Captain Hoshshan, a gunnery officer aboard the cruiser Yinhu at the front of the line, vividly recalled: "I could clearly see the shells exploding on the Japanese warships, bursting into flames, tearing off the tops of the turrets, and when they burrowed into the heavy armor plates, they spewed out red, melted steel

The Japanese heavy cruiser ignored the heavy artillery fire of the Chinese fleet, and rushed to the torpedo attack position again, and fired another 10 torpedoes at the battleship Minuchi on the other side, and the Chinese fleet fired at the Japanese heavy cruiser with heavy artillery fire. The secondary guns around the Snake and the Afternoon Horse even hit the Tatsuryu, but the Japanese heavy cruiser was caught by the radar of the Chinese cruiser Tatsuryu because of its position too far forward, and was bombarded by 280 mm shells like raindrops, and 11 shots were fired in succession, and the ship then exploded violently, and finally capsized and sank, killing all the members of the ship, and no one survived

The Atago, which began to stagger and retreat, was soon overtaken by the Intora and hit the two guns, and after a column of water rose under the starboard engine room, the heavy cruiser began to tilt, followed by a series of explosions, and finally disappeared into the sea, killing 232 Japanese officers and men, including Nobutake Kondo

Shimura Tori, the first to turn around, saw the destruction of the Atago: our ship was almost unseaworthy, and not long after, the "Atago" had a huge explosion, and the whole ship spewed out a volcano-like red flame, illuminating a sea clearly, and in the raging fire, the main mast of the "Atago" finally collapsed, and soon the hull tilt reached 45 degreesThe officers and men on board finally began to abandon the ship, but most of the sailors had no time to escape, and two minutes later, the heroic warship finally capsized and began to sink in the stern, with only 10 survivors on board......

At this time, the cruiser suddenly found that a torpedo had crossed the bow of the ship, and hurriedly reported the news of the torpedo approach to the flagship of the fleet, Rear Admiral Li Xianyang had heard about the power of the Japanese long-range torpedo, he hurriedly ordered the fleet to retreat north, and the Shima took this opportunity to repair part of the boiler, and the Shima, which had restored part of the power, began to accelerate its escape, but at this moment, two 406-mm shells fired by the battleship Nation hit the Shima, which was already seriously injured, and the Shima could no longer withstand such a blow, accompanied by a violent explosion, and the Shima soon disappeared into the sea

At this time, six large Chinese cruisers and two battleships fired a total of more than 400 shells, and no one can count exactly how many shells hit the Japanese warships in this blazing fire, but the sinking of five Japanese heavy cruisers is a fact

The waves gradually subsided, and after the artillery fire on the sea fell silent, the Chinese cruiser fleet began to rescue the seriously damaged battleship Independence, marking the end of the Battle of the Dragon Triangle

As the Chinese fleet sailed out of the Dragon Triangle, the sky also became brighter

Our plane has arrived

On the battleship Fuxi, which was riddled with bullets, Zhang Enming pointed to the appearance of a Chinese Navy carrier-based fighter in the sky and said to Chu Yangwei

It's good to come, it's good to come, Chu Yangwei said hoarsely and nodded, now if we run into the Japanese again, we will really be in trouble

Yes, I really don't want them to see us like this now, Zhang Enming looked at the surface of the ship where the smoke of gunpowder had not yet dissipated, and smiled bitterly

The pilots of the Chinese Naval Aviation in the sky were also amazed when they looked at the huge warships with bullet scars slowly moving on the sea

Fighter pilot Hu Sigui recorded what he saw on the sea as follows:

At the beginning of 1943 I joined the Naval Aviation Corps as a tail machine gunner and radio communicator on a 'Javelin' carrier-based attack aircraft, and our squadron was attached to the aircraft carrier 'Dragon' ...,

After the Battle of the Dragon Triangle began, our initial news of the enemy's fleet was intermittent, and our pilots were very conflicted, and we wished that we could have packed up all their broken warships sooner and then landed on the Japanese mainland to end the damn war, but we were also a little afraid, and there was no doubt that a bad battle awaited us, and that someone would surely die for it

That morning, the squadron leader summoned us for a briefing on the mission, and his words were extremely brief, summed up in one sentence: sinking enemy ships, hundreds of planes taking off from 12 aircraft carriers at 10 a.m., forming a huge group of planes flying towards the target, I was very nervous about checking the machine guns and ammunition, but when I saw so many of our planes and so many brothers around, I was filled with confidence

At about 12 noon, the squadron of dive bombers reported that they had discovered the Japanese fleet, and soon we saw this very incongruous fleet, with the largest warships and the smallest warships, many so small that they were almost ignored, surrounding a very large battleship, which was our target, the battleship 'Yamato'

Our squadron dropped all the torpedoes, but unfortunately only 1 hit, and after returning to reload, we participated in the third wave of attacks on the "Yamato", and by 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the "Yamato" was gone, and the squadron leader flew to a very close distance with our 3 "Javelins", and then, like the example in the textbook, one after another, lined up in line, and threw torpedoes at one of the enemy's cruisers, which was the largest target we could find at that time, "1234", I slowly counted 4 torpedoes, dragging the track, and rushed towards the enemy's search. All hits, we did a great job,' came the cheers of the squadron leader over the intercom, but I still regret that our squadron did not become the gravedigger of the 'Yamato'

…… After the battle, as was customary, we had to use the camera on the plane to take pictures of the effect of the attack, so we flew slowly to a low altitude closer to the surface of the sea where the battle took place, and I found the bodies of countless Japanese sailors floating on the surface of the sea, as well as many survivors struggling in the sea, and I will never forget the scene

From the photographs that were later printed, I found that many of the Japanese sailors who fell into the water looked about the same age as me, and if there had been no war, maybe I could have become friends with them, play ball, and drink together, but the Japanese warlords made us enemies and killed each other......

At about the same time, Kato Yansuke, who was standing on the bridge of the battleship Shinano, looked at the Japanese warships jolting forward on the sea, and his heart fluctuated

It was a wrong battle fought at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and with the wrong enemy, and the cost was greater than any other battle in this war

The poor and inadequate state of the Japanese intelligence work is the most eloquent proof of this, as evidenced by the fact that until the eve of the battle, the Military Command had miscalculated and informed the Japanese troops who were leaving for the battlefield that the Shina Fleet was fighting in the Solomon area, thus strongly suggesting that the enemy had not yet discovered that the Japanese fleet was about to attack the Inland Fleet, and that the intelligence work of the Combined Fleet was not much better, although the Combined Fleet Command had noticed the unusual activity of the enemy in the home waters, did not regard this situation as a serious sign that the enemy was preparing to deal with it, and that it was necessary to warn the other forces

Another fundamental reason for the defeat in the battle in the Dragon Triangle was that the basic plan of the operation itself was wrong, and the most conspicuous and obvious mistake in this regard was the improper deployment of various naval forces, and the decision-makers of the battle plan followed the one they were proud of, but this time it became a fatal one, that is, the combined fleet did not organize its forces into an unprecedentedly large mobile force, but adopted the policy of dispersing the forces, and as a result, the strength of each force was relatively weak; from a strategic point of view, it was not important to disperse the forces deployed in Hawaii, because the purpose of this force was only to destroy the US military facilities there and occupy the islands; from a tactical point of view, the operational purpose of the combined fleet was to transferThe enemy's attention to the main attack on the Japanese mainland, however, is undoubtedly inappropriate to sacrifice the definite favorable condition of concentrating forces in exchange for the uncertain advantage of containing the enemy, and it may not be possible to contain the enemy, but in fact this goal has not been achieved, and the dispersion of forces is not limited to the division of troops into two routes. Air combat is a basic tactical weakness, in the Dragon Triangle this weakness provides convenient conditions for the enemy's offensive, because the troops are far away and can not play a role at all, once the aircraft carrier of Nagumo is destroyed, the weakness of the Japanese side due to the dispersion of troops will make the Japanese army almost completely lose its combat effectiveness, on the contrary, the deployment of the troops on the Chinese side is very compact and powerful, in this operation, the troops on the Chinese side are very concentrated from beginning to end, both in attack and defense, and the maximum concentration of forces...,

For example, if the main force and Nagumo's forces were to act together, Admiral Yamamoto's several large battleships would cover the aircraft carriers, and the forces would have been greatly strengthened, and the huge firepower of the battleships and escort ships would have repelled many incoming enemy planes, which would undoubtedly attract some attacking enemy planes to leave the hapless aircraft carriers, and Admiral Yamamoto could have directly controlled the situation of the battle, and the reason why he could not control the situation was because he was too far away, and if the battleships had been used properly, they could have played their true role and might in battle

Another mistake in the battle plan was that the focus was not firmly on the central objective of the operation - the annihilation of the enemy's aircraft carrier fleet, not the battlefleet, and the annihilation of the enemy's aircraft carrier fleet should be unequivocally set as the primary objective of the operation, and everything else should be subordinated to this objective, which the Combined Fleet would not do because it placed too much emphasis on the battleships of the China

Because of these serious deficiencies in the basic operational plan, the commanders of our troops suffered two big losses at the beginning, and even so, if they did not make mistakes in tactical command, it seems certain that the result would not have been so miserable; some people say that both sides will make mistakes in the battle, and victory belongs to the side that makes fewer mistakes, and it is self-evident which side made more mistakes in the Battle of the Dragon Triangle; indeed, we cannot but admit that all the mistakes made in this operation were made by the Japanese side

There were also serious mistakes in the command arrangements for the Midway operation, and this mistake is the tradition of the Japanese Navy. That is, during the battle, the commander-in-chief should be present at the front line in person, so Admiral Yamamoto hung his general's flag on the 'Yamato' and sailed to the sea to boost the morale of the combat troops, obviously this outdated concept does not meet the requirements of modern naval warfare, and the commander should understand the overall situation and be able to inform and maintain control over the whole army under his command, which is far more important than any morale problem involved, and the people of China know and understand this problem, so the headquarters of the China Navy has always been located on the shore during the war. The Yamato' was unable to communicate with his subordinate fleets until the last moment due to the weather, so he could not exert any control over the operation in a timely manner, and if the Combined Fleet Command was located on the shore, and it was located in the transportation and intelligence center of Tokyo, he would not only be able to inform his troops of the latest developments in the battle and the enemy's situation, but would also be able to maintain firm control of the situation at all times

The outdated views of the 'old school' naval personnel and their doctrine of the supremacy of battleships were one of the main reasons for the defeat of the battle, and the huge amount of manpower and material resources spent on building super-battleships such as the 'Yamato', 'Musashi', 'Shinano' and 'Mino' was a huge waste of resources and a great blow to those who were enthusiastic about aviation

Neither the development of science and technology, nor the changes in the mode of warfare brought about by the development of science and technology, until much later, did not influence the thinking of those battleship supremacists in Japan, and it was evident as early as the thirties and the period of the First Sino-Japanese War that the air force must be regarded as a real force in modern warfare, and the remarkable results achieved by the Japanese air force in the first month after the start of the Pacific War fully confirmed and strengthened this view, but the diehards still belittled the role of aircraft in battle, believing that these initial victories were purely a fluke, and they insisted that the fundamental nature of aircraft carriers was that they were too incapable of withstanding an attackThe basic air force has a limited range and cannot play an important role in the vast Pacific Ocean, so the final victory or defeat of the war at sea still depends on the battleship as before, and these advocates believe that the firepower of the modern battleship is sufficient to enable it to defend itself against the air attack of enemy aircraft...,

At the other end of the scale, there are those who advocate the omnipotence of aviation, who regard the initial air gains as proof that battles and wars can be won by aircraft and aircraft carriers alone, and this view is also terrible, because it completely ignores the role that battleships should play in war, and as a result, the pilots generally consider the battleship force to be completely useless and make a joke and ridicule the battleship force as the 'island fleet'

Naval aviation has indeed replaced the battleship as a decisive maritime strike force, and in the early days of the war, the Japanese Navy's carrier-based and shore-based aircraft annihilated the battleship forces of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and the battleship forces of the British Far East Fleet in the Malayan Sea, respectively, all of which are convincing proof of this, and it is worth noting that carrier-based and shore-based aircraft were also used in the offensive operations in which the Shina Army pointed at the Japanese mainland and defeated Japan

The use of battleships by the China Navy is a very vivid example, the prominent importance of naval aviation and aircraft carriers does not mean that the China battleships with powerful guns will do nothing, and can only vaguely hope to be able to fight a battle in a big way, on the contrary, before attacking the Japanese islands, the China battleships skillfully shelled the Japanese outposts, island strongholds, and they fought fiercely, which is confirmed by anyone still alive in the Japanese defenders on the islands, and the China Navy also used battleships well to cover the aircraft carrier forces, and the strong anti-aircraft fire network of these battleships effectively prevented Japanese aircraft from approaching and attacking the China aircraft carriers

The Japanese naval chiefs were not unaware of the changes that had taken place in the naval war, but they seemed unwilling to face reality, for example, Rear Admiral Takijiro Onishi was transferred back to Tokyo from the Southern Front, and on the way he reported to the Combined Fleet Command on the situation of operations in the Philippines and the Dutch East IndiesIn response to the thinking of the Japanese Navy, he said: "I believe that only shore-based aviation can be used on a small scale in the vast oceans, and I do not think that aircraft carriers alone can provide sufficient aviation for offensive operations...... Everyone believes that battleships are valuable combat tools, and unless we have another way to subdue the enemy's battleships, we must maintain our battleship strength', this is the firm opinion of battleship supremacists (to be continued, if you like this work, you are welcome to come (.) Vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation)