At 4 o'clock in the morning on November 13, 1942, the sun had not yet risen, but the airport on Guadalcanal was already abuzz. Fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes took off one after another from the four runways on Guadalcanal. Everyone.

As we all know, big fish entered Tiedi Bay last night, but the navy did not have the power to keep them, and they were bitten and seriously injured. Fortunately, these fish were also injured, and I believe they cannot run fast. If you hurry up, Cactus Airlines

The team will definitely be able to repay the blood debt to the navy.

On the sea north of Guadalcanal, a Japanese fleet is fleeing. This fleet is Abe's artillery fleet. If everything goes well, they can definitely escape the attack range of Guadalcanal's Cactus Air Force before the Japanese escape, but

Now, alas, it's difficult now. Not only was the Hiei battleship hit by a lot of shells, its superstructure was seriously damaged, it was also hit by three torpedoes. Not only was the steering gear damaged, but even the boiler room was also damaged to some extent.

Damaged. Now this ship can barely run 10 knots, which is slower than ordinary transport ships. It would be strange if it could run out.

If Kirishima was not injured, he could have dragged her away, or Abe would have let the Kirishima run away alone and count them one by one. (Historically, this is what Abe did.) Unfortunately, Kirishima himself did not

Relaxed. I was hit by a torpedo not long ago. I didn’t feel anything at the time, but an explosion and fire suddenly occurred an hour ago. The fuel pipe was probably cracked when the torpedo was hit, and the highly volatile Borneo crude oil (

During World War II, Japan was not only short of oil, but also had insufficient refining capacity. The crude oil from Borneo could be used directly in the boilers of battleships. However, this crude oil was too volatile and could cause fires if leaked.

The result. After putting out the fire, the fire was extinguished half an hour ago. Although the ship was fine for the time being, the power compartment was severely damaged, and the ship lost most of its power. Now, the ship can only run at a speed of 10 knots.

, and left a ten-kilometer-long oil film on the sea behind her, greatly increasing the chance of the Americans discovering them. This is really what Abe roared in the Yukikaze: "Why am I carrying it like this!"

"

At 5:13, a US military reconnaissance plane following the oil film appeared in the fleet's field of vision. At the same time, the technical officers of the electronic reconnaissance team monitored the radio signals emitted by the reconnaissance plane. The reconnaissance plane was outside the range of the fleet's air defense firepower, and the fleet

There was nothing he could do. Before this plane appeared, Abe had already requested support from the Navy Command, but the Navy's aircraft carriers were still far away and it was difficult to provide them with a continuous air protection umbrella. Their fighter jets would at most stay above the fleet.

It takes 15 minutes to return home. Land-based fighter jets also have insufficient range. Even if they reach the fleet, the support time will not exceed 20 minutes.

What's even more terrible is that these protective forces require nearly three hours of flight to arrive. The land-based fighter jets set off a little after 3 o'clock, but they have not arrived yet. The carrier-based fighter jets will arrive much later.

"Amaterasu, may the Imperial fighter jets arrive quickly!" Now Abe has no other choice but to pray. If the American attack fleet arrives first, not to mention the two warships have already suffered.

Even if they are seriously injured, they are still intact, and they are still vulnerable in the face of air power. This has been proven by the imperial aviation when they besieged the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. The two ships are in good condition.

battleships, one of which was a cutting-edge battleship, was sunk without any chance of fighting back under the watch of aircraft. Abe understood that once the US attack fleet arrived first, the two old and scarred battleships under his command would be destroyed.

There was no possibility of survival.

At 5:20, the reconnaissance plane that had been following suddenly turned away, and then Abe saw more than 40 Zero Fighters appearing in the west of the fleet.

"Ah! They are finally here!" The sailors in the fleet cheered. They waved their hats to the zero fighters crazily, as happy as crawling out of the grave and reborn as human beings.

However, Nishizawa Hiroyuki sitting in the Zero Warship is far from optimistic. He is now in a higher position than the people on the battleship, so he can see what those people have not seen: southeast of them, a huge

The aircraft fleet is approaching. There is no doubt that it must be an American attack group.

The opponent must have discovered us as well. They had begun to accelerate their climb, obviously preparing for a dogfight with us.

At 4:15 in the morning, Ron set off with the first strike group. This group included 20 escorting P-38 fighter jets, 10 Avenger torpedo planes and 15 dive bombers. Ron took them northwest

Searching in the direction, but the enemy fleet has not been found. Although the target has not been found, at 5 o'clock, Ron still let the second strike formation take off. He firmly believed that Ri himself was nearby.

At 5:15, Ron received the location of the Japanese fleet sent back by the reconnaissance plane. As he expected, the Japanese fleet was not far away from them.

Soon after, the reconnaissance plane sent back a telegram again, saying that the enemy fleet was protected by a large number of zero-fighters. Ron immediately ordered: "All fighters climb and accelerate, prepare for air combat." At the same time, he ordered the bomber force to fall slightly behind and prepare to attack.

Nishizawa Hiroyuki also climbed up quickly with zero combat. It is always advantageous to occupy a higher position in air combat. But he immediately found that he was facing a problem. All the U.S. fighter jets rushed in front of him. Where were the bombers? If the enemy was behind

There are also bombers or torpedo planes that have climbed too high, and if the enemy's torpedo planes suddenly appear at low altitude, it will be in trouble.

The dive performance of the Zero War is very poor. Once you get entangled with someone at a high altitude, it is extremely difficult to get rid of the enemy's entanglement after discovering the enemy bomber and dive down to attack the enemy bomber. Because

This means that you need to point your butt towards the enemy and automatically let the enemy kick your butt. Even if he is as skilled as Nishizawa Hiroki, he dare not say that he will be able to dodge so many attacks.

However, Nishizawa Hiroki made a decision immediately because time did not allow them to hesitate. He continued to climb with the 20 most experienced fighters, while the other fighters stayed at low altitudes to protect them.

But when it comes to climbing, the altitude is now over 5,000 meters. At this altitude, the Zero War without a supercharger is simply courting death if it wants to compete with the P-38 in climbing, even if it is piloted by someone who has shot down nearly a hundred aircraft.

Super ace Nishizawa Hiroki (a real person in history, super ace). There was no way for him to climb faster than the P-38. Soon the P-38 fleet led by Ron had a high altitude advantage.

The US military fleet, which had a high advantage, began to swoop towards Caesar and the others. Caesar was already very familiar with this type of attack (those who were not familiar with it all died in the previous battles). With a slight turn, Caesar avoided it.

An enemy plane rushed towards him. He knew that he could not be anxious and had to be very calm. Now that the speed of the enemy plane was very high, it was difficult for him to find an opportunity to attack them, but according to usual practice, the enemy would use it after this round of attacks.

The advantage of high speed is to pull up at high speed, and then do it again. If you can induce the enemy aircraft to make a large overload action when attacking, you may be able to find an opportunity when he pulls up again.

But this time, the enemy's reaction was beyond Caesar's expectation. The American fighter jets did not pull up, but continued to dive downwards, aiming directly at the Japanese fighters protecting the low altitude below. At the same time, a group of bombers began to appear.

In everyone's sight.

"Quick! Attack those bombers!" Zero Fighter, who was responsible for protecting the low altitude, immediately rushed towards the bomber group, but at this time, behind and above them, the US military's P-38 had also roared down. Now every Japanese pilot

We are faced with a dilemma: if we want to stop the enemy bombers, we have to expose our butts to those P-38s. For these rookies, doing so is seeking death or committing suicide. If we want to save our lives, we have to give up the attempt to attack the enemy bombers and watch helplessly.

Then they launched an attack on the Imperial warships.

At this time, the effects of long-term militarism education showed up. Not a single Zero Fighter chose to give up the attack. They risked their lives by launching shells from the 6 o'clock direction at the US military's fearless dive bombers.

Deadly attack.

However, this approach is not wise. The Dreadnought is a very solid aircraft, and the firepower of Zero Combat is not very good. It is impossible to kill flying tanks like the Dreadnought with one hit, but the P-38 behind them

But it has the most powerful firepower. The result of this game is: all 20 Zeros were destroyed and 5 Dreadnoughts were injured. Then Ron pulled up with the P-38 fleet and headed towards the Nishizawa fleet that was rushing over slowly.

Pounce on it. I believe that the previous group of zero-fighting examples are there, and I believe that Caesar and the others will never plan to launch bombers before they have dealt with the threat from Ron and others.

Now, 15 Dauntless dive bombers and 10 Avengers are in place. However, the Caesar fleet is held back by Ron and the others, and the Japanese fleet is in danger.

To be honest, it is too easy for bombers and torpedo planes to attack Hiei and Kirishima. Almost all the anti-aircraft guns on these two battleships were destroyed by the 152mm guns on the US cruiser last night (

Speaking of which, this kind of gun is still a classic between the U.S. Navy and the Army. The Navy likes to use imperial units and develops a 6-inch gun, and it has a 152mm caliber. The Army wants to use metric units, so it uses a 155mm gun.) It was blown to pieces.

, all the anti-aircraft firepower depends on the escorting destroyer next to it. In addition, the speed is surprisingly slow, it is really difficult not to be hit.

In just two minutes, the battleship Kirishima was directly hit by three 1,000-pound bombs, one of which penetrated the deck and exploded in the power compartment, completely destroying her power system. She went from hemiplegia to complete paralysis.

The Hiei was not much better. Although it was only directly hit by a 1000-pound bomb and lost the D turret, it suffered a 1000-pound near-miss bomb on the side. This near-miss bomb happened to be in the

It exploded near the place where the torpedo hit yesterday. As a result, the hole that had been blocked immediately opened again, and seawater rolled in. At this time, the torpedo dropped by the torpedo machine also pulled a long white line straight.

Run towards them.

"Boom" and "boom" were heard. This time Hiei was luckier, some of the torpedoes fired at her were deflected, and some... were blocked by the cruiser Nagara.

The Nagara intercepted an air-dropped torpedo on behalf of the Hiei, but of course, she herself was badly blown up by the torpedo. Originally, except for the broken superstructure, her power was still very good and she ran very fast, but now

, the torpedo hit near her power cabin, which filled with water. She lost most of her power and suddenly collapsed on the sea.

The Kirishima had no such luck. Four torpedoes hit her, and only one of them did not explode. A large amount of seawater poured into the ship, and the hull began to tilt gradually. Due to the loss of power, the water pumping system could not work.

It's only a matter of time before it sinks.

The bombers finished their work, laid their eggs, turned their heads, twisted their butts, and ran away.

Now that the bombers have left, there is no need for the fighter jets to tangle with the Japanese anymore. There are indeed some very skilled people in this group of devils. For example, the plane that has been biting Ron had just shot down a fighter jet.

An enemy plane was bitten by this guy who ran out of the diagonal stab. He was hit by several 7.7mm bullets and even a 20mm artillery shell. It took a lot of effort to get rid of the enemy plane's attack.

, only to learn that Foss killed two more enemy planes in one go.

"Damn! If this continues, this guy's record will surpass mine sooner or later."

"Everyone leave and return!" Ron gave the order.

The P-38s began to dive and accelerate, quickly widening the distance from Zero War, and then went home triumphantly (Zero War's speed was tragic anyway, and you couldn't catch up even if you chased it). At this time, from the Japanese aircraft carrier

The 20 Zero Fighters that took off finally arrived.

Zero War, who arrived this time, could no longer enjoy the cheers. The sailors on the warship had already seen a cruel fact from the battle just now: Zero War could not protect them now.

What the sailors already knew, how could the fleet commander Koki Abe not know it? He even knew more: this wave of attacks is by no means the end, and the US military will soon launch more attacks. Obviously, not only the ship's side

The Kirishima, which had tilted so close to the sea, was hopeless, and the Hiei and Nagara, which were still floating on the sea, were also hopeless. They could not escape the American strike range, no matter what.

Maybe you should consider how to save other warships.

Sometimes there is a kind of gambler in the casino. After they lose almost all their money, they often suddenly cherish the last few coins. Abe is like this now. So he ordered:

"Move the Emperor's beauty from the Kirishima and Hiei (that's the old boy's picture of Hirohito) here, and then scuttle her. Nagara did the same thing."

"General! This..."

"Execute!" Abe lowered his head. He finally became the first general in the history of the empire to abandon a battleship. Although we cannot say that what he did was wrong, it is not a good reputation after all.

20 minutes later, the second wave of attack groups, including 20 F4Us, 10 Avenger torpedo planes and 10 Dauntless dive bombers arrived. After searching around the nearby sea area, only half of the bow of the ship was exposed on the water.

Apart from the Hiei which had not completely sunk, nothing could be found on the sea.
Chapter completed!