In view of the fact that all the friendly ships, including the Hipper and the Tirpitz, were rushing here, the cautious Steinger, in order not to be alarmed, slowed down and followed at a speed of only 20 knots, while anxiously waiting for the arrival of his other warships, which could not be completely destroyed by a cruiser and a destroyer.

At 9:17 a.m., when the sky began to light and the distance between the two sides had narrowed to less than 30 nautical miles, Stanger decisively ordered the Lützov to release seaplanes to search and confirm the situation of the enemy fleet in the nearby waters, and the center of the JW-51A fleet was about 480 kilometers southwest of Bear Island -- just halfway between Bear Island and Jan Mayen Island.

Fifteen minutes later, the results of the reconnaissance by the maritime reconnaissance planes were returned, but this thin telegram almost shocked Stanger and plunged down from the bridge -- "Two large enemy fleets were discovered, one was a merchant fleet, with 15 transport ships and 5-6 escort warships, all of which were small destroyer-class ships; The other is a combat fleet, including one battleship, suspected Sovereign-class, one small aircraft carrier, one treaty-type heavy cruiser, 2 cruisers of unknown type, 3 destroyers, and the combat fleet is about 80 nautical miles from the ship, with a course of 45 degrees and a speed of 18 knots......"

"And aircraft carriers and battleships?" Stange muttered to himself, "It's a big problem. ”

"Führer, they've been spotted, but the enemy fleet is much stronger than expected." Raeder tried his best to suppress his excitement on the phone, and in a calm tone reported to Hoffmann everything that the Lützov had discovered.

After three days of disappointment, Hoffman finally waited for the good news: "Good! Kill them, and I'll come to the naval command right away. ”

At this moment, Major Schulte, the commander of the Trotham Air Force, looked at the planes that had started one after another behind him, and shouted on the radio: "The Trotham Air Force, all follow me!" ”

The results of the North Cape Air Force were an inspiration to all the officers and men of the Navy in Norway: Major Schroeder, who commanded the battle, was not only promoted to the first rank immediately after the battle, but also received the coveted Knight's Cross, all the members of the air force on sorties, regardless of the size of the battle, were promoted, delegated or awarded to varying degrees, and all the crew members of the missing two planes (almost equal to killed) received generous pensions - the Navy has always been unable to achieve results except for U-boats, and promotions are extremely fast, So transferring from the Air Force to the HNA has a feeling of earning.

Major Schulte and Schroeder are not only classmates who graduated from the same class of the aviation school, but also good friends for many years, and they are also comrades-in-arms who secretly compete on the battlefield...... Therefore, when he heard the enemy report of the surface ship unit and the weather conditions that the base "can take off", he immediately couldn't wait to lead 24 He-218 dive bombers to take off under the escort of 12 Bf-219s.

At about the same time, the Narvik Air Base, farther south, was making final preparations for takeoff. The base was much larger than that of Trothem or Cape North Point, and there were many more aircraft, but it was farther away from the battlefield, and in the end only Ju-98 attack aircraft, which had a more advantageous range, were dispatched, with a total of 36 Ju-98s and 16 Bf-219s on attack, half of which were equipped with aerial torpedoes and half of which were equipped with aerial bombs ready for horizontal bombing.

The pilots of the JG5 Wing were lucky: the information provided by the Ar-272s was not only accurate and detailed, but also a daring reconnaissance plane that had been hoisting far over the British fleet for real-time reporting, and even followed the JW-51A transport fleet for a while, until the escort carrier Active began to take off the Euro Swallow fighter (the British version of the F4F) and fled unhurriedly. The direction chosen by this clever pilot to escape was not where the Lützov was, but in the direction of mainland Norway, and the poor Euroswallow had a maximum speed of only 515 km/h, which was not much faster than the Ar-272 at low altitude, and after chasing for 15 minutes, he could not catch up with the reconnaissance plane, and finally had to go back in a huff.

Although the seaplane escaped as if it had been sent by the Norwegian land-based air force, the experienced Rear Admiral Anderson was not deceived by this appearance, but keenly judged that there might be an enemy ship staying nearby, and immediately sent the Swordfish attack aircraft to search for the enemy. Although the Active was named an escort carrier, it could only carry a total of 12 aircraft (9 Swordfish, 3 Euroswallows), and considering the combat effectiveness and the needs of the fleet's air defense, the Active kept all 3 fighters on its own fleet, and let all the Swordfish mount torpedoes and attack. The intent was clear: to take advantage of the Swordfish's relatively long range and long time in the air to conduct a search, and destroy the German warship if it was found.

The Swordfish is a model developed more than ten years ago, and it is still an old-fashioned biplane, worse than the Japanese Type 96 ship attack performance that has long been eliminated, and now it is completely outdated, but because of its great contribution in the surprise attack on Taranto, and it has also made great achievements in the encirclement and suppression of the Bismarck, the British have always been in use, although it can carry 3 crew members and torpedoes, but the speed is less than 250 km / h.

It's not that the British don't have better attack planes, but first, carrier-based aircraft must first meet the needs of the fleet's aircraft carriers, and now there is a great shortage of carrier-based aircraft pilots, and even the carrier-based aircraft squadrons of the Tej-class aircraft carriers are not fully staffed, so they simply don't expect the escort aircraft carriers to get how good and sufficient the equipment is; Second, the deck length of the escort aircraft carrier is not long enough, and it is simply impossible to take off and land newer and heavier planes -- a Swordfish of less than 2 tons can take off with a torpedo on it, and a large mackerel of more than 3 tons will face a big problem if it is torpedoed again, so it will always be used. On the contrary, American escort aircraft carriers generally carry more advanced TBFs (which can carry 1000-pound bombs, but most of them cannot carry torpedoes).

If the Germans were stubborn about dive bombing, and even 4-engine heavy bombers such as the He-177 were required to have dive bombing functions, then the British were paranoid about torpedo attacks - in the eyes of the Royal Navy, any carrier-based aircraft that could not provide three crews and carry torpedo attacks was not worthy of being called an attack aircraft, so the old-fashioned Swordfish not only continued to serve in the navy, but was even regarded as the main force.

At 10:11, before the JG5 Wing and other warships arrived at the battlefield, two British Swordfish attack planes finally spotted the formation of Lützov, which had been following behind, and they bravely attacked the German ships while informing the fleet commander of the situation by telegram. Although the anti-aircraft firepower of the Lützov was also mediocre, the Swordfish were too slow and few in number, and the torpedoes dropped by the two planes easily allowed Stanger to dodge. The British pilot, who missed the blow, did not regret it and immediately flew back to the mothership to replenish the torpedoes and prepare for a resumption of the attack.

Now that it had been discovered, Stanger felt that there was no need to hide, and immediately rushed at top speed towards the British convoy -- by this time the J fleet was no more than 15 nautical miles away from the vanguard of the JW-51A fleet, and only more than 50 nautical miles away from Ryutzov. Seeing the Lutzov coming in a rage, the destroyers Aktis and Cold, who had been serving as escorts in the transport fleet, bravely turned around to meet the battle while casting smoke screens to cover the flotilla's southward retreat, and the other three destroyers that had been reinforced overnight yesterday also rushed desperately to prepare to jointly snipe the Lützov.

Although Lützov is now classified as a heavy cruiser, it was originally built to the standards of a pocket battleship, and the main guns are six more powerful 283mm naval guns, exactly the same as the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and he is not afraid of the challenge of cruiser-class warships, and Stanger knows that in another hour both the Hippel and the Tirpitz will be on the battlefield, so he is confident and bold to meet them.

Also due to the long stay in the Alta Fjord, and the smoke screen cast by the British on the sea, the Lützov's six main guns and eight 150mm secondary guns consumed nearly 200 shells, but they did nothing but hit the Coldness two and missed. As the main force of the J fleet was speeding up, the British destroyers were not in a hurry to attack, but played a game of hide and seek with the Lützov. The cautious Steinger, fearing the torpedo threat from the destroyer, did not dare to get too close, only firing from a distance and then anxiously calling for his companions. During this time, 3 more Swordfish attacked the Lützov, 1 was shot down, and the remaining 2, although they dropped torpedoes, still passed by the target. The Swordfish, though old, still played a formidable role against the Lützov.

At 10:45, the Trotham Air Force, which was flying at full speed, was the first to arrive on the battlefield under the leadership of Schulte, putting a heavy weight on the change of the balance of the war situation.

"God, how big is this fleet?" After a cursory glance at the sea situation, Schulte couldn't help but exclaim in the air, at this moment, the J fleet and the JW-51A had begun to merge, and there were a large number of British warships densely distributed on the sea, and the number and variety were so large that he couldn't believe his eyes. Although the sea was full of smoke, he still found his most valuable target - a Sovereign-class battleship, and also found a small aircraft carrier - the escort carrier Active. What surprised him even more was that such a huge fleet had no air cover, and he looked at it for a long time before he found 3 planes for escort duty.

Although the battleship's target was tempting, Schulte was very soberly targeting the active for the first blow - the ship was receiving the returning Swordfish attack aircraft. Seeing the arrival of a large number of German aircraft, even if the number of their own side was only 3, the Euroswallow fighters still bravely pounced, but their performance compared with the Bf-219 was too far behind, plus the Norwegian HNA pilots were all veterans, and they were all shot down by the German fighters who rushed up in less than 2 minutes. (To be continued.) )