, the bomber group was actually not on the road, but taking off one after another. Huang Xiaotian's reason for "lying" about the situation was very simple, he didn't want the First Task Force to swallow the results of the battle alone, and he knew it very well. After Tan Renhao knew that the bombers of the Fourth Task Force had already hit the road, he would not arrange for bombers to deal with the more than ten warships in the remaining areas of the 31st Task Force, that is, he would not compete with the Fourth Task Force for credit.

"General. Task Force 1 just sent it. ”

Huang Xiaotian took the telegram when he finished reading the contents. It dawned on me immediately. "Let all the fighters on the bombing mission stay, immediately unload the bombs, replace them with auxiliary fuel tanks, and immediately go to the skies above the third task force to carry out air defense patrol missions!"

The staff officer was about to walk away when Huang Xiaotian stopped him.

"Contact Task Force 3. Let the new generals be recommended to do a good job in arranging the command of air defense.

Also, leave two squadrons of ground fighters to continue patrolling over the fleet, and all the rest will return to the carrier after the bombers take off to refuel, load the auxiliary fuel tanks, and go to the third task force. ”

After the staff officer left, Huang Xiaotian let out a sigh. At first, he was so excited that he left the order sent by the theater command behind. He received the order from the theater command a little later than Tan Renhao, and he knew very well the significance of having the Third Task Force tow the two American battleships back. It's just that, before that, deal with Task Force 31. And protecting himself is the top priority, so Huang Xiaotian did not immediately arrange fighter jets to protect the third task force. And now, there is no need for him to worry about the bombers of the US military. Task Force 31 was also doomed to be completely destroyed, so he had to provide air defense cover for Task Force 3 as soon as possible.

After the bombers took off one after another, the aviation crews on the aircraft carrier immediately returned the remaining fighters to the hangar. And the 250 kg bombs hanging on the fighter were unloaded and replaced with large drop fuel tanks. At this time, more than a dozen more fighters also began to land on the aircraft carrier. Huang Xiaotian only kept two squadrons of air defense fighters for himself, while the other 30 fighters were all sent to the Third Task Force.

The bomber group sent by Task Force 4 departed at about 1:20 and arrived at Task Force 31 at 2:50. This was the last round of attack of the Tang Empire's task force in the entire naval battle, and more than 70 bombers finally sank the aircraft carrier "Lexington", the cruiser "Saipan", and more than a dozen other escort warships, and in the end only four destroyers escaped that had broken away from the formation before one o'clock, and these four destroyers carried a large number of wounded American troops, as well as officers and soldiers who fell overboard, and officers of the fleet headquarters, but Halsey was not on the destroyer.

The naval battle, which began on the night of the 25th, ended after three o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th. At this point, all the attacks on the Tang Empire's naval ground had ended, but the counterattack of the American army had not ended.

MacArthur, who was in Brisbane Harbor, could not believe that this was true when he received the news that the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd task forces had been almost wiped out. Three huge fleets were all finished in a dozen hours, three fleet carriers, six small carriers, seven battleships, three large cruisers, and dozens of other battleships, and less than fifteen of them escaped in the end, and most of them were destroyers! What happened in the past ten hours?

MacArthur tried to contact Halsey, but in the end he received only a telegram from Mitchell from a light cruiser, Halsey was not on the retreating battleship, and may have been killed on the USS Lexington. Ultimately, however, none of the officers of Task Force 31 Command, nor the officers aboard the Lexington, were able to confirm that Halsey had died on the carrier, and that Halsey was last seen by a captain officer who was returning to his quarters.

These are still secondary, MacArthur is not in the mood to care about Halsey's life or death, after asking Mitchell to lead the remaining battleships back to Brisbane Port as soon as possible, MacArthur suddenly discovers that he still has one important thing to complete, that is, the two captured battleships are still being dragged north without being sunk!

This was what annoyed MacArthur the most, and the president had personally sent an order to sink the two battleships at all costs, and not to let them fall into the hands of the Tang Empire.

Originally, MacArthur still had a glimmer of hope for Halsey, but now, the last hope has also been dashed. Not to mention bombing those two battleships, even Halsey himself is finished, and so are the two aircraft carrier task forces!

Instead of bombing the two battleships captured by the Tang Empire, Halsey sent the last of the bombers to deal with the Fourth Task Force. At this time, MacArthur had no choice, the only thing he was glad about was that he had already let the heavy bombers concentrate on the airfield in northeastern Australia in the morning, and the bombers had already been hung with bombs, filled with fuel, and the pilots were ready to take off and leave at any time.

After thinking about it for two minutes, MacArthur gave the order for the 210 B-17 and B-24 bombers concentrated on the airfield in northeastern Australia to take off immediately and go to bomb the Third Task Force that was sailing towards Tagura, focusing on destroying the two battleships captured by the enemy! The bombers departed between half-past one and half-past two, and the fastest ones did not reach the skies of Task Force 3 until half-past four.

MacArthur overlooked two important points, one was that none of the fighters could escort these bombers, not even the heavy fighter like the ~38 could not fly that far. In addition, and most importantly, these 210 bombers were scattered across more than 10 airfields, and most of them were deployed on field airfields, which were very scattered, and the U.S. military was unable to coordinate these bombers to reach the skies over Task Force 3 at the same time. In other words, the 210 bombers were actually divided into more than 10 batches, with a maximum of 20 bombers in each batch and only a little more than 10 in each batch.

Although the self-defense firepower of heavy bombers is very fierce, in the face of fighters, the survivability of heavy bombers is still not high, and they must rely on large groups of aircraft to block the attack of fighters.

Of course, there are really too many surprises in this campaign. There are many situations that the campaign commander did not anticipate. For example, no one would have expected Task Force 1 to appear south of Task Force 31 and become the "Terminator" of Task Force 31. And now, no one could have predicted that at least four bombing opportunities would pass over Task Force 1 and encounter the fighters of Task Force 1!