In the eastern part of the Turkish Strait, nine Italian ships flying the green, white and red tricolor flags slowly crossed the strait, lined up in a column, and entered the Black Sea in turn.

The first to enter the Black Sea were two destroyers, followed by the flagship of the fleet, the light cruiser "Sipione Africano", with six merchant ships at the rear.

After entering the Black Sea, the commander of the fleet, Lieutenant Commander Russo of the Royal Italian Navy, raised his hand and saw that the hands of the watch were pointing exactly to twelve o'clock, that is, from now on, May 29 had passed, and the time had officially entered May 30.

From this moment on, the transport fleet under his command has officially entered the battlefield.

Both the Italian Royal Navy and the German Navy had spies in Turkey to monitor ships entering and leaving the Turkish Straits twenty-four hours a day in case the Soviet Black Sea Fleet crossed the straits into the Mediterranean.

By the same token, the Soviets must have sent spies to monitor the strait, and in the dim light on both sides of the strait, there may be many pairs of Soviet eyes staring at their fleet.

Perhaps, they are summoning the main forces of the Black Sea Fleet to attack themselves.

Before crossing the Turkish Strait, Lieutenant Commander Russo had received a warning from the command of the Royal Italian Navy that the main forces of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet were fleeing to the western part of the Black Sea, and that the main forces of the combined German-Italian fleet were pursuing them with all their might.

Faced with the Black Sea Fleet, which had battleships and heavy cruisers, Lieutenant Commander Russo did not think that one light cruiser and two destroyers under his command could make a difference.

Fortunately, the Black Sea Fleet was pursued by the combined German-Italian fleet, and at the same time, from the direction of the Crimean Peninsula to the north, part of the German second aircraft carrier group was marching in the direction of the Turkish Strait, ready to meet the arrival of the transport fleet.

The fleet passed safely through the Turkish Straits, then turned around and turned north, targeting the port of Odessa on the northwestern coast of the Black Sea.

After the fleet had completed its turn, Lieutenant Colonel Russo, who had stayed up for most of the night, finally relented, returned to his bedroom, picked up his pen and wrote the logbook of the previous day, and then washed up and fell asleep.

However, less than two hours later, Lieutenant Colonel Russo was woken from his sleep by his adjutant.

Getting up and putting on his military uniform, Lieutenant Colonel Russo followed the adjutant and hurried to the radar room.

The light cruiser "Sipione Africano" is equipped with the Italian EC-3 "Owl" radar, which can detect surface targets at a distance of up to 12,000 meters, or aircraft at a distance of 30,000 meters.

Seeing Lieutenant Colonel Russo's arrival, Captain Radar hurriedly reported to him.

"At six o'clock in the fleet, there was a ship that was following us at the same speed, at a distance of about 1,500 to 2,000 meters, and I suspect it was a Russian submarine."

Lieutenant Colonel Russo touched the hard stubble on his pointed chin, rolled his eyes, thought for a while, and then suddenly said, "Continue to monitor him, let's go to the communication room." ”

In the communications room, Lieutenant Colonel Russo gets the information he wants, and the communications room detects whether there is a nearby radio wave, which appears very suddenly for the transport fleet that is silent.

Lieutenant Colonel Russo immediately came to the conclusion that the submarine should have been reporting to the rear the location of the transport fleet.

With a light cruiser and two destroyers escorting, this submarine will not have a chance of a successful sneak attack at all, so why should it track the convoy of convoys?

There are two possibilities, one is that the submarine is looking for an opportunity to attack the convoy; There is also the possibility that the submarine is calling for surface ship forces.

If the second possibility is true, the Black Sea Fleet that is about to attack the convoy must be the Black Sea Fleet, which is being hunted down.

Thinking of this, Lieutenant Colonel Russo was in high spirits, and he couldn't imagine that he could catch a big fish in a boring escort mission.

Lieutenant Colonel Russo, who was a lover of theater, immediately became an amateur playwright, "wrote hard" in his mind, conceived a script, and decided to use the transport fleet as bait to design a routine for the Black Sea Fleet.

If this script can be successfully staged, and the combined German-Italian fleet can successfully encircle and annihilate the Black Sea Fleet, then the medal and the new rank of colonel are beckoning to themselves.

Thinking of this, Lieutenant Colonel Russo was heartily amazed by his good fortune.

"Our luck is really good, and the battle exploits were actually delivered to the door by ourselves."

Every fifteen minutes or so, the communications room reports to Lieutenant Colonel Russo if new radio waves have been detected from the submarine.

The light cruiser "Sipione Africano" also broke the radio silence and first reported to the command of the Royal Italian Navy on its movements and situation, as well as its "fishing" plan.

Subsequently, Lieutenant Colonel Russo made contact with the German 1st Aircraft Carrier Formation, which had come to meet him, to locate the course and position of the opponent and determine whether the opponent could arrive at the battlefield in time.

Lieutenant Commander Russo was informed that to the northeast of the Italian transport fleet, the bridge of the battleship "Bismarck", the flagship of the German Navy's 1st Aircraft Carrier Formation, which was heading south at a speed of sixteen knots, erupted in cheers.

"We were so lucky that we were able to find the Black Sea Fleet so easily."

Cheering was the commander of the German 1st aircraft carrier formation, Rear Admiral Ohm.

Since Chen Dao led the main force of the German-Italian combined fleet to attack the Black Sea Fleet, Rear Admiral Ohm was in a very bad mood.

The reason is simple, two aircraft carriers under his command were seconded to the second aircraft carrier group, and he himself led the main forces of the fleet to remain near the Crimean peninsula, supporting the actions of the ground forces with naval guns.

Thinking that such a great feat of annihilating the Black Sea Fleet had nothing to do with him, Rear Admiral Ohm's mood certainly did not improve.

Now that the feats of flying away flew back in an unexpected way, how could Major General Ohm not be excited.

In order to protect the safety of the six transports in the fleet, Lieutenant Commander Russo wrote a script in which the Italian battleships pretended not to know that their whereabouts had been exposed, and at the same time let the fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Ohm gallop to the east of the Italian convoy, and then turned around and moved parallel to the Italian convoy in the direction of the starboard side of the Italian convoy, at a relatively safe distance that would not be detected by Soviet submarines.

The Black Sea Fleet came from the east, and if there were no accidents, it would definitely crash headlong into the German 1st aircraft carrier formation.

Thinking of the battle that was about to break out and the exploits that were about to fall, Major General Ohm immediately acted according to the plan provided by Lieutenant Colonel Russo.

"The speed has been raised to twenty-five knots, the course is 180, and we are going to meet the Russians······ We were really lucky, thank God and thank the Italians. ”