As the sun sets in the west, the afterglow dissipates, and the whole land of Central Europe ushers in the night season of the rising moon.

In a military airfield not far from Wilhelmshaven, more than twenty steel warhawks are neatly arranged on a wide and flat runway; Their fuselages are painted with distinct iron crosses on both sides, and the iron anchor logo at the nose indicates that they belong to the German Navy's aviation sequence. Compared to their carrier-based counterparts who had just made a contribution to Scapa Bay yesterday, these warhawks were several levels larger. Their engines are no longer located directly in front of the nose, but are equipped with one on each wing.

The lights were dazzling, illuminating the entire runway as if it were daylight, and dozens of ground crews were weaving back and forth under the planes in front of the saddle and behind them, making the final preparations for their sortie. Standing in front of the landing gear, every staff member could not help but be thrilled by the vigorous demeanor of these JU-88 twin-engine bombers manufactured by the Junkers company, and suddenly felt a sense of pride and glory. These planes were both the sharp swords of the German Navy and the common wealth of all German citizens, including them: of the more than 300,000 marks that cost them to build, there was definitely a finney of their own contribution in them!

"Team 3 is ready!" "Team 5 is ready!" …… When it was close to 9 o'clock in the evening, the sound of relaxation finally sounded on the busy airstrip. At this time, the oil pipeline and the trolley were taken back from the warehouse by the ground crew, and the runway was once again free of any debris. And the bombers that were the ones involved were fundamentally different from when they were first introduced to the hangar: not only were they filled with fuel, but they also had a sufficient amount of high-risk explosives hanging inside their bellies and under the wings.

According to the "Elbe Exercise" combat plan formulated by the German Navy, the offensive and minelaying of British coastal areas was also an important part of the attack on British maritime shipping. Because whether it's ships departing from places like the Americas or India. Their final destination will all be the tiny British Isles. And if mines can be dropped at the closing terminals of these sea routes, then it will inevitably deal a heavy blow to British shipping!

While important ports such as Liverpool, Plymouth and Southampton are located in the Midwest of the UK, the eastern part of the UK, close to the North Sea, is also home to busy waters with high levels of boats. Among other things, the River Thames is one of the busiest waterways in the whole of Britain in peacetime. London, the world's top metropolis, is home to everyday material needs. From the sea shipping occupies the majority. After all, the cost of transporting a train, or any other means of land transport, is much higher than that of a ship: a merchant ship can easily carry thousands of tons of supplies from the mouth of the Thames. It is precisely because of this direct connection to the sea that London has been able to prosper for centuries and remain at the centre of the world.

In view of this, the estuary area, where many ships came and went every day, naturally became a thorn in the side of the German navy, which was intent on strangling British maritime shipping. Liverpool, Southampton, these places are not under Raeder's control, but the River Thames, a river that flows into the North Sea. Raeder was trying to pinch it off. Considering that the area of water was hundreds of kilometers from Germany, and only a stone's throw from the anchorage of the British Channel Fleet, Raeder finally decided to carry out the mission with a flying air force.

In order to evade the interception of British fighters, naval aviation chose the time of its operation at night. While this also creates a host of other problems, such as flying treks and misalignment of bomb drops, the people who execute the tactics below have thought of ways to solve them. The German air force would have made a special sortie of navigation planes, according to the radio signals of London at night. to determine the course and bearing for the subsequent mine-laying formations. As for the bomb dropping position, as long as it is a clear night with moonlight. It is not difficult to distinguish between the coastline and the water surface. What's more, the British island, which has just entered the war, may not implement strict light control, and the task can be completed with the light on the shore!

At 8:10 a.m., the first engine roar sounded on the calm runway. Then the roar of nearly 50 engines rang out, completely dragging out any other sounds. The wind was strong in the air, and the sand and gravel on both sides of the runway flew away, and the ground crew standing far away only felt the air waves in their faces. The whole body of the clothes was blown high to the side and back. Two minutes later, the first twin-engine bomber began to accelerate forward on the runway; In a short time, it writhed its nearly 14-ton behemoth body and flew up into the dark and deep sky.

In the dark night sky, there are a few bright red lights that are flashing regularly: that is the navigator in this night mission. Just take its position as a reference. Two squadrons of bombers will be able to go their separate ways without a catastrophic mid-air collision. After confirming their respective positions through the team's radio, the hanging hearts of the German crew members finally relaxed; Gradually, they began to calmly face the darkness in front of them, and followed the orders of the commander on the radio to follow the red-glittering navigator westward.

The blades turned, the machinery hissed, and an hour of flying at a constant speed at high altitude was coming to an end in the blink of an eye. The navigator signaled to "lower altitude" and was the first to sink into the darkness below. The pilots of the rest of the bombers did not dare to slack off and immediately followed with the reduction of altitude. At this time, a thick cloud suddenly rushed in from below, and the vision suddenly dimmed, so that the crew members who had met the actual combat for the first time couldn't help but have uncontrollable panic and panic. Soon, however, the squadron leader's calm and calm voice brought them back to their composure, and the pilots had no more distractions, just strictly following the tactical guidelines of their usual training.

When the altimeter dropped to less than 2 km, the German fleet finally emerged from the clouds. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the red-flashing navigator was still ahead. In the darkness farther below, there was a faint glimmer of light: there was only one possibility of such a scenario, and that was that they were approaching their destination, and that was the lights of the English Isle.

"The British really didn't implement the light control, and God helped us succeed tonight! The planes of each squadron were to be dropped in small units in turn, and ...... caution should be taken not to drop all the mines in the same water "The major officer who commanded the formation quickly gave instructions on the radio channel and directed the German aircraft group to carry out the mine dropping operation in an orderly manner. At this time, with the help of the lights on the shore, the German pilots could not only clearly distinguish between the water and land, but even dared to lower the aircraft to a height of only 50 meters above the water to carry out precise drops.

With the opening of the bomb bay and the fall off of the hook, the round guys fell from the sky to the water one after another. With a roar and splashing waves, these 500kg-level sunken mines quickly dived into the fishy bottom of the water seven or eight meters deep, and waited quietly in silence for the moment of eruption. In less than 10 minutes, all 120 mines carried by 24 German bombers were dropped. The German Ju-88 fleet, which had made such a series of big moves, did not stop any longer, and quickly returned to the mainland at a high speed of more than 500 km/h.

Despite the whistling of the engines of the German fleet and the movement of heavy mines falling from high altitudes into the water, the British near the bombing zone did not see anything due to the very limited visibility at night. They only heard a strange noise coming from the mouth of the river, and nothing else was known. Seeing that there was no explosion around them, and these inexplicable noises quickly disappeared, the British, who felt strange, did not think too much about it, and after muttering a few words, they prepared to go to bed. However, what they did not expect was that the German planes dropped a group of deadly viruses that could not be eradicated tonight, and Britain would soon pay a terrible price.

At 5 a.m., the sky was still a deep black and blue, but on the calm surface of the Thames, the lights of ships were already illuminating. The wharves on both sides of the strait are full of people at the bottom who have come to beg for a living: they all look forward to the ships that have been tracing up the river from the east, hoping that they will get a temporary job in the process of unloading these ships.

Although Britain introduced the Imperial Tariff Concession in 1931 and erected high protective barriers to trade throughout the Commonwealth countries, the damage caused by the world economic crisis was too drastic: by September 1939, on the eve of the war, more than a million Britons were still unemployed. For nearly 10 years, the dense crowds of workers on the docks on both sides of the Thames have been a daily sight in London. Whenever a cargo ship docks at the berth, there is always an innumerable crowd of people rushing to get the ship's owner to hire him to move the cargo out of the hold or to deliver it to the predetermined shops and warehouses.

A long, high-pitched whistle sounded in the center of the river, bringing the atmosphere on both sides of the pier to a high point: it was the excess low-pressure steam from the ship's boiler as it approached the flameout, which meant that the ship was about to reach its destination. The laborers on the docks were gearing up to grab their first job of the day, and they looked at their peers with unkindness in their eyes, as if they had spotted a pack of hyenas competing with them for food.

At this moment, a sudden earth-shattering explosion suddenly rang out violently in the center of the river. (To be continued.) )