At the moment when the Germans were anxious about why the British aircraft fleet had not yet appeared, Colonel Sean, who led the British attack aircraft fleet, was also very anxious. As early as 15 minutes ago, he had led the team to the last location of the German fleet in the morning. However, due to an hour and a half, the German aircraft carrier formation drove more than 80 kilometers westward, and the sea was empty. The network formation could only search separately, heading northward and westward. When the skua formation facing westward found the exact location of the German fleet, he still had to call and wait for the formation searching north to return and attack simultaneously, and a lot of time was wasted.

At 9:41, all 17 escort fighters in the lightning strike formation were replenished with oil bombs and then took off 6. At 9:44, the ju-98s took off from Zeppelin and the tense strings on the North Sea Fleet gradually relaxed. At 9:47, the lookout whistle issued a warning, and there were a large number of aircraft groups approaching the east, with no less than 8o!

Finally here! This is the first thought that everyone has been tortured by constant false alarms and waiting and has lost patience. It is believed that instead of escaping anxiously, it is better to bravely face the trial. The second thought is that General Richthofen did not send fighters to escort the dive bomber formation just now, but left them all to cover. It seems extremely wise now, which means that the fleet has all fighter jets at critical moments, greatly enhancing safety.

"All aircraft carriers are launched, quickly release the ju-98 formation, and the water fighters escort them to attack the British fleet." Richterhofen issued a calm order, "The long-range anti-aircraft guns of each ship will fire, break up the enemy formations, and fighters will be responsible for the fleet defense, and the aircraft with the most sufficient oil and ammunition will come forward to intercept British aircraft, leaving 8 direct cover aircraft over the fleet."

At 9:51, the lightning strike aircraft formation completed the entire team and immediately advanced to the southeast. The 128mm anti-aircraft gun that had been silent for a long time began to be powerful. The shells loaded with radio near-explosion fuses were quite powerful and kept exploding in the enemy aircraft group. Everyone could see clearly on the bridge of the Zeppelin. Several aircraft were shot down after the anti-aircraft guns were fired, and the huge enemy aircraft formation was forced to disperse.

The entire North Sea Fleet had a total of 48 regular fighters when it left. After experiencing losses, it called the backup aircraft to supplement it and then restored to 48. Today, three were lost in the first round of attacks, and there were still 45 left and all in the air. However, their fuel level was different. 25 fighters had oil volume in nearly 4 hours, 8 had oil volume in 90 minutes, and 12 had less than 60 minutes, and at least one had oil volume in 45 minutes.

After emergency communication, Colonel Rand (Wing Captain), the commander of the fighter jet, quickly identified eight left-behind aircraft and ordered through the radio station, "Run over and intercept them at the periphery of mid-range air defense fire. Note that priority should be given to intercept skuo and lightning strike aircraft. Mosquitoes can be placed. They have poor accuracy and are not very threatening."

Seeing the densely packed German fighter jets flying over and rushing to the front, Colonel Sean was also numb. According to the dispatch when he was out, his formation consisted of 24 mosquito-type (horizontal bombing), 24 skua (dive bombing), 24 tbf (lightning strike), 24 European Swallows and 12 handsome soldiers, with a total scale of 108. However, due to the search in the middle, the division of troops wasted time and range. There were 12 European Swallows who had insufficient fuel and returned early. The fleet turned into 96. The remaining 12 European Swallows basically had only 2-3 minutes of air stagnation over the fleet. Most of the entire fleet were bombers and attack aircraft with relatively poor combat effectiveness.

The German anti-aircraft artillery fire just now caused him to lose three skua, one TBF and one European Swallow at once, and the number dropped to 91. He observed that the Germans stayed in the air cover of the fleet and exceeded 4O fighters. Considering the combat effectiveness of the B-219, this number was very scary, but he had no choice but to bite the bullet and kill.

Less than 4 kilometers east of the outer side of the fleet, nearly one aircraft began to fight fiercely. Below are several S-boats with the highest degree of maneuverability. They are responsible for rescuing the pilots who fell into the water as soon as possible. For today's battle, all German pilots put on bulging life suits, which are easy to identify after falling into the water. Moreover, S-boats are not afraid of enemy aircraft bombing. No one is bored and waste time on these 100 tons of small things. As for low-altitude strafing, the S-boat itself has 2m anti-aircraft guns and is not afraid of a small number of enemy aircraft.

The 37 German fighter jets intercepted in the front were obviously not enough to resist the invasion of more than 9O enemy aircraft, but the B-219s had clear goals, and they were given priority to targeting the skuo and the tbf to open fire. As soon as the two sides met, four skuo were shot down within half a minute. As time went on, the war became more and more intense.

9:59, 17 mosquito-types, 8 handsome soldiers, 4 European swallows, 7 skua, and 11 TBFs bypassed German aircraft and rushed towards the fleet. In order to break through the blockade, the British paid an additional 3 mosquito-types, 2 handsome soldiers, 4 skua, 3 European swallows and 4 TBFs. The remaining aircraft were still entangled with the B-219s. Four German aircraft were shot down, and the remaining aircraft on both sides became 71:41.

At 1 o'clock, eight b-219s left above the fleet rushed towards the British fleet, targeting TBF and Skua. After a fight, the British lost 2 mosquitoes, 1 handsome warrior, 1 European swallow and 4 skua. The Germans lost 2 b-219s, and the remaining aircraft on both sides became 63:39.

One minute later, the British fleet flew over the fleet to bomb. The mosquito and handsome soldiers rushed to the two aircraft carriers. The European Swallows, who had fuel-limited fuel, completed the cover mission 6 and then left the field. However, the accurate head of horizontal bombing was really ugly. The British bomber had dropped bombs as low as possible, but the ignited firepower of the dense array installed on the ships below made them unable to drop bombs below 12oo meters. As a result, the Europa and Zeppelin each were hit by one near-lose bombs, the Schänhorst hit a 5oo-pound bomb on the front deck, and Prince Eugen 2 turret shot down 3 mosquitoes and 1 handsome soldier. The mosquitoes completed the bombing and the European Swallows left the battlefield, and the handsome soldiers remained in the air to fight. The remaining number of aircraft on both sides became 4o:39.

1o:o2 points, the remaining 9 skuo started attacking under the cover of handsome soldiers. Faced with the fierce firepower, British aircraft could not find a better way, so they could only risk their lives to drop bombs. The efficiency of dive bombers is higher than that of horizontal bombers. A 5oo-pound bomb was shot on the deck near the Zeppelin bridge, and a bomb was hit hard by the destroyer Z15, which was guarding the side, and was severely injured. However, this was the only result of the British. The rest of the planes were exhausted, and two were killed by the fleet's firepower. The relatively more fragile Europa did not get shot. It has to be said that it was a miracle. The remaining 7 skuoes wanted to escape, but were beaten by the b-219 that had been freed and were shot down by 4 more. Of course, accidental injuries also occurred. One b-219 was shot down by its own high-fire firepower, and the remaining number of aircraft on both sides became 31:38.

1o:o5 points, the slowest tbf went through a lot of hardships to get rid of German fighter jets and then attack. The targets were both two aircraft carriers, but they had to deal with the escort warship next to the aircraft carrier. Facing the lightning strike planes coming, all the power was lost. The z15, which was drifting with the flow, watched the torpedo rush toward it and could not avoid it. He became the first victim of the day and sank in the violent explosion.

The Schánhorst used his huge body to block a killing torpedo for Europa. In an instant, the port side broke through the mouth 3 meters square, and the sea water poured in. In less than 3 minutes, it swallowed more than 15oo tons of sea water, with a roll of 11 degrees. The captain urgently poured water on the starboard side and basically restored the balance, but the degree dropped to only 24 knots. The most tragic one was Prince Eugen, a heavy cruiser located at the starboard side of the Zeppelin, helped it withstand two torpedoes. Although Prince Eugen is far stronger and resistant to ordinary ten-ton treaty heavy cruiser, it obviously cannot withstand the torpedoes of two torpedoes. It instantly injected a lot of water and rolled over 15 degrees. After 5 minutes, the captain thought it could not be saved and announced that it would abandon the ship.

The TBFs who completed the attack tried to escape from the battlefield under the cover of handsome soldiers, but the scene of the fleet was fierce, especially the rolling smoke from the deck of Zeppelin greatly hurt the hearts of all fighter pilots. Anyway, there were no other enemy planes now, so they aimed at the enemy plane formation and chased them all the way. While killing 5 planes, they dropped another one themselves, and now only 37 fighter planes are left.

1o:15 points, just when everyone thought that the tragic sea and air war was about to end, the carrier-based aircraft attack team sent by Hamilton came late. This poor attack team was extremely unlucky today. It completed its initial assembly at around 8 o'clock and was ready to start the attack. It was disrupted by the first wave of the German He-218 attack group. After finally reassembling at 8:00, the German Ju-98 attack group came again. In order to avoid becoming the target of the B-219s, the aircraft group dispersed south again, and then flew over the German fleet almost at the same time as the Ju-98 formation that had retreated from the offensive mission, but was thrown away by the former in a blink of an eye.
Chapter completed!