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It should be said that the US Navy was already a little in a hurry at this time.

The main reason is that the Hornet loses its navigation capability and ability to receive fighter jets, so all fighter jets need to land on the Enterprise aircraft carrier. At the same time, the Enterprise aircraft carrier must be careful about the attacks that the Japanese army may launch at any time...

This is not only a very complicated deployment work but also dangerous.

It is said that it is complicated because there are as many as 73 fighter jets waiting to land in this time and space: 28 Wildcat fighters, 24 Fearless dive bombers, and 21 Avenger torpedoes.

The danger is because once the work of recycling the fighter jets is not handled properly, it will cause blockage on the flight deck. If the Japanese military aircraft group attacks the Enterprise again at this time... it will be a nightmare for the Enterprise.

So after thinking about it over and over again, Kincaid made the most decision to retreat.

This decision is of course correct, because no one can handle these two things at the same time, both arranging so many fighter planes to recover and resist the Japanese attack.

However, this decision almost meant that the death sentence of the Hornet was sentenced to... The Hornet lost its navigation ability and had the possibility of surviving under the cover of fighter jets and warships. Now the Enterprise is going to retreat, so the Hornet can only wait for the Japanese army to sink it.

But of course the US Navy would not give up an aircraft carrier easily, especially the "Hornet" is an aircraft carrier with a full load displacement of more than 20,000 tons and has made many military achievements. So the US Navy sent a heavy cruiser "Norampton" to try to tow the "Hornet", hoping to tow it back.

However, this is obviously futile.

The US aircraft carrier battle group left San Espirito Island at least 700 nautical miles, while the "Hornet" was towed at only 6 knots, which means it would take more than a hundred hours to pull it to the naval base.

There are too many variables in this, so the US Navy is actually ready to wait for that moment to come.

At the same time, Kincaid concentrated all his efforts to command the fleet to retreat while receiving fighter planes.

The first phase of recycling was to allow the Wildcat fighter jets and 24 "Dreadnought" bombers to land on the Enterprise first. The reason is that the range of these two fighters is only more than 1,000 kilometers. After they attacked the Japanese aircraft carrier, the fuel had almost been exhausted, and landing was urgent.

But in the end, the Enterprise still couldn't install so many fighter jets, and five "Dreadnought" bombers had to force land at sea.

At this time, there are 21 Avenger torpedoes still in the air... but they can slow down. Because the torpedoes have a range of more than 2,000 kilometers, they can still stay in the sky.

Taking advantage of this time, the Enterprise relocated the aircraft on the deck, moved some of the fighter jets to the hangar, filled up the fuel of 25 Wildcat fighters and immediately took off... So he made room for the torpedo plane to land.

The final step in coordination is to fill up some of the torpedoes' fuel and then fly to the island of Saint Espirito 700 nautical miles away... The torpedoes have a long range and fast speed, making it easier for them to complete the mission of returning to the base of Saint Espirito Island.

This ultimately solves the problem of "overcrowding" on the aircraft carrier "Enterprise".

At this time, the "Enterprise" aircraft carrier had 84 fighters, including 41 fighters, 33 dive bombers and 10 torpedo aircraft.

At this point, the catastrophic situation of the two aviation brigades potentially losing most of the fighter jets has been avoided.

It should be said that this is a mistake by Yamamoto Iroku... Because when the US military "Enterprise" was being dispatched, the Japanese Navy caused a little trouble to the "Enterprise", which would easily cause chaos and a fatal blow to the "Enterprise".

But Yamamoto Iroku did not do so because of lack of confidence.

The reason for lack of confidence is that although the Japanese Navy won to some extent, this victory was a tragic victory... The Japanese "Ruifeng" was the first to leave the battlefield when it was hit. Although the "Shokhe" was injured, it still had combat capabilities. There were only 10 ships left for more than 70 fighters, 8 ships exploded and 1 ship attack, and 53 fighters with only one aircraft carrier were lost.

The situation of another aircraft carrier, "Falcon Eagle", was even worse... It only had 2 ships left, 4 ships exploded and 1 ship attack.

In other words, although Yamamoto Iroku still had two aircraft carriers with combat effectiveness at this time, the carrier-based aircraft of these two aircraft carriers were only 26.

This is obviously caused by the fact that the Japanese fighter jets have basically no armor and their combat methods to emphasize the "Bushido" spirit.

Speaking of which, this is really a dramatic result. At this time, the US Navy had fewer aircraft carriers, and the Japanese Navy had more aircraft carriers, fewer aircraft carriers.

Yamamoto Iroku was thinking: If you attack again, your carrier-based aircraft will likely be completed. At that time, the two aircraft carriers in your hands will face the embarrassing situation of not having carrier-based aircraft. If the US Navy counterattacks...will your aircraft carrier be only waiting to die?!

Thinking of this, Yamamoto Iroku no longer dared to launch an attack on the US Navy, but instead rushed the Flying Eagle aircraft carrier, which was fighting in the Guadalam waters, to nearby waters to participate in the battle.

Yamamoto Iroku's approach is reasonable, because if he doesn't do this, he will be afraid that the security issues of the two Japanese aircraft carriers will be difficult to guarantee. However, his approach gave the US Navy "Enterprise" time to breathe and retreat.

As the Enterprise was getting farther and farther away from the Hornet, the fighter jets that could have served as air cover on the Hornet had to withdraw, so the last moment of the Hornet finally arrived.

At 3:13 pm.

The radar of the heavy cruiser "Northampton" discovered that two enemy groups rushed towards the Hornet at the same time... It was the strike group that took off by the Japanese "Flying Eagle" aircraft carrier and the "Shock Hero".

The target of these two Japanese military aircraft groups was not originally the Bumblebee, they were searching for the under-injured Enterprise.

But of course they could not find the "Enterprise" that had retreated, so they turned their target to the "Hornet"...

Then there was another fierce battle. The warship covering the Hornet tried its best to protect the aircraft carrier with air defense fire. Soon another torpedo hit the Hornet. The hole torn by the torpedo caused a large amount of water to infiltrate the Hornet, and the hull tilted to the end to 20 degrees.

Finally, Captain Mason ordered the abandonment of the ship and ordered the destroyer "Mastin" to sink the Hornet.
Chapter completed!