Chapter 66 "Big fish" dives to bite aircraft carrier

No matter how bad the Japanese pilot's eyes were, he wouldn't be talking nonsense. He must have seen something. So what did he see? Someone with sharp eyes immediately said that the location reported by the search engine was very consistent with the location of the "lady". "Lady" is the nickname of a large US oil tanker, which is responsible for refueling the task force at sea.The method of refueling at sea by the U.S. military was first invented by Nimitz, so that warships do not need to return to port for refueling, and can be replenished at any time by relying on oil pipelines.

The "Dame" just finished refueling the task force yesterday, and is now under the escort of the destroyer, making a detour back to the United States. Everyone finally understood that the "aircraft carrier" and "cruiser" reported by the Japanese pilots were actually oil tankers and frigates. After 9:00 am, the "Dame" sent a danger signal to the Pacific Fleet Command, saying that they were under attack, so that the previous speculation was fully confirmed. After Takagi received the report from the search plane, he dispatched the carrier-based aircraft group to violently bomb the "U.S. Special Mixed Fleet".Within a few minutes, the destroyer was hit by three bombs in a row, broke in two, and sank immediately.

The "Lady" is a very large oil tanker with a class of more than 30,000 tons. Because it is too large, it is regarded as an aircraft carrier.It was attacked more severely, hit by multiple bombs and torpedoes, and the ship caught fire. Fortunately, the oil tank of the "Lady" had been drained when refueling the warship, and its stomach was empty, and it had the same buoyancy as a sealed cabin, so although it had been beaten like a disabled person, it did not sink immediately. After firefighters extinguished the blaze, it remained adrift at sea until the crew were rescued.

Before Takagi launched an attack on the fake "task fleet", the real task force also found traces of the Goto formation during continuous searches, and judged that there was an aircraft carrier inside. Fletcher was overjoyed upon hearing the news.This is the first time that the task force has discovered a Japanese aircraft carrier on the Pacific Fleet. How can such a great opportunity be missed? With an order, 93 carrier-based aircraft flew up from the "Yorktown" and "Lexington" aircraft carriers. After the fleet flew out, Fletcher suddenly received a report from a reconnaissance plane, saying that he had misread it before. It was not an aircraft carrier, but a Japanese cruiser.

Everyone sometimes wanders, and in such a foggy environment, there is really no way to be too demanding on the pilot.Fletcher's idea was that hitting the wall was breaking the ground, and it had already alarmed people anyway, so it would be better to hit the ground with a hammer and dig three feet into the ground to find the nearby aircraft carrier together. He issued a supplementary order: "Expand the sea search area, try to attack the aircraft carrier, and attack the cruiser as a last resort." Fletcher's idea was completely right. Now that the cruiser has appeared, isn't the aircraft carrier nearby?At 10 o'clock in the morning, a US reconnaissance plane found a warship not far from the cruiser. When the sun shone on the light-colored flight deck and reflected back, the pilot recognized that it was an aircraft carrier.

"I see a bastard aircraft carrier!" the pilot called out. That's right, this is the only aircraft carrier of the Goto formation - "Xiangfeng".At this time, the Goto formation was traveling in a circle, and "Xiangfeng" was located in the center of the formation. There is no reason why a mouse should not be eaten if it passes by the cat's mouth.U.S. reconnaissance planes and bombers formed a column, one after another, conducting combat dives from an altitude of 4,000 meters. The scene was like a hanging waterfall. Every few seconds, a big fish rushed straight down.

From the beginning of the dive, to the bombing at a height of only 300 meters above the sea surface, and then the rapid evacuation, the whole process took only 40 seconds. There were "Zero" fighter jets patrolling the sky over "Xiangfeng", but the situation happened so suddenly that the "Zero" fighters had no time to intercept them in advance, so they could only passively chase them.So the "dive waterfall" became a stack of arhats, resulting in a "Zero" on top of the bomber, and another bomber on top of the "Zero", stacked on top of each other.

As a result, the "zero" advantage is difficult to play.U.S. military pilots can easily get rid of the "Zero" type by continuously diving, and the "Zero" type is either unable to catch up, or rushes forward with too much strength. "Xiangfeng" is a modified light aircraft carrier, also known as a small aircraft carrier.At that time, the personnel on the deck were refueling the "Zero" fighter that had not yet taken off.Seeing that the U.S. aircraft fleet was approaching, the captain hurriedly turned the bow of the ship and prepared to release the aircraft, but it was too late. After a round of dives, many "zero" types were swept away on the spot.

The 40-second dive ended, and the "Xiangfeng" who was beaten to the ground was able to turn around and face the wind, and was ready to release the rest of the aircraft. This is a mistake made by "Xiangfeng", and it should have continued to avoid it, because a greater danger is yet to come. The moment "Xiangfeng" turned around, the torpedo fleet arrived. The torpedo plane came at just the right time, and "Xiangfeng" was driving in a straight line, looking like a live target. Seeing the torpedo plane attacking, "Xiangfeng" couldn't dodge it in time, so he had to use anti-aircraft guns to stop it.The torpedo fleet first tried to attack from the two wings of the aircraft carrier. After being blocked, it quickly detoured to the back of the aircraft carrier and launched torpedoes from the starboard direction.

Seeing that the plane could no longer take off, "Xiangfeng" started to circle around, but at this moment it was like a duck that fell into a wooden barrel, no matter how hard it fluttered, it couldn't get out. 7 torpedoes stuck in the ass of "Xiangfeng", almost knocking the aircraft carrier up from the sea. Behind the torpedo plane, there was a second round of dive bombing. The results of the U.S. air strike on Tulagi Island were mediocre, to a certain extent, due to the poor coordination of the aircraft. When attacking "Xiangfeng", due to adequate preparations and experience, the coordinated attack action of dive bombing and torpedoes has become Very sophisticated.

In just a few minutes, 7 torpedoes were followed by 13 heavy bombs. The torpedoes hit the boiler room directly, and the bombs destroyed all the remaining usable anti-aircraft guns. The scene of the aircraft carrier being abused can be described as the best.The bombs and torpedoes that landed on the aircraft carrier exploded every three to four seconds, and the thick smoke, fire and water columns caused by each explosion could rise more than 100 meters high.The violent explosion almost shattered the aircraft carrier. From the bow to the stern, all were burning with raging fire, and "Xiangfeng" became a ball of fire moving forward. The aisle below the deck was full of wounded soldiers.As firefighters put out the blaze, the blood of the wounded stained the water running from the taps red. After half an hour of air strikes, the power of "Xiangfeng" stopped, and the terrible fire continued to spread.From the perspective of the bomber pilots, there was no escape for anyone on board. The carrier-based aircraft were almost wiped out, and even those who took off in a hurry were swallowed by the U.S. "Wildcat" fighter jets that had been waiting for a long time.Battleships rely on thick armor to survive, and carrier-based aircraft are equivalent to the armor of an aircraft carrier. Every loss of an aircraft is equivalent to reducing the "armor thickness" of the aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier became more and more fragile, and only six "Zero"s were still jumping up and down to save its life. The captain hoped to use this to hold out until rescuers arrived. But the matter has come to this point, whether he can support it or not is no longer determined by his personal wish.