At about 5 a.m. on 12 February, the huge German Navy's North Sea Fleet, led by the Tirpitz, headed northwest at a constant speed of 19 knots. The entire fleet was divided into two formations, the front and rear, separated by about 25 nautical miles from each other, with the artillery formation of the Tirpitz as the core in front and the aircraft carrier formation of the Zeppelin as the core. In another hour or so, the sky will begin to lighten, and the fleet is about to enter the middle of the waters between the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands, although the fleet does not cross from this sea and tries to make the route farther north, but in any case it is a dangerous area. Whether it is an interception by the surface fleet of the Royal Navy or an aircraft taking off from the Faroe Islands and Meenland, it is possible to find the traces of the fleet, and if understood in this sense, this is the first key point in the advance of the fleet.

The rain and snow that has been covering the North Sea for several days seems to be showing signs of improvement, and the weather forecast says that the rain and snow may stop completely in the afternoon, and of course it may be brought forward or postponed, after all, the climate in the North Sea is known for its complex and changeable climate.

The most nervous people were now two groups of people: one was the professional non-commissioned officers in the radar room, and the other was the lookout posts in the wind and snow—they were wearing winter suits and thick overcoats, scarves, earmuffs and leather gloves, and only a pair of bony eyes were showing above and below their bodies, and they dutifully scanned the surrounding sea.

Rear Admiral Bey, along with Captain Tirpitz and Captain Friedrich Karl Top, stood side by side in the bridge, gazing at the undulating and turbulent sea, trying to see some clues in the darkness around him, and half an hour before he had given the order to be ready for battle and ready to deal with the enemy ships that might appear at any moment. The crew received first-aid belts one after another, laid support plates on the ship, and the gunners were all in position, and loaded 800 kilograms of armor-piercing shells into the chambers of the main guns with their hands and feet. After the Battle of Barents-Norway and yesterday morning's naval battle, the Tirpitz now has reached the highest level of reaction and accuracy, which is completely comparable to that of the Bismarck.

The sunrise on the sea was earlier than on land, and at about 6 o'clock in the east had already revealed the white of the fish's belly, and in the face of a slightly better weather, Major General Pei decisively ordered the catapult to take off the Ar-272, and in addition to the Tirpitz carrying four reconnaissance planes, the Admiral Scheer and the Lützov, who were in the shelling formation, could carry three aircraft. Major General Bei, who was thick and thin, simply ejected them all, and his idea was very simple: these water reconnaissance planes had huge pontoons, and they could make a temporary forced landing at sea in case the weather deteriorated.

The focus of the 10 reconnaissance planes was on the front hemisphere of the fleet, and each plane was responsible for the dispatch of a 15-degree angle to search the 150-degree sector in front of the fleet.

An hour had passed, two hours had passed, the sky had cleared brightly, the fleet had been safe and sound, and neither our own reconnaissance planes had reported the movement of enemy ships, nor had any enemy reconnaissance planes patronize the fleet, and all the officers and men breathed a sigh of relief -- this sea area was an overlapping part of the air defense patrol circle between the Faroe Islands and Meenland Island, and the probability of being discovered was theoretically twice as high as usual.

But this good mood only lasted until 8:45 a.m., a walrus seaplane that came out of nowhere flew over the fleet, the British pilots were stunned to find that there was a formation below that was heading northwest, and then looked closely that it did not look like their own fleet, and hurriedly lowered the altitude to take a closer look, and after a look, the entire artillery formation was taken into view, and the overjoyed fellow telegrapher immediately sent out the telegram: "The enemy fleet was discovered, one battleship, suspected Tirpits, two heavy cruisers, Suspected of the German class, another 4 destroyers, northwest of the route, speed 18 knots, report, no aircraft carriers were found, repeat, no aircraft carriers were found. ”

"Damn! We were discovered. Captain Toph was annoyed by the seaplanes hovering overhead, and in a short time the communications staff reported intercepting a telegram from the enemy.

"How can you get rid of these flies?"

"You can't rely on anti-aircraft guns, only on airplanes." Major General Pei said with a wry smile, "It's not just us who use water on planes, the British are also very skilled in using it. ”

"Can the carrier-based aircraft in the back take off?"

"I'm afraid it's enough."

But Machar's call back quickly gave them a reassurance: "The commander told us not to be nervous, keep the existing route unchanged, and they will deal with this plane." ”

Seeing that the German fleet below had no special reaction except to use 88mm anti-aircraft guns to drive them away, the pilot of the walrus plane became emboldened and actually kept following the shelling formation forward, and even the warships below accelerated slightly without realizing that within 5 minutes of receiving the callback, the formation speed had increased to 24 knots.

After 15 minutes, Major General Bei understood what Mashaal's so-called "handling" meant, and two seaplanes also flew from behind, not Ar-272 from the model point of view, he was wondering why the seaplanes were arranged, and suddenly found that these seaplanes pounced fiercely towards the walrus, and in just 3 minutes, the daring walrus was shot down, although the pilot successfully parachuted, but Major General Bei did not even have the desire to rescue - the fool wasted time to turn back to the rescue, Let this British pilot bubble more in the icy seawater, sober and sober, intelligence reconnaissance is not so easy to mix.

Seeing the performance of his own aircraft so powerful, he finally remembered what kind of model this is - not long ago, the Navy reported this new aircraft, which is the Ar-319 water fighter transformed by the Alama Dao company with Bf-219, and the corresponding number in the Japanese Navy is the second type water battle (zero combat seaplane version), firepower and maneuverability can be called the leader of seaplanes, with a maximum speed of more than 450 km / h and a range of up to 1200 km. But it is very useful to deal with seaplanes such as walruses and Katerina, and it is also very beneficial to deal with the slow torpedo planes of the British, and there is no obvious mountain dew on the Zeppelin in peacetime, and the value is suddenly seen in today's bad weather when carrier-based aircraft cannot take off, but unfortunately there are only 6 in total, which is really too little.

The British pilot, who had fallen into the water, could not have imagined that, since he had failed to observe the German aircraft carrier formation behind, the telegram sent back caused confusion in the judgment of the Admiralty. (To be continued.) )