Empire Conquest
Chapter 127 - 123 "Jiahe" Suddenly Dies

Chapter 127: Chapter 123 "Jiahe" Suddenly Dies

On the "Jiahe."

As four enemy planes roared down in a dive, all the officers and soldiers inside the Command Bridge from Lan Yun down turned pale with fear.

A few of the more timid ones were even trembling, barely suppressing their screams.

They had mistaken the "Typhoon" for Dive Bombers.

Indeed, a "Typhoon" with auxiliary fuel tanks did look a bit like a "Wasp," especially during a dive, possessing an absolutely commanding presence.

Even though they soon realized those were four Fighters, Lan Yun couldn’t feel any relief, and the staff including Kitamura, were not pleased either.

There was not a single air defense Fighter above the Mobile Fleet!

Even the escort Fighters returning to base had already decreased their altitude, waiting at low elevation for landing, unable to intercept the enemy planes diving from above.

Additionally, there were many Fighters waiting to land near the two carriers.

The presence of these ship-borne aircraft would inevitably interfere with the anti-aircraft gunfire.

Upon realizing this, Lan Yun immediately gave the order for all the ship-borne aircraft to fly away, and for the High-altitude Guns to fire at any approaching planes without distinguishing between friend or foe, but Lan Yun was very aware that relying on the weak anti-aircraft firepower alone could not alter the fate of the Mobile Fleet.

However, Lan Yun had never expected it to happen so quickly!

The four "Typhoons" began their dive at a little past eleven o’clock.

At the time, Lan Yun had even specifically glanced at his watch and remembered the time. It was a habit developed as a staff officer, retaining the times of major events to promptly answer the Commander’s inquiries, and also for accurately documenting logs and reports.

Just three minutes later, the first wave of Dive Bombers carrying bombs arrived.

Before this, the lookouts had spotted torpedo bombers decreasing their flying altitude. These torpedo bombers were still on the outskirts and had not immediately headed towards the "Jiahe."

Contrary to yesterday’s battle, the Dive Bombers initiated the attack first.

At eleven thirteen, six Dive Bombers reached the airspace above the "Jiahe" and entered the diving phase without any interference.

At that moment, only two returning Zero Fighters were still nearby, sadly not at a high enough altitude.

The only defense against those Dive Bombers were the High-altitude Guns, and those were merely on the "Jiahe."

When the ship-borne aircraft were being recovered, the escort battleships were several kilometers away, hence unable to provide protection with their fast-firing machine guns.

Large-caliber High-altitude Guns?

In the Saiyi Navy, that was a joke!

For an extended period, the Saiyi Navy attempted to use six-inch Naval guns of Light Cruisers as High-altitude Guns and even believed that the slow-firing large-caliber High-altitude Guns were nothing but a waste of valuable gun-decks and had no real value in combat, preferring to mount more machine guns.

In fact, the machine guns on Saiyi battleships were also not sufficient, not even adequate.

At eleven fourteen, the first "Wasp" dropped its bomb. Though right after, this Dive Bomber trying to pull out of the dive exploded in midair due to fire from the High-altitude Guns, the five "Wasps" that followed all successfully dropped their bombs and completed their dives.

Six bombs dropped, three hit.

The hit rate reaching fifty percent was terrifying enough!

Although in the following minutes, a second squadron of "Wasps" hit with three more bombs, and Zhu Huasheng-led "Flying Fish" Plane Group hit with five torpedoes, what actually sealed the fate of the "Jiahe" was, in fact, a single bomb dropped by the first wave of Dive Bombers.

This bomb did not explode upon hitting the "Jiahe"!

Including Lan Yun, all the surviving officers and soldiers who escaped from the "Jiahe" vividly remembered that in the first wave of attack, the "Jiahe" only suffered two explosions.

Moreover, the explosions had triggered a massive fire.

Just before 11:20 a.m., before the second wave of "Wasps" arrived, Lan Yun, Kitamura, and other officers and soldiers from the Mobile Fleet Headquarters were put on a speedboat.

Like when he initially departed from the "Chicheng," Lan Yun was also forcibly dragged from the Command Bridge.

Since other battleships were far away and the "Feilong" was also under attack, after leaving the flagship, Lan Yun and the others could only float on the sea.

It was precisely because of this that they witnessed what happened next.

After being continuously bombarded, the "Jiahe" was almost completely engulfed by a massive fire.

Just before 11:30 a.m., there was a severe explosion on the "Jiahe," and merely a few seconds later, another explosion occurred.

This blast was incredibly fierce, visible even from tens of kilometers away!

Before the smoke of the explosion had cleared, the "Jiahe" had already disappeared from the surface of the sea, along with more than a thousand officers and soldiers who hadn’t managed to evacuate.

The entire event lasted less than three minutes!

From the magnitude of the explosion, the second blast was definitely the ammunition depot detonating, likely the depot that stored aviation bombs.

Given the situation at the time, it is possible that the fire prevented the damage control personnel from entering the hull in time to flood the munitions depot.

The previous explosion was very likely caused by the third aviation armor-piercing bomb that had hit the "Jiahe" but didn’t explode immediately.

That bomb triggered the ammunition depot!

However, the possibility of an explosion caused by vapors from aviation fuel permeating inside the ship couldn’t be ruled out.

In confined spaces, the explosive force of fuel vapor mixtures can even surpass that of explosives.

Regardless of the scenario, it all had a lot to do with the previous intense aviation operations.

Before this, ground crew on the "Jiahe" had mistakenly damaged the fueling system’s valves during operations, leading to aviation fuel leakage.

As for those unreported and undiscovered safety hazards, they were undoubtedly numerous.

In fact, this was also the key reason why a huge fire erupted on the "Jiahe" after being hit, and why the fire rapidly spread throughout the ship, completely uncontrolled.

If the fire had not been so intense, or had been quickly controlled, perhaps the major explosion might not have occurred.

Of course, there weren’t so many "ifs."

From the first hit to the explosion and sinking, it all took just fifteen minutes.

Apart from a few dozen officers and soldiers from the Mobile Fleet Headquarters, including Lan Yun and others who had evacuated earlier, out of about two thousand officers and soldiers on the "Jiahe," only seven survived, including Colonel Taoka, the captain. According to survivors, Colonel Taoka had been commanding the battle up until the final moments.

Of course, this was mostly likely an exaggeration.

The explosion happened so suddenly, and with the fire already spread throughout the ship before the explosion, would there still be a need for the captain to command the battle?

The carrier had already lost its combat capability; how could it still fight?

Even if Colonel Taoka hadn’t abandoned his post, he should have been directing damage control.

However, what’s more plausible is,

Before the large explosion, Taoka likely locked himself inside the Navigation Bridge, planning to sink with the ship as revered by the Saiyi Navy.

Over the past decades, similar incidents had frequently occurred, seeming as though all captains of the Saiyi Navy believed that this was the only way to demonstrate personal worth, express loyalty to the country, and prove courageous fearlessness to reach Heaven after death, never considering the meaning of living to face and endure hardship.

From the perspective of the Imperial Navy, only those who survive have the right to talk about value, speak of loyalty, or discuss courage.

Seeking death is a coward’s way of escaping difficulties!