In the telegraph room of the Scharnhorst, the radio receiver suddenly received a message transmitted in medium wave, although it was not possible to record all of it, and the other party also used a never-before-seen encoding method and could not decipher the contents, but this situation made Su Xiong, who was highly nervous, even more nervous!

"Mid-band? It seems that the recipient of this telegram was relatively far away. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info "Su Xiong began to quickly calculate the situation in his mind. "It's only been half an hour since our telegram was sent out, and a coded telegram was sent, which is very wrong." Su Xiong hesitated, he couldn't give up the opportunity to supply because of a telegram, he knew that when the British fleet arrived, it would definitely take action against the camouflage supply ships at sea, if he missed it this time, he didn't know when the next time would be.

"We continued to the intended assembly area, and at the same time, told the Gneisenau to set fire to the remaining unused boilers, just in case, and to send seaplanes around to prepare for reconnaissance. Well, the main directions are tentatively south and west. Each battleship released two seaplanes. "To be on the safe side, Su Xiong ordered the fleet to be prepared for contingencies.

This telegram confirming the position of the German fleet was like a spring thunder that woke up the British fleet lurking around, and after receiving the information, the first action was the Thomas squadron, in addition to the two battleships Queen Elizabeth and the Baliem, there were also two light cruisers and one Japanese seaplane carrier, the Akitsuzu. After receiving the telegram from the Anglerfish, four seaplanes immediately took off from the Akitsuzu. Flew to the approximate position of the German fleet. At the same time, 2 British battleships also began to accelerate closer to the target.

"The position in which the German fleet entered seems to have been a little more out of the way than we expected. We could not determine the course and speed of the other side, and for the sake of safety, I suggested that the fleet increase the speed to 21 knots. The course is then adjusted according to the intelligence of the reconnaissance aircraft. Next to Thomas, a group of staff officers worked around a table on the charts. They first marked the starting positions of the various detachments on the charts, and then, according to the passage of time, marked the positions of the individual fleets according to the predetermined routes.

The British were not stupid, and they were also worried that radio communications would expose the encirclement plan, so in addition to the necessary radio communications, the various detachments implemented strict radio silence in accordance with regulations. This is also why the Suxiong fleet did not receive any more inexplicable signals for an hour after receiving this telegram. At this time, from the nautical chart, Thomas could already see that the encirclement of the British fleet began to shrink step by step, and in order to ensure that the two light cruisers were already deployed on the side of the fleet, after all, aviation reconnaissance was not particularly reliable in Thomas's opinion.

Tick-tock, except for the rhythmic sound of the wall clock on the bridge, there was only the slight clash of rulers against the table and the rustle of pencils gently gliding over the charts, and the sound of small discussions with the officers. There was silence in this Cambridge. Thomas sat in his place and quietly looked at the sea, although it was calm on the surface, but the lighter in his hand that kept opening and closing revealed that Thomas was still a little nervous. A silence peculiar to the pre-war period enveloped the entire bridge.

At the same time, the very uneasy Suxiong fleet also began to accelerate, the boilers of the two battleships that had not been operating normally began to ignite, and the stokers sweated to send a large amount of anthracite coal to the boilers, the red flames quickly swallowed the coal like a giant beast, and the treated boiler water was heated and then sent to the steam turbine through the pipe. Several technicians constantly check the pressure gauge and check the pipes in case something goes wrong.

"Send two more seaplanes to resupply the sea area." After asking Su Xiong, Raeder added another order, now the supply time is only about 1 hour away, if there is no trace of the supply ship in the scheduled sea area, then it means that there must be a problem with this supply!

At the same time that the two German fast battleships were constantly releasing seaplanes, according to the directions given by the British, 4 Japanese seaplanes were also rapidly approaching. The Japanese pilots, who were also more experienced, chose to quickly skip at an altitude of about 100 meters above sea level, because this altitude was enough for an aircraft to spot a battleship in the distance, but from the perspective of a battleship, it was very difficult to spot a smaller aircraft at this altitude. The efficiency of seaplane reconnaissance in a fan-shaped manner is still very high.

What's more, the two German fast battleships still used kerosene mixed boilers, and the smoke column formed by a large amount of smoke and dust was still very obvious at a long distance, which was much better for the British Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, and they were all oil-burned!

"I saw him! What a beautiful battleship! "On the No. 3 seaplane, the telegraph operator sitting in the back row first spotted the Su-Xiong fleet that was running wildly on the sea, and at this time, the No. 3 seaplane was almost parallel to the course of the German fleet! Under the guidance of the telegraph operator in the back row, the pilot also spotted the fleet on the right side of the plane!

"They look like our Kongo-class battlecruisers, but they seem to be a little thicker. It's very similar to the queens of the British. The pilot said, looking at the German battleship more than a dozen kilometers away.

"Hmm. That's right, except that the turret seems to be a little smaller, it really resembles the Queen, but the air strike between the two turrets at the bow and tail of this battleship is slightly larger. There was some distraction in the senses. The telegraph operator said.

Immediately after judging the quality of the two German battleships, the telegraph operator in the back seat began to report to the fleet that he had discovered the German battleship. However, at this time, the Japanese obviously underestimated Germany's electronic monitoring ability, and used the medium-wave radio to send reports only a dozen kilometers away from the fleet, and the radio direction finding equipment on the German battleships could already accurately measure the direction of the announcement!

"We have a problem on the side! The source is very close to us! An officer opened the hatch of the conning tower and said to Su Xiong. In radio communication, the distance of more than ten kilometers is already very close, although it is somewhat difficult to visually find the "wooden bookshelves" flying at low speed almost close to the sea surface, but the radio side does not have this problem!

"Send a signal to the Gneisenau!" As soon as possible, Su Xiong informed the allies who were 5 chains away of the news. Now the situation is becoming more and more elusive. Makes him feel a lot of pressure.

"The signal source is very strong, I'm afraid it's only a dozen kilometers away from us, but we haven't found them." The officer's words revealed anxiety and a hint of fear. (In fact, even an aircraft like the FW200 has a very short visual warning time when approaching the target at low altitude, generally only about 5 minutes, and the observation of low-altitude targets is completely different from the observation of the fleet, which can rely on the smoke column.) But the former has a hard time catching a target. ）

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