Hoffman was of course unhappy, but since the Hippert was not there, it was acceptable for the enemy to sink a destroyer in a 4v2 situation, and he could not afford to lose nothing - the opponent was the world-famous Royal Navy.

The situation on the battlefield changed drastically, the Germans regained the upper hand in the ratio of forces, and the Hipper appeared with the Z16 and began to sprint in pursuit of the British with all its might. The Hipper, which had a top speed of 33.5 knots, did not widen the distance between the British destroyers, but the British forces were closer to each other due to the adjustment of the course and turn. The 203mm guns continued to fire, but because of the long stay in the Alta Fjord, the German sailors' artillery skills had deteriorated so much that they had spread too much - a problem that had already existed in the battle between the Z6 and Z16 guns just now. It's not difficult to solve, and you'll find the feeling after a few more rounds, and the Z6 was beaten before you could find the feeling.

If it had been any other time, Sherbrooke and his five destroyers would have dared to fight the Hipper, but as soon as he received the news that the cruiser formation commanded by Rear Admiral Burnett was more than 30 nautical miles northwest and was approaching at a high speed of 26 knots, the rear admiral asked him to lure the Hipper over and try to solve the scourge in the Barents Sea. So he immediately had an idea, and while directing the formation to retreat to the sea area where his cruiser was located, he carefully estimated the speed of the Hipper's formation, and put the retreat speed at 33 knots, so that the other side could feel that he was closing the distance, but at the same time he could not catch up.

Now the distance between the two is 19,000 meters, and he intends to risk putting it to about 16,000 meters, at this distance he thinks that the Germans will not be able to hit him, and the only purpose is to lead the Hippel to the guns of the three cruisers on his side, and eat him with superior forces like he had just solved Z6.

The Germans did not hesitate to take the bait.

But just then, he heard a scalp-numbing buzzing sound, and when he looked up, he saw a large number of planes flying in the southern sky.

"Damn it, the planes of the Germans!" He cursed, and then immediately demanded that the ships release smoke screens in an effort to distract the enemy planes.

He has carried out escort missions on the Arctic route many times, has some experience in aerial bombing, and knows that the German Stuka cannot reach the sea around Bear Island because of the voyage, and the Ju-88 bomber can only bomb horizontally, and the accuracy is very poor.

The Hipper and Z16 in the distance saw their planes coming to support, and immediately cheered, and Hartman smashed his fist on the wall of the command tower and said viciously: "Run!" Look where you have fled! ”

"Isn't that right? What kind of bomber is this, and how does it fly so fast? Sherbrooke temporarily relinquished command of the formation to the chief of staff, and observed only the enemy planes with his binoculars, only to find that the planes that had come were not the Ju-88s he was familiar with, nor the more traditional Stuka, but new planes that he had never seen before, and there was another new escort next to them - nothing had been seen before.

He quickly flipped to the German aircraft identification manual and thanks to the help of the Russians, he finally found the corresponding aircraft model.

"Hell, this is the Bf-219 and the He-218 - this is a fighter that can dive, how can they fly so far? It's not scientific! ”

In fact, the He-218 barely showed up in England except for one leaflet, and the British knew little about the Bf-219, and the manuals were only based on information provided by the Russians, and now the Red Army may have learned more about the characteristics of these two aircraft, but the British apparently did not have time to update their identification manuals.

Sherbrooke's complaint is very representative: the German plane taking off from the North Point Cape base has a straight range of more than 600 kilometers from the sea here, considering that the plane cannot fly in a straight line in the air, the actual flight distance will be more than 700 kilometers, and the maximum range of the He-218 is only 1500 kilometers, in order to ensure safety, two auxiliary fuel tanks containing 50 liters of aviation gasoline are also mounted under the wings before departure - usually this position is installed with 30 kilograms of small bomblets, relying on the extra 100 liters of gasoline, The planes can fly an additional 200 kilometers - with these 200 kilometers of support, the attack becomes relatively safe, and when Sherbrook saw the attack planes, those small fuel tanks had already been thrown into the sea, so he would have the illusion that it was "unscientific".

The smoky Tenacious became the first target of the German attack, and the three He-218s broke away from the formation, cut in from a high altitude, and dropped the bombs at a speed that stunned Sherbrooke. The enemy's "fighters" not only flew as fast as the Sea Spitfire, but were also able to dive into the air. In fact, he miscalculated, the land-based He-218 after dropping the bomb can fly faster than the Sea Spitfire, and the endurance is far exceeded.

The first two bombs were nimly avoided by the Tenacious, the falling bombs exploded out of the skyrocketing water column, and the shrapnel formed by the near missed bombs frantically smashed towards the destroyer's superstructure, and the third bomb finally could not be avoided, and was firmly next to the foredeck, after a violent explosion of "boom", Sherbrooke involuntarily closed his eyes and did not dare to look at the end of the Tenacious, in front of the 500-kilogram bombs, but the 2,000-ton destroyer quickly broke into two pieces like paper paste and sank -- not even a single sailor who could escape.

In less than 2 minutes, the score became 1:1, and the officers of the commander of the Hipper, the officers in the tower, cheered - the air force, no, the efficiency of the navy is high, and now there are 21 planes left, according to this effect, there will still be a surplus of all the British destroyers sent to the bottom of the sea.

The remaining British destroyers witnessed the tragic fate of the Tenacious, and one by one they were terrified and desperately fought back in the air, and at the same time released the smoke screen to the maximum, and the sea suddenly became thick with smoke. Unfortunately, the wind over the Barents Sea is not small, and the smoke screen is much less effective under the northwest wind.

The German aircraft group in the air did not seem to be affected in any way, a minute later, the second batch of He-218 continued to attack, the target was changed to the Obey this time, all the anti-aircraft fire of the British destroyers desperately returned fire, but it seemed to be useless, the second batch of He-218 played a trick - they pretended to carry out dive bombing, but only dived less than 500 meters and quickly leveled, and the British anti-aircraft gun positions that had no time to react were scattered by the Bf-219s covering in the air, The deck was littered with wounded and groaning sailors. After the anti-aircraft firepower was weakened, the three He-218s went around in circles and then re-attacked.

The Obedience did not escape the catastrophe - the 500-kilogram bomb was not something that the destroyer could withstand, and it was blown up and sunk in the footsteps of the Tenacious, but fortunately it sank not so quickly, and gave the British sailors the opportunity to jump into the sea to escape, and the survivors of the Z6 destroyer, who had just been rescued, were forced to jump again.

The Germans rewrote the score to 2:1, and the Hipper formation took advantage of the favorable opportunity of the British destroyers maneuvering around to close the distance to within 15,000 meters, but he was afraid of interfering with the bombing of the aircraft, so he ordered a temporary ceasefire of the main guns.

Just as the third group of planes entered the airspace, ready to kill the remaining destroyers, Sherbrooke was completely desperate, and he sent a farewell message to Rear Admiral Burnett in a trembling voice: Our army is attacked by superior enemy planes, and we are afraid that the whole army will be annihilated!

Then a very shocking scene occurred: the He-218s, who were about to enter the attack position, flapped their wings and flew away, as did the Bf-219s with the escort.

Just when everyone was scratching their heads, the Hipper received a telegram from the plane - several warships had been spotted in the northwest direction, large in size, suspected to be the enemy's capital ships. The shorter the news, the bigger the matter, Hartman was so happy that he almost jumped - the sea voyage is interesting, give the credit for sinking the destroyer to himself, and gnaw the hard bones in the back himself.

Major Schroeder, who led the team in the air, was not sure that he would find the British capital ship, he only felt that it was not far away, and it didn't hurt to fly over to check it, in case there was a mistake, go back and continue to clean up these destroyers, and besides, there was also the Hipper, a heavy cruiser and a destroyer could still make three British destroyers run away?

Hartmann immediately sent a telegram to Berlin: "The naval navy has sunk two enemy destroyers, and is now dealing with another enemy fleet, and our ships are pursuing three British destroyers. ”

Hearing that the planes had killed the two destroyers in one go, the depressing atmosphere in the naval headquarters was finally eased a lot, and many people were overjoyed, but Hoffman's face was not very happy--there were only two destroyers, and you were the only ones who had sunk two battleships by the Japanese Navy.

Although they couldn't believe what they saw, the British sailors were glad that they had escaped, but just now in order to avoid air raids, the formation was maneuvering around, and the order was chaotic, and by this moment, the Hipper formation was closer by more than 1,000 meters. When the 203mm shells fell, everyone finally reacted - although the planes were gone, the German cruisers were still there, so they fled to the northwest with a roar.

Soon this direction was changed to the southwest by Sherbrooke: he did not know why the German planes were leaving, but one thing was certain, the German planes were by no means indiscriminate, they must have found a more worthy target, whether it was his own transport fleet or the cruiser formation, he did not dare to imagine the consequences, so now he could no longer go to the rendezvous with Rear Admiral Burnett, but retreated to the southwest in an attempt to divert the Germans.

By the time the British destroyer turned again, the Hipper had reached a distance of only 12,700 meters, and the gunfire was getting closer and closer to the target - the German sailors had finally found their senses. (To be continued.) )