PS: In the past few days, the company has been training, meetings, and evenings, so the update will not be timely, I am very sorry, please understand.

News of the discovery of the German fleet soon reached the Admiralty via a telegram from a Walrus maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and Pound, having confirmed the news, immediately reported the situation to Churchill.

"Prime Minister, have we found the Germans?"

Churchill, who had been looking at the map, stood up "Ho" and asked anxiously, "Where?" ”

"About 350 kilometers east-north, the target is moving northwest, but there are only the Tirpitts and 2 heavy cruisers, and no aircraft carrier has been found."

"Will we be able to destroy them?" Churchill knew that Admiral Bruce Fraser, the deputy commander of the Home Fleet, was now in Akurea, Iceland, commanding the naval aviation of Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and that his fleet of planes was ready for sortie.

"Not now, due to the weather, the plane cannot be dispatched for the time being." Pound said hatefully, "At the critical moment, even this ghost weather is messing with us. ”

"Don't be in a hurry, keep an eye on them, we will definitely have a chance to do it today." Churchill comforted his henchmen.

"But we couldn't get in touch with the pilot a few minutes ago." Tovey said distressedly.

"Shot down or wrecked due to weather?"

"It's not very clear, it's all possible, maybe the crash is a little more likely, because a lot of reconnaissance planes are complaining about the bad weather. Moreover, he did not find an enemy aircraft carrier, and it was more difficult to shoot down a reconnaissance plane with anti-aircraft artillery alone. ”

"Contact a few more times, maybe it's something else." Churchill frowned and asked, "Where did the German aircraft carriers go?" Did they divide their troops? Are there any results for searches in other directions? ”

Pound and Tovey shook their heads helplessly.

Ten minutes passed, no new information arrived, and the reconnaissance planes of the German fleet, which were first reported to have been discovered, were never contacted.

"We have intensified our search and have not yet found anything else, and Admiral Fraser is ready to re-dispatch the reconnaissance aircraft, but it will take some time to reach the place where contact has just been lost." The staff officers pointed to the map with their whips and explained to the Prime Minister, "From the intelligence, the W fleet is currently about 300 nautical miles from the enemy fleet and the E fleet is about 400 nautical miles from the enemy fleet, and Admiral Tovey has ordered the two fleets to speed up their advance in order to intercept the Germans and prevent them from rushing into the Atlantic......"

Churchill saw the route of the march outlined by the staff officers on the charts: the W fleet headed southeast, aiming for a head-on volley; The E fleet attacked from the southern waters of the Faroe Islands, and traveled from south to north through the waters between the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands, with the goal of covering the German fleet from the rear - this was an interception plan for the German fleet to enter the Atlantic Ocean through the middle line, and in case the German fleet temporarily turned to enter the Atlantic Ocean from the eastern front between the Faroe Islands and the Sherlands, the roles of the W Fleet and the E Fleet were reversed, with the E Fleet conducting a frontal volley and the W Fleet outflanking and the rear of the W.

Churchill quickly understood the reason for this plan: both the W fleet and the E fleet, because of the slow battleship drag, it is difficult to exceed 21 knots, while the German fleet is expected to reach 26 knots, and the frontal volley alone cannot catch the enemy, so this way of outflanking the front and rear must be adopted, and it is not clear which waterway the Germans will choose to take, so this flexible deployment is relatively more reliable and secure.

"If the enemy's course remains the same, and the relative speed of both sides exceeds 45 knots, they can meet as early as this evening."

"Great, keep me updated on the situation." Churchill repeatedly told several senior members of the Navy, "Don't be in a hurry, be patient, and destroy them as much as you can with planes." ”

At the same time that another walrus reconnaissance plane on Meenland Island took off, the Ar-272s ejected by Major General Bay had begun to return to the shelling formation, and in the first round of searching, they found nothing except to confirm that there was no enemy on the path within 400 kilometers ahead -- in fact, they could not find the enemy, and the nearest W fleet was still nearly 550 kilometers away. Rear Admiral Bey reluctantly accepted this reality and sent a telegram to Mashal aboard the Zeppelin.

Machar was also deeply troubled by this matter, the downed walrus reconnaissance plane weighed heavily on his heart like a big stone, although it shot down the other side in time, the current weather is not conducive to the dispatch of aircraft, and his own reconnaissance plane did not find the enemy's situation, but his intuition told him that the danger was getting closer and closer - although he did not know that the British did not find the carrier formation following behind, he had already decided that the entire fleet had been discovered.

At 9:07 a.m., just five minutes after the departure of the second Walrus for supplementary reconnaissance by the British, Machar decisively gave an order, not only changing the course of the fleet from northwest to due north, but also asking to increase the maximum speed -- he wanted to get out of the British air defense circle as soon as possible.

At 10:54, the unusually slow walrus reconnaissance plane arrived at the place where the comrades had lost contact, but there was nothing on the sea except a wave, and he tried to search in all directions around, but wasted half an hour without finding anything, so he could only helplessly send the telegram back.

The senior Admiralty and staff officers who received the report were immediately blinded, but their analysis of the situation was completely consistent with the facts: The first reconnaissance plane must have been shot down by an enemy ship after discovering the enemy's situation, and the German fleet, which now did not know where to go, realized that its position was exposed, and it broke away in three directions, one was to go back, the second was to go forward, and the third was to go north, except that it was impossible to go south -- because the second plane took off from the island of Meenland in the south. In view of the performance of the German fleet, the staff officers made a decision after discussion: it was recommended that the plane continue to search north, and then take off reconnaissance planes from the Faroe Islands to search eastward, while the W fleet could continue to maintain its current course and speed.

"Sooner or later, the Germans will break through into the Atlantic, and I think such an arrangement will work." After Pound and Tovey nodded together, the order was quickly delivered.

But as if to joke with the British, after another hour, the walrus sent back a report that it had continued to search north for more than 150 kilometers, and had not found any enemy ships, and that it had now nearly half of the fuel on board, and that it had to return to the island of Meenland at a distance of more than 500 kilometers, and that it had to return - the walrus had a standard range of only 915 kilometers, and the walrus had been overloaded with fuel when it set off, but because it was headwind, the excessive wind had caused a lot of fuel consumption, and if it had not been for the fact that there was a tailwind on the way back, Pilots simply did not dare to risk flying so far with little fuel left. Several reconnaissance aircraft from the Faroe Islands that were responsible for searching eastward also found nothing. (To be continued.) )