Somewhere in the North Sea, the aircraft carrier Lyon Andrés was cleaving the waves at a cruising speed of 18 knots, and not far from her, five other aircraft carriers including the Zeppelin, three Leipzig-class anti-aircraft light cruisers, and a Lune-class heavy cruiser could be vaguely seen. And in this huge fleet, there are more than 10 destroyers in it.

This is the strategic core of the German High Seas Fleet - the German aircraft carrier strike group!

Raeder stood in the bridge of the León Andrés, holding the handrails with both hands and frowning at the two reconnaissance planes on the deck that were preparing to take off.

Of course, he frowned not because he was dissatisfied with his subordinates on the deck, but with himself.

Early in the morning from the Gestapo, news came that the British Home Fleet had left for the North Sea before leaving its station, and that it had been two days since the High Seas Fleet had been sailing, and except for the battleship group led by Lütjans, which had captured and sunk a transport fleet (consisting of two 1,700-ton escort destroyers and five 5,000-ton transports) yesterday, the entire fleet had not gained anything.

In Raeder's own words, it is "not even going to make back the gas money if you hang around like this".

But there was no way, the high seas fleet had done its best to search the location of the British main fleet, and the six aircraft carriers had continuously dispatched carrier-based reconnaissance planes to search the sea area with the aircraft carrier as the center in a radius of 400 kilometers.

However, it seems that the search area is very large, but there are not always reconnaissance planes in this 400-kilometer radius of the sea area, and the North Sea is so large that it is extremely difficult to find a fleet that is only a few nautical miles long after it is deployed.

"Wait two more days, if the reconnaissance force still can't find any trace of the British fleet, I will lead the fleet to turn southeast to the English Channel, and force the British home fleet out!" Raeder secretly made up his mind.

Although he knew that a decisive battle with the British Home Fleet near the Strait of Dover would be unnecessarily risky, it was better than nothing.

Two carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft, converted from Do.38 fighters, were rearmament under the busyness of the ground crew of the aircraft carrier.

Rolf and Ludy were pilots of these two reconnaissance planes, and they belonged to the KM601 Combat Reconnaissance Aircraft Squadron under the aircraft carrier Lyon Andrés, and their squadron had a total of 24 Do.38 fighters, and during reconnaissance missions in peacetime, these planes would remove their cannons and keep only two aviation machine guns for self-defense, and the free weight would be used to load a drop fuel tank to increase the maximum range from 2000KM to 2500KM, increasing the airtime of these aircraft.

Now, Rolf and Ludy have been ordered to form a two-plane formation to take over from their returning teammates and carry out a search mission in the northwest direction of the fleet.

The two sat in the cockpit with the assistance of the ground crew, and after checking to confirm that there was no problem, the two started the engine, made a routine application to the air traffic control personnel, and then taxied and took off, and then flew to the northwest.

"Ah, it's going to be a boring afternoon again." Ludy complained to the long plane over the on-board radio as he maneuvered the plane and followed Rolf to 4,000 meters.

"What can you do if you're bored? For the sake of the Führer, for the sake of the Third Reich, what is this bit of boredom? Rolf smiled and lectured.

"If you want me to say, the British have no intention of coming into contact with us head-on." Lu Di said and looked at the rare calm Beihai below.

Today's weather is good, and it's quite suitable for a vigorous naval battle, Ludy suddenly thought of it for no reason.

"That's for sure, if we hadn't threatened the Calais, they wouldn't have been able to come out." Rolf should be reconciled.

The two chatted as they approached the predetermined reconnaissance area at a speed of 500 kilometers per hour.

Forty minutes later, the two warplanes were at a distance of 400 kilometers from the mothership.

"Owl 10, Owl 11, you arrive at the predetermined distance." The voice of the ground staff came from the headphones of the two of them at the same time, "Please turn due east immediately to do a fan-shaped search, over." ”

"Owl 10 understands!" "Owl 11 understands!" The two of them answered each other, and then steered the fighter to turn due east according to the course given by the tower, while reducing the speed to 250 kilometers per hour to save fuel.

As Ludy put it, reconnaissance missions were boring, and for hours the pilots were accompanied by nothing but the sea and the sky and the noisy sound of the nose Dalem Benz engine.

The two flew at a speed of 250 kilometers per hour for about six hours. As for the harvest in these 6 hours, as usual, they found nothing in these 6 hours, except for a few fishing boats.

Rolf yawned and raised his left hand to look at the watch on his wrist.

The hour hand is just after six o'clock.

"Ludy, it's past 6 o'clock, we can go back." Rolf said over the radio.

"Understood." Ludy answered, and then operated the fighter plane to follow Rolf to the northeast direction where the carrier fleet was located.

"Eagle's Nest No. 6, this is Owl No. 10, please answer when you receive it, over." Rawls finished turning, and called out to the mothership.

"This is Eagle's Nest 6, what's the matter? Complete. ”

"Owl 10 and 11 to complete the scheduled reconnaissance mission, nothing was found except for a few fishing boats, now start anti-ship, please arrange for us to ship, over."

"Eagle's Nest 6 received, over."

"Whew! Tired! Ludy was lazy, "Rolf, let's go to the pilots club for a couple of drinks when we go back?" ”

"Yes." Rolf replied.

"Hehe, I don't know what kind of wine those boys from the club brought this time." Ludy smiled as he looked at the long plane flying in front of him on his right.

Suddenly, his gaze grimacingly glanced at the front and bottom of the Rolf fighter.

It doesn't matter if you don't skim it, this skimming made him notice a very inconspicuous little black dot on the lower part of the front.

"Huh? What's that? Ludy frowned and stared at the little black dot and muttered to himself.

"Huh? Stuff? Rolf heard Ludy's voice in the headphones and subconsciously looked to the left and right, "What's it?" ”

"Rolf, down in front of you? Looks like there's a black spot? Ludy said uncertainly.

"Front and bottom? It's my blind spot, I can't see it. "Why don't we split up and you look through your binoculars?" ”

"Oh." Ludy answered, then pulled out a monocular high-powered telescope from the toolbox beside him.

Rolf also pulled away from the plane to avoid Ludy, who was watching, from hitting him.

"That's ......," Ludy pointed his telescope at his target, "that's ...... An airplane?! ”