8th, early morning.

The aircraft carrier Liberty Dragon quietly entered the Coral Sea.

If there are satellites at this time. It can be found that the Liberty Dragon was located in the southeast of the Coral Sea at this time. The Japanese aircraft carrier Xiangfeng had already entered the Coral Sea, but it did not join the Zuizuru. At this time, the Xiangfeng was located in the northwest of the Coral Sea.

The two aircraft carriers of the US military are located close to Australia and in the southwest.

The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuizuru was in the northeast at this time.

Five aircraft carriers, divided into four groups, occupy the four corners of a not very regular square. The sides of this square are about 400 kilometers long.

Over the past few days, the Japanese Mizuru and the two US aircraft carriers have searched each other several times, and both sides have confirmed the presence of the adversary, but neither side has determined the exact location of the adversary.

However, this is not to say that the reconnaissance activities of the two sides have been fruitless for several days, and the two sides have a rough idea of the location of the other side.

Even in the past day, there was a skirmish air battle between the two sides, with both sides gaining and losing. For the upcoming battle, both sides have psychological expectations.

It should be said that the US military had an intelligence advantage before the war, and could have hid in the shadows to sneak attack. However, the U.S. military then leaked its strength during the military operation on Tulagi Island.

When the time entered May 8th. On the surface, the US military had the advantage, and two aircraft carriers were one against the Japanese. However, after the Japanese light aircraft carrier Xiangfeng rushed back to the Coral Sea, although the US military still had the upper hand, it was already in the dark of the enemy. On the contrary, he lost the first move.

And the entry of the Liberty Dragon into the Coral Sea has become a variable in this naval battle.

The Japanese army and the American army have already made full preparations. The importance of seizing the opportunity is well understood by the generals on both sides. The two armies were around four o'clock in the morning, almost at the same time. The sky was still dark, and in the drizzle, they each released reconnaissance planes.

In the early morning of the 8th, on the cloudy and uncertain sea of the Coral Sea, the square formation formed by the tripartite fleets of the United States, Japan, and Tang was rotating clockwise.

Zuizuru and Shoho are interconnected, and the reason for keeping a distance is the battle plan of Vice Admiral Takagi Takeo, who wants Zuizuru to be the frontal battle, and Shozuru to be the sharp knife for sneak attacks.

This plan was opposed by Rear Admiral Tadaichi Hara, whose Fifth Air Force did not have a high status in the First Air Fleet. But when cooperating with other fleets. But it's a resounding workhorse. How can there be a main force as a bait, this is pure nonsense.

However, Lieutenant General Takagi Takeo did not overwhelm people with power, but still gave Hara Tadaichi a little reason. The American ghost animal knew about the existence of the Ruihe, but did not know the existence of the Xiangfeng, so they used the Ruihe as bait. Logically sound.

Major General Tadaichi Hara couldn't argue, but he also played some tricks. That's movement. He exercised. Then the Xiangfeng will also follow the movement. It won't be long before the Xiangfeng will fill the place of the Zuihe yesterday evening. But in any case, the Japanese had an advantage in the coordination of the two ships.

And the two US aircraft carriers and the USS Liberty Dragon aircraft carrier did not know each other's existence at all. The U.S. military is an unconscious movement, or rather, an action against the wind to ensure that the fighter plane can take off at any time. And the Liberty Dragon of the Naval Resistance Army is because it wants to go home. That's the way it is.

At this point, the US military and the naval resistance forces are again at a disadvantage.

At four o'clock in the morning, the Liberty Dragon had already penetrated deep into the Coral Sea, and Li Guang was in ignorance. It has already stirred up this naval battle between the American army and the Japanese army.

Since the Naval Resistance Forces did not know about the daily confrontation between the two sides, they did not know the danger at all, so the reconnaissance planes of the Naval Resistance Forces were not as eager to fly as the US and Japanese armies, and the three dreadnought bombers took off at 5 o'clock.

In the aftermath, Li Guang once wondered if this was a conspiracy by Admiral Nimitz. Although the Liberty Dragon left Pearl Harbor on the 28th, the US military received the information on the 30th. Although Li Guang did not reveal his route to the US military, the US military can roughly guess that the staff officers of the US Pacific Fleet are not eating for nothing, and they all have considerable ability.

Maybe Nimitz was waiting for the Liberty Dragon to appear here and act as a decoy. If the Liberty Dragon of the Midway Sea Resistance Army had not turned around and attacked the Japanese stronghold, it might have been swallowed as a decoy by the Japanese army.

But for all this, at six o'clock in the morning, Li Guang didn't know and didn't think of it.

The situation at sea is quite strange, and the three parties have taken this kind of clockwise action in unison, slowly turning clockwise on the coral sea.

At 6:20, this strange situation of clockwise rotation was broken.

At 6:20 a.m., the U.S. military took the lead in discovering the Japanese aircraft carrier Zuizuru. Rear Admiral Fletcher took off ninety-three warplanes from two aircraft carriers at once.

Almost at the same time, Japanese reconnaissance planes also discovered two US aircraft carriers.

At this time, the reconnaissance planes of the Maritime Resistance Army found nothing, and continued to reconnoiter in the sky.

Li Guang got up a little late in the morning because of his inspection last night, and by the time he entered the command bridge, it was already 6:30.

The fact that the reconnaissance planes did not gain anything does not mean that the Maritime Resistance Forces are not aware of it at all. At 6:20 a.m., the telecommunications group of the Naval Resistance Army detected telegraph waves in two directions.

The Coral Sea is remote, and if it weren't for the war, the radio signals here are not dense. Of course, it's not uncommon to hear radio waves early in the morning.

However, the radio waves in these two directions still attracted the attention of the telecommunications team, because the direction of the source of the radio waves, especially one of them, was very abnormal. On the chart, the direction of the source of the radio waves is the Solomon Islands.

The Liberty Dragon passed through this sea area three times, and once did not find an airwave signal in the direction of the Solomon Islands. The Solomon Islands at this time were purely deserted islands, and the indigenous population was still in a semi-primitive state.

Captain Huang Zhonghua's response, Li Guang was very satisfied. The radio waves alone could not explain anything, Huang Zhonghua neither panicked nor ignored it, he just ordered the first mate to maneuver, and the Liberty Dragon tried to hide under the cumulonimbus clouds to sail.

Japanese Army. Major General Tadaichi Hara immediately gave an order when the reconnaissance plane transmitted information.

The Fifth Air Force moved quite quickly, and in just 30 minutes, the Japanese ground crews and pilots completed the entire process of lifting the fighters from the hangar and flying them in formation.

At 7:10 a.m., 48 fighters aboard the Zuihe aircraft carrier took off smoothly. Leading the team was the captain of the Zuizuru flight, Takahashi Hiroshi Shosa. And the movement of the Xiangfeng light aircraft carrier is a little slow. At 7:15, twenty-four warplanes took off.

American. Major General Fletcher wasn't slow either.

At 7:15 a.m., the USS Yorktown and USS Lexington took off fifteen fighters, forty-six dive bombers and twenty-one torpedo planes, for a total of eighty-two fighters.

A fiery war was about to begin, and at 7:15 a.m., both sides were acting in strange unison. Even the air strike force of the sortie is not too much. The two sides are exactly the opponents.

The Japanese and American armies were staring at each other, the naval resistance forces were still moving through the confused rain and fog, and the sea was still calm.

After the aircraft carrier released the fighters, the fighters did not have navigation facilities. Generally, they will cruise in the sea area where they are located, and they will not maneuver too much, in case the fighter plane returns home and cannot find the air mother.

Therefore, the current square layout of the three sides and four fleets is slowly breaking down. The U.S. and Japanese fleets were divided in a triangle at this time. The Liberty Dragon, on the other hand, was heading towards a straight side of the triangle.

For more than an hour after the Japanese and US militaries flew their fighters, luck sided with the US military. At 8.30 o'clock, the American fighter formation was the first to find the aircraft carrier Zuihe.

Major General Tadaichi Hara didn't want to be a decoy at all. But on this morning he was unlucky, and he was still the first to be approached by the US military.

The Zuihe was approached by U.S. fighters. The devils were immediately jumping. Hara Tadaichi was taken aback by the sudden appearance of a US fighter plane. In a hurry. Hara Tadaichi ordered the remaining twenty-four fighters to take off.

The Japanese Fifth Air Force was also well-trained, but it took at least five minutes to fly these 24 fighters. When Hara Tadaichi discovered the first fighter plane of the US military, his heart sank, and he thought that there was no chance to take off these 24 fighters.

But the truth is that the rookie pilots of the U.S. military gave Tadaichi Hara at least five minutes.

When the US fighter planes arrived over the Zuihe, their first action was not to start bombing directly. Instead, they hid in formation in cumulonimbus clouds.

Half a year after the war began, veteran pilots of the US military were assigned to various departments as military instructors. On board the Yorktown and the Lexington, there were less than thirty percent of the skilled pilots, and even fewer who had fought in battle.

Whether it was a dive bomber pilot or a torpedo pilot. If there is no formation and no old birds to fly, these rookies simply don't even know at what angle to approach and when to drop bombs.

In this way, the extremely precious few minutes of time were wasted by the US air force. When the first U.S. torpedo planes began to attack, the last fighter plane on the Zuihe had already taken off.

The American pilots, who launched the first attack on the heavily defended Japanese aircraft carriers, were still in disarray when they faced a truly formidable enemy.

Very open, torpedo planes and dive bombers were scattered by Zero fighters. Moreover, due to the lack of cooperation of the US fighters, the torpedo was fired into the sea and seriously deviated from the target. This wave of bombers was almost purely blind.

Forty warplanes bombed in a mess, and only two bombs hit the Zuihe. But it didn't look bad, the wooden flight deck of the Zuihe might have been hit by a fuel tank or something, and the smoke was billowing and a fire was blazing.

The warplanes on the aircraft carrier Yorktown bombed for more than ten minutes before they had consumed all the bombs and torpedoes. Both fighters and bombers suffered heavy losses under the Japanese anti-aircraft fire, and those shot down by Zero fighters were endless.

Due to the difficulty of spotting the enemy ships under the thick clouds, more than 40 fighters on the Lexington lost their course and arrived over the aircraft carrier Zuihe, and the American fighters on the Yorktown had already begun to evacuate.

Anyway, the timing was quite right.

But the forces were somewhat weak, and only a total of twenty-one fighters arrived, of which only fifteen bombers.

The U.S. military was protected by only six Wildcat fighters, which were easily swept away by the Zero fighters. The American pilots were brave, and the torpedo planes were almost completely lost, and none of them hit.

In the desperation of the American pilots, a dreadnought bomber finally hit a bomb.

In this way, in a crucial round of air strikes, the US military hit only three bombs, and all of them were 250 kg bombs. Although the wolf smoke was billowing on the Zuihe, the damage was not very serious.

Compared to the results achieved, the US military suffered heavy losses. Of the eighty-two warplanes, only forty-three returned. Nearly half of the losses were lost. (To be continued......)

PS: Sorry, there is only one update today.