At five o'clock sharp, the situation on the right flank of the Pacific ship could be described as a "disaster."

The Indiana, the lead ship in the right flank queue, and the Texas in the third row have been sentenced to death, the USS California and the USS Colorado are sinking, and only three ships are left: the USS Washington, the USS New York, and the USS Tennessee.

Washington, which miraculously hit only one mine during the previous two-hour "lightning night", is now being a key target for two Yamato-class battleships.

In last night's lightning battle, the New York also ate a torpedo, two aerial shells, and one turret was scrapped, although the Tennessee did not suffer a mine, it received four aerial bombs in a row, and only two of the four turrets on the ship could fire normally.

At five o'clock, a glimmer of morning light had already appeared on the sea to the east, but the visibility was still not enough to carry out an artillery battle with an optical sight, and the warships were still firing a large number of flares here.

When the long-range shelling of the Yamato and Shinano against the Washington had just reached the third round, there was another buzzing roar in the sky above the Pacific Fleet. The second wave of air attack planes, launched by the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet ambushed nearby, flew over the fleet again.

This wave was an attack by 130 aircraft, and the Japanese had a clear goal, to concentrate their forces, to completely destroy the entire right flank fleet first.

What's even worse is that when the planes appeared, the Japanese lightning fleet, which had withdrawn after the first wave of lightning strikes, was killed again after replenishing the torpedoes. The timing of their second lightning strike, combined with the planes in their heads, and the suppression of the battleship shelling behind them, appeared just right.

There were heavy artillery bombardments of the opponent's battleships around him, and from time to time there were lightning raids from mine-striking ships on the sea, coupled with the fierce air attacks that were about to be suffered overhead. And the possibility of hiding submarines underwater, and the worst imaginable scenario of an ambush for a fleet, they almost all encountered.

Even if Nelson is reborn, in the face of such a terrible battlefield situation, he probably has the only choice to jump into the sea in order to die quickly.

To deal with aircraft air strikes. It is necessary to put on an air defense formation. But putting on an air defense formation will only make the opponent's mine-strike ship laugh out of its belly, because the two are contradictory.

Artillery strikes, lightning strikes, air strikes, three-pronged. The fate of the three remaining American ships did not have any chance from the very beginning.

The battleship USS Washington was the target of heavy care.

While he was heavily bombarded by the 460-mm heavy guns of the Yamato and Shinano, there were four light cruisers and two heavy cruisers, concentrating all their main guns on his deck to destroy the anti-aircraft fire on his hull. These medium-caliber shells could not tear through the main armor of the USS Washington, but they could blow up the ship's anti-aircraft gun emplacements to the ground. In the process. As for the destroyer in the assault, the "small cannon" installed on the ship also helped the Washington "wash the deck".

Before the air raid began, the waters around the USS Washington were boiling over, and missed shells exploded at sea every second.

Although the surrounding escort American cruisers and destroyers also fired at their opponents without hesitation, and even risked a charge lightning strike. However, after the Pacific Fleet suffered a sneak attack, it did not care about the front and the back, and the rear did not care about the front, and the command was extremely chaotic. It has long caused the formation of the entire convoy on the right flank to be chaotic and the command to be confused. The threat of their shelling and lightning strikes is not great.

Although the US Navy soldiers were still fighting valiantly, the ships were completely fighting separately from each other, and the position of each ship was extremely unreasonable -- half of the frigates of the right flank fleet were biting the Japanese second lightning strike fleet, which had previously broken through from the right flank position, in pursuit of its lightning strike on the left flank fleet. As a result, the number of frigates, which were already thin on the right flank, fell by half again.

By the time the fleets on the right front and right center flanks were again attacked by the Japanese, it would be too late for the frigates that had been diverted to come back - even if they did, the effect would not be too useful. Because these frigates had entered the battlefield at the wrong time, they turned into a refueling tactic, and as a result, they were surrounded and beaten by the cruisers of the Japanese Second Lightning Strike Fleet in turn, and the losses were extremely heavy.

Of course, it cannot be said that these frigates that were led away were completely wrong. It was precisely because of their pursuit at any cost that the Japanese Navy's 2nd Lightning Strike Fleet, after destroying the two battleships in the right rear, launched a second right hook to the left flank, and finally only sank the Maryland and Arizona, which had already been heavily damaged by submarines.

At this time, the anti-aircraft gun positions on the hull of the battleship Washington were scattered, and the firepower was extremely sparse. In the previous ten minutes, his hull had been washed by seven eight-inch shells and more than forty rounds of 130 mm and 140 mm shells, and the flesh and blood of the soldiers on the anti-aircraft gun emplacements had stained the gray-white hull red, and the anti-aircraft guns that could still fire normally were now left with no more.

Before June 1942, the US Navy, based on the lessons of the naval battle of Norway and the demise of the British Navy, had realized the weakness of the insufficient power of the shipborne anti-aircraft weapons in service, and began to prepare for the transfer of the original (20-mm anti-aircraft guns + 12. 7 mm anti-aircraft machine guns) was replaced with an anti-aircraft fire system (40 mm Bofors + 20 mm Erlikon anti-aircraft guns). However, this transformation has only just begun, and because President Wilkie's need for "force deterrence" has been interrupted, the vast majority of capital ships are still equipped with a combination of "20 mm anti-aircraft guns and 12.7 mm machine guns" with poor air defense efficiency.

However, such a "backward" anti-aircraft fire network has not existed much under the gunfire of the Japanese auxiliary warships.

This is a classic example of a coordinated operation between the sea and the air that can be included in textbooks.

At 5:15 a.m., the second round of air strikes began.

Wave after wave, a full sixteen FW190TF fighter-dive bombers, carrying 800 kilograms of special ship carriers, appeared on the head of the Washington.

Sixteen FW190TF weaved through the sparse network of anti-aircraft fire, launching a fierce attack on the warships on the sea that flew the Star-Spangled Banner and were named after the first president of the United States.

One after another, 800-kilogram bombs were dropped one after another at an altitude of about 550 meters with a piercing scream.

The battleship Washington continued to rise from the sea with a huge column of water, interspersed with a red fireball like a volcanic eruption, surging flames and billowing smoke continued to rise one after another on the American battleship.

The first regiment, the second regiment, the third regiment, the sixth regiment, and the seventh regiment directly hit as many as seven aerial bombs, and most of the remaining nine aerial bombs also achieved the effect of close misses.

After this attack, the battleship Washington turned into a large fireball burning at sea, the two turrets in the front were blown up in the air attack, and they completely lost the ability to fire, and one of the shells directly hit the captain's room, killing all the officers in the captain's room. And a large number of near-misses inflicted no worse damage on the battleship than a direct hit. In the underwater part of the battleship Washington, several large openings of different lengths were torn apart by the strong water pressure caused by the near miss, and the length of these breaches ranged from 10 meters to 20 meters, and a large amount of seawater rolled in, causing the boiler room on the right side to go out, as well as a short circuit in the power distribution room, and the power of the whole ship was cut off, and half of the power was lost.

The 35,000-ton giant ship was riddled with holes and dilapidation in a matter of minutes, and although the ship's tail gun could still be used, the loss of power and the failure of the projectile lifter also lost its effectiveness.

After this wave of air raids, although the Washington can still float on the water, it has basically lost its combat effectiveness.

The other two battleships on the right flank, the USS New York and the USS Tennessee, were in the same tragic situation at the moment as the USS Washington.

In the face of the air attack, the two ships were also subjected to the rotation of nearly 40 dive bombers, and the two ships swallowed six and eight heavy bombs respectively, and the hull of the ship was also greatly damaged, and the combat strength was completely lost. In the meantime, it was hit by a Japanese destroyer that broke into the vicinity and fired torpedoes within 10,000 meters, two and one, and although it had not yet sunk, the hull of the ship had clearly shown signs of tilting.

They were also battered by two heavy cruisers and three light cruisers with wings around them, and they were also entertained by Japanese planes, destroyers, and battle cruisers, and they also ended tragically.

The three ships on the right flank of the Taiping ship, which were tragically attacked by aerial bombs, heavy artillery, and torpedoes, were on the verge of destruction within 20 minutes.

At 5:30 a.m., when this wave of Japanese planes completed their air raid mission and withdrew from the battlefield, the capital ships of the entire Pacific Fleet's right flank were all finished.

Although the Washington, New York, and Tennessee could barely float on the water, the captains or acting captains of the three ships all gave the order to abandon the ships.

As for the convoy on the right flank, it was also crushed at this time. The slightly more modest large cruiser was also slaughtered in previous air raids, lightning strikes, and artillery bombardments.

Before the start of the war, the Pacific Fleet had four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, and 24 destroyers on the right flank, but by 5:30 a.m., only one heavy cruiser and two light cruisers were still floating on the surface of the sea in a "relatively intact condition" -- they were all in the rearguard fleet. As for the cruisers in the rest of the positions, they were either sunk or turned into giant flaming torches floating at sea and could not move. As for the twenty-four escort destroyers, only six survived at the moment.

In the meantime, several American destroyers also desperately launched suicidal charge lightning strikes against the Combined Fleet. One of them, which was beaten to the ground, was even driven to the point where it was about 10,000 meters away from the Kongo-class battlecruiser and fired a torpedo.

This heroic assault resulted in a successful hit of a torpedo in the battle column of the Kongo, and then the ship was directly hit by a 356-mm shell fired nearby, tearing to pieces.

However, to the death of the captain of the destroyer, the ship hit the opponent's torpedo, which turned out to be a dud. (To be continued......)

PS: Let's update a chapter first, there will be a new chapter in the evening.