"Admiral Leavis, in the crucial battle of this afternoon, my fleet met a long-planned German fleet, and they appeared very suddenly, beyond our imagination, and although in the end the opponent was discovered almost at the same time, the final result of the battle was humiliating, and my fleet was a complete defeat, and I will take full responsibility for this defeat. The Germans' losses were not large, they still had enough forces to attack, if you could, I would like you to join me in taking on the final responsibility and covering the TS18 convoy to escape from the battlefield, I have given them the order to dismantle the convoy, but the convoy is too large and the speed is slow, so I hope your Excellency can help. When Leavis saw Fletcher's telegram, all resentment and anger were replaced by deep fear, and he did not expect that he had been on the verge of life and death. The Germans used the same tactics to slap the Americans again.

"Why are they so strong?" As an aircraft carrier commander, he knew naval aviation very well, and from the records behind Fletcher's telegram, he got information about this German fleet, which had a fleet strength similar to Fletcher's, with two large and one small three aviation warships. The number of carrier aircraft is also about the same. Even the environment in which the two sides played each other can almost be described as fair, and the two sides found that the difference in time between each other was only 20 minutes to half an hour. The timing of the attack will not be much worse, and judging from the internal drama of the US military, the result of such an engagement should be a lose-lose situation. But the reality is cruel, Fletcher's handling is exemplary, but the end result is that he has suffered a lot of losses, and the other party has suffered very little! It's horrible!

It was only now that Leavis truly admired Fletcher, not only because of his intuition and talent, but also because of his ability in the U.S. Navy, which was only higher than Halsey and Spruance, who were known as the bulls of the sea. But what really struck him was Fletche's indomitable spirit in the face of adversity and his will to fight to the end! Fletcher admits that he has no more than 60 planes at his disposal! Self-preservation is problematic. But he was still thinking about how to save the convoy first!

"It's the honor of my life to have a boss like you." Leavis agrees to Fletcher's plan, and he begins to consolidate the remaining resources, but after integration, he finds that his planes are not even able to assemble two light carriers, and the remaining two are simply rifles without bullets. It's useless to keep it, the rest of the days are undoubtedly dancing on the tip of the knife, and let those battleships that don't have planes go back! Eventually, Leavis took a light aircraft carrier loaded with F4F fighters to join Fletcher, and then the remaining 3 light aircraft carriers quickly left the battlefield with a small number of aircraft. If I can't beat you, can't I run?

The huge TS18 transport fleet had already broken up in the evening, and the three escort carriers that were providing cover for the fleet also began to move separately, and two of the escort carriers headed for the predetermined sea area and arrived there. They will hand over their F4F fighter to Fletcher, and then let the latter barely make up a complete carrier-based aircraft wing, after a night of tossing, by noon the next day, Fletcher's flagship Essex's hangar and deck were finally refilled with aircraft, of course, the combat effectiveness of this improvised patchwork aviation wing can only be described as a cargo, F4F fighters replaced the new F6F, pilots are mainly to scout and bully submarines, and the level of air combat is far inferior to that of the regular fleet. What the? You still want to attack the German fleet? The Germans, with their FW190 fighters, which accounted for nearly 70% of the total aircraft loaded, could completely disintegrate the attack of the remaining American fleet with one hand.

The patchwork American fleet did not dare to go head-to-head with the German fleet again. Don't even dare to attack your opponent, or even enter the opponent's attack radius! The Luftwaffe's reaction speed and attack power were learned by the Americans, and 300 kilometers came in less than an hour! There is no time to prepare! So Fletcher's approach was to send planes to provide cover over the larger fleet while ensuring his own safety, while they honestly hid on the periphery.

The Germans were very efficient, and after contacting Colonel Krake, the German fleet split into two to pursue the scattered American transport fleet, although the dissolution of the TS18 transport fleet made it impossible for the Germans to take a stand, but at the same time weakened the escort force. Many merchant ships were unescorted, not to mention aircraft carriers, and it was a bit of a luxury to use the naval guns of aviation cruisers against them. To put it mildly, the deck guns of a submarine can bring some of these merchant ships to their knees! The Krank's fleet spread out across the vast ocean to hunt the scattered Allied transports, and there was nothing to threaten them in Raeder's carrier-based combat radius. According to the information provided by seaplanes and reconnaissance planes, the Germans recklessly used radio to guide the sea wolves under the waves to try to attack the lone convoy of transport ships, and only the day after the end of the South Atlantic War, the Cranker fleet and submarine forces easily sank 18 transport ships with a total tonnage of 220,000! And the results of Raeder's fleet are even more terrifying!

If Krak's fleet is compared to a cheetah attacking a lone antelope, then Raeder's fleet is a pack of lions! They don't bother to track down the scraps, but simply choose those prey that have a certain size. The first thing they set their sights on was a small fleet of more than a dozen transport ships! This small fleet of ships mainly transporting food and supplies was attacked by as many as 50 aircraft, this time it was the FW190F bombers who carried out the combat mission, they did not need escort in the low-intensity battle, if they encountered the F4F or Hellcat, they could throw the bomb and immediately turn into an air superiority fighter to teach the opponent to be a new man in minutes!

A large number of planes roared towards the unsuspecting transport fleet, what the Germans didn't expect was that there was actually a merchant aircraft carrier equipped with catapults and Spitfires inside, at the last moment, this merchant aircraft carrier successfully threw 3 Spitfire 5 fighters into the sky, but just went up, it was targeted by 4 FW190 fighters who had just finished throwing bombs, and the too old Spitfire 5 fighter was easily killed in the case of absolute disadvantage in performance and altitude, and spent less than 5 minutes in the air in total! Typical war scum! The scum that can only fight for 5 minutes!

Then the result of this transport fleet is naturally very simple, the whole attack process lasted less than 30 minutes, 16 transport ships were destroyed by this group of vicious vultures, the scarce number of anti-aircraft guns could not stop the attack of the Germans at all, a 500KG high-explosive bomb can easily sink a transport ship with a tonnage of nearly 10,000, the material and design of civilian ships can not be compared with military warships at all, and in order to load more things, their reserve buoyancy is very small. Once broken, there is no chance of saving!

However, during the second attack, Raeder ran into some trouble, and the second transport fleet they attacked had 20 merchant ships of various types, estimated to have a total tonnage of about 250,000 tons. Such a big piece of fat Raeder naturally won't give up, and in the same way, Fletcher won't give up! When the first wave of attack aircraft arrived, they encountered about 40 aircraft of various types. There are F4F, there are F6F, and even SBD bombers are seen! There was no way, at this time, Fletcher had too few hole cards in his hand, and he had to leave some fighters for himself, so he could only use SBD to attack those JU90 bombers carrying bombs, but sadly, this time they encountered all FW190 fighters!

"them!" The German pilots, who originally wanted to eat meat, were naturally angry after suddenly discovering these spoilers, and half of the more than 60 FW190 aircraft in this wave decisively threw away their loads and threw themselves into the air battle. Because the Americans' fleet was mixed with too much sand, 30 FW190s easily overpowered the opponent's 40 aircraft. While the two sides were in a battle in the air, the attack aircraft group also attacked, and the remaining 30 or so aircraft withdrew after destroying ten transport ships with ammunition.

Fletcher's efforts were somewhat useful, and at the cost of losing 30 aircraft, they knocked out 7 FW190 fighters. Two of them were killed before they could drop their bombs. In the end, half of the transports escaped, and the attack of the Fletcher fleet made Raeder a little worried, after having just defeated an American detachment, they were able to build a group-sized fleet, which was really beyond Raeder's expectations, and made him tend to be cautious in the subsequent operation. But even so. Just on the first day after the end of the naval battle, the German Navy sank more than 500,000 tons of various transport ships! The Entente's shipping routes in the South Atlantic were on the verge of collapse in an instant!

Although Fletcher's actions made the Germans somewhat more restrained, both militarily and psychologically, they were only restrained, if not before. If a complete air wing cobbled together in Fletcher's hand can still scare the opponent, then after saving half of the transport fleet, Fletcher's remaining strength can only barely resist one or two when the opponent attacks. As long as it happens, Raeder is resolute enough, and if God doesn't help, the rest of Fletcher's fleet will also be pushed to death by a wave!

In the evening of the same day. Fletcher again sent several telegrams to the Allied naval headquarters, in which he gave a detailed account of the operational characteristics of the German Navy's aircraft carrier fleet, and in the telegrams he put forward some of his own opinions, of course, these were made from a technical level, and as a defeated general, he did not make much defense for his defeat. He didn't plan for the next strategy and tactics, because to be honest, the war had reached this level, and he didn't know what to do next, because he couldn't figure out the context of the Germans' next move.

Even if the Germans do not have a plan to support the South Atlantic, then simply with the strength in their hands, at least within a week to half a month, the Allied fleet in the South Atlantic can be described as seeing the light and dying! Because before that, the Entente simply could not draw a fleet with enough deterrent power to attack the opponent. The Germans could have seen the move.

Fletcher used to think about their next plan from the opponent's point of view, setting up, and the opponent did not intervene with additional forces. (Well, he doesn't even believe in this setup.) The most optimistic estimate is that it will be possible to win with a fleet of three aircraft carriers. In order to ensure the intensity of the search, the Entente had to organize at least two fleets in order to expand the search area. This requires 6 aircraft carriers of the regular fleet. This is almost unacceptable for the current Entente Navy, and if 1 ship is sunk and 6 ships are sent out, then what is left of the main forces of the Entente fleet in Europe? If the Germans come out of the Mediterranean, the remaining Allied fleets have only two choices, either retreat to the United States mainland or fight with the other side, and if they die, the odds of victory are really not big, if they rely on the European coast, on the contrary, the Germans have more advantages, because the Allied air force in France has been greatly weakened, and the Luftwaffe is still offensive!

Fletcher felt that he was caught in a dilemma, the current Allied navies were absolutely inferior in Europe and in the South Atlantic, and these two places were not places to be lost! He deduced the double serve situation countless times in his mind, but no matter what, he couldn't find a place to break the game. It's not that he can't do it, but the twin naval forces are already close, and when a battle collapses a corner of the overall situation, it is difficult for the weaker side to squeeze out a mobile force to fill the gap! "Forget it, let's leave it to the superior to deal with it, it's hard to say what the result will be when I go back this time." Fletcher said with some self-deprecation.

While Fletcher thought it was bad enough, it was even worse! Because from the overall point of view, the war situation in the South Atlantic has been completely eroded! If you don't take a quick and ruthless medicine, then the situation is unimaginable, and with the actions of the German Navy, the overall traffic will drop by about 3% because of the loss, evasion or delay of the transport fleet! With the exception of the North Atlantic shipping route from the east coast of the United States directly to Europe and the transportation route through the Panama Canal, which are relatively safe, the southern route of sea transportation is no longer stable! At this time, the supplies delivered to Europe were simply not enough for the front to consume! Even the British began to work with the Americans to reduce the supplies sent to France to increase the British reserves, and the Americans did not agree on the surface, but in private they let some ships transporting supplies to France take the southern route, but in fact the southern route was impassable, and conveniently let these fleets postpone their departure. This is a very dangerous sign! France may really not be able to stop it!

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the reward~~~, as well as the book friend Hell Princess, the immutable star, and the big spot of the monthly pass support~~~. (To be continued.) )