At 14:46 local time, the VB-5 squadron of the Yorktown began attacking the Limiya and Ziwei Zuoyuan.

The dense long-range anti-aircraft fire actually broke up the American aircraft group, which was the main role of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns.

The first attack was led by Lieutenant Colonel Ives, with a total of three SB2U defenders, and the rest of the planes were mixed up by artillery fire into groups of about six or seven.

However, as soon as the plane piloted by Ives entered the dive, a 38.4mm anti-incendiary bomb hit the tail, and the terrible explosion shredded the horizontal tail on the right side on the spot and ripped a large hole in the fuselage.

"Boom!"

The unbalanced plane spun up uncontrollably and fell downwards at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters.

Ives tried his best to pull it up, and in the end it almost succeeded, and the unrecognizable SB2U defender had an upward trend a few seconds before it hit the sea, and finally fell into the sea at a small speed.

The violent impact stunned the heavy, and the smug Avis felt unconscious, and he barely came back to his senses until the sea water poured into the cockpit.

"Warner! Wake up! We have to get out of this ......."

The water was up to his neck, and Lieutenant Colonel Evis had no time to care about his fainting partner, and he began to tug hard at the hatch in an attempt to pull it apart.

But how can a deformed hatch be so easy to pull open?

One, two, three...... The sea water was almost filling the inside of the plane, the buoyancy was almost gone, and the wreckage began to sink gradually.

Avis felt like he was holding his breath to the limit, and he used the last of his strength to pull it apart, which was a little bit stretched.

He grabbed his survival kit and got out of the cockpit, only to surface a few seconds later, breathing heavily.

At that moment, a plane whizzed over his head, only a dozen meters away from the sea.

"Boom !!"

A deafening explosion came from above, followed by rising black smoke.

It was the third aircraft that was hit, and a 500-pound semi-armor-piercing bomb landed on the rear flight deck of the Rikmiya.

The huge wave of air swept the two Type 37 carrier-based destroyers out of the air, and they fell into the sea with a poof.

Over the next four minutes, several more dive bombers attacked the Rikuri.

The second bomb landed on the roof of the bridge impartially, destroying a lot of optical equipment and pushing several lookout posts on the mast to their deaths.

The third missed and nearly missed.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth pieces were all deviated, far from each other.

The seventh one landed in the back section, penetrating the flight deck and exploding in the hangar, where dozens of damage management crews were already gathering to control the fire caused by the previous bomb, which resulted in half of the casualties on the spot, and Hangar 3 was almost covered in blood and severed arms.

The next two didn't hit either, only blasting high columns of water on both sides of the Imperial Palace.

The last SB2U Defender's A-shaped bombardier appeared to be malfunctioning, and instead of dropping bombs, it fired wildly at the bridge at a small dive angle, a barrage of bullets crackling across decks and buildings, and sawdust and sparks scattered.

But what it did was no different from committing suicide, and it was immediately destroyed by the powerful anti-aircraft fire of the Ming warship, turning into a fireball and smashing heavily into the right hull.

"Knock !!"

The three-ton plane was like a huge cannonball, and a huge cloud of black and yellow mushrooms rose up!

This is where the drawbacks of open hangars come into view, with most of the wreckage rushing into Hangar 1.

The terrible impact caused the Ming sailors to stagger, and the captain fell to the floor covered in broken glass shards, covered in blood.

Cadet Wei Ming, a midshipman, ventured out of the bridge, carrying a medical kit in three steps and two steps, hoping to rescue the wounded who had been shot on deck.

What caught his eyes was an extremely tragic scene, only to see all kinds of metal fragments and stumps and severed arms everywhere on the deck, puddles of blood were clearly visible, the dying wounded were struggling, and others nearby were anxiously calling for help......

At the same time, the Ziwei Zuoyuan was also attacked with equal ferocity.

Zhou Changfeng, like the other officers, wore a steel helmet, and he had witnessed the scene of dive bomber attacks many times, but it was the first time that he was on the side that was bombed.

The SB2U Defender is no match for the famous SBD Dreadnought, which generally only carries 500 pounds of bombs, and if it is loaded with 1,000 pounds of bombs, the combat radius will be too small to see, and it will take up longer take-off and run distances.

Enemy aircraft were hit by 20.8mm or 38.4mm anti-personnel incendiary bombs, dragging black smoke and spinning uncontrollably into the sea.

"Wow, blah, bh-"

The anti-aircraft guns on both sides never stopped firing, but there were still lucky ones who broke through the layers of fire and dropped the bombs.

"Bombs are coming ......"

"Boom! Whoa—"

It can be said that a bomb passed by the bridge and fell into the sea to set off a large wave and bathed the officers and men on the platform outside the bridge.

Zhou Changfeng took a deep breath, but before he could finish his breath, he heard an increasingly sharp and piercing sound of breaking the air.

"Boom !!"

A flash of light appeared on the forward flight deck, and the flying sawdust even hit the glass window of the bridge.

The 500-pound semi-armor-piercing bomb could not penetrate the powerful deck of the Ziweiyuan-class armored aircraft carrier, which was as thick as 64mm, and at best made that place a small dent.

On the other hand, a large piece of the 48mm teak runway was torn apart, but it was easy to repair it urgently, just put something on it and nail a thin steel plate.

The Ziwei Zuoyuan was attacked by nearly twenty enemy planes in a quarter of an hour, and a total of seven direct hits were made, and the sturdy and powerful deck withstood the test without any serious damage.

All the damage to the deck could be repaired in two hours, the only regret was that the No. 2 elevator was blown up, which is not something that can be done by the damage management team alone.

Brat! Nano Carrier!

The attacks of American aircraft have not stopped, and the fleet of the belated Raider has joined the battle.

The VB-4 squadron now has 11 SB2U Defenders on the scene, five of which were previously shot down or wounded and retreated.

Now they are divided into three, attacking the Ziwei Zuoyuan, the Beiluoshimen, and the Ligong respectively.

The Rikmiya was already badly damaged, and now the enemy planes attacking her continued to salt her wounds.

However, the billowing smoke that gathered together and soared into the sky hindered the sight of the American pilots, and the final result was one of the three.

After another roar, the Departure Horn had completely lost its original appearance, and flames were burning from the inside out, and the fire was getting out of control!

Most of the internal communication cables and microphone pipes were burned, and more than half of the cabins were cut off, leaving them to use primitive human runs.

At the same time, the Beiluo Division Gate was also attacked by four enemy aircraft.

Unlike the previous bombardment of one after another, the fleet of the Raider seems to prefer concentrated raids?

The four SB2U Defenders were grouped in pairs, and they swooped, bombed, and changed a whole set of maneuvers.

The Beiluo Division, which made a large turning maneuver, leaned as much as 20 degrees, and the teacups in the restaurant slipped and shattered on the floor one by one, making a crisp clattering sound.

She was lucky enough to dodge the first three bombs, but was hit by a fourth 500-pound bomb on the middle deck.

At this moment, the sea was 83km south of Tarawa Atoll......

The ocean-going submarine Equinox 16 is slowly sailing on the surface of the sea, and she has finished her combat cruise mission three days ago and is preparing to return to Dagu.

She did not belong to the sequence of the 180 Special Fleet, and the submariners only knew that the main force of the Navy would launch an offensive against the Southwest Pacific region.

In the past two months, they have cruised between the Fiji and Gilbert Islands, sinking three merchant ships.

There were still a lot of torpedoes left, but three-quarters of the food reserves had been eaten, and according to the regulations, they should be returned to their home port in time.

"Dagu can't compare to Guangzhou, and the girls in Guangzhou are really moisturizing."

"Fart, it's only Peugeot who is obviously up to the drum."

"Don't say anything about that, seriously, as long as it's a woman, I think it's okay."

"Hahahaha-"

The submariners in the boat were chatting, while the three lookout posts standing on the top of the submarine control tower were vigilantly observing the surrounding situation.

The price of laxity is to die without a place to be buried, and to sink forever in the abyss that no one knows!

After a while, one of the sailors held a telescope and said to himself, "Huh? That's ......"

"What do you see?" Someone else asked.

"There is a situation."

"Huh?!"

"Preparing for !!"

The electric bell jingled, the chatter in the boat stopped abruptly, and everyone subconsciously rushed to their posts, ready to dive urgently.

The captain climbed the ladder to the top of the conning tower, then ordered to speed up and turn to close the distance to his target.

The target discovered by the Spring Equinox B16 was none other than the TF-31 task force that the main force of the Ming Naval Fleet was looking forward to!

However, the Equinox 16 had departed for Hong Kong a few months earlier, and there was no up-to-date encrypted codebook, and the telegrams she sent were ignored by the fleet, but were received farther afield as Moresby and Guam.

The Admiral's Office in Guam, fearing that it might be a decoy and thus affect the judgment of the front-line commanders, a group of staff officers pondered for a long time before deciding to forward the news to the front-line fleet.

It took an extra hour and thirteen minutes for this extremely important piece of information to be handed over to Ouyang Zhanghua.

"His grandma drips! How cunning! ”

Where was the U.S. fleet before?

They were hiding directly east of the Tarawa Atoll, no wonder they didn't find it.

Zhou Changfeng didn't care whether he was an afterthought as an outsider, he said quite happily: "It's a shame that I divided those two ships before, otherwise it's really difficult to do now." ”

Ouyang Zhanghua didn't mind, he just smiled and said with emotion: "We underestimated them, what about them?" It's the same. ”

"Who is the enemy commander?" After Zhou Changfeng finished speaking, he muttered to himself: "It can't be Nimitz, right?" ”

"I don't know who the opponent is this time, but it's most likely John Halsey." A lieutenant colonel staff officer calmly replied.

"It's all right, let's see who's more cunning." Ouyang Zhanghua lifted his military hat and ordered in a relaxed tone: "Order, Taizuo and Taiyou will immediately organize an air attack to deal a powerful blow to the enemy's aircraft carrier fleet, and we must deal a heavy blow to it in one fell swoop, and we must not live up to expectations." ”

The main force of the second formation is temporarily unable to carry out the attack.

The Ziwei Zuoyuan still needed an hour to repair the deck damage; A large hole was blown out of the flight deck in the middle section of the Beiluo Division, and it was impossible to take off and land carrier-based aircraft.

The unharmed Ziwei Youyuan and Tiangang need to constantly release and recover fighter jets to ensure that as many fighters as possible continue to be on alert in the sky.

As for the departure number, it had been abandoned forty minutes ago.

Her fire was completely out of control, the flames engulfing every inch of the bow to the stern, and several major ammunition depots were flooded, but there were still sporadic explosions of bombs and torpedoes.

At 5:02 p.m. on February 17, the No. 2 light aircraft carrier of the Beiluo Division-class light aircraft carrier, the Ligong, was sunk by four torpedoes fired by the destroyer Lantian.

Hundreds of lifeboats and cali rafts were loaded with crews, and the bow and flight deck of the aircraft carrier were still exposed on the sea, and it took more than ten seconds for them to completely disappear, and a large area of heavy oil stains spread on the surface of the sea.

Ninety-two were killed, 24 missing, and 373 wounded, and many of the officers and men were inhaled or burned while fighting the fire.

The sailors silently looked at the place where the Ligong sank, and their hearts were filled with an indescribable feeling of depression - the Ming Navy had lost its first aircraft carrier since the outbreak of the war here.

What is happening in the Gilbert Islands today is a decisive battle that has never been seen before in human history.

In ancient times, broadside battles and gang jumps were the mainstream/In modern times, the advent of artillery has made the engagement a little farther away, but there will still be zero-distance gang fights.

In the industrial age, in naval battles dominated by large ships and huge artillery, the combat distance between the two sides was generally only a dozen kilometers, at most only a few tens of kilometers, and each other was within the visible distance of the other party.

But beware that this is no longer what it used to be, the distance of engagement has stretched to more than 200 kilometers.

For naval warfare in the era of big ships and giant guns, even if you find the enemy first, the advantage you can occupy is not unilaterally overwhelming, and the two sides will have to use giant artillery to bombard each other next.

But in the era of aircraft carriers, whoever can detect the other side first will have an unparalleled huge advantage, and have the opportunity to strike first and kill with one blow, and the two sides are like hunters wearing gilly suits and sneaking through the dense jungle with rifles.

When Ouyang Zhanghua gave the order to shoot into the ionosphere through electromagnetic waves, the TF-31 task force was preparing to meet the triumphant warriors.

"Well done! God forbid. ”

"Today is a good day, and it has taught those Chinese people a profound lesson!"

"This is just the beginning, the battle is not over, go back to your posts!"

"Yes! Sir! ”

The elated air traffic controllers were even beckoning people to ask the chef of the restaurant to prepare more food.

The attack formation has already appeared in the field of vision, and it will take more than ten minutes to fly over and land.

"The lads claim that they hit a total of six or seven bombs, and we are sure that at least one enemy carrier was heavily damaged and another ...... damaged"

The commander of the Saratoga's air brigade reports to Halsey the latest news coming back over the radio.

The latter's expression was flat, but his face instantly changed when he heard that "only five enemy aircraft carriers were found".

He frowned and said eagerly, "Are they sure?!" Where did the other two go?! ”

(End of chapter)