The sky was gloomy, the sea was mighty, and the warship's radio resounded with a mournful and holy song, as if the bishop was leading the souls of the devout believers to heaven. On the open and flat flight deck, hundreds of sailors in black clothes and black pants took off their white boat-shaped hats; Even the huge red and white St. George Cross naval flag was silently hanging on the flagpole at the stern of the ship at the moment, and there was no longer the flying spirit of the wind on weekdays.

In the narrow bridge on the starboard side of the ship's hull, British Rear Admiral Burnett looked at the distant sea and sky with a blank expression, his eyes slightly red, as if he had just gone through a mournful weeping. A few steps away, Colonel Morey, the captain of the USS Fury, tried to persuade him, but his lips twitched for a moment, but he finally swallowed the words back into his stomach.

An hour earlier, the cruising aircraft carrier Fury had received a telegram from the Exeter recruiser: the latter had encountered the German fleet and was about 230 nautical miles west of the island of Ireland. There was jubilation inside and outside the bridge, and everyone thought that this was a godsend to annihilate the German fleet, and Burnett ordered the fleet to turn around and head straight for the sea area that the Exeter had warned about.

However, not long after Burnett confidently decided to rush to the battlefield, disastrous news followed. First, the G fleet did not retreat, the Orion light cruiser exploded and sank, and then the fleet fell into a desperate situation and will desperately defend the honor of Nelson's descendants. And just ten minutes ago, the light cruiser Ajax in the G fleet sent a final telegram: she was about to follow a few of her comrades, and hoped that the Royal Navy would avenge them.

The news of the fall of the G-Fleet left Burnett heartbroken. This was not only the mass loss of more than 2,600 officers and soldiers, but also the end of the life of his close friend Harwood. Ever since Nelson's martyrdom on the USS Victory, there has been an unwritten rule in the British Navy that fleet commanders live and die with their flagships. Now that the Exeter has sunk, Harwood, as the commander, must also sink with the ship!

"General, are we still sailing towards the target area?" After a few more minutes, Morey couldn't face this oppressive silence any longer, and immediately asked. A complicated look appeared on his face, as if resentment and fear: "According to our original plan, we waited until the G fleet had seriously damaged the target, and then sent Swordfish attack planes to deal a fatal blow to the German warships that had lost their anti-aircraft fire and speed. Now the G fleet is rapidly collapsing, and it will be difficult to deliver an effective blow to the German fleet with our forces alone. In addition to the Fury, we only have 4 destroyers in total, and the Germans have 9 super destroyers that are almost intact, and their main aircraft carrier is most likely near that area......"

Listening to his own words, Burnett gradually calmed his thoughts. As Morey said, his own detachment, which was originally set up to capture German pocket battleships, was indeed powerless in the face of all the main forces of the German Navy.

However, the aircraft carriers in the German fleet, which had been heavily damaged by their own submarines, and the cruisers that had been damaged in the artillery battle with the G fleet, attracted Burnett like deadly bait, and he instinctively could not resist this temptation. Since the beginning of the war, the British navy, known as the world's first, has suffered a series of setbacks: not only have warships been sunk by a dozen or so, but the hunting of German warships in the North Atlantic has seriously affected British maritime shipping. If this decline is not reversed by bold initiative, Britain will not see any light at the end of the war!

"If we only use carrier-based aircraft to attack those German warships that have been heavily damaged from a distance, there should still be no danger." After a long period of groaning, the desire to avenge his best friend prevailed in Burnett's heart. While there was a risk that the German carriers, who had not yet appeared, might use carrier-based aircraft to counter the Fury, Burnett did not believe that this would pose a mortal threat to him. Knowing that this is not a closed and narrow Scapa Bay, the Fury is not a stationary fixed target, and the top speed of 30 knots is also fundamentally different from those snail-slow merchant ships. As long as she maneuvered at high speed at sea, the Fury would never repeat the mistake of the Glory sinking in the harbor, and the wounded ships in the German fleet would not have their own Limbo microstep!

After a day and night of sailing, F-Fleet led by the Fury ran 500 nautical miles. This slow pace was not due to Burnet's timidity towards the coming battle, but entirely out of fuel conservation: British destroyers generally had an economic range of only about 2,000 nautical miles, so large warships like the Fury were both protected and daily cows that fueled these small ships. In the absence of a specialized supply ship, any commander needs to be careful about fuel. However, even if the fleet was slow, Burnett still had full confidence in intercepting the German fleet: at present, he was very fortunate to be in the upper hand of intercepting the German fleet home, and as long as the Germans sailed north, it would be difficult to escape the reconnaissance eye of the British carrier-based aircraft.

The sky is as deep as ink, and a subtle bright light blue is faintly visible at the junction of the sea and sky in the east; At the end of the wee hours before dawn, the British aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of 22,450 tons quietly entered the second level of combat readiness. At this time, the sea was calm and calm, and it was the ideal weather for carrier-based aircraft to sortie. The ground crew was busy warming up the engines of one fighter after another while filling their fuel tanks, and by the time the first rays of golden dawn dispelled the darkness, the rear flight deck of the Fury had been completely filled with 15 warplanes ready to fly.

"The flight deck of this aircraft carrier is really too short." Seeing his own fighter plane ready to stop, Burnet, who had just walked out of the officer's cafeteria, showed a somewhat regretful expression. Due to the inherent deficiencies of the hull itself and the immaturity of the aircraft carrier combat concept in the early stage of the refit, although the Fury has a length of nearly 240 meters, its all-access flight deck is only 175.6 meters, which is less than 73% of the total length of the warship. And so the seeds of tragedy were planted.

In the 20s, when Fury had just been transformed into an aircraft carrier, planes from all over the world were still in the primitive era of wooden skin. These lightweight aircraft require only a short glide distance to make a leap from the deck of an aircraft carrier. In this environment, the issue of the length of the deck of the Fury is not very prominent. However, by the time of the 30s, the weight of the aircraft had increased significantly compared to the early days of the Navy Holiday; The new fighter planes required longer take-off distances, which stretched the Fury's deck length of less than 180 meters.

To make matters worse, the advent of carrier-based attack aircraft has changed the traditional pattern of naval warfare: it has been discovered that bombs or torpedoes can be used to strike target warships, and this kind of attack aircraft with heavy loads can eat the length of the runway more than conventional fighters. As for the extra hangar space occupied by the new aircraft, there is no need to go into details!

With the advancement of aviation technology, the relative combat effectiveness of the first generation of British aircraft carriers, represented by the Fury, is shrinking sharply. In the past, her aviation strength was barely equal to half of Lexington, but now it is only a third of the latter. And due to the invasion of the world economic crisis, any plan for the second change of several fleet aircraft carriers such as the Fury has been shelved: the British Congress has even allocated intermittent and reluctant expenses for the modification of battleships like toothpaste, where is the second-line cargo of the aircraft carrier qualified to be favored? For more than a decade, the hardware of the Fury did not change, and it was not until March 1939, when Anglo-German relations broke down, that the aircraft carrier received its first minor change, replacing 10 old 140mm single-mount guns with 12 twin 102-mm high-level dual-purpose guns.

Compared to the motherless aircraft carrier itself, the fate of the carrier-based aviation of the Fury is slightly better, at least it has not been using the old model of the 20s. However, compared with the first-class carrier-based aircraft of various countries in the world, the British can also be ashamed to chop their own aircraft into wood chips for firewood. Among them, the "Sea Fighter" fighter is a new model that began to be equipped with British aircraft carriers in 1938, but its 840 horsepower power, maximum level flight speed of 404 km/h, and the firepower of four 7.92 mm machine guns have all been outdated at the beginning of its birth. During the same period, the F2A-1 Buffalo fighter purchased by the U.S. Navy was equipped with a 940-horsepower engine with a maximum speed of 500 km/h, and its three 12.7 mm and one 7.92 mm machine guns were even more powerful than the sea fighters. And the Americans' Buffalo was beaten by the Japanese Zero in the Pacific War, and it is conceivable what kind of virtue the British sea fighter is!

As for the Swordfish, the main attack aircraft of the British aircraft carriers, it can only bully the goods of those ships that lack effective anti-aircraft firepower under the condition that they have absolute air supremacy. As long as they were targeted by enemy fighters, the only option for British pilots was to abandon their planes and parachute: this aerial snail, with a maximum speed of only 222 km/h, had no chance of escaping one-on-one. However, despite its incredible speed, the Swordfish was the only one in the entire British Navy that could carry a heavy 450mm torpedo and fly steadily into the sky. Of the 36 carrier-based aircraft currently on the USS Fury, 24 are Swordfish. In addition to dropping explosives at the target ship, the Swordfish, which has a longer range, can also play the role of a reconnaissance aircraft more effectively.

The sun was rising, the morning glow was blowing, and with the roar of the engine, six unloaded Swordfish took off from the deck of the Fury one after another, and slowly flew towards the surface of the sea in all directions. Burnett watched them disappear into the sky with a look of hope, hoping that he would find something today. However, what he didn't expect was that he would soon regret his idea. (To be continued.) )