The five destroyers protecting the rearguard were also faced with more concentrated fire from enemy destroyers, and each ship was besieged by an enemy three times its own on average, and the superstructures of the five ships were all destroyed, and they paid a tragic price of two sunk and three serious injuries.

When the frigates that "turned back" completed the U-shaped turn and rushed back, the Japanese lightning strike fleet, which had broken into from the right back, had already achieved its tactical goal, and in addition to leaving several lightning strike ships to "replenish their guns" against the dying California and Colorado ships, and fired several torpedoes again to completely cut their throats, the remnants of the lightning strike troops still carrying torpedoes took advantage of the situation to kill the left battleship group of the Pacific Fleet and attack the battleships Idaho and the wounded Marylanda that were dragging behind on the left flank.

The American auxiliary warships, which had not hurried to turn around and rush to support, were now faced with another embarrassment: they had to brave the dense blocking fire of the enemy cruiser fleet to pursue the nimble and insidious torpedo boats and small destroyers, and they had to endure the pain of "not being able to fight back" like the avant-garde frigates, because they had to concentrate all their artillery fire on the lightning ships that seriously threatened the safety of the battleships.

What is even more embarrassing than this situation of not being able to fight back at will is that when making a U-shaped turn, the maneuverable destroyer turns the fastest, the light cruiser is slower, and the heavy cruiser has the largest and slowest turning radius. Due to the difference in the tonnage of the ships, the time consumed by these warships in the steering process varies.

Usually this little time difference may be nothing, but in this battlefield where every second counts, it becomes a big problem.

After completing the U-shaped turn, a large number of frigates were no longer able to form an organized queue, and the ranks became chaotic and fragmented, and the time to enter the battlefield became out of sync. The result is the most taboo situation in naval warfare: refueling tactics.

Flexible. The destroyers, which were the fastest but had the weakest firepower, were the first to rush to the battlefield and launch a pursuit operation, and then they were hit by the "crushing" cruisers and destroyers in the Japanese army.

Then there were the light cruisers, which were late, and then the heavy cruisers. Although the U.S. Navy was heroic, this way of refueling entering the battlefield was simply to dismantle itself and send it under the guns of the Japanese cruiser fleet for the other side to smash easily. His own losses were huge, but the results were poor.

In terms of the number of warships, the Pacific ships, which had fourteen main battleships, twenty four-cruisers, and sixty destroyers, except for the number of small torpedo boats that were inferior to their opponents, had enough cruisers and destroyers to confront and even gain the upper hand with the Japanese Navy. But one side is carefully ambushed. A great deal of strategic deception was carried out before the war, so much so that all the Pacific ships were unsuspecting until the moment of the outbreak of war, and although the fleet had eighty-four auxiliary warships, it was completely in a state of loose "marching".

On one side, it is "marching" in scattered sand, but on the other hand, it is hanging on the whole map, concentrating the elite to make a "point" breakthrough. After the start of the war, the entire combat rhythm was more completely controlled by the Japanese Navy, and the US Pacific ships were completely led by the opponent. Even one percent of the ten successes have not been brought into play.

One wrong step, one wrong step. One step missed. Step by step.

After giving the Pacific Fleet's right rear two battleships fatal lightning strikes, the Japanese second lightning strike fleet attacked the opponent's left rear ship.

After discovering that the opponent had penetrated the "right chrysanthemum" by the opponent in more than 20 minutes, Admiral Kimmelli and a group of staff members on the flagship South Dakota were immediately shocked, and could only order the left rear destroyers and cruisers to rush to seal the gap.

However, this practice of tearing down the east wall and making up for the west wall will only expose more flaws to the left flank fleet.

At 4:35 a.m. on June 22, Admiral Kimmelli realized that his left flank fleet was also in danger. When the frigate on the left flank was transferred to seal the gap, the previously "quiet" sky suddenly heard the humming roar of aircraft.

On June 22, the sunrise in the waters of Guam was about 5:55 a.m., but it was actually half past five. The visibility of the sky is just fine. Although it was 4:35 a.m. and it was still dark, the US Navy frantically fired countless flares into the sky in order to deal with the Japanese submarine and lightning fleet, illuminating the sea area as bright as daytime, and the consequence was to greatly facilitate the attack of naval aviation.

The first wave, 120 bombers and torpedo planes, which took off from an aircraft carrier more than 100 kilometers away, appeared on the head of the Pacific Fleet at 4:30 a.m. with the help of the US Navy's lights.

When the black-pressed group of planes appeared on the head of the Pacific Fleet, the last suspense of this ambush battle also disappeared at this moment.

Before the sortie, all the pilots of the Japanese naval aviation received an order.

"Empty mother, empty mother, still empty mother! Your goal is to destroy all the Void Carriers, and the Empty Mother is the first priority! The rest of the targets can leave him alone! ”

In the Pacific Fleet, except for the aircraft carrier Enterprise, which was detonated from its ammunition depot and was becoming the most conspicuous target at sea, the remaining three aircraft carriers were all under the heavy care of Japanese naval bombers.

Sixty FW190TF bombers imported from Germany, carrying specially built 800-kilogram bombs, divided into three groups of 20 each, roared to attack the USS Yorktown (CV-5), USS Wasp (CV-7), and USS Hornet (CV-8).

Normally, the standard payload for FW190TF is a 500-kilogram bomb. However, in this battle, because the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet was in ambush only 110 kilometers away from the Pacific Fleet, the amount of fuel to take off could be greatly reduced, so it could take off from the aircraft carrier to attack with 800 kilograms of bombs.

Although it was a night battle, the US Navy gave the best help to the opponent by shooting countless flares in the sky in advance for the sake of anti-lightning and anti-submarine needs, and with the help of the flares it dropped in advance and the "guidance of the ship's spirit to seek the enemy," these combat dive bombers easily locked onto the target and then dropped the aerial bombs.

This group of Japanese naval pilots who participated in the war were all elites who spent more than 1,500 hours of flight training, and "monsters" with 2,000 hours of flight time and even 3,000 hours of flight time were everywhere, and their comprehensive qualities even surpassed those of the pilots of the German Navy.

Although it was a night bombardment, with the help of flares, the hit rate of the aerial bombs dropped by the first wave of 60 bombardments was still as high as 35 percent! On average, each aircraft carrier swallowed at least five to seven 800-kilogram bombs.

(Note: Historically, when the Japanese Navy sank the British aircraft carrier Attico Royal in the Indian Ocean in 1942, the hit rate was as high as 50 percent.) ）

Three huge flaming torches were suddenly added to the sea. The aircraft carrier Yorktown, which suffered the most severe damage, was broken in two and sank in less than five minutes at sea due to the violent explosion of the ammunition depot.

The Wasp, which also swallowed seven aerial bombs, did not hold up for much for forty minutes, and then, due to its injuries, burned to the ammunition depot, and finally sank to the bottom of the sea with a shocking bang.

The Hornet only ate five aerial bombs, but it also ignited a raging fire, and the upper deck had already been blown to pieces, and it lost power and became afloat. Due to the desperate rescue of the damage management personnel, the ship was supported until dawn, but it was impossible for it to recover and withdraw from the battlefield.

From the discovery of the target to the attack, it lasted less than eight minutes, and the aviation power of the Pacific Fleet was completely finished.

After confirming that the first wave of sixty planes had completely destroyed the air power of the U.S. Navy, Li Huamei sent a directive to Guò Yamamoto Isoroku on the Yamato, ordering the remaining sixty planes to attack battleships or other targets freely.

At five o'clock, on the Yamato, after sensing the current tragic situation of the Taiping Fleet, Li Huamei's voice sounded in the chart room: "Your Excellency Commander, the air of the Pacific Fleet has been completely finished, and without air supremacy, there will be no sea supremacy. Next, you can choose whether to solve the problem with HNA or with naval artillery. ”

At this time, after more than an hour of driving at full speed, the two Yamato-class battleships and the four Kongo-class battlecruisers had also approached a distance of less than 20,000 meters from the right flank of the Pacific Fleet.

The six capital ships used as a mobile fleet were firing the main guns of the Kongo-class battle cruisers at this time, and the goal was to bombard the remaining remnants of the recalcitrant cruiser formation on the right flank of the fleet.

For the thin-skinned cruisers, even the fourteen-inch cannons on the Kongo-class battle cruisers were not something their weak armor could withstand.

The battleship Indiana, the lead ship of the Pacific Fleet's right flank, was now tilted to the right, and the deck was so sloping that no one could stand, and a large number of sailors were jumping into the sea like dumplings to escape. After completing the task of destroying the aircraft carrier, six more torpedo attack planes fired six aviation torpedoes on the right side of the ship's mine, hitting two of them, completely cutting the throat of the South Dakota-class battleship.

And the two Yamato-class battleships, with eighteen 460-mm guns on them, opened fire on the battleship USS Washington, which was 19,000 kilometers away. And the battleship Washington stubbornly fired back at the Yamato with its nine sixteen-inch (406 mm) guns.

However, confronting an opponent 19,000 kilometers away on a night when the light is not bright enough is a big problem for the U.S. Navy's 1942 artillery bombardment technology. In contrast, the two Yamato-class battleships possessed by the ship spirit were not limited by darkness and always had the most accurate number of shots.

With the last 35,000-ton treaty ships on one side and two 60,000-ton super battleships on the other, this naval battle was an unfair naval battle from the beginning. (To be continued......)

PS: Today's ship man is more finished, and he is writing "The Reaper of the End Times", begging for praise

I also vomited, everyone else has a holiday on Saturday and Sunday, but I am busier on Saturday and Sunday, I have to take my children to play on the street, and I have to come back to catch up with the manuscript, and I feel more tired than Monday to Friday.