Under the perseverance and guidance of the night reconnaissance planes, the night air raid group that took off from Guadeloupe finally arrived, although the number was small, a total of more than 50 attack planes, but for the current unfavorable situation of the Mitchell fleet, it was tantamount to adding insult to injury.

Although the U.S. forces fired desperately at close quarters, their hitting efficiency at night was very poor, and the lines of anti-aircraft fire became the best targets to guide the German attack.

With the flares dropping as white as day, the JU298s quickly locked onto the target and began to dive attack, and the funny thing is that today's bombs were all modified American-made bombs, most of which were 1,000-pound bombs, and a few planes carried 2,000-pound bombs.

The first to fall victim was the light cruiser Juno II, which was in honor of the warship that had just sunk two years earlier, but I didn't expect this 2nd generation ship to be sunk again by 2 1000-pound bombs and 1 2000-pound bomb,

The second unlucky guy was the Amsterdam, a Cleveland-class light cruiser that had suffered a lot of injuries in the previous rounds of attacks, and the captain had narrowly dodged several bombs that fell from the sky, but the last 1,000-pound bomb exploded in the water and became the last straw that completely crushed the ship.

The third victim finally came to the capital ship: the Tarawa aircraft carrier suffered 6 bombs in its hull, and the warship, which was built to commemorate the Battle of Tarawa, was finally dragged and slowly sank into the sea, as was the ending of the Battle of Tarawa.

In addition, the USS New Jersey, the USS Philippines, and the USS Guam were besieged in turn, and were shot many times, although they did not sink, their speed was generally reduced to 1012 knots, and the hull was flooded in large quantities, and the roll was serious, which also affected the efficiency of anti-aircraft shooting.

The situation is very unfavorable for Mitchell, there are at least four hours before dawn, and he does not know how many more airstrikes he will encounter. Although the night attacks of the German army were not as good as those of the Japanese army, they were really unable to cope with them after exhaustion. What he didn't know was that in fact, Ozawa could send more carrier-based aircraft to the night attack, but considering that the pilots were generally exhausted after a day of fierce fighting, coupled with the time for evacuation and regrouping, Ozawa only let some of the planes on Guadeloupe carry out air strikes, and the rest of the pilots were seizing the time to recuperate and prepare to deliver the final blow to the US military early tomorrow morning.

At the same time, the Bermuda sub-fleet, which had received the order for reinforcements, was advancing at a speed of 30 percent, and the distance from the operational sea area had been reduced from more than 1,600 kilometers to nearly 1,000 kilometers.

"Do you want to disperse and break out?" Hewitt asked worriedly, "The speed of the fleet has slowed down again, and if the Germans come back with a few more air raids, I'm afraid I'll follow in the footsteps of the Pacific Fleet." ”

Mitchell pondered painfully for 3 minutes, and finally made up his mind to disperse, dragging everyone down and dying together. Now that the evacuation has fully achieved the goal of luring the enemy to take the bait, as long as the air raid can overwhelm the German army early tomorrow morning, the situation can be turned on immediately.

At present, he still has 90 planes available in his hands, and there are more than 200 planes on Puerto Rico that have been transferred from the fleet today, and at the same time, Arnold has asked the air force to replenish Puerto Rico and Haiti with more than 400 planes, and now Puerto Rico, the island of Haiti, together with the fleet's planes, can pull up at least 800 or so planes, which is enough to deal with the pursuing German fleet. So now that the dissolution has fully achieved its goal, it has become the most important thing to keep yourself.

However, a simple evacuation is not a good solution, and Mitchell organized into three directional groups according to the speed of the current fleet: the fastest group retreats towards Puerto Rico; The slowest group, which was no more than 10 knots, retreated to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the slowest retreated to the southwest! As for the destroyer force, which remained relatively intact, it was left by Mitchell to block the pursuers at the end.

"The U.S. military has divided its forces again!"

"How long will it take for the Lightning Strike fleet to arrive?"

"It's going to take another hour to get into the offensive position!"

Machar squinted his eyes and pondered carefully: "The direction remains the same, continue the pursuit, and order the S-boat to prepare to launch an overtaking attack!" ”

The so-called overtake attack is a routine in which when faced with enemy obstruction during the pursuit, it detours from both wings to tear through the gap and forcibly passes through the gap.

At 3:19, the lagging American destroyer formation opened fire to intercept the German lightning strike fleet that rushed at high speed, and in the face of the threat of 127mm naval guns, the leading Leipzig light cruiser took the lead, leading a group of German, Italian, French and British gunfire destroyers poured into the battlefield, and the Keeling-class and Fletcher-class engaged in a fierce battle. This is a very dangerous behavior, especially the Oi and Kitakami are fully loaded with oxygen torpedoes, and the slightest carelessness may kill the whole ship, but Oi and Kitakami still use their 150mm guns to fire continuously, quickly suppressing the US 127mm naval gun group.

In the course of the fierce attack, both sides suffered mutual losses, the Germans were sunk 2 destroyers and 4 S-boats, while the Americans sank 3 destroyers and 7 PT boats.

Even fierce battles broke out between the S-boats and the PT boats, but it was clear that the S-boats, which had 4 20mm cannon firepower, were significantly stronger than the PT boats, and even did not fall behind in hand-to-hand combat with the destroyers at close range, washing the deck and raining down on the deck

At 3:37, the lightning detachment got rid of the entanglement of the US destroyer force, and swooped down on the opponent's main fleet with murderous spirit.

At the same time, the battleships, battle cruisers, and cruisers used for cover in the main fleet of the US army were also firing at full power, trying to eat the opponent with such firepower.

Five minutes later, the German lightning detachment, relying on the superiority of speed, had approached the opponent from the left and right flanks and entered the torpedo firing range.

"Torpedo, put!"

With the commander's order, Oi and Kitagami, who were separated on the left and right flanks, quickly emptied the torpedoes on one side of the hull, and there were a full 40 of them in this batch alone, and at the same time, the S-boats and destroyers scattered around the two ships also launched the first wave of torpedo attacks, and more than 80 torpedoes swarmed out.

Without waiting to see what the results were, the lightning fleets immediately began to reload or reposition in preparation for a second wave of offensives.

"Damn, it's torpedoes, it's all torpedoes!"

"Steer to evade!"

But how could the torpedoes from the wings turn so well, and they couldn't take care of this end but not the other, and these powerful heavy killers with a speed of up to 50 knots quickly hit the big guys.

"Boom" and "Boom" made two loud noises, and the Philippines, which had eaten 2 torpedoes in a row on the right flank, could no longer support it, and quickly capsized and sank in the sea.

The fate of the rest of the warships was not much better, this time in order to pursue the hit rate, the German army set the torpedo depth to only about 5 meters, and it was difficult for even a destroyer like the Fletcher class to escape.

Twenty minutes later, the Germans launched a second lightning strike, and more than 80 torpedoes poured out in dense clusters.

This time it was the turn of the aircraft carrier Boxer and the battleship New Jersey, the former was hit by 2 torpedoes and sank directly, the latter was hit by 1 torpedo, although it did not sink immediately, but the speed has dropped to the point where it is almost impossible to see, and the light cruisers on the periphery have also been hit, a large number of warships have been hit by mines, and the sound of explosions and water columns falling on the sea surface one after another.

Due to the high speed and long range of the oxygen torpedoes, such lightning operations exerted a great penetrating effect, and many torpedoes fired from the left flank ran all the way to the right flank, cutting through the entire fleet formation and exerting devastating consequences.

At 3:59, the Scharnhorst, which had been assigned by Mashal in advance and had been dispatched, finally caught up with the target, and in the roar of the 380mm cannon, the aircraft carrier Valley Forge was blown apart, announcing the curtain call of the maiden voyage with an extremely tragic scene.

ps: I'm in a hurry all day today, so there's only one more, and I owe it to make up for it, sorry, sorry

:,,!!