200 km southeast of Aderskai, inside the port of Poti in western Georgia.

Long before the Mistral minesweeper in the port of Adelsky encountered a German submarine, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Okgabrisky, was woken up from his sleep by his adjutant.

During the war, the first thing the lieutenant general who maintained a high level of tension even in his sleep opened his eyes was: "Where is the enemy?" ”

"The enemy is on the way, but we don't know where they're going."

The adjutant said, handing the telegram in his hand to the lieutenant general.

The telegram was transmitted from the submarine force, and the Black Sea Fleet still had nearly forty submarines in its establishment, which were sent by the fleet command to intercept the sea convoy exiting from the eastern Turkish Straits to the Crimean peninsula, or to the vicinity of the Crimean peninsula to monitor and wait for an opportunity to attack the warships of the combined German-Italian fleet.

The telegram was sent by a submarine of the "Baby" class heading to the fortress of Sevastopol, and the message read: the ship was halfway to the Crimean peninsula and was confronted by a large fleet. The fleet headed 100 and had a speed of 15 knots, and the coordinates at the time of contact between the two sides were 43.5 degrees north latitude and 37.2 degrees east longitude.

Lieutenant General Okgabrisky hurriedly got up and, under the service of his adjutant, hurriedly put on his military uniform and went to the operational command room.

At this time, in the combat command room, the staff officers had already marked on the map the location of the submarine encountering the Combined Axis fleet.

"At what time is the battle expected to break out?" The lieutenant general asked the staff officers.

"If the course and speed of the enemy fleet remain the same, they should arrive off the coast of Sochi at about three o'clock in the morning."

"Great, our chance has come. The fleet was ordered to depart, and all the battleships were dispatched, leaving not a single one behind. It's twelve o'clock, and if we move fast enough, we should be able to dodge the main forces of the enemy fleet. Lieutenant General Okgabriski said.

The radio quickly spread the orders of Vice Admiral Okgabrisky throughout the Black Sea Fleet, and under the orders of the Vice Admiral, all captains and sailors were not allowed to leave the battleship without orders, and the orders given by the Vice Admiral to dispatch all sorties were carried out with high efficiency.

In less than half an hour, the fleet flagship battleship "Paris Commune" and the four capital ships "Red Caucasus", "Voroshilov" and "Molotov" heavy cruiser as the core of the fleet, pulled anchor in turn, set sail without sounding their horns, quietly sailed away from the port of Pody under the cover of night, and marched west along the southern coastline of the Black Sea at a speed of 20 knots.

At 3:40 a.m., on the bridge of the battleship "Paris Commune", Vice Admiral Okgabrisky received a telegram from Aderskai.

"Well, Aderskai was attacked by the enemy fleet, the airfield was badly damaged, fortunately, most of our planes were transferred to Novorossiysk, and only a small number of fighters remained there."

About an hour later, the lieutenant general again received a report of the defenders from the port of Sochi.

"The port of Sochi is being shelled by an enemy fleet, which has two fleets, one from the northwest and one from the southwest. From the south-west was supposed to be the same fleet that shelled Adelskai, and the other from the north-west······ They should have divided their forces, and the two fleets attacked the port in the form of crossfire, but fortunately we found it early and withdrew from Sochi ahead of schedule, otherwise in the face of this crossfire, it would have been annihilated in less than two hours.

I don't know what the enemy's commander will feel when he finds out that the port of Sochi is empty? Angry, or confused? No matter what mood he was in, he would go to Sukhumi immediately, and when he realized that Sukhumi was also an airport, he would definitely be angry. Don't know who you are, take your time looking for us, angry fellow. ”

Lieutenant General Okgabrisky took a telegram and talked to himself, babbling a long paragraph.

The main forces of the Black Sea Fleet were originally hiding separately in the ports of Sochi and Sukhumi, and since the Luftwaffe reconnaissance planes appeared over the two ports one after another, Vice Admiral Okgabrisky sensed that his fleet was in extreme danger.

When the number of reconnaissance aircraft of the Luftwaffe was increasing, and the reconnaissance was changed from reconnaissance to armed reconnaissance, Okgabrisky made a decisive decision to transfer the main forces of the Black Sea Fleet to the port of Poti, which was even more distant from the Crimean peninsula.

On the night before the departure of the fleet commanded by Chen Dao, the Black Sea Fleet first sent a large number of destroyers to patrol the coastal waters of the ports of Sochi and Sukhumi to expel nearby Axis submarines.

This operation of the Black Sea Fleet fully demonstrated the validity of the phrase "luck is also part of strength."

The day after the transfer of the main forces of the Black Sea Fleet, the port of Sochi was attacked.

As it turned out that his previous decisive transfer order saved the Black Sea Fleet, Okgabrisky was proud of his accurate judgment and then discouraged.

Because, this kind of salvation is only temporary, and on the battlefield, you can't just rely on luck to decide the victory, but more rely on accurate judgment and decisive action to strive for victory.

Whether the next operation will succeed will depend on which of the Germans or themselves is faster.

Was it Germany that was the first to discover its fleet, or was its own fleet able to get out of the range of enemy reconnaissance planes first?

Hopefully, luck will once again be on our side, even if it's the last good luck in my life, Lieutenant General Okgabriski prayed silently.

About five hours later, Okgabritsky received a telegram from the defenders of the port of Sukhumi: the port of Sukhumi was under air raids and artillery shelling by the enemy fleet.

Silently handing the telegram to the adjutant, Lieutenant General Okgabrisky looked out the window at the vast sea and was silent.

The enemy's fleet will soon find out that Sukhumi is an airport, what decision will he make next?

His judgment will determine the future direction of the battle, and hopefully the commander of the opposing fleet is a guy who is easily hot-headed.

······

"What? It's an airport again, how is it possible? The intelligence provided by the reconnaissance aircraft showed that they were clearly ····· Damn, they should have been transferred, the facts speak for themselves. ”

Chen Dao frowned and walked to the map, carefully searched the east coast of the Black Sea, and quickly made a decision: "There are only two places for the Black Sea Fleet to go, one is Novorossiysk, north of the port of Sochi, but that is the key reconnaissance area of our reconnaissance aircraft, if they were hiding there, they would have been discovered a long time ago." After removing the port of Novorossiysk, the enemy had only one place to go, and that was the Georgian port of Poti. With the exception of these two ports, all the ports on the Black Sea coast where they could hide were under the control of the Turks, who would not provide them with a place to hide.

The news of our attack on the port of Sochi and Sukhumi should have reached the enemy's fleet command, and they must have been prepared for it, and perhaps some trap awaited us. Inform the Italians to turn around and go to Port Podge, so that the Italians go ahead and we follow them, so it's safer. ”