Although the US fighters had done their best, they were still unable to prevent a large number of Japanese planes from rushing into the skies over their own fleet, and soon a group of Japanese Type 1 dive bombers and even Zero heavy dive bombers screamed from a height of 3,000 meters or even higher, and plunged down headlong to pounce on the US aircraft carriers. Due to the complete failure of the large-caliber anti-aircraft guns, the US fleet air defense failed to shoot down even one of them in the level flight stage, which was the easiest to shoot down, and now they have entered the dive stage that is the most difficult to hit, and even though the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns and Erlikon 20mm anti-aircraft guns equipped with US warships have powerful anti-aircraft firepower, the faces of those US officers and men who found that their warships had become targets of attack still unconsciously showed a look of despair

The second ship of the Essex-class aircraft carrier, the "Yorktown", was first targeted by a group of dive bombers, although it nimbly avoided the first three heavy bombs, but was still accurately hit by the 800-kilogram high-explosive bomb dropped by the fourth enemy aircraft, and the violent explosion caused great damage to the flight deck of the "Yorktown", so that it did not want to take off and land even a plane again, at least in this battle. And this was only the beginning, two more of the bombs dropped by the four dive bombers in the back hit, and the continuous violent explosions almost completely destroyed the hull of the "Yorktown", although the Essex-class aircraft carrier continued to float tenaciously on the surface of the sea thanks to its excellent sinking resistance, but this battle has nothing to do with it, and unless a miracle happens and the American army wins the final victory of the battle, even if the Japanese do not sink it. The U.S. fleet would also sink the huge ship, which had lost both combat effectiveness and mobility, before retreating, so as not to fall into the hands of the Japanese

Compared with the "Yorktown", the old fifth "Franklin" is even more unfortunate, because the attack on it is a Zero heavy dive bomber that can carry 1.6 tons of super-heavy bombs, a semi-armor-piercing aerial bomb weighing 1.6 tons smashed through the horizontal deck of the "Franklin" with terrifying huge kinetic energy, and after drilling into the depths of the hull, it detonated the main ammunition depot on the ship, and the terrible explosion that sounded for hundreds of miles tore the huge ship with a full load displacement of almost 35,000 tons into several pieces, because the warship sank too fast, "Franklin" Almost all of the 3,442 people on board the aircraft carrier were killed, and fewer than 50 were eventually rescued. It's worth mentioning though. The USS Franklin was also the only Essex-class aircraft carrier in this campaign that was directly sunk by Japanese bombs. This fully demonstrates the Americans' increasingly excellent ability to design and build warships.

However, for an Independent-class light aircraft carrier with a full load displacement of only 15,000 tons, no matter how well it is designed and built, it is difficult to enhance its defense much. Among them, the lead ship "Independence" was the most miserable, and the two 1.6-ton semi-armor-piercing aerial bombs hit almost the same parts. As a result, the second bomb went all the way down through the passage opened by the first one. Eventually, the keel of the USS Independence aircraft carrier was blown off. It was cut in two at both ends and quickly sank into the sea, along with the 1,375 people on board.

In a few moments, a heavy aircraft carrier and a light aircraft carrier were sunk. Nimitz clearly realized that he had no hope of winning this battle, but as long as the reconnaissance planes could find the Japanese aircraft carrier formation as soon as possible, there was still a possibility of a reversal in this battle, because he believed that Japan's aircraft carriers could not stop their carrier-based bombers either, and that there was no need to even play intrigue like the Japanese to do so, for the simple reason that not only was Japan's fleet air defense capability weaker than that of the United States, but the defense capability of aircraft carriers was even worse.

However, the Japanese bombers did not stop expanding their gains until the good news came back from the reconnaissance planes of the US military. Less than three minutes after the sinking of the "Independence" light aircraft carrier, an 800-kilogram high-explosive bomb dropped by a group of carrier-based dive bombers seriously injured the US "Hornet" heavy aircraft carrier, and almost at the same time, the "Princeton" light aircraft carrier was also severely damaged by four 800-kilogram high-explosive bombs and sank into the sea more than 10 minutes later, and only 452 people on board were rescued.

At this time, some people in the US military already thought that the Japanese army should have used electronic jamming means to make the proximity fuse suddenly fail, and the power of the electronic jamming aircraft is not small, so it must be installed on a large aircraft, and it should not be difficult to find out. However, the devil sent more than one electronic jamming plane this time, and all of them hovered at a high altitude at a distance, and there were fighter jets to follow and protect them, and it was not easy for the US military to kill them all. In addition, the US fighter jets had to intercept the enemy's bombers to protect the aircraft carrier as much as possible, and there was really not enough Liliang to solve this big problem.

Due to the failure of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns and the short firing range of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, friendly ships that are a little farther away cannot be protected, in order to enhance anti-aircraft firepower, the US warships have to close the distance to protect each other, but in this way, the hit rate of the bombs dropped by the devil bombers has become higher, and what is more deadly is that the torpedo bombers of the devils have also begun to become active

Small-caliber anti-aircraft guns were originally the enemy's enemy of torpedo planes, but now their firepower is basically attracted to the groups of dive bombers rushing down overhead, so torpedo bombers are relatively safe when firing torpedoes. At the same time, because the US warships are more dense, the hit rate of aviation torpedoes has increased greatly, so torpedo bombers can also fire torpedoes at a relatively long distance, and the danger is further reduced. But despite this, the Japanese pilots and crews who flew the torpedo planes were still fighting with their heads in their heads, and in each attack, the loss rate of the Japanese torpedo planes exceeded 30%, which is really quite an alarming figure.

However, the sacrifice of the pilots and crew members of these Japanese torpedoes was not in vain, and since the appearance of torpedoes, they have almost always been the most effective weapon for attacking ships, and even aviation torpedoes with a relatively small charge have a far greater damage effect on US warships, especially large ships, than aerial bombs. Under the torpedo attack of the Japanese aircraft, the light aircraft carrier Langley, with a full load displacement of more than 15,000 tons, was hit by an aviation torpedo and immediately suffered extremely serious injuries, and when it was hit by another torpedo one minute later, it quickly sank into the sea without suspense, which made Nimitz feel more and more heartbroken, and the great power of the torpedo was once again proved. As for sinking the two heavy aircraft carriers, the "Yorktown" and the "Bumblebee," which have been greatly reduced in power or even completely lost power and are difficult to avoid, it is even more like a gesture. (To be continued......)