This decisive charge achieved positive results, and after several torpedoes in one heavy cruiser, it withdrew from the battle, disrupting the position of the fleet and hindering the advance of the fleet. This has made a big difference. However, the heavy cruiser did not give up on this ground, and still stretched out like a huge shrimp claw and pounced on the Chinese aircraft carriers in Leyte Gulf. A column of smoke rushed up from the sea, dazzling and changing under the blazing artillery fire. Aircraft carriers, like previous destroyers, sail on the sea with shells flying and columns of water and smoke. The sailors gritted their teeth and restrained themselves, did not listen, did not look, and did not want to the artillery fire and smoke in front of them, and mechanically carried out their respective tasks. The 127-mm guns on each aircraft carrier returned fire on him. But the shell hit the battleship and only raised a light puff of smoke; Hitting the turret of the ship can only turn into a ball of flying flocculents, and in the blink of an eye, it will be scattered with the wind.

The gunners of this fleet observed the landing point of the shells through the radar, and they were still using radar for the first time or in the early stage, and the radar of the Chinese army was far less advanced than that of the Chinese radar, so the firing rhythm could only be slowed down, and the firing was once a minute, and the armour-piercing shells were used, and the shells of the thin Chinese warships could be easily penetrated with a single shot. However, it is also relatively inefficient. The destruction of several escort aircraft carriers, including the "Guiyang", "Guilin", and "Yueyang," is shocking enough. The "Liuzhou" was sinking, it was paralyzed on the sea, spitting smoke and fire, and with the successive heavy artillery bombardments, the "Liuzhou" slowly tilted to the port side. Groups of soldiers huddled together on the already inclined deck, some throwing rafts into the sea, others sliding along the ladders and safety nets on the swaying boats. One cruiser drove to a distance of less than 2,000 meters and fired incessantly at the wreckage of the "Liuzhou." "Liuzhou" finally capsized into the sea and disappeared. Only a group of brave Chinese sailors was left struggling on the sea.

However, the Chinese military plane soon took off. The escort aircraft were already in the air at the very beginning, but only with depth charges. The planes that took off at dawn to go to Leyte Gulf returned to the carrier, and all the planes that remained on the aircraft carrier took off, which took a total of half an hour. The planes took off against the winds blowing from the side, the aircraft carriers tossed and unfolded under artillery fire, the planes taxied on the left and right inclined decks, and some were hit by artillery fire before they could leave the aircraft carrier. In this emergency situation, there was only one order conveyed to the Chinese pilots, that is, not to chase after one of the injured ships, and not to try to blow up and sink one ship with all their might. On the contrary, it is necessary to break it into pieces, attack separately, and keep harassing himself like a mosquito. It's the only clever way to play. Therefore, in this engagement, it can be said that there is no group impact, but a single fight. The only squad operation was the attack of the six dive bombers of the "Yueyang". Each of the six planes loaded two 500-kilogram bombs, and as a result, nine bombs hit one cruiser. The cruiser immediately exploded and sank. Other aircraft dropped 100-kilogram bombs at low altitudes to carry out harassment missions. It would be difficult for such a 100-kilogram bomb to damage a super battleship like the "Yamato". However, it can kill and injure the soldiers on the deck, hinder the ship's own shooting, and cause the ship to change direction, and the task of the fighter is to strafe the ship's bridge and the ship's anti-aircraft gun emplacement. Planes returning from Leyte Gulf also used rockets to aid the fight. In the blink of an eye, there were more Chinese planes in the air. But despite this, the situation on the sea is constantly deteriorating. The shrimp claw on the left is still relentlessly approaching. Colonel Liu Yong, who commanded the two aircraft carriers of the Northern Group, was in a hurry, and he used a wireless telephone to direct the planes that had dropped bombs to carry out a torpedo feint attack in order to delay the operation of his heavy cruisers. The pilots did as they were told. I saw that they were flying horizontally against the warship, flying lower and lower under the fire of their own guns, and then pulling up with a false shake. Frightened, the cruiser hurriedly turned the rudder to dodge. At this time, the destroyers of the Japanese army launched an attack.

The destroyers of the Yue Army did not rush like the destroyers of the Chinese Army, but made a detour from left to right, choosing the location where the torpedoes were fired, and firing a series of torpedoes at a distance of 9,000 meters. Because the destroyer attack is not noticeable, it is also very dangerous. The naval battle field is vast, impermanent, and full of gunsmoke. Attention is often focused on large warships, and less on the low destroyers that sail the seas as soon as the war begins. The torpedo was spotted by a Chinese pilot, who dived down and blew up a torpedo with a rocket. Having alerted the aircraft carrier, it immediately turned to dodge the torpedoes. He said that his torpedo attack failed.

Although the Chinese planes were desperately harassing and entangled with the ships like mosquitoes, the fleet was still constantly tightening the encirclement. In the center, the battleships of the Japanese army were bursting towards Leyte Gulf. On the right flank of the flotilla, several light cruisers and destroyers kept a close watch to prevent any Chinese ships attempting to flee north from slipping between the flotilla and the coast. On the left flank were prawn claws consisting of heavy cruisers. The current situation is hopeless, both tactically and strategically. At this time, Yang Chengwu, who had been warned, had received the urgent news and sent all the planes to help, and the fleet led by Wu Qianlong was also heading north at full speed.

However, there is no confusion on the part of the Chinese side. After 10 minutes, the Chinese aircraft carrier group began to switch from defense to attack. Of course, they were still sailing south, trying to escape the Japanese fire as quickly as possible. But it is not wrong to say that from 9:30 there was an offensive mental state on the aircraft carrier. The ships worked together to make up for the losses caused by the large-caliber shells, and the planes were ready to land, refuel, reload, and take off. At 9:35, the first fleet was dispatched. At 10:13 and 10:20, two more assault echelons were dispatched. Zhang Qifan immediately ordered the three detachments of Fu Renxuan's task force to go to the rescue, and he personally led two super battleships, "Fuxi" and "Chiyou," to break away from the aircraft carrier fleet and rush to help. Dozens of Chinese fighter jets searched over the rough sea. A group of aircraft from the aircraft carrier "Ryukoi" found himself: "2 battleships of the 'Yamato' type, 12 cruisers and 28 destroyers. "By this time, 532 fighters, 170 dive bombers and 278 torpedo planes had already taken off. The weather was overcast and unfavorable for flight, the cloud height was 1000 meters, the visibility was 5000 to 8000 meters, and there was heavy rain. Less than half an hour after the flight, the plane found its target.

The huge battleship that the Chinese pilots found was none other than the Yamato, a super battleship with a displacement of 160,000 tons and 12 510-mm cannons on board. The huge sea fortress was speeding forward, and the fire of the ship's anti-aircraft guns was dense and dazzling, but there were no escort aircraft. In the past, fragile Chinese torpedo planes had to deal with a group of old and slippery "Gale" planes before launching torpedoes, and the hope of escape was only one percent. Today, this 1 percent hope of escape has become the fate of the warship, and even the behemoth "Yamato" is no exception.

Soon after, the radar on the "Yamato" spotted a large group of aircraft that the Chinese army was rapidly attacking, and the observation post exclaimed: "More than 300 enemy planes are coming at us!" "All the personnel on the ship immediately took urgent action when they heard the news. After a while, under the guidance of reconnaissance planes, the Chinese attack plane group emerged from the clouds and launched a direct attack on the "Yamato" flotilla. "Fire!" The captain of the "Yamato" Yuki Ariga gave an order, and more than 120 guns opened fire into the air together. I saw that the gunners on the "Yamato" skillfully weaved several tight nets of fire with tracer bullets to separate the US attack planes from the warships, and for a time, the Chinese planes were unable to break through this rare and dense artillery fire.

However, with air supremacy, there is sea supremacy, and no matter how heavy the artillery is, it cannot help this irrefutable truth.

The bombshells exploded on the deck of the "Yamato," and the Chinese fighters swept the anti-aircraft guns on the ship with their machine guns at a gallop, and the torpedo planes took advantage of the situation to fire torpedoes in succession to attack the hull. About 200 meters from the "Yamato", two destroyers sank, and one cruiser was soon wrapped in smoke and dying at sea. The four destroyers circled around the "Yamato," and the "Yamato," which had just been invincible, began to turn left and right on the sea, and the ship's antiaircraft guns were still firing. The sailors on board seemed to be on an iron island, and the roar of the cannons made them feel as if they were in a dead silence, and the most terrible torture was the strafing of Chinese fighters. Fighter jets glittering with silver gland flew overhead like meteors, and people couldn't help but scatter their souls. The gunners, who insisted on shooting, blindly made the mechanical movements they had perfected in military training.

In the sky, Chinese planes circled around their prey unhurriedly, and the combat command clearly assigned the attack mission. Fighters and dive bombers of the second echelon dived down, and torpedo planes went to low altitudes and advanced under the protection of fighter groups. Stranded at sea, the cruiser was the first to bear the brunt, hit 12 bombs and 8 torpedoes, and was blown to pieces, and the crew was torn to pieces, scattered into the sky, and disappeared after falling down. The destroyers were hit at the same time, two of them sank instantly, and one of them was also in flames, looking down from the sky like a candlestick on the churning sea.

Admiral Shi Jiechen, commander of the Chinese army's air flights, immediately adopted the tactics of taking the lead and feint to cooperate with the attack. He dispatched a sneak attack group consisting of more than 180 "Javelin" torpedo attack planes to the right rear of the "Yamato" and instructed that torpedoes should be used to attack the ammunition compartment in the rear half of the ship. He also let a group of nearly 100 "Javelin" and "Celestial" dive bombers fly south against the sun, and then use the refraction of the sunlight to dive and attack the fleet. The remaining 200 or so planes remained in front to attract the ship's firepower and waited for an opportunity to launch an attack on the ship.

The special attack fleet, which had lost air cover, could not hold back the attack of more than 500 Chinese planes by antiaircraft artillery fire alone. The time of the demise of the "Yamato" is not far off. More than 180 torpedo attack planes suddenly appeared behind the starboard side of the ship, and began to carry out round-the-turn mine-throwing attacks in a formation of 10 planes, forming a fan-shaped torpedo track, so that the "Yamato" could not escape the fate of being hit by several mines at the same time, no matter whether it was advancing, retreating, or stopping. The starboard hull of the "Yamato" was hit first by 6 torpedoes below the waterline, and at the same time, 5 more torpedoes hit the starboard stern. With a loud bang that shook the sky, the ship was tragic, and there were many casualties. According to Yoshimura Shaosa, who later survived, he recalled: "I was ordered to go to the rear radar room to check the damage, and when I ran to the back deck in the white smoke, I saw that the extremely hard and thick armor of the radar room was blown in half, and the upper part was not even a shadow, and the flesh and blood were blurred inside, and there were corpses everywhere, some of them were bleeding out of their intestines, and some were broken and missing......

At the same time, dive bombers appeared from the sunlight, and the anti-aircraft gunners on the ship were so pierced by the sunlight that they could not open their eyes. At this moment, bombshells fell like a storm. The front main turret of the "Yamato" was hit by dozens of bombs one after another, and the thick barrel was thrown into the sky, and soon a number of bombs directly hit the "Yamato", and the sky-high fire was immediately ignited.

At the same time that the "Yamato" super battleship was attacked by Chinese planes in turn, more than 200 Chinese planes that had attracted the ship's firepower from the front took the opportunity to break through the ship's fire network and directly attack the "Yamato" from the front. Several bombs broke the mainmast at once, and 4 torpedoes hit the port side of the giant battleship, and another 2 torpedoes went into its starboard side. I saw that the bombs dropped by the Chinese planes were volleyed down, forcing this huge battleship to circle on the sea. However, the huge body of the "Yamato" is generally fat and heavy, and it is difficult to parry such an attack.

More than 100 Chinese bombers that took off from escort aircraft carriers again attacked the "Yamato". The Chinese planes, which had passed through the ferocious anti-aircraft fire, dropped bombs on the "Yamato", and 14 of them landed near the starboard side, setting off a column of water hundreds of feet high, black smoke enveloping the super battleship, and the shrapnel-damaged bow was immersed in sea water below the waterline. Four other 60-kilogram bombs hit the top of the No. 2 main turret, only to be bounced back by 500 mm thick armor from the turret. These bombs did not cause any damage to the "Yamato," but less than two minutes after the bombers flew off, the torpedoes dropped by the 10 "Tenma" torpedo planes that flew immediately after they flew dragged their trails and shot at the starboard side of the "Yamato," and all of them collided with the super battleship, which had no time to evade. There were huge explosions again and again, and the vibrations caused by the explosions caused the main azimuth disc in front of the main gun to malfunction and not rotate. The failure of this aiming device made it impossible for the 12 510-mm guns of the "Yamato" to use the powerful Type 3 anti-aircraft bombs to fire at the incoming Chinese planes at the same time, and more importantly, it dealt a blow to Captain Ariga in bombarding the Chinese ships with the world's largest naval guns. The captain, whose self-esteem was hurt, did not forget until he was dying, and asked the ship-building department to improve the protection of the main gun and the main azimuth plate in his suicide note.

But at the time of the torpedo hit, Ariga who was standing at the air defense command post apparently did not have so much time to think about this issue, since 16 more torpedo planes and 16 bombers attacked almost simultaneously. Six torpedoes hit the port side, four bombs dropped by the Chinese bombers hit the foredeck and the port side engine room area, the first bomb penetrated the foredeck and exited the port side shell, the second bomb penetrated from the port side anti-aircraft gun No. 4 from the left front of the port No. 4 anti-aircraft gun to the middle deck 10th crew room before exploding, causing the fire to spread to the second mechanical room. The port side engine room was filled with steam, forcing the personnel to leave, and the battleship stopped 24 axes in 6 axes. Although the anti-aircraft gunners of the ship were firing frantically, their inaccurate shooting had little effect on the well-protected Chinese carrier-based aircraft, let alone effectively deterring their attack. When the American plane, which had finished dropping bombs, flew away from the fleet, Ariga hurried to find out the damage to his battleship.

After being hit by a number of aerial torpedoes, the battleship "Yamato" tilted 5 degrees to the left, the second water pressure chamber was flooded, and although the trim was not obvious, the bow was already 1 meter flooded - this was mainly caused by the bombs that pierced the bow hull.

After flooding part of the starboard compartment with seawater by using the reverse injection method on Ariga's order, the battleship "Yamato" was righted to the left by 1 degree. At the same time, due to the increase in the speed of the rest of the spindles, the battered "Yamato" was able to maintain its speed to 22 knots - and the title of "unsinkable" does not seem to be all in vain. However, the good times did not last long, and the battleship "Yamato" gradually fell behind the fleet due to the fact that the steel plate of the bow that had been penetrated by the bomb rolled outward, increasing the resistance. This made the ship a prime target in the second round of attacks by the Chinese army.

The second round of attacks began at approximately 12:07. No less than 200 Chinese fighters and bombers pounced on the "Yamato". Near-miss shrapnel inflicted casualties on the gunners on the deck. Four torpedoes hit the rib No. 60 on the starboard side, flooding some compartments and increasing the bow trim to 1.8 meters. Hundreds of anti-aircraft guns poured a large number of shells into the sky, but still did not shoot down many Chinese planes, and some desperate gunners even screamed, many of them did not finish their breakfast, and the fierce fighting forced them to lose their lunch time, and their physical strength was very quickly exhausted. However, the heavy anti-aircraft fire seemed to have had some effect on the 120 Chinese torpedo planes and dive bombers that launched the attack at 12:23.

(To be continued)