These 12 TBFs were also ruthless. They rushed to more than 60 meters without any hesitation before dropping the torpedo. The hit rate naturally increased a lot, but they also suffered heavy losses. Four of them crashed before the thunders were dropped, and 3 of them were shot down after the thunders were dropped, and only 5 of them escaped in the end.

Their efforts were effective. At 13:39, the port side of the Seedlitz was hit by a torpedo, and it was flooded with water. It floated on the water and was dying but still did not sink.

Kent was furious when he was about to order the attack aircraft to pounce on him, he suddenly received a telegram from sBd, who was responsible for the reconnaissance mission: "There is a German aircraft carrier and a battleship, 16o kilometers northeast."

Kent, who was red-eyed, suddenly realized that he had almost missed a big deal and was about to attack the second enemy aircraft carrier. How could he waste all his energy here? He looked at Seedlitz with hatred, turned around and flew away from the battlefield to the location of the Ise formation.

But as he flew, he suddenly felt something was wrong. How few aircraft groups followed behind him were? There were only 11 TBFs, 7 sBds and 9 F6Fs following his sBds, and only 28 aircraft, including command aircraft.

"Where did the other planes go?" he asked subconsciously, "Didn't you keep up?"

"Many have been shot down, and some have completed bomb drops and returned. Some of the F6Fs have fought too hard, and they have insufficient ammunition and fuel, so they can only return. All the remaining aircraft that can attack should be here!" The pilot thought for a while, "Oh, there are still a few sBds you sent out to reconnaissance..."

Kent's head buzzed, and he finally realized that he had made a big mistake: he wasted too much troops on this fleet. He brought out an attack group of nearly 17o aircraft, at least 1o aircraft participated in the attack directly or indirectly, and the rest of the aircraft were shot down without even touching the side of the attack. 36 do-412 that were actually hunted by freely hunting. In addition, more than 4o aircraft were shot down in the air defense firepower, the entire formation lost nearly 8o aircraft. All kinds of waste and squandering together resulted in only 28 attack groups that could be invested in the second attack...

"Fight with the German guy!" He made up his mind to rush to the Ise formation.

"Sir, some enemy planes are coming to us."

"How much does the squadron cost?"

"The Savoy sank, Seedlitz, and the captain judged that it was difficult to save it, and was forced to abandon the ship. The Z29 sank, and one Hedgehog-class sank. The plane may have lost about 10 aircraft. Now the remaining destroyers are salvaging the officers and soldiers who fell into the water." Simongo reported, "I have sent Walter to ask him to come to our place."

Crank nodded: "Everyone has tried his best. Now it's up to us. At the critical moment, Germany needs everyone to do their duty!"

13:56, the US attacking formation found the Ise and rushed to attack, covering the last seven do-412s above the Ise without hesitation to intercept!

As soon as the two sides met, do-412 killed 4 sBds and 2 TBFs, and one of them was shot down by F6F. At this time, Kent did not care about the formation and allowed all attack aircraft groups to attack freely, and must sink the enemy aircraft carrier. After saying this, he ordered the pilot to rush down and attack. Although he successfully dropped the bomb and hit the Gneesenau, he was also hit by the ship's air defense firepower and fell directly into the sea, and died together with the pilot.

The planes of both sides formed a ball in the air. The red-eyed US aircraft greeted all the ammunition on the Ise. The bombs and torpedoes fell down together. Tejiro Aoki personally steered and used all his strength to avoid the attack. Except for the deck swept by F6F, no bombs landed on it. However, the destroyer Z next to him was hit and sunk.

The US sBd quickly dropped all the bombs and escaped. The slow-moving TBF continued to drop the torpedo. Due to the weak interception firepower, a total of 5 torpedoes rushed toward the Ise from different locations. Tejiro Aoki quickly avoided three of them, but the other two could not escape no matter what. In the end, Gneisenau blocked the gun hole with his body and carried one for the flagship. Then the other hit the starboard ship of the Ise, tearing a huge gap, and the sea water continued to pour in. Of course, these TBFs did not get much advantage, and were eventually shot down three more.

By the time the US military formation left, there were only 12 aircraft in total, while only 2 of the 7 do-412s were still flying in the air. Both sides paid a huge price for this fight.

"Plug the leak! Plug the leak!"

With the concerted efforts of hundreds of officers and soldiers, the Ise finally stopped the inlet after swallowing more than 2ooo tons of sea water. However, it had dropped to only 19 knots, and the hull also tilted 7 degrees.

"Sir, you must pour water on the port side, otherwise you will not be able to recover the balance." Aoki Taijiro was so busy that he was sweating profusely. "The attack group will be back later. We must prepare them for the landing position. Time is very tight!"

"Fill in water."

The port side began to inject water. In order to prevent the water from entering too quickly, Captain Aoki's command was very cautious. At this time, a large number of planes had gathered in the air, all of which were returning to the attack mission. Everyone was sweating profusely.

Crank and others on the bridge were even more anxious: the attack group flew more than 60 kilometers when they left, and nearly 70 kilometers when they returned (the Ise reversed back), and also participated in a fierce attack battle. Everyone was exhausted, and what was even more deadly was that the fuel was exhausted. If it was delayed, these planes were in danger of falling into the sea.

As the port side inlet increased, the inclination of the Ise hull began to improve little by little, and the angle gradually decreased. However, due to the increase in water inlet, the waterline began to decline with a visible degree of naked eyes. The sailors desperately abandoned any discardable debris into the sea to reduce the amount of water consumption of the ship. At 14:19, the entire warship resumed the tilt of a certain degree. Although it was not fully balanced, it basically met the landing conditions.

As soon as the signal of landing was allowed to come out, the planes that had been hovering in the air for a long time immediately went down one after another. The pointers of the do-412 fuel tank meter that landed at the earliest had long fallen below zero. The least one aircraft could only support it for another minute and it would land in the sea. However, the last six remaining air defense fighters on the Savoy were still large in volume. They stared at the surroundings vigilantly and even killed a single US aircraft. I don’t know how this guy found it here.

At 14:37, all the attack groups landed, and the ground crews began to replenish fuel bombs quickly. Many of the pilots were exhausted and did not even have the strength to climb out of the cabin. They were helped out by other comrades and ground crews. Of course, there were also talented people who were so energetic that they did not feel any loss of strength, but were extremely excited. They described the attack scene with their companions as soon as they got off the plane, and they were talking furiously.

"Sir, the Essex class is very hard. The 4oo kilogram bomb cannot deal with it. You must be torpedo!" Walter gasped and reported the attack scene with Crank. "The enemy has at least one intact Essex class, which is very threatening. We hit another at least 6-7 bombs, but the opponent just didn't sink, and the degree did not decrease much."

"Must need torpedo?"

"Yes! The bomb is useless, it's another heavy blow."

Although the distance between the fleets of both sides has reached more than 70 kilometers, it is still at least 3 hours away from darkness. With the range and degree of Ju-198, it is completely fine to perform this mission. As for the pilots, it is easier to solve. Since Ju-198 has both dive bombing and torpedo attack, some pilots are proportional to lightning strikes, and some pilots focus on dive bombing rather than requiring the pilot to be omnipotent, which can reduce training costs and increase the yield rate. Of course, some people are proficient in everything, but the proportion is not too high. In other words, the first wave of attacks is dive bombing pilots, and this time they can be replaced with lightning strike pilots.

Crank hesitated: Now the ship has collected all the aircraft and there are 62 more aircraft (several ones have severe damage and announced to be scrapped). The enemy's head is an Essex-class full-load (1oo aircraft). In terms of strength, it can still compete.

But Simon suddenly changed his face and said sadly: "Sir, if the bomb is useless, we may be forced to give up the attack."

"Why?"

"Spend!"

"Hey!" Crank looked outside, had already reacted, and punched the bulkhead hard.

The maximum when Ise is intact is only 26 knots, which is slow for a regular aircraft carrier. However, since it is positioned to break the crossing of the aircraft carrier, 26 knots are no big deal. But today it becomes the critical point. The thunder and lightning degree of Ise has dropped to only 18 knots, and then it just inverted water, restoring balance has increased the burden. Now the degree can only reach 16 knots, and the deck wind after the wind is synthesized is not enough. There is no big problem with taking off fighter jets or light-load attack aircraft, but it is estimated that it is not enough to take off a heavy-load torpedo aircraft (and because of the long distance, it must be full of oil, and the total amount is over 5 tons).

"Sir, let the boys give it a try." Walter, unwilling to give in, "There are not many opportunities like this."

"It's okay to try it." Crank thought for a while, "You go and choose the pilot, be careful not to choose the best one."

Walter understands this principle. The best way to fly does not mean that others can fly as well. If there are very few takeoffs, it is basically a way to deliver vegetables to people. The lightning striker must be of scale to be valuable.
Chapter completed!