readx; Eisuke Yamamoto on the Kaga had a black face at this time, originally thinking that he could carry out a concentrated fire attack on the Yandi, which had been heavily damaged, but he didn't expect that his own side was attacked and the Kaga was hit by a torpedo. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

After the Kaga was torpedoed, the bow began to flood in large quantities, and the speed of the ship dropped to only 24 knots in an instant.

At the same time that the Kaga was hit, the other ships were still fighting their own battles, and the Yandi, which had been hit by a large amount of firepower, was hit by a cannonball again, but fortunately, this was a fourteen-inch cannonball fired from the Haruna, although it hit the rear main gun turret of the Yandi, but it did not penetrate, and the huge explosion caused a lot of casualties in the rear main turret of the Yandi, but after urgently replenishing the reserve running crew, the only remaining rear main turret on the Yandi opened fire again.

The Yandi is still insisting on fighting back!

At this time, the Huawu who led the lightning strike fleet to carry out lightning operations was also hit by a sixteen-inch cannonball of the Tosa, although the protection ability of the Huawu could withstand the eight-inch gun, but in the face of the huge power of the sixteen-inch naval gun, those armor were like paper paste, and exploded near the engine room after being directly penetrated through many cabins, just one cannonball, which made the Huawu lose all power.

Five minutes later, the Huawu, which had lost power, was again hit by a torpedo fired by a destroyer.

Fifteen minutes later, the Huawu began to sink!

In the 1923 Battle of the East China Sea, in order to cover the retreat of the main fleet, Huatai led the auxiliary ship force to carry out a broken back operation, and the battle of the Huatai was sunk in the battle, and the Huawu escaped smoothly after being slightly injured.

Today, after a lapse of seven years, the Huawu once again led the auxiliary ship force to provide cover for the retreat of the main fleet, and this time, the Huawu was also sunk under the enemy's superior firepower!

Both first-class ships sank in the East China Sea, how tragic!

Seeing the Huawu slowly sinking in the night, Wen Tingmian gritted his teeth, but he was angry in his heart, but he still didn't have any impulse, but continued to command the fleet to continue to retreat.

The rumbling cannon sound continued to sound for most of the night, and at one o'clock in the morning, the Yandi finally broke away from the battle smoothly under the cover of other warships, and at this time, Eisuke Yamamoto looked at the Chinese main fleet that had gone away, and his face was gloomy, and he slammed the table with his hand, and then took a deep breath: "Damn!" ”

It is pointless to continue to chase, not only can he not achieve results, but after a few more hours, he is afraid that he will be attacked by the air of the Chinese air fleet, Eisuke Yamamoto took a deep breath and ordered: "The whole team turns and retreats!" Back to Sasebo! In addition, let the native aviation do a good job! ”

At 1:30 a.m., the main fleets of the two sides disengaged, one to the south and the other to the east, leaving the battlefield at high speed, but this naval battle was far from over.

Although the main fleets of the two sides retreated, the two destroyers and a cruiser of the Chinese Fourth Cruiser Fleet and the Third Lightning Strike Fleet still followed from a distance, saying, "The rear of the main fleet, they are just following from a distance to reconnoitre, and it is not so easy for the main fleet to expel it, after all, the speed of the destroyers is very high, and if you don't fight hard, you really don't have a good way to expel it."

At two o'clock in the morning, Guan Shijie had already received a battle report from Wen Tinghe: "After a seven-hour night battle, our army's Yandi was heavily damaged, the Huawu was sunk, two destroyers were sunk, and thousands of officers and soldiers of our navy were martyred. At the same time, the First Army also inflicted heavy damage on the enemy Kirishima and Kaga, and sank at least three cruisers or destroyers. ”

"Commander, there are still three and a half hours before dawn, and as soon as it dawns, our army will be able to send planes to carry out air strikes!" Rear Admiral Chen Shaokuan, who was on the side, said: "And now there are three warships of our army following behind the main fleet, as long as the direction can be determined, tomorrow we can deal another heavy blow to the fleet!" ”

"But in that case, we will have to get at least a hundred kilometers closer to the east, and what if we encounter a rapid mobile force called 'Ben?'" It was Rear Admiral Liao Hui, chief of staff of the First Air Fleet, who spoke.

He was right, after the First Air Fleet had recovered all its planes from 5 p.m., it had used this high speed of 26 knots to break away from the battlefield, and then ran in a southwesterly direction for four hours before reducing its speed to 23 knots. Now the First Air Fleet has run a full 100 nautical miles, and it is about 60 nautical miles away from the area of engagement of the main fleets of the two sides. Now, after the Fleet begins to retreat, if it wants to carry out an air attack on the main fleet tomorrow, then the First Air Fleet will have to return to the east and close the distance. Otherwise, it will be said: 'Three or four hours a night for the main fleet is enough to run seventy or eighty nautical miles.'

If you don't catch up, you won't be able to launch an air attack, but if you catch up, you will also face great danger, after all, the three battle cruisers in Ben are still intact, and judging from the reconnaissance report in front, there is no finding out where these battlecruisers are, and if you don't know what they are, you will be sent to the door.

Guan Shijie knew that it was not feasible for him to rush directly to the northeast, but he was not willing to chase it, and after thinking about it for a long time, he ordered: "Order the fleet to turn and turn to the east!" ”

Now the position of Ben's main fleet and the 3rd Sentai that has disappeared is in the northeast direction of the 1st Air Fleet, and if I want to retreat, I will definitely retreat directly to the east, and if I chase it myself, I can't chase it the same way, but the combat method of an aircraft carrier is different from that of a battleship. Aircraft carriers can attack from hundreds of kilometers away, or even more.

Therefore, Guan Shijie thought about whether he could move to a distance of about 100 kilometers to 150 kilometers south of the main fleet, so that he could avoid the mobile fleet and at the same time launch an attack on the main fleet.

If you pursue due east, you will be able to converge with the retreating battleship formation, and you will be protected by the battleship formation.

When the First Air Fleet made such a decision, Wen Tinghe, the commander of the battleship formation, learned of Guan Shijie's order, but he was a little angry in his heart, his battleship formation finally covered the retreat of the aviation formation, and paid a huge price for this, the Yandi was heavily damaged to the point of losing combat effectiveness, and the Huawu and the two destroyers sank, although they also severely damaged the Kaga and sank at least three light ships, but in terms of results, it was still considered a heavy casualty. According to Wen Tinghe's idea, this naval battle has been fought so far, that is, it is time to retreat back to China.

This battle, counting Sasebo's air raid operations, has sunk two enemy battleships, a battle cruiser, and severely damaged at least three enemy battleships, this record is enough for the Navy to call a satisfactory answer for the people, but the First Air Fleet seems to be unwilling, want to get a bigger record, doesn't Guan Shijie know, now his battleship formation is no longer capable of fighting again?

In the battle that lasted nearly seven hours tonight, almost all the ships suffered losses, not to mention that the Yandi was heavily damaged, and the other three battleships were more or less damaged, the motor was damaged after the No. 3 turret of the Zhuan was hit, and the ship's emergency repair personnel have reported that they cannot repair it, and can only return to China for overhaul, the optical sighting system on the rear main gun commander on the Yellow Emperor was injured by enemy artillery fire, and it has become unusable, even the Shundi with the least damage has several five-inch secondary guns destroyed. Although these injuries are not fatal to a large battleship, they still make the battleship formation's combat effectiveness much lower. The battleships were like this, and the light auxiliary warships were even more bullet-ridden, those destroyers and light cruisers were full of bullet holes, and the casualties were heavy, and the two Shiguang-class heavy cruisers were also very damaged, and the No. 1 turret of the Shiguang had been completely destroyed.

In addition to the damage of the battleships themselves, more importantly, the fleet's ammunition consumption is too much, in the seven-hour engagement, the main guns of the four battleships have consumed more than seventy percent, and the torpedoes on each destroyer are almost all gone, although it is said that these destroyers as the escort of the fleet still have backup torpedoes, but if you want to carry out artificial sea loading, it will not be completed in a few hours.

In such a situation, it is difficult for the battleship formation to protect itself, but it does not have much ability to escort the aircraft carrier formation.

However, he was dissatisfied with Guan Shijie in his heart, but he still had to cooperate with friendly forces, and he couldn't let the four aircraft carriers in the First Air Fleet that sank with one blow fight alone.

As time slowly passed, at five o'clock in the morning, the First Air Fleet and the battleship formation converged, and at this time, the small formation that followed the main fleet was also counter-expelled by the heavy patrol of the main force, and was forced to retreat first.

At 5:30 a.m., the sky had begun to light up, and after a night of preparation, the upper decks of the four aircraft carriers of the First Air Fleet were already lined up with planes, waiting for the dawn to attack.

On the Huashan aircraft carrier, Guan Shijie and a large group of generals and staff officers sat together.

"According to the news from half an hour ago, it was said that Ben's main fleet should be in this direction, about two hundred kilometers away from Sasebo, and according to their speed, it is expected that they will be able to return to Sasebo in four hours. When the time comes, if we have to launch an air raid, I'm afraid it won't be so easy! ”

Sasebo's air defense capability is still relatively strong, and the reason why the air attack was able to launch an air attack smoothly yesterday was that the factor of the sneak attack accounted for a large part, but now that he is on guard, in addition to ground firepower, there will definitely be a large number of combat strength deployed, after all, yesterday afternoon, the land-based fighters of the Saimoto Navy had already appeared in the skies above the Flotilla to escort the flotilla. It is conceivable that during the day today, there will be fighter planes from the mainland to escort the planes that say, "The sky above this fleet."

"Now that the location has been decided, let's get moving!" Guan Shijie knew that he couldn't continue to delay, if there was enough time, his fleet could even launch two waves of attacks, and it was very possible to achieve certain results. And if the time is later, it will be necessary to retreat for the safety of the fleet.

With the order given, the first wave of the First Air Fleet began to take off, and at six o'clock in the morning, the first wave of attack aircraft had already completed the formation and flew towards the northeastern seas. Forty minutes later, the second wave of planes also finished preparing and took off.

At 7:20 a.m., the first wave of attack planes finally found the main fleet of the Hon, and then launched a fierce attack, and the main targets were the two battleships that had already suffered heavy damage, the Kaga and the Nagato.

At 7:30 a.m., 10 minutes after the first wave of planes launched an attack, the fighter unit that had departed from the mainland to escort the aircraft arrived over the airspace of the fleet, and then the fighters of the two sides began to become entangled together, and planes were constantly hit and fell to the sea.

Soon after, the bomber units of the first wave of aircraft dropped their bombs and began to return home, and the escort fighters who came from afar and said that "the escort fighters from the homeland also began to return because of the fierce air battle." However, at this time, the second wave of aircraft arrived in the sky above the main fleet, and more than 100 planes carried out a fierce air attack on the main fleet.

After two waves of air raids, the battleship Nagato, which had already been heavily damaged, was finally sunk!

With the sinking of the Nagato, this 24-hour sea and air battle finally came to an end.