In such a naval battle arena where hundreds of capital warships gathered, the two warring sides were only more than 500 nautical miles apart, and although these warships moved slowly, they could enter the offensive distance in just one night, which was full of dangers and uncertainties.

According to the complex battle plan drawn up by Kuroshima Kameoto, Ozawa's fleet had to rush to the waters of Okinawa in the early morning of June 5 and lure the Axis fleet to sail to the Philippine Sea basin. But here's the thing: the enemy, even with half of its air forces, is much stronger than Ozawa's fleet. This is almost an impossible task, and the so-called "Operation A" is nothing more than a fantasy, and it is impossible to succeed in the first place. On this point, the staff officers of the Military Command Department did not think about it at all, or did not want to face such a complex problem.

On the other side, Sashitoshi, who was opposite Ozawa, lost the whereabouts of Ozawa's fleet at dusk on June 4, and the submarine forces were unable to track down the enemy fleet at high speed. However, it is likely that Ozawa will take advantage of the night to move south, hoping to attack first in the early hours of the morning.

There is no need to take risks.

Knowing well the risks of aviation operations, Sa Shijun did not advance but retreated, and ordered the Sino-German joint fleet to retreat 50 nautical miles to the south and move to the sea area about 40 nautical miles south of Okindadong Island at night.

On June 5, Sa Shijun got up early before dawn and walked onto the bridge of the "Beihai". The weather conditions were not very good, the sea was very windy and rough, but the heavy aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of almost 41000 tons maintained an amazing smoothness in the movement. In the high bridge, Zhang Hainuo silently stood by the porthole and looked at the sea in the dark, the bridge of the aircraft carrier was far less tall than the battleship, but he had no doubt that the flagship he commanded had an amazing combat power far beyond the battleship. The improved "Romanian-class" aircraft carrier carries 136 combat aircraft, including four fighter squadrons, three bomber squadrons and one torpedo squadron, which is half the combat effectiveness of the average aircraft carrier. Although a number of carrier-based aircraft and pilots were lost throughout the Battle of Okinawa, they were soon replenished, and these battleships always maintained sufficient combat effectiveness.

The combat control room on the aircraft carrier is a large, dimly lit room located below the deck below the bridge, and can be accessed directly from a separate escalator on the bridge. In the control room, the radar display reflects the position of the warship on the sea surface, the graphics of the weather, and the outline of the nearby sea area on the phosphorescent green tracking screen. A picture of the military dynamics of our enemies that can be seen more clearly than the naked eye at sea. Here, the huge plexiglass display is guarded by a couple of telephone heralds, and you can tell at a glance what was going on in those vivid orange or red mimeographed summaries. During the battle, a large number of urgent telegrams poured in and handed over to the officers on duty so that they could be quickly briefed and ready for publication.

Now, it was quiet in the combat control room. Several non-commissioned officers on duty with vague figures sat in front of the monitor. Some of the officers, smoking cigarettes in their mouths, leaned over the charts, and talked in whispers as they calculated. At this time, the combat staff officer was already sitting in front of the chart platform in the center and began to make preparations for the battle in the early morning.

"Prepare to send out an aerial search at 4:30 a.m., sir!"

Seeing that the commander of the fleet had entered the war room, Lieutenant Colonel Chen Zhiping, the operational staff officer on duty, got up and saluted him, and then reported.

"Hmm. The focus is on the northeastern seas, and sufficient aerial reconnaissance will be sent in the first wave. We need to find the enemy first! Sa Shijun said that everything was normal, so he went down the passage and returned to his cabin, and asked the orderlies to bring him breakfast, which might take a long time today. He was able to sit down again and eat in peace.

After eating breakfast, Sa Shijun sat on a chair and lit a cigarette, drinking black tea while sorting out his thoughts. Today is the first time that he has single-handedly commanded a fleet to face the Japanese, and not only to fight beautifully. Moreover, it is necessary to show momentum and let the Japanese know that it was a big mistake for them to launch the First Sino-Japanese War back then.

The victories of the "Sino-Japanese War" and the "Russo-Japanese War" inflated the ambitions of the Japanese and gave them a taste of the sweetness of the war. The war brought more rewards to the Japanese, and most Japanese people felt that it was a matter of course to start a war.

But they forget that there are not only victories but also defeats in war.

Now, the time of retribution has come!

At this time, Chen Zhiping's humming voice came from the speaker on the bulkhead.

"Now prepare for the air search, sir."

"Good, act as planned."

Sa Shijun left the cabin, climbed the escalator, and came to the command tower on the bridge. Facing the milky white canopy at dawn, the first batch of "Sea Hunter" fighters to carry out reconnaissance missions took off from the "Beihai," "Xihai," and "Zhejiang" under the faint canopy of the morning star.

As a veteran air fleet commander, Sa Shijun knew very well the importance of discovering the enemy first in naval battles, so he sent five squadrons of civilian fighters and a full 90 reconnaissance fighters in the first batch, and in an hour, five squadrons of combat reconnaissance planes would take off again.

Everything works!

Seeing the "Zhejiang", which was very similar to the "Jiangsu" that was sunk in the war, Sa Shijun faintly felt a pain in his heart. This is the only aircraft carrier in the Axis Navy to be sunk so far, and as the commander of this case, he has been repeatedly mentioned by Axis tactical instructors as "famous", but this is not a faceless thing.

It wasn't until the last planes flew away that he returned to the combat control room below. For many hours to come, a lot of important information on the battlefield: reports on the enemy's position, distance, route, speed, etc., will be transmitted here at the first time. At the huge chart table, the staff officers were already busy, using red and blue ink to mark the reports on the charts about the early morning observations and sorties.

It is strange that the Japanese fleet was divided into two groups in the Osumi Strait, and the submarine that monitored it sent back a report early on that the main Japanese fleet was heading for Okinawa, and it seemed that Yamamoto wanted to break into the waters of Okinawa at night and engage in a night battle with the Axis fleet. The Ozawa fleet, on the other hand, resorted to feints aimed at dispelling the offensive, which was a typical Japanese tactic.

It is clear that the Japanese have not yet understood the true meaning of aviation tactics and are still counting on those battleships to play a decisive role. They have not yet realized that battleships have actually become vassals in naval warfare, and in the absence of aviation protection, these former "overlords" of the sea will only become targets in the eyes of carrier-based aircraft pilots.

Admiral Yankel made a surprising move, as it seemed that he was preparing for a battleship duel with the Japanese, and he fought Yamamoto with real ammunition. In fact, every admiral has such an impulse in his heart, eager to bombard the enemy with giant ship cannons on the sea, in the aviation age, naval battles have been far from their original dreams, battles are carried out hundreds of nautical miles away, except for carrier-based pilots, many times they simply cannot feel the atmosphere of being in the battlefield, when the enemy's fighters attack, it becomes a target game for those anti-aircraft artillery, and the large-caliber main and secondary guns on the warship that look majestic have become useless ornaments, Nothing can be done except to bombard the enemy's shores.

It's really frustrating.

Of course, what Sa Junjun has to do is to deal with the "bait" of the enemy in front of him, no matter what he is, he can't make the Japanese go back again. (To be continued.) )