A U.S. Navy bomber aimed at the Japanese battleship that was sailing in a changing line below to the left and right to avoid enemy aircraft. It swooped down sharply, then dropped the bomb under its belly from a safe distance.

The slender and massive Japanese battleship it was aiming at was clearly not slow, and it was trying to turn its rudder to the left, trying to dodge the torpedoes dropped by American torpedo attack planes. In fact, warships are far more agile in the sea than expected, and even the largest battleships can perform a series of amazing evasive maneuvers at high speeds.

Coupled with their own anti-aircraft weapons, these warships are actually not embarrassed when facing a small number of aircraft, as long as they use anti-aircraft firepower to disrupt the attack rhythm of the aircraft, and then they can calmly use the speed change and turn to avoid the attack of the enemy aircraft. It's a pity that the Japanese battleship faced too many American planes, so in the process of dodging, it was constantly being hit by American planes.

The bomb dropped by the US bomber fell rapidly along its own parabola and smashed near the bow of the battleship, and then a huge explosion occurred near the anchor machinery of the battleship, and some of the temporarily installed small-caliber anti-aircraft machine guns and nearby soldiers were all swept into the sea by this huge explosion.

"The battleship Haruna has been hit! There are too many American planes!" a Navy officer lowered his binoculars and reported to Keno Kurita, the commander of the forward fleet who was aboard the Kongo. At this time, Kurita Keno didn't have time to care about the Hazerna, and his flagship King Kong was also making an emergency turn to avoid the entanglement of American planes.

"What the hell is the aircraft carrier fleet doing? Why are our planes fighting fewer and less?" Since the Battle of Pearl Harbor, Japanese naval officers have generally suffered from a kind of mania, and they will shout a word at every turn before saying what they want to say. This kind of furious symptoms can occur after traffic jams and losing 20 games in a row, and the specific manifestations are also varied.

The number of Japanese planes that rushed to cover Kurita's battleship assault fleet in the early stage was actually not small, and the full 35 Zero fighters seemed overwhelming. However, under the strangulation of dozens of fighters of the American fleet, these new pilots of the Japanese naval aviation gradually began to fall behind.

Battles are often like this, and soldiers who can fight when they are evenly divided often can't even perform at a tenth of the level of their usual training when the headwind breaks down. As a result, these Japanese pilots were killed by their American counterparts and lost their armor, and even self-preservation became a problem.

When a large number of American carrier-based planes arrived and began to attack the Japanese battleship forces that were desperately advancing on the sea, Kurita's life began to become difficult. His fleet was forced to make frequent turns, and it took more and more time to rush into range.

"There's a call from the aircraft carrier fleet, the second batch of Zero fighters for cover has taken off, let's hold on for another ten minutes. The adjutant reported the telegram he had just received from the electromechanical room, and Koga told them to hold out for twenty minutes, but in order not to make Kurita Keno go crazy, he had to privately shorten the time that Kurita was asked to wait on the telegram.

"Ten minutes? In another ten minutes, the Haruna battleship will probably be sunk! Thousands of soldiers of the Great Japanese Empire will die here! Yaga, Yaga, Yaga! Send a telegram to Commander Koga Mineichi to tell them that our speed has been slowed down by the Americans, and ask him to think of another way. ”

The American aircraft carriers did not wait in place, watching the Japanese battleships gradually approach. They're also moving, and they're not moving slowly. Under such circumstances, it is almost impossible for the fleet to evade the harassment of American planes and at the same time close the distance between the two fleets. Kurita can only hope that his carrier-based aircraft can drive away the American planes and return him to a high-speed sprint.

Two minutes later, the Japanese forward fleet turned again, this time allowing them to redirect their course at the American fleet, and then the battleships, like rhinoceros, began to rush in the direction of the American fleet at full speed during the brief interval between the American carrier-based planes returning home.

It was now impossible to escape from the battle, and the only way to survive was to pin hope on the premise of defeating the American fleet, so the Japanese forward fleet, that is, the attack fleet composed of battleships and heavy cruisers, could only launch a desperate attack according to the attack plan prepared in advance.

And not far behind them, Japanese fighters are also taking off one after another from their own aircraft carriers to counter the growing number of American fighters. Now Koga Mineichi pinned all his hopes on his suicide planes, hoping that these planes could help the Japanese army change the tide of the war.

"Tell Kurita that he can't give up his original plan no matter what! The Americans are also suffering losses! This is a certainty. Now the two sides are comparing courage and perseverance, and in this aspect, it is impossible for the soldiers of the Great Japanese Empire to lose!" Koga Mine stood on the bridge and watched some fighter planes take off from the aircraft carrier in the distance, not knowing whether to comfort himself or Kurita: "Our planes are attacking the American fleet! Let him hold me up!"

And on the deck of the aircraft carrier Xianghe, the scene just now is still repeating itself. A new row of Japanese pilots with strips of white cloth tied to their heads raised the glasses full of sake in front of them under the watchful eye of their commanders...... In front of them, too, stood a photographer who was taking pictures, holding up a camera and leaving them with a final photo before they set off.

The same commander's admonition, the same shouting of long live, the same drinking of the sake he was holding, and the same difficulty of boarding the plane to die with the innocent US Navy. They were all anesthetized with the atmosphere and slogans and the alcohol, and with fanaticism and unwillingness, the Air Force embarked on the road of no return that had long been chosen by their commanders.

The pale slogan of Long Live His Majesty the Emperor was swallowed up on the deck by the roar of the plane's engines, and they shouted that the motherland and the emperor were really more important in their hearts than their mothers and wives. There don't seem to be any high-tech products like black boxes in this era, but if there were, maybe try to find out if these people shouted the lofty line "For His Majesty the Emperor!" the moment they were shot down and killed in battle or crashed into an American warship.

In the end, the photos they left behind were immature faces, and the last letter they left to the world was full of words that they really wanted to leave behind. The cups they drank from were still the stuff left over from the last group of suicides, and they didn't even have a parachute, so they climbed into the planes that were only half loaded with fuel.

In any case, the "black technology" that the Japanese took out in the desperate moment when they had nothing to do is much more powerful than the dog bomb played by the Soviets. At the very least, human-controlled bombs are much better than dog-controlled bombs in terms of accuracy, and more convincing in terms of human courage and death.

When the first Japanese suicide planes took off flew over the US fleet, they were indeed intercepted by the US fleet and planes on multiple levels. These novice Japanese pilots who have not experienced combat training are actually not many who are lucky enough to escape the pursuit of American fighters.

The 40 Zero-type suicide planes that were modified from the ship's attack finally broke through less than half of the defense line of the American planes, and 17 planes staggered into the air defense circle of the American anti-aircraft guns, and then more than a dozen were instantly submerged in the dense anti-aircraft artillery fire of the United States.

The plane, which managed to evade the US Navy's air defense fire, plunged headlong into the sea not far from the side of the US warship because of its limited technology, and then directly broke off its wing and sank to the bottom of the sea. The other two were overrun by the American battleship because of their altitude and were eventually shot down by American anti-aircraft artillery on the other side.

Only two planes crashed into their targets, leaving the United States with a heavy price of damage to a cruiser and a destroyer at once. These modified planes carried more explosives, which could cause more damage in the event of a collision, and the U.S. Navy had learned this time-changing guided weapon, and for a time there was no very good way to counter this crazy and gorgeous Japanese cherry blossom.

"Hell, do these Japanese lunatics never think about their own lives?" said the captain of an American cruiser, standing on his bridge, frowning and grumbling as he saw through his binoculars the Japanese plane that had crashed into the bridge of an American battleship and exploded into a cloud of fireworks.

"Don't you see how terrible these damn Japanese are. The Marines said that after they ran out of bullets, they killed themselves with grenades or bayonets. The adjutant standing beside him pursed his lips, and the expression on his face was a little as strange as eating cockroaches when he mentioned these things: "I heard that this group of people doesn't know what surrender is, and they are hungry and only have half a life left, and they are still shouting with bayonets and fighting with us." ”

These things seem to be a common occurrence in Japan, but for Americans, they are very scary. In the U.S. military, surrender is sometimes understandable, and there is something fundamentally different from what much of Asia advocates for the sake of life.

"Heighten air defense alert! I don't want to be brought on like this!" After a long silence, the captain finally squeezed out only one sentence.