Chapter 458 Paralysis (End)

The setting sun was like blood. When Brooke summoned up his remaining courage and led the fleet to appear over the canal area again, he had already discovered from a distance that the Mutsu was approaching the lock at a staggering speed. While advancing, it was also firing fiercely at the deep American positions. It seemed that it was not far from the lock. Under the dual suppression of the German Marines and the close shooting of the Mutsu, the American troops who had been holding on near the lock for several days finally had no choice but to evacuate here.

All American pilots were anxious and instinctively rushed down to attack regardless of the interception of Japanese and German fighters, but 1,000 or 500-pound bombs were meaningless. No matter how many bombs they dropped, they could not change the pace of Mutsu's advance. Several planes wanted to throw torpedoes from the stern or bow of the ship, because Mutsu's entire body was in the canal. Theoretically, there was no possibility of evasion. As long as they threw it, it would hit. But the problem was that the canal was not deep enough. The bombardiers were disappointed to find that the torpedoes they dropped were stuck at the bottom and could not float up! Several frantic pilots could not help but curse on the radio, but it was completely useless...

At 17:03, as the steering gear shifted, the Mutsu deviated more and more from the centerline of the channel, and even began to gradually turn sideways, and a collision with the surroundings was inevitable. Two minutes later, Yamasumi Sadajiro shouted: "Prepare for impact!"

As everyone watched in horror, with a "boom", the 43,000-ton Mutsu with nearly 7,000 tons of seawater hit the lock heavily. The huge impact force caused the lock to collapse on the spot, and the bow inlaid with a beautiful chrysanthemum emblem finally couldn't hold up under the combined effects of bombs, torpedoes, collisions and other forces, and finally rotted and deformed.

Seeing that things were impossible, Brooke didn't act pretentiously and aimed his attack at other targets. Although SBD and TBF had suffered heavy casualties in a day, all American pilots gritted their teeth and launched a desperate attack.

With a loud bang, after being hit by a torpedo on the port side at noon, the Hiei was hit by another torpedo on the starboard side, followed by the Richelieu, and the Haruna, Strasbourg, and Tirpitz were each hit by a bomb. The Nagato and Kirishima were only hit by near misses this time, but the flying shrapnel took away the lives of many officers and soldiers at the anti-aircraft gun positions.

The U.S. military fleet also had a hard time, with casualties even higher than at noon, especially the TBF formation, which was almost wiped out again, defending its status as a "death machine".

While avoiding the bombs and torpedoes from the US military, Hori Teikichi suddenly said to Kusaka Renji: "In fact, there are two channels for the ship to enter and exit. I even feel that one Mutsu alone is not enough to block the two channels. Another one is needed to block both channels."

"Commander, are you kidding? Losing one Mutsu is painful enough! How dare you come with another one?" Kusaka Renji gritted his teeth and waved his fist at the sky, "Well done, well done! Shoot down all the American devil planes!"

But soon he couldn't laugh anymore. The captain of the Hiei reported that the ship was hit by another torpedo. Although the overall injury was slightly better than Mutsu, the speed dropped from 30 knots to only 16 knots. Moreover, Kusaka Renji knew very well that the defensive strength of a battleship like the Kongo class, which has a ship age of more than 30 years and is repaired on the basis of a battlecruiser, is actually far inferior to Mutsu. The damage of the two torpedoes is estimated to be basically similar to Mutsu.

"Let the Hiei also advance..." Hori Teikichi issued an order expressionlessly, "Go through another channel, and then let the engineers of the Marine Brigade speed up the pace of laying explosives."

After the remaining 30 or so US aircraft withdrew, everyone was horrified to find that the Hiei was advancing towards the channel again. Now not only the Combined Fleet, but also the German Fleet was stunned - Hori Teikichi was not only ruthless to the enemy, but also to his own people!

Tsukahara Jishizo could only sigh in response. Now, apart from hating his own bad mouth, what else could he say? But he didn't have much time to sigh, because Kusaka Ryunosuke nervously reported to him that he had found a B-25 and shot it down, and received a string of unknown messages before shooting it down...

"Damn, we were discovered."

When night fell, Brook returned to the base dejectedly. After getting off the plane, he lay on the ground exhausted and didn't want to move, looking at the sky helplessly. He felt that he was the biggest executioner, leading batches of pilots to die bravely, but he survived twice. Looking at the few survivors in the base, he couldn't help but have the urge to cry loudly - the ground staff quietly told him that there would be more pilots and planes tomorrow...

Cohen came over and squatted beside him without saying a word. After a long time, he squeezed out a message from his teeth: "A B-25 reported that an enemy aircraft carrier formation was found in the Panama and Colombia triangle area, about 300 kilometers away from the canal area, with 4 fleet aircraft carriers, 3 light aircraft carriers, and a large number of cruisers and destroyers.

"What?" Brooke jumped up from the ground, "7 aircraft carriers?"

"Yes."

The former was stunned, and now many things can be explained: why the Axis fighter forces have been constantly emerging after fighting one after another, it turns out that the enemy aircraft carriers are not 5 but 7...

He asked worriedly: "Is it wrong?"

"It should... not! "Cohen smiled bitterly, "However, there is no way to verify it again. The plane lost contact after sending the telegram. I guess it has been shot down by the enemy."

Brooke looked at the night sky, then at the base, and gave a painful answer: "It's a pity that it's too late today - there are no planes and no pilots, so we can only wait until tomorrow to dispatch."

After Mutsu completed the collision feat, Hiei also attacked the other half before dark. At the same time, the two ships also launched a flank attack on the Panamanian defenders with fierce artillery fire. The firing rate was very fast, and they had completely ignored whether it would cause damage to the main gun barrels - anyway, they were ready to sink. The Panamanian defenders' fighting will finally collapsed. No matter how Ross persuaded and explained, the overall situation was irreversible. The troops retreated in a swarm and collapsed across the board - for an army that had never seen the real situation, they were brave enough to resist the Axis air raids, land battles, and naval bombardments until now. At least they had not thought of surrendering to the Axis army on the opposite side.

At 11 o'clock in the evening, the Mutsu and Hiei opened their sea valves and sank. The captains of the two ships were going to sink with their ships, but they were scolded by Hori Teikichi. Finally, they reluctantly bid farewell to the warships with the help of the sailors.

An hour after the two ships sank, the Gatun Locks once again heard earth-shaking explosions. German engineers buried nearly 10 tons of explosives in the locks and the channels on both sides, and finally blew them all up. The collapsed concrete, stones, and soil completely buried the two warships under the water.

The Panama Canal was finally completely paralyzed!