Chapter 1222: The Curtain Rises
On your own side? Seems to be safer. Pen, Fun, Pavilion www.biquge.info but also to strengthen the vigilance, your fleet is in the best condition, ready to set off at any time. In his opinion, if you can strengthen the vigilance and run away before the British bombers come, it shouldn't be a big problem, right?
However, fate was so unpredictable, when the earl's order was given, there were only 2 days left before the final attack of the British! Count Luknar, located in the Bulgarian port of Burgas, received orders from Count Spee to prepare to lead the fleet to Romania under German control 2 days later. And this day happened to be the day of the British bomber attack.
"Alright, for now, the plan is frozen, let's take a look at the big meal on the table, and then assign you all your favorite dishes." On the same day, Lieutenant General Trenchard, who was in charge of the operation, codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder, at his last meeting before the war, issued the final plan!
"According to our reconnaissance yesterday, the distribution of the German fleet was such that in the Bulgarian port of Burgas there was the Sultan Osman I under the command of Count Luknar, as well as the armored cruisers Amitya and Redbeard Haireddin. At the base of Constantinople were two battleships under the command of Vice Admiral Negovan of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the United Forces and St. István, as well as a quasi-dreadnought Radetzky. In Port Erely, the main force of the Allied Mediterranean Fleet was entrenched, three fast battleships under the command of Count Spee, the Taghoff, the Prinz Eugen and the Reshadiere, plus two other quasi-dreadnoughts, the Ferdinand and the Zrini. ”
"As for the allocation of strike targets? The V1500 bomber squadron and three FB27 bomber squadrons were responsible for attacking the port of Ereli, while the remaining three squadrons were divided into two equal bomber groups to attack the ports of Constantinople and Burgas. In the end, Lieutenant General Trenhard compromised. The entire bomber force was divided into three bomber groups: A, B, C, and each bomber group, each with an additional guidance detachment. Eventually, Lieutenant General Trenchard decided to take action, two months after Churchill first proposed the plan, and one month before the British aviation reconnaissance was launched on a large scale, which was a bit of a drag from a time point of view.
At the same time, Captain Harley also began to arrange his own why, they did not get the news, but they thought that in the case of the first time in your land, it was a bit too much to carry it at the airport all day, so in line with the idea of getting the best and not getting familiar with the environment and training the team, Captain Harley mobilized his Night Scythe squadron and the other half of the squadron temporarily assigned to his command.
"The British aviation reconnaissance is unpredictable, so we have to make the interception net larger, and I recommend that all the planes be deployed in small groups." As he spoke, Captain Halley drew a circle around Constantinople and focused on a few locations. Captain Harley, who had a total of 30 K-4J interceptors, thought he had plenty of troops. So the entire cordon will be expanded. Even the area around Constantinople is included.
"All the planes are full of drop fuel tanks, and we may need to be in the air for a long time this time. Guards on the ground will provide us with information, and once a target is found, each team can choose to volley individually. Don't wait for anyone else. We had only one mission, to empty all British aircraft over the Dardanelles. The swarm can fly out of the Turkish territory to fight, of course, if it is not necessary, it is better not to go to the skies over Greece. "Captain Harley was directing such a hunt for the first time, and he thought it was nothing more than a pack of wolves catching a few solitary prey. So he delegated command.
"Boy, do you want to make a bet and see if it's your Night Scythe or our scimitar?" At the end of the meeting, Captain Harley ran into Major Wolfstein, the leader of the Scimitar Squadron, who was Captain Harley's captain back then.
"It's not interesting, tomorrow is us, the day after tomorrow is you, it's all about luck, and I hate luck the most, it's elusive. So, let's bet on who between the two of us will come first. Bet on your bottle of 1895 Bordeaux, France. Captain Halley looked helplessly at the juice in his hand, because of tomorrow's attack, it is forbidden to drink alcohol today.
"As you wish." Wolfstein picked up the wine glass in his hand and touched it with some smugness, his glass was the real wine.
And a few hundred kilometers from Constantinople in the fortress of Sevastopol. The commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Eberhardt, also received an order from St. Petersburg. The telegram was simple: "The British fleet will decide to attack on D-Day, and the Black Sea Fleet should go on the offensive according to the predetermined plan." ”
"Really? It's finally getting started! Lieutenant General Eberhardt handed the telegram to Kolchak next to him and sighed. He had some expectations for the battle, but at the same time he was a little worried. The so-called high yield comes with high risk. The fate of the Black Sea, and even Russia, may be known in the next two days, the Allies and Russia have been preparing on the Black Sea for decades, but they have to separate a high and low in 2 days, as the operator of the Russian side, it is impossible not to be nervous!
"Is the fleet ready?" The vice admiral said to Novitsky, commander of the 1st Battleship Detachment beside him.
"As you wish, the fleet is ready to depart at any time. Even the mascot on the flagship Queen Maria is ready to witness a historic moment! Nowitzki pretended to be calm.
"Well, this morning, send another minesweeper to clean the waterway, and we'll leave at 8 p.m.!" Lieutenant General Eberhardt ordered.
On the night of February 3, 1915, the port of Sevastopol was brightly lit, and the light of the fleet's fire and the smoke sent out of it alarmed a shark hiding outside the port. Columns of smoke began to rise, and the unusual bustle in the harbor made the Austro-Hungarian offshore submarine, numbered UB-15, feel a little uneasy. After a moment of hesitation, the submarine turned on its radio antenna and sent a telegram to Ereli, hundreds of kilometers away.
Count Spee never relaxed his surveillance of the Sevastopol fortress, and a reconnaissance force consisting of camouflaged cruisers, submarines and seaplanes was always hovering around the port. Especially after discovering that the Russian fleet's minesweeping operations had recently become more diligent, the Count ordered at least three or more submarines to be kept in the vicinity of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's lair for blockade and surveillance.
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